The buzz about the chaos in Japan has died down and now CNN has every one of us—who cares to watch—concerned about modern day slavery. And don’t be mistaken, ladies and gentlemen, we have every cause to be apprehensive. I, for one, get absolutely riled when I hear about people being trafficked against their will to work in demeaning situations for little or no pay.
Humans are not commodities
A world with ethics knows that it is wrong to deal so brutally with fellow humans. It is even more aware of the injustice of acts like abduction. And the proof that this world hasn’t entirely lost its mind is there for us all to see. We know that fraud and deception can’t be justified, which is why it is done undercover. We covertly own people, we covertly buy or sell them, and we covertly pass them on as generous gifts, covertly, because the world can still differentiate between right and wrong. The traders know that the acts are immoral and they know that we know it, which is why they are forced to hide like rats. We may, for the sake of our consciences, treat humans as if they were worthless dogs but we can’t ever stop that little alarm in our heads, saying, “Hey, this is wrong!”
It is immoral to trade human beings, for we are not commodities! And should never be handled as such! We have a right to freedom. It is our nature to be free. If we aren’t, we rebel. We die in our attempts to gain our liberty and die when we allow enslavement without a fight. I am therefore not going to make human trafficking into something that can be morally questioned. It can’t!
The UN definition of trafficking
The United Nations defines human trafficking as “The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation". Can the criminal acts mentioned above ever be justified?
Those of us who still place some value on morality, are trying to stop trafficking. We’re preoccupied with protests of various kinds. We take to the streets with our posters or write articles to promote awareness. We increase screening at our boarders and attempt to find ways to eradicate poverty. However, while we are thus employed, the realists amongst us have to look back and ask: “Can human trafficking ever really be stopped?” The honest response is no and it will remain so as long as human beings exist.
The fastest growing criminal activity
According to the ILO estimates, there are at least 2.4 million trafficked persons at any given point in time. The figures are of course, increasing on a daily basis because human trafficking, according to Joy Ngozi Ezeilo, the UN Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons, remains one of the world’s fastest growing criminal activities, and one of the most appalling forms of human rights violations.
Why is this market growing with such rapidity? Who consumes the humans being trafficked? Ladies and gentlemen, we all do. I hear your confusion, but it is true. We consume so many products without giving a second thought to their origin. We need to be more mindful of the things that we spend our incomes on, for the purchase of a pair of sneakers or lingerie can mean a contribution to the human trafficking industry. The proof is there, children are being trafficked to work in factories all over the world. Nina Lakhani, of The Independent, in the U.K., wrote, “Children as young as 13 years of age are being smuggled from south-east Asia to work as slaves for gangs in dangerous conditions in the U.K. It is purported that those gangs reap profits of £300,000 a year from three bedroom houses converted into cannabis factories.
Of the victims of cross Atlantic trafficking, more than 80% are female, reports The National Coalition against Domestic violence (Human Trafficking facts, 2006). Why? Because the demand for women is enormous compared to men (who are more seldom trafficked than the other two groups together) and children. The U.S. Department of Justice (Assessment of U.S. Government activities to combat the remaining trafficking in persons: 2004), report that 70% of the women and girls are trafficked directly into the commercial sex industry.
Human trafficking and the sex industry
Fellow humans, this leads us to another question, “Who possesses the insatiable appetite for sex and the other sexual products that those trafficked women are being converted into? Is it really sex that sells so unbelievably well or is there something more to it? It isn't logical to believe that with all the willing partners out there that our world is still nursing such an enormous hunger for sex. What anyone needs, in order to have it is a concoction of attraction, respect and interest. Why then do we have a sex industry that’s growing more rapidly than a wild fire?
It is because the customers of that industry aren’t actually after sex, although it falls somewhere in the equation. The consumers are persons who do not wish to be nice or gentle during sex. They are people who do not wish to ask. People who love the power involved in buying another human being who can be forced to do anything. So no, it is not only about sex. It’s about power.
The consumers
Joe Parker of the Lola Greene Baldwin Foundation in Portland, reports that the most common type of prostitution customers is the user—a self-centered individual who simply wants “his needs met”. This customer simply feels entitled to whatever he wants. If someone gets hurt, that’s not his problem. He even looks respectable and works to protect his appearance.
The next customer is the sadist. These customers like to have control. They get intense pleasure from hurting people who cannot stop them. They are most brutal with small women and children. There are pimps who specialize in supplying victims to sadists and their fees are based on the amount of damage done to the victim.
Then there’s the necrophiles who take pleasure in filth, degradation and destruction. For this customer, broken bodies and minds are a turn-on. They glory in their superiority over ruined humans and freely express their contempt. They use children and are turned on by the thought that the children’s lives will never be the same after the experience with them.
And finally there are the child molesters. Some of those claim unusual “love” for children. They claim that sex between adults and children should be legalized. They teach children that they are helpless, hopeless, and worthless and they’re only good for sex.
There is therefore no need to justify trafficking. The consumers are unreasonable, perverted and or callous human-beings, who lead other weaker or disadvantaged humans, through their greed and actions into horrendous situations that can never be morally scrutinized. Can it be stopped? No, for there will always be insane human beings with irrational wishes, humans who feel fulfilled only when they possess the power over others. There will always be humans who feel that working is beneath them and those who appreciate the feeling of superiority derived from owning their own humans. The only thing the rest of us are able to do, is to keep fighting. We should keep attempting to save as many fellow men as possible from the claws of trafficking. The fight is not useless and it is needed now more than ever. Every trafficked human is worth it.
Sources:
- Nina Lakhani (2007), Children trafficked from Asia to UK to work in cannabis factories, The Independent (Online)
- David A. Feingold (2005), Human Trafficking, Think Again (Online)
- Joe Parker, RN (2004), How Prostitution works, Prostitution Research & Education (Online)
- The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Human Trafficking Facts, NCAVD Public Policy Office (Online)
- International Lobour Organization (2010), Trafficking still one of the fastest growing criminal activities globally, says UN experts (Online)
- United Nations ESCAP (2011), Gender and Human Trafficking, UNESCAP (Online)
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