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Begin New Search Topic Human Trafficking Political Geography Global Focus

1. Human Trafficking and Climate Change: Understanding the Disastrous Relationship

Author:
Alice C. Hill
Publication Date:
07-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
Human trafficking is a horrendous crime: it degrades human security and undermines the rights of people around the globe. Although the exact number of victims worldwide remains elusive, the extent of human trafficking stands to increase in coming years for several reasons, including the accelerating rate of climate change. A warming world will almost certainly bring more disasters that result in greater displacement of people from their homes and livelihoods. This, in turn, puts them at greater risk of trafficking. Human trafficking is a highly lucrative crime, with few perpetrators successfully prosecuted and transnational criminal and terrorist groups repeatedly using it as a source of revenue. These factors, in combination with worsening climate change impacts will, in all likelihood, yield ever more human trafficking victims. ​ At its core, human trafficking involves forcing another against his or her will to work, perform sex acts, or succumb to debt bondage. Despite its name, the crime does not necessarily involve movement: the key element is coercion. Over 170 nations have signaled their opposition to human trafficking by joining the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, and virtually all countries have registered official opposition to trafficking in humans. Despite these pronouncements, human trafficking occurs with staggering frequency. While precise estimates of the number of persons trafficked are difficult to obtain, the U.S. Department of State speculated in its 2017 Trafficking in Persons Report that there may be “tens of millions” of victims worldwide.[1] Other international organizations “estimate that about 25 million people are victims” of human trafficking in the world.[2] In all likelihood, those numbers will grow due in part to the increasing effects of climate change...
Topic:
Security, Climate Change, Crime, and Human Trafficking
Political Geography:
Global Focus and United States of America

2. The Links Between Immigration, Migration and Human Trafficking

Author:
Joey White
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on Human Rights Education, University of Denver
Abstract:
Our sister organization, Human Trafficking Center (HTC) are the experts on the matter of human trafficking and use academic rigor, sound methodology, and reliable data to promote understanding of human trafficking and its causes, conditions, and cures. In a recent blog, HTC defines the connection between trafficking and migration: “Trafficking is migration gone terribly wrong.” – David Feingold. These words given by David Feingold in his piece Trafficking in Numbers: The Social Construction of Human Trafficking Data give a whole new insight into what human trafficking is, what realms human trafficking occurs within, and how human trafficking happens. Indeed, human trafficking and migration are inextricably linked. Human trafficking is heavily influenced by migration. Any policies regarding one have a tremendous effect on the other. This is why it is so vital to examine immigration policies and take into account what impacts they will have in the anti-trafficking sphere, particularly in today’s political climate.”
Topic:
Human Rights, Migration, Immigrants, and Human Trafficking
Political Geography:
Global Focus

3. 3 Ways to Recognize and Address Human Trafficking

Author:
Elizabeth Kirchhoff
Publication Date:
04-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on Human Rights Education, University of Denver
Abstract:
How would you know if you met a victim of human trafficking? Would you know what to do? Human trafficking is a form of modern slavery where human beings are recruited and forced to work through abuse of power, coercion, intimidation, or other means, and effects every nation in the world. According to a recent report from the anti-trafficking organization, the Polaris Project, more than 21 million people are victims of human trafficking today, who are often hidden “in plain sight,” in many different industries—including agriculture, prostitution, domestic work, prisons, restaurants, hotels, and construction. And while the statistics on modern slavery in the United States and globally continues to be reliably grim, there are actually many ways—large and small—to combat it.
Topic:
Human Rights, Trafficking, Slavery, and Human Trafficking
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4. How to Dismantle the Business of Human Trafficking

Author:
Amy Sobel
Publication Date:
12-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights First
Abstract:
This year marks the 150th anniversary of the ratification of the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery in the United States. Yet in the world today there are an estimated 20.9 million people enslaved, and the United States is both a source and destination of victims. While the United States would have a moral responsibility to address this problem even without its history of slavery, its legacy heightens this imperative. Contemporary slavery manifests in various ways. Many trafficking victims are forced to toil in fields, factories, and fishing boats for little or no pay. Others are held captive in private homes. Forced prostitution rings imprison women, girls, and boys in brothels or force them to work in the streets under threat of abuse. What links all these forms—as well as historic American slavery—is the profit motive. Human trafficking is a lucrative criminal enterprise, generating $150 billion annually in profits worldwide. The United States should seek to reduce substantially the number of victims by implementing policies and practices that dismantle the business of trafficking. Since passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000—and its subsequent reauthorizations—the U.S. government has undertaken significant steps to build an anti-human trafficking infrastructure. Through annual publication of the Department of State’s (DOS) Trafficking in Persons report (TIP report), it has called worldwide attention to this blight. The DOS Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (J/TIP) provides grants to U.S. and foreign institutions involved in prevention/awareness, protection/services, law enforcement/prosecution, research and data collection, and evaluation. J/TIP also coordinates U.S. agencies both at home and abroad, including agencies on the President’s Interagency Task Force (PITF). Despite these efforts, human trafficking continues to be a horrific human rights problem both in the United States and around the world. The 2014 DOS TIP report used law enforcement data to determine that 44,738 survivors were reported globally in 2013 —a paltry figure considering the number of victims. It is clear that far more needs to be done.
Topic:
Human Rights, United Nations, Slavery, and Human Trafficking
Political Geography:
United States, Global Focus, Washington, and D.C.

5. No Life Left Untouched by Human Trafficking

Author:
Chrisella Sagers
Publication Date:
04-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Diplomatic Courier
Abstract:
A special session of the United Nations General Assembly made headlines last week with a disheartening announcement – 2.4 million people today, across the globe, are victims of human trafficking. Of those, 80 percent are being forced into sexual slavery, and 17 percent are enslaved into forced labor. Even the statistic of 2.4 million people does not truly reflect the impact that this phenomenon has; the number only represents the souls caught up at any given time, but does not track those who escaped their living nightmares and found freedom. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, human trafficking is “the acquisition of people by improper means such as force, fraud, or deception, with the aim of exploiting them.” Some prefer to dispense with the seemingly whitewashed term and refer to the practice as modern-day slavery. No country is unaffected. Because of the way traffickers transport their “goods,” the human cargo often follows the same shipping lines as illegal drugs. It is one of the world’s most lucrative forms of organized crime, creating a draw for cartels seeking to diversify as well as for individual pimps on the street. Women make up nearly two-thirds of the world’s trafficked persons, and it is shockingly easy to sell these women for sex. Madrid police began an investigation last month into a prostitution ring, in which the pimps violently forced the women into sex slavery. The victims were chained to pipes and beaten into submission, and if they tried to escape or failed to pay their pimps, bar codes were tattooed onto their wrists.
Topic:
Narcotics Trafficking, Sex Trafficking, Slavery, Sexual Violence, and Human Trafficking
Political Geography:
Global Focus