Apr 30, 2008

No Punishment for Traffickers

by Laura Starita

A recent New Yorker article calls attention to the underground problem of human trafficking, a crime which the US department of justice estimates is third after weapons and narcotics as the most profitable in the world. Nearly every country on the globe is either a source or a destination location for trafficked people (or both). Most trafficking cases begin with the promise of a good job in another location (a separate country, or a different region). The trafficked person goes willingly at first, and only realizes later that he or she has been sold into slavery or debt bondage. While sex trafficking gets most of the headlines, labor trafficking is far more prevalent. This week, for instance, the Chinese government found nearly 200 trafficked children working in a factory in Guangdong. The United States estimates that 800,000 people are trafficked across national borders every year, while many NGOs in the sector estimate that the total number, including those trafficked within their home country, exceeds 20 million.

The New Yorker piece focuses on the problem of trafficking in Moldova, a former Soviet-bloc country that is one of the primary “source” countries for trafficking in Europe. Moldova is the poorest country in Europe. Despite GDP growth of around six percent for 2006, nearly 30 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. Jobs abroad are thus an attractive option for Moldovans who see little economic opportunity at home—25 percent of working-age Moldovans currently live abroad, and remittances are a large source of income for the country.

Given this fertile environment for trafficking, humanitarian organizations have canvassed the country with education programs aimed at teaching Moldovans about the risk of being trafficked and the warning signs that suggest that a job advertisement is bogus. But traffickers are using clever recruitment tactics, and so many people leave the country for legitimate jobs that few take the real risks seriously. In some cases, the risk of staying is greater than the risk of being trafficked, as poverty, few jobs and abusive relationships push many young people—especially women—to go abroad.

Trafficked people who ultimately return home rarely prosecute their traffickers. Often the recruiter was a friend or boyfriend or some acquaintance, and the trafficker is either based in a different country, or has curried enough favor with local law enforcement to render himself untouchable. The shame and stigma associated with the experience also encourages people to lie—few families of former trafficking victims know that their sisters or daughters were trafficked; they think they just went abroad and came back.

The article is well worth reading as it illustrates both the dynamics that allow trafficking to flourish (dysfunctional or indifferent legal systems, poverty, lack of political will and “bad” neighboring countries) and the challenges in overcoming these dynamics. Importantly, it also profiles some of the heroes of the anti-trafficking movement, the men and women who work to prevent coerced immigration in the first place and help bring trafficked people back home.