by Hannah Harmon

Created on: September 21, 2009   Last Updated: September 24, 2009

Human Trafficking: An International Crisis

Did slavery end in the nineteenth century? Unfortunately, the answer to this question is no. There is a new slavery on the rise and it is not specific to the U.S. This type of slavery affects the World. The name of this type of slavery is hidden behind the name, human trafficking. Each year, according to the United Nations, between 700,000-900,000 people are victims to trafficking worldwide.

The U.S. Government estimates that between 14,500-17,500 victims are trafficked into the U.S. each year and there are currently 200,000 people in the U.S. who have been victims of trafficking. Human trafficking is hard to define, though. When most people think about trafficking they think of people from another country paying to be smuggled into a country willingly, but the reality is that smuggling and trafficking are two separate issues.

Smuggling can be defined as: helping someone to illegally cross country borders, often without identification or papers, for financial or material benefit. Smuggling ends with the arrival of the migrants at their destination. Trafficking starts with smuggling, but ends in slavery. To keep it simple, the UN definition for human trafficking will be used to illustrate that trafficking is indeed modern day slavery. The UN defines human trafficking as:

(a) "Trafficking in persons" shall mean 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. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs;

(b) The consent of a victim of trafficking in persons to the intended exploitation set forth in subparagraph (a) of this article shall be irrelevant where any of the means set forth in subparagraph (a) have been used;

(c) The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of a child for the purpose of exploitation shall be considered "trafficking in persons" even if this does not involve any of the means set forth in subparagraph (a) of this article;

(d) "Child" shall mean any person less

• 1
• 2
• 3
• ...
• 7
• Next Page >>