“What is human trafficking? Where does it exist? What contributes to human trafficking?” (My Sister’s House). People may not consider human trafficking as a part of human rights, but human trafficking is a modern form of slavery. According to World English Dictionary, slavery is “the state or condition of being a slave; a civil relationship whereby one person has absolute power over another and controls his life, liberty, and fortune.” In other words, a person has the power over another’s human rights when that person is a slave. This means that human trafficking forces people into labor and/or sex and their natural rights are taken a way from them. But most people only believes that human trafficking is related with prostitution. My question is why has no one tried to stop human trafficking?
My Sister’s House, a non-profit organization, has a pamphlet titling Human Trafficking: Look Beneath the Surface. In the pamphlet, it answers the earlier questions. It states that “trafficking victims can be single or married, any age or ethnicity” (My Sister’s House). The victim for human trafficking can be anyone. One may even know or knew someone that was a victim. It goes on to state that “all around the world there are millions of women, men, and children who are enslaved and force to live in most horrific living conditions” (My Sister’s House). This means that neither gender nor does age matter. Lastly, the pamphlet states that “the most significant contributing factor is the lack of awareness action of the issue which results in continued trafficking” (My Sister’s House). In other words, people are aware of the situation, but no one has stopped it from happening.
The only thing that the pamphlet omits was not being more concise on the labor part of human trafficking. Most people would not care about the labor part because they are more interested in why people would force others in to prostitution. Besides that, My Sister’s House is bias against those who are forced into human trafficking. It seems they want to have people start acting on preventing human trafficking from happening.
There are pros and cons for prostitution in dealing with Human Trafficking. Marjan Wijers, Chair of the European Commission's Expert Group on Trafficking in Human Beings, states that a pro for Human Trafficking is "criminalizing the sex industry creates ideal conditions for rampant exploitation and abuse of sex workers...[I]t is believed that trafficking in women, coercion and exploitation can only be stopped if the existence of prostitution is recognized and the legal and social rights of prostitutes are guaranteed" (Top 10 Pros and Cons: Should prostitution be legal?). On the opposition, Margareta Winberg, former Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden
References
My Sister's House. Human Trafficking: Look Beneath the Surface. Print.
"Slavery | Define Slavery at Dictionary.com." Dictionary.com | Free Online Dictionary for English Definitions. Web. 17 Apr. 2011. <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/slavery>.
"Top 10 Pros and Cons - Prostitution - ProCon.org." Prostitution ProCon.org -- Should Prostitution Be Legal? Web. 17 Apr. 2011. <http://prostitution.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000115>.
It seems apparent that stopping prostitutions would help decrease human trafficking, but like you said with many states and countries allowing prostitution the issue will only continue. One great example is Las Vegas, drinking on the streets is legal and prostitutions is legal in some forms just outside the outskirts of Las Vegas. I wouldn't be surprised if human trafficking was rampant in Las Vega. Like the Sweden prime minister said, prostitution needs to be abolished to help decrease human trafficking.
ReplyDeleteHuman trafficking is an event I did not believe occurred in the United States up until 5 years ago. The idea of capturing someone and taking them hostage for different means was something I couldn’t wrap my head around. The Mexican cartels I believe are the biggest group conducting human trafficking crimes. I think most of us are unaware of how close human trafficking is to us. This last week there was a human trafficking crime which occurred near Sacramento State where a female was held hostage for 2 days as her perpetrator attempted to sell her body for sexual pleasure.
ReplyDeleteThanks for a great read. I found it very informative. We must always watch out for each other regardless of whether we see things the same or we see things differently.
ReplyDeleteI am also very interested in this topic. Human trafficking is a huge problem that not many people know much about. And this problem is bigger then most think. I have not read anything about "My Sister's House," but it sounds like it is a very informative pamphlet. Many researchers say that there are pro's and con's to prostitution in regards to human trafficking. I am not sure if i agree completely with what they say, but maybe its just hard for me to hear the cold hard truth. It just breaks my heart to hear that we still have this problem in society today, even in the United States.
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