The nature of the beast: The global trafficking of humans

The information in this post was pulled from a 2005 journal article by Marie Vlachová, entitled “Trafficking in Humans: The Slavery of Our Age”.

Here is a link to the complete article if you would like to read it, it is only 16 pages in length.

http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Digital-Library/Publications/Detail/?ord516=OrgaGrp&ots591=0C54E3B3-1E9C-BE1E-2C24-A6A8C7060233&lng=en&id=22796

*Unfortunately if you want to access this journal essay you will have to copy and paste this website into the website bar. But if your interested in this topic it is worth reading.

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The nature of the beast: Facts about the global trafficking of humans


- “…Western and Northern Europe, North America, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Japan are considered the major destination countries for human trafficking.…”


- “Enormous profits have created a global network by transnational criminal gangs that traffic in people in the same way as arms, drugs or money”.


- “The annual profits of trafficking are estimated to be between USD 7 to 10 billion by the United Nations.”


- “…the United Nations Population Fund states that between 700,000 to 2,000,000 women and children are trafficked across international borders annually, and the Council of Europe has estimated that up to four million women are trafficked in the world every year.”


- “Unregistered children (children without any legal documents), orphans, street children, children from broken families, or children left unaccompanied when their country is struck by an armed conflict or catastrophic disaster are targeted by traffickers, primarily because of the diminished likelihood of being punished.”


- “…the U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Act claims that approximately 50,000 women and Children are trafficked into the United States each year.”


- “…four-fifths of trafficking victims are female. Minors- boys and girls under the age of 18-represent half of the trafficked persons, and according to some reports “’trafficking in children has reached epidemic proportions and is escalating out of control.”


- “Children represent at least half of the persons trafficked worldwide; according to some estimates, more that a million children are trafficked annually. The main push factor for the sale of children is seen in the growing demand for cheap…labor: children can go either into the agriculture sector (for instance, in cotton fields and banana plantations), or into the production of goods such as bricks, silk, hand-rolled cigarettes, jewelry, hand-woven carpets, leather goods and other commodities.


- "However, more and more often, the enslavement of children takes on the form of sexual servitude. It is estimated that 30 percent of the ten million prostitutes in Indonesia are children; in the Philippines, with about 400,000 female prostitutes, children make up one quarter; in Mexico the fast growing sex industry makes use of at least 5,000 children; and Taiwan has about 60,000 girls aged twelve to seventeen working in the sex industry.”


- “…parents, husbands or relatives send their offspring, partners, and friends into the snares of traffickers. As reported by some NGO’s, more than 80 percent of trafficked persons were sold by somebody whom they know personally and who profited from their vulnerability…and trust.”


- “Trafficking in brides is a common practice in some regions with a lack of young women, as is the case in China and in some parts of India, where infanticide of female fetuses and deliberate starvation of newborn girl infants because of the preference of boys has caused a demographic imbalance between the sexes.”


- “Often it is very young girls what are trafficked and sold as brides. In some Muslim countries, underage girls are sold across borders as third or fourth wives… as has been reported…from Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.”


- “Most notably in Africa, but also in Myanmar and Colombia, children are trafficked for soldiering, abducted by rebel groups and forced into combat and servitude. As the number of children used in armed conflicts is not diminishing-the latest goes as high as 300,000 children-the trend to abduct and traffic children for various paramilitary forces will certainly continue.”


- “Even those who bring peace to these countries sometimes-whether directly or indirectly-contribute to creating an environment favorable to trafficking. The deployment of large numbers of peacekeepers itself creates a demand for sexual services that fuels markets for trafficked persons in both local brothels and domestic labor. Local criminal groups controlled by transnational networks rushed to build up local chains of brothels targeting peacekeepers as clients, as happened in Kosovo, where a chain of brothels had already been opened before the arrival of the first peacekeepers in the region. In some cases, peacekeepers were directly implicated in the trafficking activities, through transporting victims and providing support to the contractors, as has been reported by Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, East Timor/Leste, Sierra Leone, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.”

Getting ready for Nepal

Hello everyone, in exactly one week I will be arriving in Kathmandu, Nepal. There I will be assisting the Esther Benjamins Trust, an organization which rescues children from Human traffickers. I will be spending three weeks there on one of their refuges and I will help out with their daily activities.

They asked me to share some skill or area of interest with the kids. I will most likely be helping out with English as a second language and sport type activities. I was thinking that doing relays and other organized sports/games would be a good idea. Being that I work at a preschool (with 2-4 year olds) and they love Frisbee, I will bring along some Frisbee for them.

As far as the trip goes I have everything taken care of shots, passport, plane tickets- a necessity since I, as of yet have not mastered teleportation technology (close though). So right now I have lost track of all the shots I have had to receive, all I know is that I have had so many that I leak from my upper arms when ever I drink something. I still have two more to get, on the day I fly out none the less, my final Rabies and and Hepatitis B shot...YAY.

I have had all my immunizations done at the Michigan State University travel clinic, they are great people and Physicians Assistant who has been administering the shots has been great as well. So I recommend this clinic to anyone who is going to travel abroad.