Human Trafficking Essay
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IntroductionHuman Trafficking Essay – Human trafficking has affected most countries in the world today, especially trafficking for sexual exploitation or forced human labor. Most government security agencies have identified human trafficking as the fastest growing organized criminal operations all over the world. One of that factor that plays a greater role towards the flourish of trafficking is a bad economic situation in such countries where this vice is rampant. According to Schonhofer (2017), policies and measures are put in place to protect the victims of human trafficking due to the billions of profit generated at their expense. In his article Schonhofer defines human trafficking as ” the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons through enforcing threat, deception, abuse of power or using positions to influence the consent of a person having control over a person purposely for exploitation “(Schonhofer, 2017). The choice to look into the menace of human trafficking is due to the globalization of the crime. It is a crime that cuts across all continents with no exception of any country. Even those countries with the stringent law have fall prey to human trafficking. According to Kingdon’s agenda-setting model, social problems can be viewed in three streams that is problem stream, politics stream, and policy stream. This paper is going to handle human trafficking by employing this agenda-setting model.
Problem stream
Human trafficking is a global problem characterized by multi-billion dollar exchange. It is estimated that in 1997 alone the US government reported around 700,000 women and children that were trafficked across the international borders (Siskin and Wyler, 2013). The research by Siskin and Wyler show that estimation by the US government was that between 600,000 to 800,000 people were trafficked across the international borders on the subsequent years. According to the report by Siskin and Wyler (2013) if inclusion were to be made of the internal trafficking within countries the figure would rise to between two million to four million people were trafficked. Other international organization such as United Nations have researched global trafficking in person and reported a minimum of 2.45 million people in 2005 were victims of being trafficked (Siskin and Wyler, 2013). International Labor Organization in 2012 issued a new estimate of20.9 million people who were likely to be subjected to forced labor, trafficking for labor and sex. Other non-governmental organizations such as Free the Slaves estimated at least 27 million individuals are enslaved in forced labor (Siskin and Wyler, 2013). An interview by Rafael Romo of CNN (2017) with a survivor of human trafficking brings out the plight of human trafficking victims. The story of interviewee of multiple rapes she went through highlights the harsh reality of human trafficking in Mexico and the United States. Human trafficking is a lucrative business in both USA and Mexico. The Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2006 estimated that approximately $9.5 billion was generated from trafficking in person (Siskin and Wyler, 2013).
The cause of human trafficking has been linked to economic stability desires by the perpetrators of the heinous act. According to Texas Human Trafficking Prevention Task Force (2014), traffickers are in this activity to earn money for personal objectives or to earn money for the network they are linked in. Children especially those who are susceptible for instance those financial challenges, living in poverty are easy to lure with a promise of better life. Labor trafficking can be brought about by traffickers offering a job opportunity to job seeking persons then later decides to withhold the payment. On the other hand, sex trafficking can be caused or brought about by a trafficker who pretends to befriend the susceptible victims with pretense to be in a position to help meet the needs of the victim with intentions to brutalize the victim later. However, the main cause human trafficking being poverty and lack of knowledge and information. Texas Human Trafficking Prevention Task Force (2014) opine that the repercussions of human trafficking are not pleasing at all. The heinous crime destroys a person’s dignity, and individual humanity is stripped away. Many occasions the victims are subjected to brutal beating, days without food, constant abuse, victims are denied their self-determination, and on bad scenarios, human trafficking can lead to death. In other words, human trafficking does not give life dignity it deserves rather it reduces human life to a property owned by an individual.
In the past two decades, the issue of human trafficking has been a concern for any organization, in the 80s and 90s, trafficking was unfamiliar cases even in the presence of the media. However this changed over time, the political elites with roots concerned with issues affecting women came to power in the mid-90s when cases of human trafficking were on the rise. The alarming rates of the crime as noted above and stories of the survivor victims whose stories touched many intensified the fight against the crime (Neiwaiarowska, 2015). Claims-making has contributed a lot in bringing this crime to the public. According to Neiwaiarowska (2015), claims makings are a powerful tool for distributing social problem such media. Its power works that it unearths the social issues in the society and bring to the attention of the public. Protagonist actors make claims for the voiceless, this type of approach used by the political elites have bored fruits in the fight against human trafficking. Sheila Wellston a human right activist and the wife to Senator Paul Wellstone, encourage her husband to do something about the rising issues of sex trafficking that she had witnessed on her international travels. The senator encouraged his colleagues, and the problem of sex trafficking was brought in the floor of the Congress on March 10, 1998 (Goodman). According to Neiwaiaroska (2015), the issue of human trafficking was brought into public attention through frames and claims. Media has played a major in the fight against human trafficking by highlighting the plight of the victims through their coverage (Goodman, 2014). However, Goodman points out that despite efforts of the media to help bring attention to the issue they were opposed by a group of people that suggested that sex trafficking claims are set out by people who were against prostitution and pornography.
Political stream
Congress passed the resolution by Senator Wellstone denouncing international sex trafficking. This was a sign of relief for many activists as the issues had been brought to government radar with the Congress requesting federal officials to continue creating awareness of the issue internationally (Goodman, 2014). However, politics took center stage, and the real issue on how to deal with human trafficking was swept under the carpet. March 1999, Wellstone proposed “International Trafficking of Women and Children Victim Protection Act.” Unlike the previous resolution he had proposed, this act did not fare well in the Congress due to the political gravy issues it holds with it. The bill did not pass past committee stage with the argument that trafficking had become a polarized issue to introduce legislation with expectation for the bill to pass without a political debate. They would have required both sides to compromise their stand (Goodman, 2014). The issue of human trafficking brought a political divide among the legislatures, with several splinter groups emerging. There was a group which was composed of human rights, labor, migration and public health activists which believed that the cause of human trafficking was pegged on force, fraud, and coercion (Goodman, 2014). On the other side was comprised of conservatives, faith-based and anti-prostitution feminist organization that believed that commercial sex should be singled out as a unique form of exploitation which should form the base of human trafficking legislation. Currently, criticism has it countries like Canada who has a weak policy on human trafficking with the United States has become a self-appointed international leader for anti-human trafficking influencing the international politics. However, the focus has shifted more to terrorism than human trafficking with the faith-based organization being in the front line fighting against human trafficking.
Policy stream
The United States has been the leader in the fight against human trafficking through the enacting policies that are geared towards punishing offenders and protecting the victims. The Trafficking Victim Protection Act (TVPA) was passed by the Congress, and President Bill Clinton signed it into law in 2000. The Act has three primary purposes to prevent, protect and prosecute (Goodman, 2014). According to Siskin and Wyler (2013) legislation was made in the 113th Congress, Title XII of S.47 “Subtitle A of Title XII, would address efforts to combat trafficking in persons internationally, and among certain noncitizens coming to the United States.” Section 1201 of this piece of legislation would require bureaus within the States department to annually develop anti-trafficking goals. Moreover, the bill would also ensure State Department creates a partnership with private and non-governmental entities. Section 1202 of this bill will see the creation of an anti-trafficking fund to support foreign governments in emergencies and provision of child protection units against trafficking.
Subtitle B of the same bill provides for laws that contain a provision to address trafficking in person within the United States. However, it is difficult to understand to what extent is the problem of human trafficking thus hard to evaluate some of the strategies put forward. The National Association of Social Workers last updated their policy over human trafficking in 2008 despite the fact the crime has infiltrated most of the communities today, this show reluctance on their fight towards trafficking (Goodman,2014). From the interviews conducted its evident that human trafficking is eroding human dignity. Most of the individual who has gone through human trafficking are victims of abduction, lured and yanked away from families. One of the interviewee stresses that saying nothing about human trafficking, putting countless girls and another susceptible individual at a risk of being trafficked.
In conclusion, despite the present knowledge on human trafficking, little attention has been shown towards the crime with more focus pointed towards terrorism. On the other hand, a lot of information is available about the victims of human trafficking by the different organization, but the same organization does not provide data of the traffickers involved in the heinous crime. From the above discussion, human trafficking hurts humanity. Thus it should be an initiative of all stakeholders to fight crime rather than politicizing the issue.
