Human Trafficking: the flight to slavery and sexual exploitation

14 Jun 2010

In the West, we like to believe that the heyday of slavery is over. The reality is that, in many parts of the world, poorly-enforced international legislation has not reduced the allure for forced labour. According to the American Administration for Children and Families, human trafficking is the world’s fastest growing criminal enterprise and is tied for second spot with arms trading behind the drug trade. Whilst many people are transported across national borders by road, rail and ship, there are significant numbers being sold into slavery or sexual exploitation that board international flights, especially in the era of the low cost carrier. To what extent is it a problem for the aviation security community? Marcia Adair reports on some of the trends and issues surrounding human trafficking.

What Is Trafficking Exactly?

A good question, the answer to which would fill all the pages of this journal if answered properly. The UN defines trafficking as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring 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 labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.”

The multiple clauses and contingencies in that definition illustrate one of the major problems with combating trafficking: the term is almost impossible to define concretely. Cases involving children are fairly clear-cut because they are not able to consent. Classic examples are: children kidnapped from school and turned in to child soldiers; young, poor girls from rural parts of North Africa sent to work as maids for rich African families abroad in exchange for schooling that never quite materialises; parents selling or renting their children as beggars or mine workers.

It offends our Western sensibilities to think of children as assets that can be traded or sold but large, desperately poor families are much more pragmatic about taking advantage of what little resources they have. Whether that is right or wrong is a question for another time. As wealthy Westerners living among people of a similar socio-economic station (generally speaking) we often say that money doesn’t buy happiness.  While this may be true, what it does buy is the ability to choose – a commodity most of the world’s population will never be able to afford.

Where trafficking gets murky is when adults are involved.  They are able to consent to starting work or moving to another country and often times they do entirely within the confines of the law.  The problem is what happens when they arrive at their new workplace. (More online)

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