Human trafficking is the trade of humans for the purpose of forced labour, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation for the trafficker or others.
Human trafficking is defined by three things: the act, the means, and the purpose.
•The act: the recruitment, transport, transfer, harbouring and receipt of people.
•The means: threat of use of force, coercion, abuse, fraud, deception, abuse of power or abuse of vulnerability.
•The purpose: participation of illegal activities (commonly: sex work, organized crime activities, organ trafficking, illegal immigration).
There are three common types of human trafficking: the sex trade, forced labor and domestic servitude. The economic sectors that profit most from human trafficking are agriculture, restaurants, manufacturing, domestic work, entertainment, hospitality, and the commercial sex industry.
Slavery and human trafficking are illegal in almost every nook and corner of this world. But, still it happens nearly in every country of the world, be it a developed country or a developing one. We now reside in a world where human trafficking is the fastest growing criminal enterprise.
As this is a widespread issue with varying levels, it becomes increasingly challenging to address it with a single set of laws or policies. While many countries have adopted their own policies for addressing this international issue, there are many things that people everywhere can do to join the fight against human trafficking. Some of the solutions for this problem are as follows:
•Traffickers often rely on luring their victims with promises, opportunities, romance or earning your trust to make you think that they really care about you. Traffickers can be men or women. So, trust your gut instincts if something feels wrong to you, don’t ignore that.
•Beware of promises from someone who will give you a job, offers that seem too good to be true and anything illegal. Ask questions about the job and the people who you will be working with.
•Remember that traffickers can use a legitimate business as a means to lure in people to be used for the purposes of trafficking.
•Never be locked in a space that you can’t get out of. Search videos on what to do if you are kidnapped.
•Be a conscientious and informed consumer. Encourage companies to take steps to prevent human trafficking in their supply chains and publish the information, including supplier or factory lists, for consumer awareness.
•Never meet someone at night time or in odd places to discuss work opportunities. No one ever holds an interview at night time.
•Don’t work in adult entertainment. But if you are going to be stubborn and insist on doing it anyway, at least be smart and keep yourself safe. This is not to say that all people in adult entertainment are sketchy but you can’t take chances. Not everyone who performs as an adult entertainer is a sex trafficking victim but a lot of human trafficking is sex related. You may not really know who you are meeting up with who is offering you an opportunity in porn, escorting, stripping or any other form of adult entertainment.
•Encourage your local schools or school district to include human trafficking in their curricula and to develop protocols for identifying and reporting a suspected case of human trafficking or responding to a potential victim.
•If the interviewer offers to buy you a drink, avoid drinking alcohol and keep watch over what you are drinking in case it gets spiked with drugs.
•Be prepared to fight for your life! Yes, I mean it! Once you are in trouble you do whatever it takes to get away from traffickers and make a run for it as fast as you can to get help. Scream to the top of your lungs to get others attention, scratch, poke, jab, kick, bite, hit, and stomp repeatedly without mercy until he/she is down enough to buy you some time to get away.
•You may have more than one person to fight against. Use any objects you can get your hands on as weapons.
•Be aware that pimps lure women in by pretending to be the one person in their life that really cares, listens to and understands them. Sometimes they will pretend to be a boyfriend. They will use the information that you reveal to them about yourself against you in order to manipulate/threaten you. After some time of working on the girl/woman a pimp will coerce or force her to work in prostitution. They will make threats against her and/or family members with violence or murder if she tries to leave. They will tell the girls who are under their control that they can’t trust the police to help them.
•Be aware that women are also used to lure other women into the the adult entertainment industry with the purpose of trafficking. It could be for their own gain or they could be doing it for a pimp. Girls have sometimes been recruited by other girls who stay in group homes.
•Seek out some media best practices on how to effectively and responsibly report stories on human trafficking.
•Use your social media platforms to raise awareness about human trafficking.
In 2000, the U.S. Congress passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, establishing what is now called the 3Ps: punish traffickers, protect victims, and prevent this problem from reoccurring. There is great progress being made on a grander scale, but by working towards these solutions and implementing them into everyday life human trafficking can become a more manageable problem.
Let’s join hands together and ‘Act Now’ to help and protect trafficking victims.
