Global Trafficking: A Modern Form of Slavery

By Margaret MacDonnell
Special to the HERALD
(From the issue of 10/10/02)

An estimated 700,000 to 2 million women and children worldwide each year fall victim to international traffickers. Some are lured with the promise of paid employment in legitimate jobs; others are abducted or purchased from family members. A lucrative criminal enterprise, trafficking in persons is now thought to be the third largest source of profits for organized crime.

Each year approximately 45,000 to 50,000 women and children are trafficked into the United States, most to perform essentially unpaid labor in manufacturing or to be forced into prostitution. By some estimates, a third of these victims are under age 17. Victims most often come from Southeast Asia, Latin America, and increasingly from the New Independent States (the former Soviet bloc) and Central and Eastern Europe.

Increasingly, children are being forced into prostitution, in part due to the erroneous but widespread belief that younger children are unlikely to transmit HIV. These children are likely to suffer long-term damage to their emotional, psychological and physical health.

Trafficking for sexual exploitation devastates the lives of victims, and this has consequences for society as a whole. Sexually exploited women and children face a life of poverty. They often develop mental illnesses and serious health problems, such as HIV/AIDS and other communicable diseases. They may turn to other criminal activities to support themselves. International organized crime rings involved in trafficking prosper and spread as trafficking increases.

Authorities should be encouraged to regard the enslavement and forced prostitution of women and children as a heinous crime and to intensify their investigatory and enforcement efforts accordingly.

Victims placed in commercial manufacturing facilities, particularly in the garment industry, endure working conditions that range from substandard to inhumane. Their pitifully low wages may be reduced to a pittance after grossly inflated charges for their international transport and "job placement fee," cramped housing, meals, and incidentals are deducted. This practice is known as "debt bondage."

One example of this inhumane treatment occurred in El Monte, Calif., where 72 garment workers trafficked from Thailand suffered enslavement for up to 17 years. Julie Su, an attorney with the Asian Pacific Legal Center and a Board Member of Sweatshop Watch (SW) describes their plight on the SW Web site:

"The workers labored over 18 hours a day in a compound enclosed by barbed wire. Armed guards imposed discipline. Crowded eight to 10 into bedrooms built for two, rats crawled over them during their few precious hours of sleep."

After an Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) raid in August 1995, eight operators of the El Monte sweatshop were charged with involuntary servitude, kidnapping, conspiracy, smuggling and harboring the Thai workers. They pled guilty to some of the charges. The INS also detained the trafficking victims on immigration violations. Fortunately, the local community posted bonds to free them from detention.

"Churches, shelters, supermarkets and hospitals stepped forward to help provide transitional housing, emergency food and clothing, and medical care. One worker, whose teeth had rotted from long neglect and who had extracted eight of his own teeth while confined in El Monte, received a brand new set from a generous dentist," Su wrote.

The three causes of trafficking in women and children are poverty, greed and sex.

Poverty and limited job opportunities in some countries make offers of foreign employment attractive. The low status of women and girls in many parts of the world also plays a role. Desperately poor parents may sell female children to traffickers — knowingly or not — to help support the family and to avoid paying bridal dowries.

An increasingly globalized economy has led to greater demand for low-cost products, especially labor-intensive products such as garments. Traffickers profit by extracting exorbitant sums from the pay of those they deliver to manufacturing facilities. Manufacturers benefit from drastically reduced labor costs which enable them to reap substantial profits in sales to department stores and brand name clothiers while still undercutting legitimate competition. Department stores and clothiers see their sales and profit margins increase by acquiring goods more cheaply.

Trafficking in human persons violates central teachings of the Catholic Church: it shows contempt for the inherent dignity of the human person and exploits those who live in poverty. In The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, the Second Vatican Council condemns certain grave offenses against human life in a passage reiterated "with the same forcefulness" by Pope John Paul II in The Gospel of Life (no. 3).

In response to growing calls for government action, Congress passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA). The TVPA establishes a maximum sentence of life in prison for those found guilty of certain types of trafficking in persons. The law also provides relief for victims of trafficking: they may be eligible for the same benefits as refugees, such as food stamps and medical assistance, and for services like crisis counseling and short-term housing assistance; and they may be able to remain in the U.S. under the newly created "T Visa."

The TVPA also calls for an annual report by the State Department on measures other nations are taking to combat trafficking. In addition, the law includes provisions that allow the United States to provide technical assistance to countries that are making a sincere effort to stop human trafficking. Any country that does not comply with the minimum standards for eliminating trafficking, or that is not making significant efforts to comply by 2003, may be denied non-humanitarian, non-trade related assistance from the United States.

The first report on international compliance was issued in July 2001. In 23 of the over 80 nations evaluated, current laws do not meet minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and significant measures are not being taken to comply with those standards. The report classifies international trafficking in humans as a growing problem which can only be solved by international cooperation among governments and non-governmental organizations.

Catholics, informed on the issue of human trafficking and bearing Christ's message of respect for all human life, can help to ensure that this law provides effective protection to trafficking victims and helps to end such repugnant practices.

MacDonnell has a master's degree in Social Work from the Catholic University of America and recently completed an internship in Migration and Refugee Services, U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

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