Research Paper: SUNY Canton

Human Trafficking
I was touched when I came across this journal article published by the Angola Press titled

"Police Present Three Namibians Accused of Child Trafficking." It stunned me to learn that human

trafficking is still a major problem around the world today. According to this article published

recently, the police caught three human smugglers with five children who were all minors. These

children were supposed to be caring for the smugglers livestock.

Human smuggling is gradually becoming a business in our societies today as children and

women have become the target for smugglers in order to provide forced labor, sexual, and domestic

services. In my point of view, it is time for governments to intervene to stop this nasty act.

Firstly, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports on human trafficking titled

Trafficking in the United States outlined labor as the main cause of human smuggling. The chief

targets, who are often children and women, are required to offer forced and free labor in agriculture,

hotel services, strip club dancing; the list is long (par.1). Though some people think that only

foreign victims are vulnerable to human traffickers, this article stated that United States citizens also

take part in human trafficking. However, most of the victims are often noncitizens whose services

are highly required in labor campgrounds (par.2).

Secondly, this report pointed to sexual exploitation as another cause of human trafficking

acts. Though there are a great number of commercial sex workers in the United States, the

Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000 states that any act of commercial sex involving

a child under the age of 18, either by force or voluntary for any purpose such as money making, is

classified as Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking, and the offender must be brought to justice (par.5);

however, smugglers violet this law by vigorously using under age children in these acts for their

personal benefits. According to this report the Department of Justice (DOJ) estimated that there

were between 14,500 and 17,500 victims trafficked into the United States each year (par.7).

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Thirdly, the online journal article Trafficking in persons: U.S. policy and issues for

congress described human trafficking to be one of the leading criminal enterprises of the early

21st Century, affecting every country around the globe with possible causes being poverty, wars,

calamities and disparity in education (par.8). I learned that the inability to satisfy ones needs and

the effects of wars and disasters that have left many people helpless, have led many to consider

smuggling as an easy means of making a living. In societies where women do not have equal

educational and job opportunities as their male counterparts, has also contributed to the number of

women folks caught in smuggling acts their high demands to provide work in unsafe environments

as domestic servants (par.9). According to this article, The increasing restrictions on legal

immigration to many destination countries--including the United States and Western Europe--has

caused many migrants to turn to alien smugglers and even human traffickers, despite the associated

risks involved (par.11). Other causes include the failure of law enforcement and corrupted law

officers who accept bribes from traffickers (par.14).

According to the publication Combating the Trafficking in Children and their Exploitation

in Prostitution and Other Intolerable Forms of Child Labo[u]r by Kritaya Archavanitkul, physical

and mental development are some effects of human trafficking. (Kritaya Archavanitkul, Ph.D. is an

Associate Professor, demographer with the Institute for Population and Social Research (IPSR) at

Mahidol University in Thailand.) I discovered that most trafficked children who are uneducated

used mainly in sex industries where they have an average of 3-7 unprotected sex services with their

customers per day; while those who are prettier are always on high demand and can have more.

With little or no knowledge about STDs, they are more vulnerable to these diseases which

eventually lead to despair and early death (7.2).

Furthermore, Archavanitkuls research reveals that human trafficking has a great impact on

the education of its victims. From this point, I learned that most of the smuggled victims who are

always children have had little or no education profiles. They spent all their time working under

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difficult conditions for their employers at no wages. As a result of all these circumstances, they

have less future life and career opportunities as compared to those who have gone to school (7.1)

According to this research, the high rate of human trafficking decreases the labor force in

the communities of the trafficked victims, and in effect, increases the workload of the victims

parents. These societies forever be lacking behind in the number of working age population and

royal models for their indigenous children to follow. To make the situation worse, Archavanitkul

states that Women, who were originally trafficked but had managed to succeed economically

return to the communities and influenced their younger generations to follow their path (7.3). I

learned that these women may intoxicate others with their sexual culture and the cultures of the

areas where they were based. These new values bring changes in their communities beliefs and

cultures. Since many countries are fighting against illegal immigration, some of the victims return

to their countries of origin which have little or no access to health care services with STDs and

contaminate others. The society as a whole suffers the consequences. Archavanitkul also noted that

repatriated trafficked victims with HIV are blamed and not provided decent support, especially

emotional support (7.4).

After a short debate on this issue of human trafficking, one of my friends emphasized that

this act maybe important if the victims are smuggled from overpopulated countries to other

countries that have more resources to support them. Another friend also thought that using

smuggled immigrants to provide cheap labor to factories could help to reduce the cost of

production, thereby lowering the cost of goods.

My response to the first objection is straightforward; smuggled victims are always

susceptible to torture and poorer living conditions than might have been the case in their home

countries. For the second objection, which I got from a Native American friend, I believe it is

unwise to live in a hostile situation and work for the betterment of another mans land when a

person has the freedom to live and fight for his or her future in his or her own country.

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Research Paper: SUNY Canton

To sum up, governments and other scholars have done a good job in carrying out census and

surveys on the issue of human smuggling; However, I believe that this has not gone a long way to

solve the problem. Human trafficking is becoming a big business and it is time governments take

majors to stop this act, rather than feeding us with information. Due to the enormous effects of this

issue, I would like to focus my next research on the progress governments are making to combat

this malicious act.

Work Cited
Archavanitkul, Kritaya. "Combating the Trafficking in Children and Their
Exploitation in Prostitution and Other Intolerable Forms of Child
Labour." HumanTrafficking.org: A Web Resource for Combating
Human Trafficking in the East Asia Pacific Region. SEAMEO
Secretariat, 07 June 2000. Web. 23 Apr. 2011.
<http://www.seameo.org/vl/combat/index.htm>.

"Police Present Three Namibians Accused of Child Trafficking." Angola Press

Agency [Luanda, Angola] 21 Feb. 2011. Academic OneFile. Web. 22
Apr. 2011.

Seelke, Clare Ribando, and Alison Siskin. "Trafficking in persons: U.S. policy and
issues for congress." Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports and
Issue Briefs. Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports and Issue
Briefs, 2008. Academic OneFile. Web. 23 Apr. 2011.

Wyler, Liana Sun, and Alison Siskin. "Trafficking in the United States."
Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports and Issue Briefs.
Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports and Issue Briefs, 2010.
Academic OneFile. Web. 22 Apr. 2011.

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PROBLEM UNPACKING

Prostitution Free and force Better living

labor conditions

Sexual Labor Poverty, misery

exploitation wars & disparity
in education

HUMAN
TRAFFICKING

Education Physical and Societal Values

Mental and beliefs
development

Less future life and Despair, STDs, and Culture change

career and work working
Death
opportunities population
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