Shocking Global Statistics on Human Trafficking
It is estimated that throughout the world there are 27 million victims of slavery.
The Definition:
Human trafficking is where through force, coercion and/or deception, a person is recruited, transported, harboured and/or held for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, debt bondage, or slavery. This crime deprives people of their human rights and freedoms, increases global health risks as it is the vehicle of the spread of HIV and is fueled by organised crime. Human trafficking has a devastating impact on individual victims, who often suffer emotional abuse, threats against themselves and family, starvation, torture, structural violence and rape, and in some cases even death. The impact however is not just limited to the persons being trafficked, it also undermines the health, safety, and security of all the nations it touches (TIP Report 2008).
The Facts:
It is estimated that throughout the world there are 27 million victims of slavery (Bales, 2004). These are men, women and children who work in forced labour and sexual servitude. According to US government approximately 800,000 people are trafficked across national borders ever year, not including those millions trafficked domestically. Approximately 80 percent of victims are women and girls. It is believed that 1.2 million children are trafficked every year and the majority of which are trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation.
The Trafficking in Persons Report 2011 asserts UK as a destination for victims trafficked from Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe for sex trafficking and forced labor, including forced domestic service. Some UK children are subjected to sex trafficking domestically and some foreign unaccompanied children continue to be forced to beg or steal. Some migrant workers are subjected to forced labor in agriculture, construction, food processing, domestic service, and food services. Diplomats reportedly subject some domestic workers to forced labor; and the immunity available to diplomats is concerning to advocates as it protects them from prosecution. Vietnamese organized crime gangs subject children to debt bondage for forced work on cannabis farms; and a large number of women subjected to forced prostitution in England and Wales are from China. NGOs providing assistance to trafficked women reported a considerable increase in referrals of Ugandan nationals in 2010. Worryingly, there is a large amount of exploitation of young girls and women from Eastern Europe, and the Ukraine is a high proponent of the export of children and women. Victims are being subjected to trafficking in Russia, Poland, Turkey, Italy, Austria, Spain, Germany, Portugal, the Czech Republic, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, the United Kingdom, Israel, Greece, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Ireland, Lebanon, Benin, Tunisia, Cyprus, Aruba, Equatorial Guinea, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Serbia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Moldova, Slovakia, Syria, Switzerland, the United States, Canada, and Belarus. The number of Ukrainian victims subjected to forced labor and forced prostitution within the country continued to increase. In the face of statistics of such immense proportions, it is easy to be overwhelmed. However, every single victim has a name, is a daughter or son, sister or brother. Each person is of immense value and worth.
Ask yourself, what you would do, what lengths you would take to free them if they were your sister, your daughter, your wife, your son or your friends.
In 1996, a young Russian girl visited St. Petersburg. While she waited to return home to her village in Southern Russia at a train station a woman approached her and befriended her. This women after a lengthy conversation suggested that she could help the girl get work somewhere abroad as she had an acquaintance in Germany. The girl was issued a Spanish tourist visa and left on a bus tour of Europe in February 1997 and the plan was to get off the bus in Germany. In Germany, a woman who had a flat in Hamburg met her. Marsha was taken to the apartment and found 20 other young girls from Russia and Poland, many of whom were younger than her. After a couple of days, Marsha was told that she could not be hired as a housemaid and that she owed the lady 2000 German marks and would have to pay back that money by providing sexual services to men. She was speechless and could not believe what was happening to her. She was afraid to say no because her passport had been taken off her, she didn’t know any German and had no money. The woman’s husband, a drug dealer threatened to beat her if she tried to escape and she was told she’d be deported if she went to the police. They told her no one would help and that no one cared. Girls who resisted were beaten severely and Marsha was scared they would use drugs and alcohol to control her and force her to prostitute herself, as she had seen others given cocaine and beaten into submission. Marsha was kept at this bar where she prostituted herself for two months until her tourist visa ran out. At that time, she was sold to a Greek pimp operating in Germany, shortly afterwards, the police raided the bar and Marsha was charged with prostitution and held in a jail cell. She was ordered to leave Germany or be deported and the Greek pimp gave her money for a ticket back to Russia, in order to avoid being arrested and charged with pimping. The pimp was never charged and the German police never sought to investigate the trafficking network. (www.jammedtruestories.blogspot.com)
Marsha is not alone in her plight. There are thousands of men, women, boys and girls who are exploited, used, systematically raped, tortured, beaten and abused across the UK and Europe. This criminal activity is an egregious evil that must be stopped. The potential life, hope and futures are being stolen not just from the individual but from all of us. As Martin Luther King Jnr so aptly described, “[i]njustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly”. Governments, NGOs, civil society, community groups and international organisations are working hard to combat this crime. However it is so diverse, complex and the tactics evolve quicker than strategies to combat them can be formed. Organised crime gangs work together across borders and manage to slip through the cracks of international law and domestic legislation and enforcement and all the while, the victim is left wanting.