INTRODUCTION
Trafficking in persons is a serious crime and a grave
violation of human rights. Every year, thousands of men, women and children
fall into the hands of traffickers, in their own countries and abroad. Almost
every country in the world is affected by trafficking, whether as a country of
origin, transit or destination for victims.
Human trafficking is the trade in humans, most commonly for the
purpose of sexual slavery, forced labor or commercial
sexual exploitation
for the trafficker or others, or for the extraction of organs or tissues,
including surrogacy and oval removal. Human trafficking can occur within a country or
trans-nationally. Human trafficking is a crime against the person because of
the violation of the victim's rights of movement through coercion and because
of their commercial exploitation. Human trafficking is the trade in people, and
does not necessarily involve the movement of the person to another location.
In article 3, of
the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons,
it 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.
Traffickers
coerce women and children to enter the commercial sex industry through a
variety of recruitment techniques in strip clubs, street-based prostitution,
and escort services.
Domestic sex traffickers
particularly target vulnerable young girls, such as runaway, homeless, and
foster care children.
One reason
many girls working in prostitution enter the trade in their early teens has to
do with the age at which many were victims of incest or other forms of abuse.
Incest and other forms of abuse often drive children to run away from home,
making them vulnerable to the slick tactics of sex traffickers.
The pimp
seduces a recruit with the lure of love, protection, wealth, designer clothes,
fancy cars, and exclusive nightclubs. Pimps move from city to city looking for
children and young women who are easy prey: alone, desperate, and alienated.
Once a pimp moves a victim from her hometown into a strange city, the pimp can
easily force her to work as a prostitute. Thousands of children and women are
victimized in this way every year.
Factors that influences trafficking
Poverty and lack of educational and economic opportunities in one's
hometown may lead women to voluntarily migrate and then be involuntarily
trafficked into sex work.
Globalization and the rise of internet technology
has also facilitated sex trafficking. Online classified sites and social
networks such as Craigslist have been under intense scrutiny for being used by
traffickers in facilitating sex trafficking and sex work in general.
Traffickers use explicit sites and underground sites to market, recruit, sell,
and exploit females.
Women
and girls are more prone to trafficking also because of social norms that
marginalize their value and status in society. Females face considerable gender
discrimination both at home and in school. Stereotypes that women belong at
home in the private sphere and that women are less valuable because they do not
and are not allowed to contribute to formal employment and monetary gains the
same way men do further marginalize women's status relative to men. Some
religious beliefs also lead people to believe that the birth of girls are a
result of bad karma, further cementing the belief that girls are not as
valuable as boys. Various social norms contribute to women's inferior position
and lack of agency and knowledge, thus making them vulnerable to exploitation
such as sex trafficking.
The Place of Religion in Human
Trafficking
Investigating
empirically the role of religion in policies against human trafficking, using
the new 3P Anti-trafficking Policy Index. The dataset contains 175 countries.
The results show that governments in countries with Christian majorities
implement more strict anti-trafficking policies than countries with Muslim
majorities. The differences between countries with Christian and Muslim
majorities is pronounced in dictatorships but less so in democracies. The
influence of religion on the overall 3P Anti-trafficking Policy Index is driven
by protection and prevention policies. As compared to prosecution policies that
mainly target the perpetrators of human trafficking, protection and prevention
policies mainly protect the victims of human trafficking, i.e. predominantly
women. The conclusions are consistent with other empirical findings regarding
the association between religion, political institutions, and human
development.
An
estimated 27 million children, women and men are enslaved--their work and even
their bodies the property of an owner. In fact, the number of victims of
human trafficking is so high that more people are currently held in slavery
than over the course of the entire trans-Atlantic slave trade.
God reveals himself throughout the Bible as a God of
justice, who sees and hears the suffering of the oppressed.
Today, millions of lives around the world are in the
grip of injustice.
As Reformed Christians, we believe Jesus Christ rules over every square
inch of our world. Called to be Christ's agents in this world as we wait for
his return, we work to establish his kingdom here on earth and proclaim that
hatred and oppression have no place in God's world. These forces degrade
individuals, races, and nations, denying their humanity and preventing them
from being whom God desires them to be. We therefore seek justice for the
victims of violence, slavery, and human trafficking around the world, speaking
up for the voiceless and for the rights of all who are oppressed (Proverbs
31:8).
In fulfillment of this calling, the Christian Reformed World Relief
Committee (CRWRC) fights human trafficking through its community development
work around the globe.
For
example, CRWRC's work in Bangladesh on this issue focuses on the prevention of
trafficking by raising awareness about the problem among the most vulnerable
people and by empowering communities to better protect themselves. Information
about the causes of trafficking, the perpetrators, likely sources and
destinations, and existing anti-trafficking laws are presented through the
medium of theater and during lessons at weekly community meetings.
CRWRC also improves the capacity of community leaders to combat
trafficking through leadership trainings and the establishment of local justice
committees. The committees collect data on local trafficking and then develop
an action plan to end trafficking in the community. Committees also serve as
the link between the community and organizations that provide assistance to
trafficking survivors.
God's
calling to seek justice for the oppressed is extended not only to our Christian
relief agencies but to all of us! God commands all of his people to
"seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the
widow" (Isaiah 1:17-18). We too as individuals can raise our voice on
behalf of the voiceless.
The entrance
of sin wrecked the order and goodness of God's world; it was the disintegration
of peace. Sin inverted love for God, which in turn became idolatry, and
inverted love for neighbor, which became exploitation of others.
One clear way
this exploitation of others takes place is human trafficking. Trafficking is
modern-day slavery and is the fastest growing criminal industry in the world.
It is the recruitment, transportation, harboring, or taking of people by means
of threat, force, coercion, abduction, fraud, or deception for the purpose of
exploiting them. The United Nations estimates that 2.5 million people are
trafficked annually. It deprives people of their human rights and freedoms, it
is a global health risk, and it fuels organized crime.
Victims of
trafficking are forced or coerced into labor or sexual exploitation. Labor trafficking
ranges from domestic servitude and small-scale labor operations to large-scale
operations such as farms, sweatshops, and major
multinational corporations. Sex trafficking is one of the most profitable
forms of trafficking and involves any form of sexual exploitation, such as
prostitution, pornography, bride trafficking, and the commercial sexual abuse
of children.
The force
that seeks to oppose, deface, and destroy God, His good world, and His image
bearers. Simply put, when someone defaces a human being — God's image bearer —
it is ultimately an attack against God Himself.
Sexual
violence is one of the most frequent and disturbing symbols of sin in the
Bible. It is a complete distortion of relationship, a mockery and devastation
of God's intent in making us for relationships with Himself and others. By
referring to sexual violence, God, through the biblical authors, communicates
that sin has progressed so far that sex, an expression of union, peace, and
love, is now used as a tool for violence
Conclusion
In
conclusion, one can say that Christianity is actually playing a vital role in
reducing human trafficking. Christianity, like never before is now putting
extra effort, funds and time to make sure that the menace of human trafficking
is curbed. Looking at the activities of
some Christian groups and organizations, one can hope and believe that human
trafficking would soon become a thing of the past.
References
2.
Feingold,
David A. "Human trafficking." Foreign Policy
(2005): 26-32.
3.
Latonero,
Mark. "Human Trafficking Online: The
Role of Social Networking Sites and Online Classifieds." USC Annenberg
Center on Communication Leadership & Policy. Available at SSRN 2045851
(2011).
4.
Wikipedia.com
5.
Zheng,
Tiantian, ed. Sex trafficking, human
rights, and social justice. Vol. 4. Routledge, 2010.
6.
Definition of Trafficking - Save the Children Nepal at the Wayback Machine (archived November 20, 2007)
(archived from the original on 2007-11-20)
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