Just what’s human trafficking?

Even though innocentsatrisk.org of human trafficking has been going on for many years, it has only been a few years (2000) since the US Trafficking Protocol (the Palermo Protocol of 2000, an international legal agreement attached to the United Nations) was established containing the initial internationally agreed upon definition of human trafficking with the understanding that it’s the force, fraud, and coercion from one person to another that defines the essence of this crime.

People often tell me that they think human trafficking is moving people from one country to another, and while that is a part of what the act is really, the heart of the issue is the mental and emotional movement of an individual by another. The U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) (created because of the UN Protocol) leaves out what things to me is the most significant aspect of the definition and therefore helps it be more difficult to prove an incident in court against alleged traffickers.

The heart of the U.N. Trafficking Protocol defines human trafficking as: the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, through the threat or use of force or other styles of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a posture of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or advantages to achieve the consent of an individual having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.

The US-TVPA is weak and really should include in it the terminology in keeping with the U.N. Protocol because it further distinguishes that traffickers use deception, and abuse of power, or of a position of vulnerability, when seeking their victims. Traffickers look for the vulnerable knowing how to deceive and manipulate them – the worst form of abduction – by causing someone to lose rely upon those they ought to trust the most. It takes an eternity to “re-program” anyone who has been manipulated this way.

Human trafficking should be placed at the top of the set of crucial social issues.

In current human trafficking advocacy circles, traditional ways of trafficking have been the focus and prohibit real discovery into the reality of why you have modern-day slavery. Poverty, homelessness, runaways, broken families, senior high school drop-out rates, pornography (media): each are stand-alone social issues that merit our time and attention. Each brings with them a different set of issues that demand attention from those who are whole inside our society. Yet when we look at human trafficking, we see these issues wrapped up in to the one almost such as a domino effect. Each of these issues is a contributing factor to those areas fueling human trafficking. And, I dare say, each one of these issues are caused by one giant controlling the United States and manipulating our every move – greed. Traffickers not merely look for vulnerable and at-risk youth, they target the male population to enlist them as buyers.