Trafficked Part 2

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The report notes that identifying an HTSE network is a process. Their intent is to foster improved national regulatory infrastructure and law enforcement efforts. One noticeable consequence of this focus is that, of the 17 HTSE case studies documented, four had no mention of financial flows of the victims or those exploiting them.

Nonetheless, there is significant diversity in the financial activities that are described, including the following, which appear more frequently among the case studies:. Unlike the unique financial transactions in sex trafficking crimes, there are far fewer unique financial flows in forced labor trafficking cases.

Introduction

Victims, as in HTSE cases, tend not to have personal living expenses such as rent, utilities or food. One common financial red flag, however, is withdrawal of funds of a entire group of exploited workers, in rapid succession, often from the same ATM machine. Similar to HTSE cases, those who benefit from labor exploitation leave behind non-financial clues. Members of the same group of workers are treated identically, from getting their passports in the same location in the same general time period, to using identical addresses and contact information.

One of the first set of statistics in the report lays bare the dilemma faced by regulators wishing to combat human trafficking effectively. At the same time, however, they represent less than twenty percent of the estimated This demonstrates how much the funding amounts vary significantly by the type of exploitation: So, should we help the most victims, or tamp down the most financial crime? While the average amount laundered for the other eighty percent, who are exploited for their labor at reduced wage if any are paid at all , is significantly less than those trafficked for sex, the macroeconomic effects of the money laundering, and its predicate crime, are more notable.

For example, one HTFL case study documents using trafficked persons in the construction industry.

This allows these companies using workers not being paid fair market wages an unfair advantage over legitimate operators. Just under eighty percent 16 million of forced labor trafficking victims are estimated to be exploited in the private sector, with the rest being exploited by governmental authorities. That private sector estimate, however, also includes an unspecified number of people being exploited for domestic labor, so the number of exploited persons in other industries such as construction or agriculture who could be contributing to unfair competition and crowding out is unclear.

So, where should emphasis be placed in terms of addressing human trafficking and its related money laundering? Sexual exploitation represents low-hanging fruit — it presents a more well-defined set of red flags both financial and behavioral , and the larger sums being laundered are more easily detectable by compliance professionals.

To do so, however, because of the lower amounts involved, and the prevalence of gradual enrichment of traffickers, HTFL probably needs to be addressed by looking elsewhere. This situation represents, paradoxically, the best of both worlds, as it allows different elements of society to address both the highest-value trafficking crimes, and those affecting the largest portion of trafficked persons.

It is by no means a perfect solution, since it does not address people trafficked in the public sector, nor those exploited for domestic labor. Nonetheless, it represents a potential path forward, as the understanding of human trafficking crimes, the associated money laundering, and the red flags that can identify both, evolves.

This article is expressing personal opinions and is meant for information purposes only. To this end, given the typical home situation of a person who turns to trafficking as a means to earn subsistence, one must ask whether poverty or suppressive home-culture measures should be considered coercive forces that drove him or her to turn to trafficking in order to better define trafficking and to better identify and target at-risk populations.

Another difficulty regarding the matter of choice is common to various other international health affairs: This seems to be a relatively recent subject in the discourse, and needs to be better addressed within the literature on human trafficking to make anti-trafficking programs more effective. A definition of human trafficking was created in Palermo and is currently officially employed by the ninety-six countries that ratified the Palermo Protocol.

Human trafficking - Wikipedia

Consequently, this is the definition these countries use to identify and act upon human trafficking situations in their home countries. To reiterate, the Palermo Protocol states,. For the purposes of this Protocol: This definition of trafficking was the target of heavy feminist lobbying during the two years in which the Palermo convention negotiations took place.

One of the key arguments was fueled by the difference between voluntary and involuntary prostitution.

Author Jo Doezema writes,. The lobby efforts were split into two camps, deeply divided in their attitudes towards prostitution. One lobby framed prostitution as legitimate labor. Not only feminist NGO networks were bitterly divided over the issue, however: Essentially, the consent of a victim to the intended exploitation is irrelevant where any of the exploitative means have been used.

The UN Palermo Protocol states that prostitution is by definition a form of exploitation, and that any woman who has been trafficked into prostitution has been exploited. In this sense, the language in the Protocol characterizes all women who have been trafficked as victims in need of protection, regardless of consent or whether they suffered due to the trafficking, and, in the case of prostitutes, whether or not their involvement in prostitution was coerced or voluntary.

Human trafficking

Because various definitions of trafficking make little or no distinction between the forced and unforced types of prostitution into which trafficked women may enter, and due to the frequent societal correlation between prostitutes and trafficked women, many agencies combine their anti-trafficking efforts with measures to combat prostitution, regardless of whether the women in each case chose to become prostitutes, or whether they were coerced into it.

The International Labor Organization ILO has signed conventions on forced labor , holidays with pay , the protection of the right to organize , the protection of wages , and migration for employment , but because of our intuitive sense that sex work should be marginalized as immoral and degrading to women, none of these rules has been applied to the gray market in sexual services. Our well-meaning desire to "protect" women forces the prostitution industry underground and out of the reach of established labor statutes. Inherent to the nature of their work, prostitutes are at great risk of violence in the workplace, or violence at the hands of arresting or deporting authorities; additionally, they are significantly more susceptible to HIV infection due to their lowered status: This is particularly true in situations involving the rescuing and reintegrating of these victims: This expression of international law undermines efforts to reduce the incidence of HIV and AIDS and discriminates against prostitution on the basis of occupation.

The interplay and overlap of these forces reproduces, reinforces, and maintains the oppression of women.

The sex industry has become a multi-billion dollar global phenomenon that profits immensely from the collective and corrupt, direct and indirect work of mafias, police, government officials, policy-makers, tourists, airline workers, businessmen, clients, and even other women. Part II of this chapter is divided into five parts: The final section of this chapter will address various steps that are being taken to stem the human trafficking trade on a global scale.

There are many methods through which women become prostitutes; this chapter will highlight four of the means by which individuals enter situations that result in their entry into involuntary prostitution: Women and girls are forced into prostitution when traffickers who focus their attention on poor villages kidnap, illegally smuggle, and then sell the women to others who will force them to have intercourse with scores of strange men.

One incident described how a trafficking agent in a central Thai province photographed village girls on their way to school. After the selection, the agent returned and kidnapped the chosen girls. Traffickers or recruiters may also offer women legitimate work such as restaurant workers, hostesses, models, domestic and household servants, or entertainment workers. Unbeknownst to them, their children are instead often forced to engage in dangerous sex with paying clients.

Offers made to the families become even more appealing when traffickers take the responsibility to secure travel documents and even pay for the passage of the victims to different countries. Apart from being kidnapped or tricked, women also become prostitutes when their families knowingly sell them into this profession. And there is demand enough. This oppression is methodical, stemming from a variety of social and cultural ideologies and economic and political forces.

So the irony becomes this: Interestingly, men who patronize prostitutes are experiencing a shift in the terminology used to describe them. In other cases, older women help younger ones enter this profession and the former find no problems with this action. Again, the rule of patriarchal societies does not allow women equal membership in important matters in the home. Rather, the rule becomes less participation, but more contribution. Husbands may live off the earnings of their wives who prostitute or they may even help their wives find clients.

Husbands may even be the ones who first force their wives into prostituting to ensure the steady arrival of an income. Davidson shares the following disconcerting account: I know non-prostitute women, for example, whose economically inactive male partners expect them to work two or three part-time cleaning jobs, as well as to perform all the domestic tasks in their own household, and who will use physical violence or the threat of it to ensure that they meet these expectations.

I have also known non-prostitute women who have been manipulated into performing unpaid sexual acts with acquaintances, strangers, even dogs, for the sexual and psychological pleasure of their male partner. The subordination of wives is intertwined closely with the cultural ideologies described above. Clearly, the negative beliefs against prostitutes and even women help create a situation in which they not only lose their autonomy to their husbands and the patriarchal society, but their rights over their own bodies as well.

Changing dynamics of the family structure are also affecting the social environment for women and children. Another aspect closely related to family structure is the care women must provide for their children. In situations where women are left to care for numerous children and opportunities are scarce, they resort to having sex with other men and the matter is worsened when the woman is the sole provider for an extended family. Jobs, Education, Healthcare -. Poverty is one of the fundamental problems underlying the entrance of women into prostitution.

Davidson describes the physical injuries and illnesses suffered by child prostitutes in Thailand , which was compiled by the United Nations Working Group of Experts on Slavery in August Many are beaten for refusing to work and even the men who buy the child prostitutes become violent if they refuse to perform various sexual acts. I have a small fragment of a bone floating in my head that gives me migraines. The prostitutes realize that their chances of escaping are near impossible without the knowledge of the area, their lack of communication skills, and their illegal status in the country.

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Eliciting help from authorities would be unfeasible, first because of their lack of information on where authorities are located and the difficulty getting there, and secondly, because the authorities themselves are simply part of the system. And here, our imagination is a poor assistant. Negotiate a price with a stranger. Pull down one pant leg. Come and take me. It becomes too ugly to really take it in.

The imagination screeches to a halt. For a great part of I lived in a beautiful apartment on Capitol Hill. I drove my expensive car. I bought lovely clothes and traveled extensively out of the country. For the first time in my 20 years as an adult woman, I paid my own way. There was no need to worry about affording my rent, my phone bill, all the debts one accumulates simply by living month to month. And I was miserable to the core. I hated myself because I hated my life. All the things I came to possess meant nothing. I could not face myself in the mirror. Working in prostitution lost my soul.

Children who have no understanding of sex are also forced to perform degrading acts they did not know existed. Most travel companies and airlines would, of course, be quick to distance themselves from sex tourism and to insist that it is beyond their power to affect what individual tourists choose to do while abroad. Combating and preventing human trafficking -.

Follow the money?

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