Sex Trafficking of Women and Children in Europe - Essay Example

Sex Trafficking Introduction Sex trafficking is a crime that is has been in existence for quite a long time now .The selling of human beings for exploitative purposes has existed since the early days of slave trade. Therefore, sex trafficking can be perceived as being more of a modern form of slave trade only that this form involves selling of women and girls for commercial sex purposes. This paper will therefore look at what is sex trafficking, how it is different from smuggling, how human trafficking for sexual purposes is practiced in our society and examine the legislation that is in place to try to prevent and punish traffickers. As earlier mentioned, sex trafficking is a form of human trafficking and considered as crime by international organizations campaigning against human trafficking. “According to the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children, which supplements the UN Convention against Transactional Organized Crime also called the ‘Palermo Protocol’. Human trafficking is defined 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 apposition of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving or payments or benefits to achieve the consent of 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” (Rathgeber, 2002 p 154) Human trafficking is usually understood in most cases in relation to sex work, which mostly involve women and children. According to a report made by United Nations Office on Crime and Drugs, sexual exploitation is the highest rating kind of human trafficking (at a rate of 79 %) (Rathgeber, 2002). This shows that sex trafficking is rampart not only in major economies like USA and UK, but also as an international crime. Discussion Smuggling generally refers to assisting a person to enter into a country illegally whereby the person being smuggled has the consent and pays the smuggler for this service. It involves international movement only. On the other hand, a person being trafficked has no consent of the act and it is therefore in most cases forceful or through the use of deception. It may be internal that is, within a country or international movement where women and girls are trafficked to other countries to be used for commercial sex work to benefit those involved in sex businesses (Weitzer, 2011). This understanding of the difference between human smuggling and human trafficking can assist in knowing the actions to be taken for the victims. Most women who are victims of sex trafficking find themselves behind bars and treated as criminals. The police systems fail to look beyond the fact that these women may be victims of abduction, exploitation or even coercion and hence give them the required help. In order to understand sex trafficking it is important to look at how human trafficking is usually undertaken. Human trafficking mostly involves organized crime (Weitzer, 2011). It usually works in stages that start from identification of the victim and ends with the last stage of exploitation. The first stage of sex trafficking is recruitment or even in some cases abduction of the targeted victim. This is usually done through a person who is acquitted to the targeted victim or through agencies who mostly label themselves as job employment agencies mostly dealing with abroad job opportunities. If the traffickers are using an individual recruiter, they ensure that the recruiters play their role very well. The recruiter talks with the victim and in some cases with her family as well and assures them that his/her intentions are clean and all shall be well. In most cases, female recruiters are used because they are considered persuasive and are not seen as potential threat to fellow women. In the case of an Agency, the victims are recruited in disguise of being offered job opportunities. The agencies target young women who are educated and are living in economies where jobs are scarce, and therefore desperate for jobs. These women are therefore easy to lure into taking jobs via these agencies who promise them good salaries and working conditions. The agencies even help them in obtaining the necessary travel documents such as visas. Once the traffickers have won the confidence of the victims and have them in control the second step now involves the removal of the victims from their homes. The traffickers start to gain power over their victim and the victim is now under the mercies of the trafficker. The victim join other victims awaiting to be moved as a group. The third step of human trafficking is the transportation of the victims from the collection centres to their destination .The recruiters in some cases may be involved in the transportation process especially if it involves travelling by road. The recruiters are also responsible for facilitating entry into the destination country through customs and immigration where the transportation involves flights. The fourth step in human trafficking is establishment of control over the victims. Control is fully established at this stage although it starts at the early stage of removal. At this stage, the traffickers have to ensure that they have total control over the victims. Most victims are now completely aware of the fact that they were deceived and are not headed for what they had expected. They are subjected to fear and harsh conditions. They are treated violently, which may sometimes involve beatings and rape. The aim of the trafficker is to scare, and establish fear in the victims as much as possible in order to further control and increase the victims dependency on them (Farr, 2005). They are also relocated from one safe house to another in order to disorient them as much as possible. The last stage of trafficking is exploitation of the victims (Farr, 2005). They are repeatedly subjected to sex exploitation. The traffickers achieve this by holding debts over the victims. Due to the debts, they are forced into the sex industry and exploitation to settle the debts. The traffickers will ensure they keep their hold on the victims by even snatching from them of all-important documents such as passports and visas. They are also kept in controlled conditions and given limited or no access to the public and other services such as telephone communications. This ensures that they are cut off from the world and have no way of communicating with anyone who can rescue them. Some cases where the sex trafficking involves Arab traffickers in Europe as well as in Asian countries there has been reported cases of victims subjected to sex with animals (animalism) mostly dogs. The traffickers also introduce the victims into drugs so that they can easily control them because the drugs make them addicts. Since they cannot afford the drugs, they are forced into commercial sex in order to maintain their addictions. In Britain just like other developed countries, sex industry is big and very profitable business. However, unlike other European countries sex business is fast thriving in the off-street market. It is organized in flats, massage parlours and saunas. This isolation further ensures that the victims remain dependent of the trafficker and it works as an effective method of the trafficker to ensure that the customers pay for the sex services they receive. After looking at how trafficking is organized another important thing to look into is the traffickers; how they are organized and the people involved. Though human trafficking is largely an organized crime, in some cases it involves unorganized networks as well as individuals. Organized crime has been on the increase in central and Eastern Europe mostly because of the weak social control system in place and the corruption that exists in the judicial system (Syla, 2013). There are also low legitimate employment rates with most employment cases offering low salaries. These people enter into organized crime as a way of earning a better life and consider it to have more benefits than legitimate employment. This choice can be explained using rational choice theory. The choice perspective describes crime as; ‘a rational action taken by the average people when responding to specific opportunities, pressure and situations’. This can be related to human trafficking in that an individual will join an organized crime to satisfy themselves in some way but these decisions are based on pressure or limited information with no thoughts to the long term consequences of such actions. Non-Organized crime networks are mostly small-scale loose networks. Most of them usually have a leader who controls the network and usually equipped with access to false documents and transport requirements. Female traffickers have been on the rise for the past few years. Their success can be attributed to the misconception of human traffickers as being only men and women being incapable of such a thing. This has been propelled by the society’s dominant ideologies, which is a system of beliefs that hold and determines the view of social order by majority of people. This has enabled women traffickers to succeed highly because they do not seem to bare the image of a trafficker. In some instances, the women traffickers were themselves at one time victims of sex trafficking. They are given a chance to work as recruiter and leave the sex enslavement. They return to their communities where they are viewed to be successful and they give a positive version of their success in order to lure other women into sex industry. Another cause for women to turn into traffickers is labelling of the sex trafficking victims. Even their own families because of having engaged in prostitution treat most of the victims as out casts. Labelling theory can explain this and how it can influence someone’s actions. The aspects of labelling theory, which considers the incidents of being labelled for the person to whom the label is being applied, are very crucial. These women turn back into being traffickers for in it they identify themselves and have a sense of belonging. The UK home office has estimated that at any time there are up to 4,000 victims of sex trafficking in the UK (Bravo, 2007). This shows that there is a need for setting up legislative policies and coordination between the government and NGOs to fight human trafficking. While many researchers have accumulated, wide knowledge about human trafficking victims there is one area that is still given little attention. This relates to the knowledge about traffickers; who they are and how they operate. There is little data and detailed information on traffickers. Whereas it is necessary to have valuable amount of knowledge in order to be able to effectively fight this crime. Another area that needs to be well researched on is demand on trafficking. This will help provide some insights on policy responses in trafficking prevention and more particularly in consideration of localized trafficking markets. It is also important to note that international law if applied effectively can be an important weapon for combating the various forms of human trafficking (Abramson, 2003). The most reputable instruments of international law are the United Nations Convention against Transactional Organized Crime and its two related protocols; The United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially women and Children; and the United Nations Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, sea. Enforcement of international law in fighting human trafficking faces various obstacles (Goodey, 2008). First obstacle is the reluctance of the victims to identify the traffickers due to fear of endangering their lives. Secondly trafficking is a crime that goes beyond the borders of more than one country as well as its jurisdiction; this makes it a costly and complex procedure of applying international law to a person residing in another state. Another important challenge that faces enforcement of international law is lack of training of the laws enforcement officers within various states. The federal agents, border patrol officers and the local police may fail to be well acquitted with domestic or international laws regarding human trafficking. In addition, the resources required for the officers to enforce fully ant-trafficking laws are scarce or unavailable in some states. Some of the ways of dealing with this crime could be strengthening ties with countries where criminal gangs are based e.g. the African countries where criminals are turning their attention to. In addition, improving the coordination of policing efforts at the international and individual state level, engage professionals in helping sex trafficking victims to speak up and even council them to help them recover Conclusion Human trafficking is a complex issue but not one that cannot be dealt with. Sex trafficking victims as discussed mostly involve women and girls and the traffickers break all societal rules targeting the less fortunate and the vulnerable women in society. Much of the trafficking in Europe is controlled by organized crimes. Reference Abramson, K. (2003). “Beyond Consent, Toward Safeguarding Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations Trafficking Protocol.”. Harvard International Law Journal, 44(2), pp473-502. Bravo, K. E. (2007.). “Exploring the Analogy between Modern Trafficking in Humans and the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.”. Boston University International Law Journal, 25, pp:207-295. Farr, K. (2005). Sex Trafficking: The Global Market in Women and Children. New York: Worth Publishers. Goodey, J. (2008). Human trafficking : Sketchy data and policy responses. Criminology and Criminal Justice, pp421-443. Rathgeber, C. (2002). “The Victimisation of Women Through Human Trafficking - An Aftermath of War? European Journal of Crime, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice, 10(3), pp:152-163. Syla, J. (2013). Sex Trafficking of Women and Children in Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States:. Internet Journal of Criminology, pp:1-36. Weitzer, R. (2011). Sex Trafficking and the Sex Industry: The Need for Evidence- Based Theory Legislation. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 101(4). Read More