Trafficking of African Women and Girls - Essay Example

Trafficking Trafficking of African Women and Girls still continues to be an international racket which tarnishes the international society which is constantly striving to achieve a scenario of human dignity and justice. Somehow helpless women and children of the third world are eluded from the basic human right of surviving in decent surroundings with the bare dignity of a human being. The United Nations estimates that 4 million people are trafficked each year resulting in $7 billion in profits to criminal groups. Many countries have weak, unenforced or no laws against trafficking in human beings, often making it less risky and more profitable to criminal groups than drug or arms trafficking. With increased economic globalization, trafficking in women from poor to wealthier countries appears to be on the rise. Trafficking networks may recruit and transport women legally or illegally for slavery-like work, including forced prostitution, sweatshop labor, and exploitative domestic servitude In 2000 the United Nations adopted the Convention Against Transnational Organised Crime, also called the Palermo Convention and two Palermo protocols. Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children and Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air. All these instruments contain elements of the current international law on trafficking in human beings. An additional objective of the Protocol is to protect and assist the victims of trafficking in persons with full respect for their human rights The Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings was adopted by the Council of Europe on 16 May 2005. The aim of the convention is to prevent and combat the trafficking in human beings. Of the 46 members of the Council of Europe, so far 31 have signed the convention and 1 has ratified it. It aims to prevent and combat trafficking in human beings…. It also aims to protect human rights of the victims of trafficking, design a comprehensive framework for the protection and assistance of victims and witnesses, while guaranteeing gender equality as well as to ensure effective investigation and prosecution. Lastly it aims to promote international co operation on action against trafficking in human beings. The United States federal government has taken a firm stance against human trafficking both within its borders and beyond. Domestically, human trafficking is prosecuted through the Civil Rights Division, Criminal Section of the United States Department of Justice Older statutes used to protect 13th Amendment rights within United States borders are Title 18 U.S.C., Sections 1581 and 1584. Section 1584 makes it a crime to force a person to work against his will. This compulsion can be effected by use of force, threat of force, threat of legal coercion or by "a climate of fear", that is, an environment wherein individuals believe they may be harmed by leaving or refusing to work. Section 1581 similarly makes it illegal to force a person to work through "debt servitude". New laws were passed under the Victimes of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000. The new laws responded to a changing face of trafficking in the United States. It allowed for greater statutory maximum sentences for traffickers, provided resources for protection of and assistance for victims of trafficking and created avenues for inter-agency cooperation in the field of human trafficking. It also allows many trafficking victims to remain in the United States and apply for permanent residency. This law also attempted to encourage efforts to prevent human trafficking internationally, by creating annual country reports on trafficking, as well as by tying financial non- humanitarian assistance to foreign countries to real efforts in addressing human trafficking. International NPOs, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have called on the United States to improve its measures aimed at reducing trafficking. They recommend that the United States more fully implement the "United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children" and the "United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime" and for immigration officers to improve their awareness of trafficking and support the victims of trafficking. United States State Law on Trafficking have not been very effective till date. Several states have written laws to address human trafficking in their borders. Florida has written trafficking statutes criminalizing forced labor, sex trafficking, and document servitude. Florida also provides for mandatory law enforcement trainings and victim services. On May 8, 2006, Connecticut passed an act addressing human trafficking that criminalized coerced work, and made trafficking a violation of the Connecticut RICO Act. Balakrishnan Rajagopal, in his book `International Law from Below: Development. Social Movements and The Third World Resistance,’ chronicles the complex relationship between International Law and The Third World’ during the 20th century. He believes that is impossible to obtain a complete understanding of this complex relationship unless one focuses on the development discourse as the government logic of the political, economic and social life in the Third World. Moreover, while framing International Law one has to appreciate the role of social movements in shaping the relationship between third World resistance and International Law. It is his firm conviction that dominant approaches to International Law are deficient because they do not consider development discourse to be important for the very formation of international law and institutions. Nor do they adopt a subaltern perspective that enables a real appreciation of the role of social movements in the evolution of International Law. The most worrying factor is `How does one write resistance into International Law and make it recognize subaltern voices? (Rajagopal). Rajagopal believes that International Law ha been crucially shaped during the 20th century by the nature and the forms of Third World resistance to development. Substantial parts of the architecture of international law, international institutions, have evolved in ambivalent relationship with this resistance. Human Rights discourse have been fundamentally shaped and limited by the forms of Third World resistance to development. In fact, Rajagopal’s convictions challenge traditional narratives of how International legal change has come about and how one might understand the place of law in progressive social practice. He feels International law needs to be fundamentally rethought if it is to take the disparate forms of Third World Resistance seriously. Rajagopal believes that International Law has traditionally never concerned itself with the functional and pragmatic cosmopolitan relationship with culture across the barrier of civilization and rationality. On the other hand International Law has actually repressed and suppressed the existence of such relationships. However, he also concedes that. International Law is no longer a marginal discipline that figures occasionally in diplomatic disagreement. Fortunately, International Law is now an ensemble of rules, policies, institutions and practices that directly and indirectly affects the daily lives of millions of people all over the world in the areas of economy, environment family relationships and governments. Rajagopal is concerned with the role of International Law in shaping the ideas and practices in the field of development and with the role of ideas and practices in the field of development and with the role of ideas and practices in the field of development in shaping International Law. His main purpose is to contest particular ways of explaining International Legal Change. His work on social movements in the Third World and their complex relationship with global political and legal change is born out of a search for a culturally legitimate forms of resistance that do not fall into the trap of nativism. Trafficking is a shame on the face of international society which represents pragmatism and modernism. While the world marches forward on the net savvy shoulders of the modern day thinkers, and the third world watches in awe at the stupendous technological advancement and development of the First World, there is a section of deprived women and children who are till date sold and trafficked far away from their homeland into the realms of this very society. It is not enough to formulate international laws to prevent trafficking. Rajagopal advocates that formulating International Law has to be based on the socio economic conditions of the Third World. It is imperative that the International Law Makers understand and identify with the psyche of the Third World. Only then will there be a profound understanding of the root causes which provide the unwanted effect – poverty and illiteracy. Read More