Human Trafficking

Human Trafficking

Human trafficking happens to be a human rights violation involving holding another human being in compelled service by fraud, force, or coercion. The perpetrators gain from human trafficking by controlling their captives and exploiting them for labor, sex, or both (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2014). Under the law of the United States, this practice is defined as sex trafficking, where the act of commercial sex is induced by fraud, force, or coercion or where the individual induced to perform those acts is below the age of eighteen years. It is also defined as the recruitment, transportation, harboring, obtaining, or provision of an individual for services or labor by fraud, force, or coercion to subject the victim to involuntary peonage, servitude, slavery, or debt bondage. Human trafficking also involves global victim recruitment, who are then shipped across borders into a foreign country where they are exploited for sex or labor. This practice can also occur locally with little or no transportation in victim recruitment or exploitation. Do you need help with your assignment ?

The Business of Trafficking

Human trafficking is one of the world’s largest criminal enterprises, coming second after drug trafficking. According to the International Labor Organization estimates, in 2014, it earned the exploiters over one hundred and fifty billion dollars annually (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2014). With the potential of a significant monetary reward and relatively lower punishment risk, this business has grown steadily. Profits generated from the trafficking of humans have more than doubled within the past ten years. The perpetrators range from solo operators who take a short time to lose criminal networks to increasingly sophisticated organizations of crime that operate globally. Louise Shelley, a trafficking expert, stated that the traffickers’ main aim of trading in humans is due to their low start-up costs, high profits, minimal risks, and high demand. He said that for organized crime groups, one advantage involving humans over drugs is that they can be sold repeatedly.

The Exploiters

The human trafficking exploiters include a broad range of criminal entities and criminals that organize, execute, and earn from the trafficking trade (Feingold, 2005). Often, traffickers tend to rely on enablers so that they can conduct their business enterprises and individuals—both illegal and legal that provide services and goods to exploiters, making the practice of human trafficking possible as well as profitable. As stated by the Organization for the Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the trafficking of humans can be best perceived as a process instead of a single act of criminality that involves various nodes or stages through which victims are forced to pass and to engage different individuals in every stage of the process.

The Enablers

These individuals and entities unknowingly or knowingly provide services and goods—some via acts of criminality for human trafficking to occur. Both illegal and legal practices enable the trafficking of humans (Orhant, 2002). Apart from the bribe-taking officials, actors in the hospitality, transportation, financial, and advertising sectors also enable the business of trafficking humans. Perpetrators often use the sectors mentioned. Some of these enterprises are aware that their services are being used in human trafficking activities, while others are not aware. Legitimate businesses that the perpetrators exploit are better positioned to identify human trafficking and can help in its disruption. Lastly, in some instances, consumers can be regarded as enablers by countersigning the human slavery system through the purchase of services and goods produced by chains of supply, including the labor of human trafficking victims.

The Victims

Often, human trafficking victims are lured by fake promises of stability, lucrative jobs, a loving relationship, or education. Victims can be women or men, children or adults, United States citizens or foreign nationals (Dandurand, 2017). While they have a common vulnerability trait, they have different socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds and educational levels and may be legal or illegal immigrants. As defined under the law of the United States, human trafficking victims are split into the following three populations: Children below the age of eighteen years forced into prostitution, adults over the age of eighteen years forced into prostitution through fraud, force, or coercion, and adults and children induced to perform services or labor through fraud, force, and coercion.

While the trafficking of humans spans every demographic, various vulnerabilities and circumstances lead to increased susceptibility to human trafficking and victimization. Homeless and runaway youths, victims of sexual assaults, domestic violence, social discrimination, or conflict and war are usually the main targets of traffickers (Dandurand, 2017). Immigrants who have paid colossal travel and recruitment fees frequently end up being much indebted to the intermediaries or the traffickers themselves. The latter manipulates and controls these people by leveraging the non-portability of several work permits and their victims’ less familiarity with rights and laws, surroundings, cultural understanding, and language fluency. The victims tend to encounter several challenges when it comes to accessing help. The perpetrators might seize money and IDs. The victims may not know how to speak the local language and might not know where they are since they have been frequently moved. Usually, they are forbidden from communicating with their friends and family. Also, they may end up having trouble trusting other people because of the traffickers’ tactics of control and manipulation.

Major Groups Or Countries Participating             

In 2017, the U.S. State Department released its report on Trafficking in Persons that indicated the worst nations for the trafficking of humans. The countries were ranked on the three-tier scale.

 Belarus
The victims of Belarusian trafficking usually remain in Russia or Belarus. The perpetrators smuggle the victims to Turkey, Poland, and different nations in the Middle East and Eurasia (Wilson, 2008). Women in Belarus who seek foreign employment in the hotel industry and adult entertainment frequently fall prey to human traffickers. The 2006 presidential decree of Belarus condemns the fathers and mothers who had their parental rights invalidated to compelled labor; the government retains seventy percent of their wages.

Central African Republic (CAR)

Most victims of human trafficking in the CAR are citizens who are exploited just within. Young women residing in urban areas are at the highest risk of being inducted into the trade of commercial sex (Wilson, 2008). Girls are coerced into marriage by traffickers and later forced into sexual slavery, domestic servitude, and international human trafficking. The International Migration office has established a campaign for community awareness for at-risk individuals and communities to improve human trafficking awareness. This program’s particular target is the returnees, IDPs, and host populations in the CAR.

China

China reemerged as one of 2017’s worst nations on the list of human trafficking, slipping to Tier 3 from Tier 2 in the TIP Report of 2017 (Wilson, 2008). In China, women, men, and children are subjected to forced sex trade and labor. The perpetrators target people with developmental disabilities, and children who had their parents leave them for the city. There also exist cases of abduction of Asian and African men to work under forced labor conditions sponsored by the state on fishing vessels.

Eritrea

Eritrea is a common country with a rating of Tier 3. Multiple Eritrean young girls and women travel to Israel, the Gulf State, South Sudan, or Sudan for domestic work. However, they instead fall victim to sex trafficking organizations (Wilson, 2008). International organized crime groups abduct the susceptible Eritreans who live in refugee camps, specifically in Sudan. Members of such organized crime groups later ship their victims to Libya and hold them captive for ransom. The Eritrean police force and military usually abet crimes of trafficking along the borders, therefore maintaining the country’s status as among the worst nations for human trafficking.

Iran

The criminal organizations in Iran are reported to subject children and women to sex trafficking both within Iran and in Afghanistan, the Iraqi Kurdistan Region (IKR), Pakistan, Europe, and the UAE (Wilson, 2008). The perpetrators target young girls aged thirteen to seventeen for trade outside Iran. Traffickers press the youngest ones into domestic labor until they are deemed old enough for use in commercial sex.

North Korea

The country holds approximately eighty thousand to one hundred and twenty thousand detainees in camps where most are charged with no crime. Without food and medical care, the prisoners end up dying, and their remains are cremated in furnaces and then dumped in a mass grave (Wilson, 2008). The oppression by the government prompts its citizens to flee, making them susceptible to human trafficking in host countries. North Korea’s camps of forced labor and the death penalty stimulate human trafficking, especially in neighboring China. Paradoxically, captured refugees are taken back to North Korea, where they experience castigatory actions such as death or labor camps.

 Russia

Between fifteen and twelve million immigrants are working in Russia under slavery conditions, in garment factory positions, as drivers of public transport, and in agriculture and construction (Wilson, 2008). Officials in Russia aid the immigrants’ entry into the country so that they can exploit them. Some officials take bribes and end up not investigating the crime of human trafficking. In general, the Russian government has failed to undertake efforts that protect victims of human trafficking.

Sudan

The law enforcement agents in Sudan are frequently involved in and gain from human trafficking organizations (Wilson, 2008). The laws of Sudan forbids child recruitment, but the youths have remained susceptible to recruitment and are used as combatants by the militias and non-governmental armed groups in Sudan. Darfur is the most favored route to Libya as the lax security and the porous border has enabled traffickers’ operation with impunity throughout the region. Sudanese border patrol and police ostensibly aid the kidnapping of Eritrean citizens and allow the transportation of the victims across the Sudanese borders without interference.

Syria

Syria’s circumstances have worsened throughout the continuous civil war with the state’s armed groups of different militias. The circumstance has continued deteriorating through the years, with differentiated beliefs exerting control over many geographic regions of Syria’s territory (Wilson, 2008). In 2014, the ISIS released strategies into the public on how they capture, detain, and sexually assault their female captives. The ISIS soldiers regularly subject girls and women from minority communities to domestic servitude, forced marriage, sexual violence, and systematic marriage. The Islamic State demands Syrian women and girls submit to what they refer to as the virginity test before selling them to “slave bazaars” and transporting them to different provinces in Syria and other nations for sex slavery. Through 2016, internally displaced citizens of Syria utilized smugglers that provided illegal passages to Europe through the Mediterranean Sea, and this put the Syrians at risk of human trafficking.

Venezuela

Among the people trafficked out of Venezuela, fifty-five percent are adults, nineteen percent are young boys, and twenty-six percent are young girls (Wilson, 2008). Enticed by promises of better-paying employment opportunities, they are instead transported to Caribbean countries, where they are forced into domestic servitude or the sex trade. Venezuela constantly ranks among the worst states involved in human trafficking as its government does little to punish or prevent this act. Strict laws surround it, but the crime’s prosecution is rare. Since 2013, only three people have been prosecuted under the Venezuelan human trafficking laws.

Employed Tactics, Weaponry, and Other Technology

The perpetrators of human trafficking use various tactics and methods to capture and move their victims. Some use personal connections and word of mouth to attract individuals who want to move abroad in search of jobs. In children’s cases, adoption procedures have been used (Gallagher, 2008). Looking particularly at the trafficking of women, recruitment takes different forms, including adverts in newspapers or via marriage bureaus. While some of the trafficked women are aware that they will be used for commercial sex business, they have no idea that they might be subjected to conditions of slavery where they will not be able to get away from the exploiters. Usually, traffickers tend to maintain subservience via passport confiscation, debt bondage, psychological and physical abuse, torture, rape, deportation and arrest threats, and threats to the family of trafficked people. Often, victims find themselves isolated from the outside world, unable to speak proper English or the local language, and lacking documentation and identification.

Law Enforcement Actions Taken To Prevent Criminal Activity

In the recent past, the government of the U.S. has committed significant resources to combat human trafficking (David, 2007). Within the massive anti-trafficking efforts, the law enforcement, trafficking sector, health professionals, prosecutors, and community members all have an essential role to play. Since the United Nations Trafficking Protocol came into force in 2003, one hundred and fifteen countries, including the U.S., have agreed to set keys of legal obligations related to human trafficking. They include criminalizing human trafficking and providing appropriate penalties, prosecuting or extraditing traffickers, active identification of victims, diligent investigation and prosecution of traffickers, and provision of proper and adequate remedies to human trafficking victims.

The Relationships Among Law Enforcement Agencies At Various Levels And Justification For Cooperative Efforts

Numerous leaders and officers of law enforcement, academic professionals, and community-based practitioners perceive the business of human trafficking as among the fastest-growing international organized crimes of the Twenty-first Century (Friesendorf, 2008). One of the promising strategies that assist global police leadership—is cross-sectoral collaboration, emphasizing the essentiality of organization in at least two sectors, for instance, agencies of law enforcement, non-profit community groups, and government organizations, among others, combining all of their resources to achieve complex societal goals that just a single organization cannot accomplish.

In the international efforts to mitigate human trafficking, it is vital to note that disregard for the lives of humans and voracious monetary greed contribute to this act (Friesendorf, 2008). The undercover nature of the human trafficking struggle contributes to what is known as the dark figure of crime — a phrase at times used by practitioners of criminal justice in describing crimes that are not discovered by the enforcement of law and, therefore, remain unknown due to its difficulty in determining the precise amount of money earned. Irrespective of the geographic location, most law enforcement agencies are disadvantaged regarding the knowledge and training of issues in human trafficking, especially at the local level, in which the patrol officers are likely to be the first to come across victims and traffickers (Friesendorf, 2008). One major proposal focuses on the organization of police globally by combining forces, communicating openly, sharing intelligence, and cooperating in both large and small scale organization. Equally essential, law enforcement leadership should collaborate with non-governmental agencies specializing in the care, identification, and victim protection and human trafficking prevention.

The Impact Of Technology On Criminal And Law Enforcement Activities

It is not possible to stop the progress of technological advancement or to even stop the wave of its propagation globally. Doing so would be a considerable loss to most people who legally benefit from its use (Chan, 2001). In the fight against international organized crime that is often enhanced by technology use, instead of suppressing technology, it is necessary to control its potential to interfere with organized acts of criminality and to combat human trafficking as well as to assist the victims. There exist many instances around the globe. Cooperation is a significant factor in investigating, interrupting, and prosecuting traffickers, and this is essential, especially now with globalized technology globalization. The transnational mobility of perpetrators and their use of advanced technology has made it necessary for judicial authorities and law enforcers to coordinate their responses to follow criminals and crimes across various borders.

Use of Undercover Informants Or Prior Traffickers Or Terrorists

In the investigation of human trafficking, the informants provide details about the nature and structure of the respective criminal organization, the location where the victims are being held captive, when and where the victims are transported, the human trafficking money trail, and other matters that relate to the crime (Kyle, 2011). Many people are involved in the trafficking process. The networks are usually big, and traffickers come into contact with numerous people, and each can be a potential informant. Special consideration is provided to the usage of each type of informant. Some informants can provide details from within the trafficking ring and are given the precise task of getting specific info that can be provided cost-effectively and efficiently. However, in using informants, the safety of the informant must be considered. Protecting their identity is also an essential factor (Kyle, 2011). The selection and use of informants also must consider the motives for providing the information to law enforcement: some of those motives might be unlawful, unethical, or prejudicial to the operations of the law enforcers. Some motives might lead to invalidating the information provided in the courts, undermining the prospects of successful prosecutions. The informants’ use should comply with the nation’s laws.

References

Chan, J. B. (2001). The technological game: How information technology is transforming police practice. Criminal Justice, 1(2), 139-159.

Dandurand, Y. (2017). Human trafficking and police governance. Police Practice and Research, 18(3), 322-336.

David, F. (2007). Law enforcement responses to trafficking in persons: challenges and emerging good practice. Trends & Issues in Crime & Criminal Justice, (347).

Feingold, D. A. (2005). Human trafficking. Foreign Policy, 26-32.

Friesendorf, C. (2009). Strategies against human trafficking: The role of the security sector. Study Group Information.

Gallagher, A., & Holmes, P. (2008). Developing an effective criminal justice response to human trafficking: Lessons from the front line. International criminal justice review, 18(3), 318-343.

Kyle, D., & Koslowski, R. (Eds.). (2011). Global human smuggling: Comparative Perspectives. JHU Press.

Orhant, M. (2002). Trafficking in persons: myths methods and human rights.

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. (2014). Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, 2014. UN.

Wilson, J. M., & Dalton, E. (2008). Human trafficking in the heartland: Variation in law enforcement awareness and response. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 24(3), 296-313.

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Human Trafficking

Week 7 – Assignment: Evaluate Current Law Enforcement Concerns

In this course, you have reviewed several important and current issues in law enforcement. However, the list of current issues is longer than that covered so far. Select a topic from the following list, and then prepare a portfolio assignment that compares and contrasts the major factors you identify as applicable within the issue.

Current issues list:

• Terrorism
• Human trafficking
• The drug trade
• Identity theft or another Internet-related crime
  

  Human Trafficking

At a minimum, your portfolio assignment should analyze, describe, and critique:

• The participants, victims, causes, geographic region(s) affected,
• Applicable transportation routes,
• Major groups or countries participating,
• Employed tactics, weaponry, and other technology,
• Law enforcement actions taken to prevent the criminal activity,
• The relationships among law enforcement agencies at various levels and justification for cooperative efforts,
• The impact of technology on criminal and law enforcement activities,
• Use of undercover informants or prior traffickers or terrorists.

Support your portfolio assignment with at least five scholarly or professional resources. In addition to these specified resources, other appropriate scholarly resources, including older articles, may be included.

Length: 10-12 pages, not including title and reference pages

Your paper should demonstrate thoughtful consideration of the ideas and concepts presented in the course by providing new thoughts and insights relating directly to this topic. Your response should reflect scholarly writing and current APA standards.