Slavery

Read Robert Friedman's powerful account of sexual slavery in India in The Nation

There are more slaves in the world today than at any other time in history. While precise numbers are hard to ascertain, the International Labor Organization estimates that at least 12.3 million people worldwide—the population of the state of Pennsylvania—are victims of human trafficking.1 These modern day slaves are exploited in many ways, including the commercial sex industry, as forced laborers and servants, or as child soldiers and child sex workers.2 Estimates suggest that annual profits from human trafficking range between $9 billion and $32 billion.3

The following chart, developed by the Solidarity Center, illustrates the United Nations' definition of human trafficking. One item from each must be present for a case to be considered human trafficking.

Human Trafficking Is:4

The emphasis in determining cases of human trafficking is placed on exploitation rather than movement, meaning that a "trafficked" person does not have to be transported at all—he or she need only be exploited for another's gain.5  This exploitation can take a variety of forms, including forced labor, bonded labor (labor that stems from the exploitation of debt), debt bondage and involuntary servitude among migrant workers, involuntary domestic servitude, forced child labor, child soldiers, sex trafficking and prostitution, children exploited for commercial sex, and child sex tourism.6

Who are the Victims of Human Trafficking?

Victims of human trafficking come from every country, ethnicity, and social class. They become slaves after being kidnapped, intimidated, deceived, enticed, or, simply, born into bondage. People who choose or are forced to move in search of a better economic situation are often those at greatest risk of falling prey to human traffickers.7  Estimates suggest that 80% of the victims of transnational human trafficking worldwide are female, and half are minors.8  Often, these women and girls are forced to work in domestic servitude (where many are sexually and physically abused), in the commercial sex industry, or both. While the number of slaves in the US is hard to estimate, it is believed that 17,500 new slaves enter into bondage in the US each year.9

In a January 3, 2009 editorial in the New York Times entitled If This Isn't Slavery, What Is?, Nicholas Kristof writes:

Anyone who thinks it is hyperbole to describe sex trafficking as slavery should look at the maimed face of a teenage girl, Long Pross. Glance at Pross from her left, and she looks like a normal, fun-loving girl, with a pretty face and a joyous smile. Then move around, and you see where her brothel owner gouged out her right eye.... Pross was 13 and hadn’t even had her first period when a young woman kidnapped her and sold her to a brothel in Phnom Penh [Cambodia]. The brothel owner...beat Pross and tortured her with electric current until finally the girl acquiesced. She was kept locked deep inside the brothel, her hands tied behind her back at all times except when with customers. Brothel owners can charge large sums for sex with a virgin, and like many girls, Pross was painfully stitched up so she could be resold as a virgin. In all, the brothel owner sold her virginity four times.10

In an article from Foreign Policy, Author E. Benjamin Skinner, describes the life of Gonoo Lal Kol, who remains in debt bondage in northern India although Indian laws ban such customs. Skinner writes, "The seed of Gonoo's slavery was a loan of 62 cents. In 1958, his grandfather borrowed that amount from the owner of a farm where he worked. Three generations and three slave masters later, Gonoo's family remains in bondage." Gonoo and his family work fourteen hours a day at a quarry, working off a debt that accrues interest at over 100-percent annually.11

John R. Miller, US ambassador at large on modern day slavery from 2004-2006, recounts a conversation he had with a victim of trafficking:

In an Amsterdam hospital I encountered Katya, who recalled how, as a Czech teenager with a disintegrating marriage and a two-year-old daughter, she was told by a “friend of the family” that she could make good money waiting on tables in Amsterdam. A Czech trafficker drove Katya and four other girls to the Netherlands, where he linked up with a Dutch counterpart. After they took the girls’ passports for “safekeeping,” the men drove Katya to a brothel in Amsterdam’s red-light district. When Katya said that she had come to work in a restaurant, she was told that she owed the traffickers thousands of euros for transporting her across Europe. When Katya continued to resist, she was told she must do the men’s bidding if she hoped to see her daughter alive. She was freed only after several years, through the efforts of a friendly taxi driver who enlisted a gang to intimidate her captors.12

Effects on the Victims and Countries

In addition to being deprived of their freedoms and basic human rights, trafficking victims' sense of self and worth are destroyed.13  Victims are often raped, beaten, and dehumanized. Exploiters often instill in victims a mistrust of law enforcement and social services officers.14  Those who have been abused sexually or who are forced into prostitution are at high risk of becoming infected with sexually transmitted diseases like HIV/AIDS.15  Victims can even be so traumatized that they become dependent on those who exploit them. As former ambassador Miller writes:

...Susan, an African-American woman in her twenties...had been terrorized since her teens by her Minneapolis pimp. He exerted such control over her that she didn’t know how to buy groceries, take a bus, or interact with people outside “the business.”16

In these cases, as Taina Bien-Aimee, the executive director for Equality Now, says, "No locks, chains or guns are needed to maintain a psychologically broken and abused victim in a state of servitude.”17 When seeking rescue or release from their bondage, victims often face criminal charges and deportation, which can lead to additional charges in their home countries.18 Also, when victims' families and loved ones threatened with retaliation, there is little reason for victims to cooperate with law enforcement officials.19

Recent data shows that countries that have a high prevalence of people trafficked into commercial sex also have a high prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS.20 In addition to straining health systems, human trafficking can also undermine the safety and security of nations by making use of corrupt officials and making borders porous.

The State Department's Trafficking in Persons Report, 2008

In its 2008 Trafficking in Persons Report, the State Department evaluates how 180 countries' combat human trafficking. The report notes the extent to which each country is a source or destination country of trafficked people, as well as how each punishes traffickers, protects victims, and prevents trafficking from occurring. Among the countries having the poorest rating are North Korea, where destitute men and women are lured into China and fall into slavery schemes. The report also typifies Saudi Arabia as a destination country for men and women trafficked for the purposes of involuntary servitude and commercial sexual exploitation.21 The full report can be found at: http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2008/.

United States Legislation

The State Department recognizes the US as a destination country for sexual and labor exploitation, and notes that an unknown number of people are trafficked domestically.22 In 2000, the US introduced the Trafficking in Persons Prevention Act (TVPA); however, there has been no decline in trafficking in the US since the TVPA was introduced.23 In fact, only 70 cases, out of more than a thousand, were successfully prosecuted between 2000 and 2006.24 Human Trafficking advocate Jessica Neuwirth states that the "force, fraud, or coercion" requirement in the TVPA is very difficult to prove, and, therefore, can only be used in the most severe cases. She writes, "[This] requirement poses a significant burden on victims, who are often reluctant to testify for a number of reasons, in