What We Know About Trafficking Overseas and At Home, and What We Can Do About It
Oftentimes when met with a global issue — human trafficking, for example — opponents of transnational aid and advocacy will cite the same problem running rampant in their own country. Why allocate resources to fight inequalities and injustice overseas, they ask, when it’s right here at home? One common and well meaning, but deeply problematic, answer to this question is that when we allow issues abroad to escalate and multiply, we’re allowing them to spread to our own country’s borders.
The truth?
Photo by Benjamin Sow on Unsplash
We shouldn’t be fighting global trafficking because it might “spread” to the United States, or because proliferating cases abroad will influence activity in our own country. While human trafficking is an issue within the US, it is also an issue globally. We should be fighting trafficking overseas because, plainly put, human beings deserve to live autonomously and with dignity regardless of country of origin.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) firmly posits that although trafficking seems to imply people moving across continents, most exploitation takes place close to home, with data showing intra-regional and domestic trafficking as the major forms of trafficking in persons. This very well debunks the claim that trafficking is an issue only when it comes to our country’s doorstep. It’s a mounting issue here in the U.S., but it’s also one in (according to the Migration Data Portal) another 163 countries spanning 175 nationalities. As of 2017, the International Labor Organization has estimated that at any given time, 24.9 million people are in forced labor, bonded labor, forced child labor, sexual servitude and involuntary servitude. The International Justice Mission has estimated that trafficking, a now multibillion-dollar industry, generates $150B USD annually.
UNODC, furthermore, argues that the profile of trafficking victims changes widely in different parts of the world. Of the 22,326 victims and survivors identified in the U.S. in 2019, the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline has found that 14,597 were victims of sex trafficking, 4,934 of labor trafficking, 1,048 of sex and labor trafficking, and 1,747 not specified. Age at the time trafficking began ranged from 1,435 at the time of adulthood, 5,359 while still minors and 15,532 unknown. The gender ratio recorded 15,222 female identifying victims, 3,003 male identifying victims, 135 gender minorities and 3,966 unknown. Of the victims and survivors identified, 1,388 were U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents, 4,601 were foreign nationals and 16,332 were unknown. As of 2016, UNODC estimated that globally, 51% of identified victims were women, 28% children and 21% men, with 43% of victims having been trafficked domestically within national borders. Though the UNODC reports that North America, Europe and countries in Asia recorded more adult women among victims detected as of 2020, demographics vary from region to region, country to country, continent to continent. Countries in North Africa and the Middle East detected more adult men than other victims; countries in Sub-Saharan Africa detected more children than adults; in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, the shares of adults among total victims were much greater in comparison to other parts of the world.
Fact of the matter is that trafficking is the fastest growing criminal industry in the world and regardless of varying global profiles, its goal is the same: to disregard human dignity and use human beings to service an industry for personal profit.
The statement that trafficking can happen to anyone is true. However, when we take this platitude too literally, we disregard the major underlying factors of vulnerability found in systemic inequities across the globe. Raising awareness, pursuing criminal justice and arresting traffickers is a start, but to end human trafficking, we must address its root causes including poverty, houselessness, unlivable wages, lack of access to health care, misogyny and racism. Some of the greatest root causes entail intergenerational trauma, historic oppression and systemic inequity that lead to vulnerabilities such as unstable living conditions, caregivers or family members with substance abuse issues and/or involvement in the juvenile justice or foster care system.
In reality, vulnerable people are often forced to take unimaginable risks to try and escape poverty, abuse or persecution, leading them into the arms of their trafficker. We need to do better to address the root causes — ones that remain largely the same across the world. Thinking of trafficking victims as an “out of sight, out of mind” issue doesn’t work here in the U.S., and it shouldn’t work when it comes to human beings overseas.
About the Author
Mckayla Yoo is a proud resident of the Jersey Shore getting her History and English degrees in Massachusetts. A lover of slow fashion, she believes in conscious consumer choices and the five R's. In her free time, you can find her researching cold case mysteries and perfecting the art of iced coffee.