samedi 2 mai 2009

How much are you worth?..

One of the most despicable things that's been going on since the human race has been walking on the surface of this planet is human trafficking. 

For those who wouldn't know what that is, here is a quote from the Amnesty International website :

"Trafficking of Persons: Amnesty International Fact Sheet
Trafficking is modern day slave trading. It involves transporting people away from the communities they live in by the threat or use of violence, deception or coercion so they can be exploited as forced or enslaved workers. When children are trafficked, no violence, deception or coercion needs to be involved: simply transporting them into exploitative conditions constitutes trafficking."

(Taken from here)

So as you can see, my fellow readers, human trafficking is no more than slavery, with just a slighter glamorous way of saying it. 

And the one who thinks that we, in the modern occidental countries, are far, far away from human trafficking and that it does not exist in our world, is far, far away from the truth. The fact is that human trafficking is at at our door. I would even say an important part of human trafficking is headed towards our countries. We've got the money, after all. 

Here is how it usually works in most of the cases. 
(For those who wanted to get away from their homeland...)

Take a country, a poor one. Pick a person who already struggles for life in his poor country. How wouldn't that person want to escape from misery and to move to a land where there is plenty of money (even with the crisis going on)?

So that person is becoming desperate to live in such conditions, which is quite normal. And that person thinks of the west world like a world where there are lots of opportunities. The person contacts or is contacted by someone who says he or she can do something for her, let's call that person the smuggler. 
Well, the smuggler promises the smuggled that he or she will be granted a job and a place to stay and that the smuggled will have enough money to support his/her family who stays in the smuggled's homeland. Who wouldn't accept to swap a bad situation with a good one?

Full of hope, the smuggled accepts. And that is when the nightmare begins. In the first place, the smuggled pays a fortune to be sent away (or to send away his/her child) : either the smuggled pays in advance, either he/she accepts to work for the smuggler under what's to be a short time but reveals itself to be an endless time. 
When arrived in the promised land (if the smuggled reaches the land in question... How many die during the travel?..), many are kept emprisoned. He or she can be sold as a piece of meat would be. Or he can work for the smuggler. 

What happens when arrived?

If they are women : they can be sold as slaves to families who exploit them as housekeepers. Living in conditions one wouldn't even want for an animal. Or worse : be forced to prostitution or sexually abused, if sold as sexual objects.
If they are men : they can become illegal workers. In what appears to be a small proportion, be forced to prostitution.
If they are children : become the same thing as adults. Prostitutes, illegal workers, sexual objects. Some are sold to adoptive parents (those might be the lucky ones, you might think. What if you were taken away from your family?..). 

The smuggled is taken away his papers, if he has any. He is considered as nothing more than an object and is denied the most elementary human rights.

Fucked up...

In a way, we are responsible for the situation. We don't do much to stop it. We just close our eyes and think that it doesn't happen in our little western paradise. 
But it is hard to fight something so discreet as human trafficking : the smugglers know how to hide from authorities and the smuggled are afraid to come under the spotlights and get sent back to their homeland, meaning going back to a situation that may be worse the the one they are in now...
 
Estimations are hard to find and most of them are said to be questionable. A 2006 U.S.  estimation numbered the trafficked between 600,000 and 800,000 (have a look here to read the report).

It may be hard to fight but, yet,  there has to be a solution. Somewhere. Somehow.

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