Human Trafficking: Are We Our Brother’s Keeper?

By Nasia Sheikh, Asfar Khan, Austin Mardon and 3 more

Human trafficking has become a global pandemic which affects millions of people worldwide. People of all ages and backgrounds can be potential victims of exploitation and modern enslavement.

Why do criminal organizations traffic human beings and how it has become such an extremely lucrative global industry?

This book will teach you to identify the signs of human trafficking and the methods you can embrace as an individual in trying to help slow the vicious cycle of exploitation and abuse of humans in society.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jun 22, 2019
• ISBN: 9780359720231

Book preview

Human Trafficking: Are We Our Brother’s Keeper?

Title: Human Trafficking: Are We Our Brother’s Keeper?

by Austin Mardon, Ravdeep Judge, Asfar Khan, Nasia Sheikh, Lucas Tombrowski, and Catherine Mardon

© 2019 copyright by Golden Meteorite Press.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency

(Access Copyright).

For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca

or call: 1-(800)-893- 5777.

Design and Layout by Milo Knauer

Published by Golden Meteorite Press.

Suite 103, 11919-82 Street NW,

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

T5B 2W4

Telephone: [phone]

Email: [e-mail]

Website: www.austinmardon.org

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Austin Mardon et al., author

Human Trafficking: Are We Our Brother’s Keeper?

ISBN 978-0-359-7202 3-1 (epub)

Introduction

Human trafficking, as it stands today, is a global pandemic which affects millions of people worldwide. The United Nations condemns human trafficking as a violation of human rights and requires that nations in the UN pass legislation criminalizing human trafficking. Even though human trafficking is criminalized and condemned worldwide, it is still present in virtually every country on Earth. Current estimates state that approximately 21 million people are currently victims of human trafficking. Of these victims, roughly 51% are women. Men make up about 21%, girls 20%, and boys 8%. Victims of human trafficking are subjected to forced marriage, rape, sexual abuse, physical abuse, mental abuse, forced labour, and more.

Most people are not aware of the extent of modern human trafficking. The very idea of such large and pervasive global networks of people exploiting and abusing millions of men, women, and children seems unbelievable. It feels like something which should have been stopped centuries ago. And yet, it still exists to this day. The lack of general awareness of the extent of modern human trafficking is part of why it is still so prevalent. The very first step to stopping human trafficking is preventing people from becoming victims of it in the first place. People must learn to recognize the signs which indicate that a person is at risk of becoming a victim. Women, children, minorities, and migrants are all disproportionately likely to be victimized. For example, in Canada, Aboriginal women and migrant women are at risk of human trafficking. Later in this book, we will discuss additional indicators and warning signs. Another factor which affects the low public awareness of human trafficking is the varying forms of which it can take. The only information one can glean from the term human trafficking alone is that it involves the movement of people. For what purposes do criminal organizations move these people? We will discuss in this book exactly why criminal organizations traffic human beings, and how it has become an extremely lucrative global industry.

The causes of human trafficking are complex and multi-sided. There is no one simple answer for how to stop human trafficking, and as society continues to change and technology continues to advance, so to will criminal organizations adapt. Right now, the human trafficking industry shows no signs of slowing its growth. However, it is our hope that this book will help raise awareness not only of modern human trafficking, but also its roots in slavery and forced labour in the past.

History of Human Bondage

Debt Slavery

The term debt bondage or bonded labour refers to the use of labour as a means of repaying debt, where the creditor does not intend to ever release the debtor from their obligation, and thus is able to exercise a great deal of control over the debtor. Debt bondage is different from other forms of slavery in that a person will consciously agree to work to repay their outstanding debts. However, this is still a form of forced labour, since deciding not to enter bonded labour would mean facing the consequences of being unable to repay their debt. The key aspect of debt bondage is the impossibility of ever fully repaying the debt. If a person is in a situation where they will eventually be able to repay their debt, they are not in true debt bondage. A creditor will ensure that the debtor will never be able to stop working through various means, such as:

· Purposefully ambiguous or non-existent contracts or terms of repayment

· Illegally increasing the rate at which interest accrues on the debt

· Heaping additional charges on the debtor for arbitrary reasons (e.g. not working hard enough)

· Lowering the rate at which the debtor is repaying their debt

If a debtor dies or is unable to continue working, their debt is often passed on to their children.

Debt bondage has been present throughout much of human history. In ancient Greece, debt bondage was very common, and at one point was more fashionable than actual enslavement. Similarly, in the ancient Roman Republic, a person could enter into a nexum contract in order to pay off a debt. In theory, this system worked similarly to indentured servitude, in that the debtor agrees to work as a slave (nexus) for an agreed-upon period of time. Despite retaining their state as Roman citizens, people under nexum contracts would be subject to much of the same brutal treatment as slaves. In 326 BC, the practice was abolished in order to prevent the physical abuse of Roman citizens. In the same time as the Atlantic slave trade, slavery still ran rampant on the interior of Africa, often in the form of debt bondage. Demand for able-bodied male slaves in European colonies was high, so a large population of female and child slaves was created as a result. After the Atlantic slave trade ended and slaves were finally emancipated, discrimination made it very difficult for freed Africans to find new work. This led to many freed slaves turning to bonded labour as a means of employment and essentially becoming re-enslaved.

Currently, debt bondage is the most common form of slavery in the world. In 2017, the International Labour Organization (ILO) released a report on forced labour and forced marriage. In it, the ILO estimated that: debt bondage affected half of all victims of forced labour imposed by private actors. The report estimated that in 2016 there were sixteen million victims of forced labour in the private economy, meaning over eight million people in the world are victims of debt bondage. This number does not include victims of debt bondage imposed by non-private actors, such as state authorities. According to the ILO, debt bondage is most prevalent in South Asian countries such as India, Nepal, and Pakistan, and it is also a major issue in parts of Africa and Latin America. In 2011, anti-human trafficking advocate Siddharth Kara stated, Bonded labour is a relic of history that should have long ago been eliminated from South Asia, but greed, corruption, and government ineffectiveness allow this caustic mode of exploitation to persist well into modern times. In order to ensure basic human rights, guarantee untainted global supply chains, and protect international security, the forces that promote bonded labour must be tackled immediately.

There are many factors which can contribute to the increased prevalence of debt bondage within a region. Widespread poverty means more people are likely to turn to bonded labour as a means of repaying debt. If a person is illiterate, it is significantly easier for a debtor to exploit and deceive them. Thus, areas where illiteracy is a problem can see increased