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The trafficking of human beings
is the recruitment, transportation, harbouring,
or receipt of people for the purpose of exploitation.
It is estimated to be a $5 to $9 billion-a-year
industry.Trafficking victims typically are recruited
using coercion, deception, fraud, the abuse of
power, or outright abduction. Threats, violence,
and economic leverage can often make a victim
consent to exploitation.
Exploitation includes forcing people into prostitution
or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced
labour or services, slavery or practices similar
to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.
For children exploitation may also include forced
prostitution, illicit international adoption,
trafficking for early marriage, or recruitment
as child soldiers, beggars, for sports (such as
child camel jockeys or football players), or for
religious cults.
Human trafficking differs from people smuggling.
In the latter, people voluntarily request smuggler's
service for fees and there may be no deception involved
in the (illegal) agreement. On arrival at their
destination, the smuggled person is usually free.
On the other hand, the trafficking victim is enslaved,
or the terms of their debt bondage are fraudulent
or highly exploitative. The trafficker takes away
the basic human rights of the victim.
Victims are sometimes tricked and lured by false
promises or physically forced. Some traffickers
use coercive and manipulative tactics including
deception, intimidation, feigned love, isolation,
threat and use of physical force, debt bondage,
other abuse, or even force-feeding with drugs
to control their victims.
People who are seeking entry to other countries
may be picked up by traffickers, and misled into
thinking that they will be free after being smuggled
across the border. In some cases, they are captured
through slave raiding, although this is increasingly
rare.
Trafficking is fairly lucrative industry. In
some areas, like Russia, Eastern Europe, Hong
Kong, Japan, and Colombia, trafficking is controlled
by large, powerful organizations. However, the
majority of trafficking is done by networks of
smaller groups that each specialize in a certain
area, like recruitment, transportation, advertising,
or retail. This is very profitable because little
startup capital is needed, and prosecution is
relatively rare.
Trafficked people are usually the most vulnerable
and powerless minorities in a region. They often
come from the poorer areas where opportunities
are limited, they often are ethnic minorities,
and they often are displaced persons such as runaways
or refugees (though they may come from any social
background, class or race).
Trafficking of children often involves exploitation
of the parents' extreme poverty. The latter may
sell children to traffickers in order to pay off
debts or gain income or they may be deceived concerning
the prospects of training and a better life for
their children. In West Africa, trafficked children
have often lost one or both parents to the African
AIDS crisis.
The adoption process, legal and illegal, results
in cases of trafficking of babies and pregnant
women between the West and the developing world.
In David M. Smolin’s papers on child trafficking
and adoption scandals between India and the United
States,he cites there are systemic vulnerabilities
in the intercountry adoption system that makes
adoption scandals predictable.
Women, who form over 80% of trafficking victims,
are particularly at risk to become involved in
sex trafficking. Potential kidnappers exploit
lack of opportunities, promise good jobs or opportunities
for study, and then force the victims to become
prostitutes, participate in pornography[citation
needed] or escort services. Through agents and
brokers who arrange the travel and job placements,
women are escorted to their destinations and delivered
to the employers. Upon reaching their destinations,
some women learn that they have been deceived
about the nature of the work they will do; most
have been lied to about the financial arrangements
and conditions of their employment; and all find
themselves in coercive and abusive situations
from which escape is both difficult and dangerous.
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