Human trafficking

Globally, millions of individuals, including women, men, and children, are estimated to be victims of human trafficking, enduring forced labor, sexual exploitation, and other forms of abuse.

Countries in Africa and in Asia generally intercept more cases of trafficking for forced labour, while sexual exploitation is somewhat more frequently found in Europe and in the Americas.

)[36] Child labour is a form of work that may be hazardous to the physical, mental, spiritual, moral, or social development of children and can interfere with their education.

They may sell their children into labour, sex trafficking, or illegal adoptions, although scholars have urged a nuanced understanding and approach to the issue - one that looks at broader socio-economic and political contexts.

[61] Labour trafficking happens most often within the domain of domestic work, agriculture, construction, manufacturing and entertainment; and migrant workers and indigenous people are especially at risk of becoming victims.

A complex set of factors fuel human trafficking, including poverty, unemployment, social norms that discriminate against women, institutional challenges, and globalization.

By reforming their internal donation system, Iran achieved a surplus of legal donors and provides an instructive model for eliminating both organ trafficking and shortage.

Researchers analyzed the most salient terms in these online ads, which suggested that many escorts were traveling across state lines to Dallas specifically for the Super Bowl, and found that the self-reported ages were higher than usual.

For example, the sex workers union DMSC (Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee) in Kolkata, India, has "self-regulatory boards" (SRBs) that patrol the red light districts and assist girls who are underage or trafficked.

The Protocol requires State Parties not only to enact measures that prevent human trafficking but also to address the factors that exacerbate women and children's vulnerability, including "poverty, underdevelopment and lack of equal opportunity.

[106] During this time the victim often begins to feel the onset of depression, guilt and self-blame, anger and rage, and sleep disturbances, PTSD, numbing, and extreme stress.

Complex trauma involves multifaceted conditions of depression, anxiety, self-hatred, dissociation, substance abuse, self-destructive behaviors, medical and somatic concerns, despair, and revictimization.

[116] Perpetrators frequently use substance abuse as a means to control their victims, which leads to compromised health, self-destructive behavior, and long-term physical harm.

[119] Victims experience severe trauma on a daily basis that devastates the healthy development of self-concept, self-worth, biological integrity, and cognitive functioning.

Fair competition may be undermined when human trafficking victims are exploited for cheap labour, driving down production costs, thereby indirectly causing a negative economic imbalance.

[133] In early 2016, the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the United Nations held an interactive discussion entitled "Responding to Current Challenges in Trafficking in Human Beings".

[136] The Blue Campaign is another anti-trafficking initiative that works with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to combat human trafficking and bring freedom to exploited victims.

The 2006 armed conflict in Lebanon, which saw 300,000 domestic workers from Sri Lanka, Ethiopia and the Philippines jobless and targets of traffickers, led to an emergency information campaign with NGO Caritas Migrant to raise human-trafficking awareness.

Continuing into 2007, UNODC supported initiatives like the Community Vigilance project along the border between India and Nepal, as well as provided subsidy for NGO trafficking prevention campaigns in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia.

The official statement explained that the objective of the on-line resource is for the "sharing of information across all stakeholders, States/UTs [Union Territories] and civil society organizations for effective implementation of Anti Human Trafficking measures.

According to a former Wall Street Journal columnist, figures used in human trafficking estimates rarely have identifiable sources or transparent methodologies behind them and in most (if not all) instances, they are mere guesses.

As Quirk, Robinson, and Thibos write, "It is not always possible to sharply separate human trafficking from everyday abuses, and problems arise when the former is singled out while the latter is pushed to the margins.

"[185] O'Connell Davidson too argues that the lines between the crimes of human trafficking/modern slavery and the legally sanctioned exploitation of migrants (such as lower wages or restrictions on freedom of movement and employment) is blurry.

[187] These negative impacts include various restrictions on women's right to migrate and undertake certain jobs,[188][189] suspicion and harassment at international borders of women travelling alone,[190] raids at sex work venues and detention, fines and harassment of sex workers (see below section on the use of raids), assistance to trafficked persons made conditional on their cooperation with law enforcement and forced confinement of trafficked persons in shelters, and many more.

Law enforcement perceive some benefits from raids, including the ability to locate and identify witnesses for legal processes, to dismantle "criminal networks", and to rescue victims from abuse.

[203] Scholars Aziza Ahmed and Meena Seshu suggest reforms in law enforcement procedures so that raids are last resort, not violent, and are transparent in its purposes and processes.

[208][209][210] Third-wave feminist perspective of sex trafficking is loosely related to Amartya Sen's and Martha Nussbaum's visions of the human capabilities approach to development.

One feminist group, led by the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, saw trafficking as the result of globalisation and restrictive labour migration policies, with force, fraud and coercion as its defining features.

Eventually, both were only partially successful;[211][212] however, scholars have noted that this rift between feminist organisations led to the extremely weak and voluntary victim protection provisions of the Protocol.

It is generally regarded by feminists that various social norms contribute to women's inferior position and lack of agency and knowledge, thus making them vulnerable to exploitation such as sex trafficking.