Human Trafficking: Skin removal and online porn the latest crimes

Next Monday, the United Nations marks the World Day against Trafficking in Persons – a crime that exploits women, children and men for numerous purposes including forced labour and sex.   

According to the UN, the International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that about 21 million people are victims of forced labour globally. This estimate includes victims of human trafficking for labour and sexual exploitation. While it is not known how many of these victims were trafficked, the estimate implies that currently there are millions of victims in the world. Every country in the world is affected by human trafficking, whether as a country of origin, transit or destination for victims. Children make up almost a third of all human trafficking victims worldwide, according to a UN global report. Additionally, women and girls comprise 71% among victims of human trafficking.  

The UN General Assembly has adopted a global plan of action to combat trafficking in persons. It urged member States to take coordinated and consistent measures to defeat this scourge. The Plan calls for integrating the fight against human trafficking into the UN’s broader programmes to boost development and strengthen security worldwide.   

The UN says, in the coming years it aims to prioritize victims coming from a context of armed conflict and those identified among large refugee and migration flows. It will also focus attention on victims trafficked for sexual exploitation, organ removal, forced begging, forced criminality and emerging exploitative purposes including skin removal and online pornography. How cruel. Indeed we remember the words of Shakespeare,“O! Judgment thou art fled to brutish beasts and people have lost their reason.” In 2013, the General Assembly held a high-level meeting to appraise the Global Plan of Action. Member States also adopted a resolution and designated July 30 as the World Day against Trafficking in Persons. This resolution declared that such a day was necessary to raise awareness of the situation of victims of human trafficking and for the promotion and protection of their rights.  

In September 2015, the world adopted the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda and embraced goals and targets on trafficking in persons. These goals call for an end to trafficking, violence against children and the need for measures against human trafficking. The goals call for the elimination of all forms of violence against and the exploitation of women and girls.  

This year, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has chosen ‘responding to the trafficking of children and young people’ as the focus of the World Day. This year’s campaign highlights that almost a third of trafficking victims are children. The theme draws attention to the issues faced by trafficked children and to possible action initiatives linked to safeguarding and ensuring justice for child victims.  

In a major initiative recently, Pope Francis called on all world religions to come together in a battle to defeat this scourge of human trafficking. This came after the Pope held a summit of world religious leaders to identify issues where they could work together. These include poverty alleviation, the battle against climate change and a campaign against nuclear weapons because the United States and Russia are today known to have thousands of smart nuclear weapons some 50,000 times as powerful as the atom bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.   

According to the UN, trafficking in persons was a serious issue in Sri Lanka during the war. There were a variety of factors which contributed to the vulnerability of children, increasing the possibility of them being trafficked, including displacement caused by the armed conflict, the devastating effects of the 2004 tsunami, domestic violence and loss of traditional family structures due to increasing female labour migration.  

The crisis now may not be so serious, but the government needs to intensify its battle against this crime. Yesterday, the US announced it was giving 183 million rupees ($1.2 million) to counter trafficking in persons in Sri Lanka over the next three years. The funds will be used to directly assist Sri Lankan men, women and children who are at risk and those who are victims of human trafficking at national or grassroots level.