If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.

Abraham Lincoln

Even though slavery was officially globally abolished by the end of the 19^th century,  close to 50 million people, many of which are women and children, are effectively experiencing some forms of modern slavery. With these figures constantly being in the rise, this article is about raising awareness of young people about modern slavery and its consequences, and about prevention and fight against it.

Human trafficking: modern slavery

Human trafficking is a major social issue. Human bodies and labour are used in the cruellest ways possible during human trafficking, and the victims’ fundamental human rights are also abused. Human trafficking can affect everyone, regardless of their age, gender, religion, level of education, or social standing. Individuals are the focus of traffickers. They frequently have connections to criminal organizations that orchestrate human trafficking for purposes such as forced labour, forced domestic employment, slavery, sexual exploitation, and organ harvesting. A generic word used to describe many forms of compulsion and exploitation in which a person is unable to refuse or flee owing to threats, violence, deception, or misuse of authority is called “slavery” or “modern slavery.”

Statistics

The story of human trafficking is one of staggering proportions. According to the most recent data available today, there are roughly 45.8 million individuals worldwide who are ensnared in the trap of modern slavery, with the number of victims growing every year. 10 million children, 15.4 million people who are forced into marriage, and 4.8 million people who are subjected to forced sexual exploitation are all included. In low-income nations, children make up to half of the victims of human trafficking, with the majority of them being transported for forced labour. Children make up to one in every three victims of human trafficking globally. Boys and girls are both at risk of being trafficked. However, girls are disproportionately the targets of gender inequity and violence against women, and they must cope with these issues for the rest of their lives.

Who are usually victims of human trafficking?

Human trafficking can affect anyone, regardless of race, nationality, gender, age, or socioeconomic standing. However, some groups are more likely to be the targets of traffickers and fall victim to abusive circumstances. People who are weak – and, hence, easy to take advantage of – are sought after by traffickers.

The following are the main societal and individual causes or risk factors that make persons susceptible to human trafficking:

• Political Instability

War, civil unrest, political upheaval, violence, lawlessness, and natural calamities can lead to unstable environments where individuals may have little options for surviving or making a living and may live in constant terror. Children might be uprooted from their family, without parents or other adult guardians to look out for them and provide guidance. People may be driven to leave their homes in pursuit of safer or more stable communities as a result of political instability. Instead, people might find themselves without their traditional family and social networks, homeless or living in temporary settlements, without a job, or despised by their new society. Traffickers profit from these hopeless conditions.

• Gender Inequality

The difference in opportunities between men and women based on gender is known as gender inequality. Women are often viewed as inferior to men in many cultures, earning less money for doing the same job, enjoying fewer rights, having less access to health care, higher education, and property, and being expected to submit to men. As a result, they are more open to being targeted by human traffickers.

• Poverty

Despair is a result of poverty. Traffickers especially target underprivileged and marginalized groups in an effort to provide vulnerable people with the false hope that their situation would change. To support themselves and their family, these people are more prone to take bigger risks. Indigenous populations are frequently marginalized, which may make them more susceptible to being recruited by traffickers.

•  Online Vulnerability

Traffickers keep a presence online to entice helpless adults and children so they may meet them in person, take and share obscene images of them, and force the victim to comply with their requests. To further their control, traffickers frequently store embarrassing images or videos of the people they are utilizing; they may threaten to post these images online or email them to the victim’s loved ones.

Forms of exploitation

In order to force people to perform activities against their will, traffickers use various mechanisms such as the use of force, kidnapping, abuse of power and so on. The purpose of performing all these actions is to exploit the victims in order to make a profit. There are several types of exploitation:

• Sexual exploitation

Most sexually exploited people are women and young girls. This type of exploitation also includes utilization for online sex services or pornographic reasons in addition to the forced prostitution that is most frequently shown. The difference between trafficking in adults and trafficking in children for sexual exploitation is that minors can never be said to have given their permission to the selling of the sexual act.

• Force begging

People with physical and mental conditions as well as developmental impairments are especially vulnerable to forced begging, which is another kind of human trafficking that can affect both children and adults. Exploitation also includes causing harm to others intentionally and pressuring someone to act disabled in order to receive more money.

• Forced labour

Men who frequently work in the construction business are the most common victims of forced labour, although this sort of exploitation is also prevalent in the agricultural industrial sector. It includes work against the person’s will, that is, employment under conditions that the person did not agree. The term “forced labour” refers to situations in which individuals are coerced into working by the use of force, intimidation, or more subtly through debt accumulation, the withholding of personal documents, or the fear of deportation. The majority of slavery and human trafficking scenarios also involve forced labour. Obligatory work indicates that the individual accepts a debt that is supposed to be repaid through employment but instead reflects a debt that only increases over time and cannot be paid off.

• Forced marriage

When a woman, girl, and occasionally a boy or man are coerced into marriage against their will, this is known as a forced marriage. The girl may have been sold by her family, given to settle a family debt, or given in an effort to restore the child’s “honour.”

Consequences for the victims  

Devastating psychological consequences can occur for human trafficking victims both during and after their experience. Post-traumatic stress disorder, interpersonal issues, memory loss, worry, fear, guilt, humiliation, and other severe types of mental trauma may develop in many survivors. A lot of people also sustain bodily wounds. Sexually exploited individuals are frequently mistreated by their traffickers and clients. They might endure repeated beatings, rapes, and other forms of abuse. Additionally, there is a larger chance of developing infections, diabetes, cancer, and other ailments, as well as sexually transmitted diseases. The lack of appropriate medical care enables these illnesses to develop and deteriorate, frequently having a permanent negative impact on a person’s health. Forced labourers may be required to perform repetitive activities for lengthy periods of time in hazardous situations. They might also work with large machinery or be exposed to harmful toxins. Many suffer as a result from severe infections, respiratory issues, wounds, disabilities, and weariness. People who are victims of trafficking may find themselves quickly cut off from their friends, families, and other social networks. This can be as a result of their own emotions of shame and guilt, or it might be because they’ve moved and are no longer close to their old neighbourhood.

How to recognize human trafficking:

• Your personal papers, including your passport, have been seized.
• You are forced to use fake documents.
• You are forced to do something you don’t want to do.
• Your life is in danger.
• Your movement is limited.
• You are not allowed to access the phone.
• They make threats against your family.

Prevention

Recognizing the complexity of the crime is the first step in both preventing it and bringing the traffickers to justice. Every aspect of policy must incorporate anti-trafficking measures, starting with enhancing the education of women in the countries of origin to reduce the risk of trafficking among young women. But more needs to be done. Many people still do not know what trafficking is, or do not care.

Human trafficking is a serious problem today that we all face. It is so important to recognize the ways of manipulation in time and to react in time to save someone’s life not just for us, but also for those in our immediate vicinity. Therefore, be careful!

To prevent human trafficking, you should:

1. Always carry the documents with you and have a copy in a safe place!
2. Educate yourself!
3. Be careful – ask about the new job!
4. Avoid risky behaviours!