Human Trafficking

Human trafficking is a very delicate subject nowadays. It is the trade of humans, commonly for sexual slavery, labor, extraction of organs, or child soldiers. It if formally defined as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.” (Article 3, paragraph (a) of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons). On the global level, human trafficking appears in the forms of subjecting people to begging, sexual abuse and prostitution, forced marriage, kidnapping and forced labor in return for low wage and under unhealthy conditions. People who are taken captive through physical force, fraud, deception and other forceful ways are secretly transferred to other regions. Around 161 countries worldwide have been affected by human trafficking as receiving, sending or transit destinations.

The most common types of human trafficking are for sexual exploitation, forced labor, domestic servitude and organ harvesting. Sexual Exploitation means committing sexual and abusive acts towards the victim without his/her permission. This includes prostitution, pornography, and escort services, among others. Girls and women who are forced into prostitution are infected with deadly HIV and AIDS viruses in the prostitution market. Forced labor involves forcing the victims to work long hard hours without receiving pay, or giving the pay to the traffickers. Domestic servitude means forcing the victims to work in private households as slaves or servants for little to no pay. Organ harvesting is getting victims and using their organs for transplants. All these types of trafficking are present in Africa today and all have a