Ten things you might not know about people trafficking

On 1st May many countries will mark International Workers’ Day to celebrate the workers of the world. But there are millions of people who rarely get days off. These are the estimated 21 million people who are the victims of trafficking.

You don’t have to go to “the peripheries”, in the words of Pope Francis, to meet these victims, because often they are “hiding in plain sight” in our societies. They’ve picked and packaged our food, they’ve made our cheap clothes, they’re looking after our children and parents and they are walking the streets in our cities.

Migrants at Caritas Catania migrant center. Photo by Caritas

Migrants at Caritas Catania migrant center. Photo by Caritas

COATNET – Christian Organisations Against Trafficking in Human Beings, which is coordinated by Caritas, made this short film about trafficking, which was supported the US Embassy to the Holy See.

Here are ten things you may not know about trafficking:

  1. Trafficking is another name for modern slavery. Trafficking is the exploitation of people who may be trafficked into prostitution, forced labour or domestic servitude through deception or kidnapping. Sometimes they are transported across borders.
  2. Trafficking is said to be the third largest criminal industry in the world.
  3. The demand for cheap clothes, cheap sex and cheap, illegal and informal labour is at the roots of trafficking.
  4. Victims are often women from poor backgrounds and with little education. They end up being abused as domestic workers or being forced into prostitution.
  5. Children are also vulnerable to trafficking. They may end up in sexual exploitation or bonded or domestic labour, or made to become camel jockeys, drugs couriers or child soldiers.
  6. Men are trafficked too. They are heavily exploited in agriculture or construction live in inhuman conditions  and are sometimes sexually abused.
  7. It’s not necessarily men who are traffickers. Women sometimes befriend other women of their country and lure them into a situation where they are trafficked. There are ‘madams’ who ensure a constant supply of sex workers from Africa and Eastern Europe to richer countries.
  8. Some traffickers make people believe they will have better life in another country, but once they get them abroad they take away their passport, their rights and their freedom. Sometimes recruitment agencies facilitate the trafficking.
  9. People are sometimes trafficked and killed for their organs and their heads, which are used in traditional medicine.
  10. People who escape a trafficked situation may end up being a slave again as they have no documents and they can’t find other work. Other former victims of trafficking don’t want to return to their kin because they feel ashamed that they have been duped and they feel that they have failed their family.

Find out how you, your organisation and your community can work fight modern day slavery by reading COATNET’s Christian Commitment to Stop Trafficking.

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