Human Trafficking - The Most Severe Violation of Civil Rights

Abstract

Slavery has existed in countless cultures around the world throughout the vast majority of human history. From ancient civilizations to modern society, slavery has occurred in some form or fashion. However, its form is constantly evolving, and the international human rights community is struggling in its attempt to develop and modify the instruments used to combat the ever-evolving issues. Although slavery has been eradicated in many of its most obvious forms in developed countries around the globe, it continues to thrive all over the world in its most current evolved state: human trafficking. Throughout this paper, slavery, and its derivative forms of existence (focusing mostly on human trafficking) will be defined and analyzed to provide a further understanding. More importantly, this paper aims to discuss how the human rights concerns and accompanying laws and treaties that have come into existence and adapted to help to ensure the rights of the people most vulnerable to its exploitation.

Background and Examination of Slavery

Slavery has existed, in one form or another, for nearly all of recorded human history. Evidence supports its existence at the beginning of written history as early as 3100 BC in the ancient civilization of Mesopotamia. Even thousands of years later, the idea had clearly become ingrained into society as acceptable behavior, and some even thought it to be a necessary ingredient to human existence. For instance, the well-known Greek philosopher Aristotle claimed that slavery is an essential part of humanity, in his own words, stating, “For that, some should rule and others be ruled is a thing not only necessary but expedient; from the hour of their birth, some are marked out for subjection, others for the rule”. This notion of slavery being a natural and necessary component of human existence has likely attributed to the fact that many civilizations throughout the subsequent centuries were at the very least ignorant, if not willfully so, to the fact that slavery is indeed a detestable human rights violation.

Slavery as a Human Rights Concern

Slavery, and any derivation thereof, is inherently one of, if not the most, serious of all human rights concerns and should have always been classified as such. However, the unfortunate truth is that it has only been recognized internationally as such s serious issue in the relatively recent history of civilizations, and even still, not everyone agrees with this assessment. Although many sovereign states have in some form or another acknowledged that slavery is a major issue (many of which have even established some form of domestic legislature deeming it illegal and/or morally wrong), the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR) was the first truly recognized instrument that gained international momentum establishing freedom from slavery as an inherent and fundamental human right. Article 4 of the UDHR clearly states, “No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms,”.

Even after the drafting of the UDHR, the road to international recognition for this (and many other human rights) had just begun, because this document simply set the proverbial ball into motion. While the creation of the UDHR was an enormous step in the right direction, it merely established a list of fundamental human rights. The next step was a much more difficult one; this was to draft a covenant, agreeable to the largest possible percentage of the international community, which created guidelines and (somewhat) objective criteria to which the individual states parties would be bound to uphold in an effort to ensure the fundamental rights contained within the UDHR have adhered. The resulting outcome, regarding the protection of the right against enslavement among other rights, was the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). This treaty was established in 1976, and Article 8 of the ICCPR begins by echoing the right to freedom from slavery which was previously established with the UDHR, but the ICCPR expands, even if only slightly, upon the different forms in which slavery can present itself: servitude and forced or compulsory labor. The language contained within the ICCPR was a great step forward, but the protection of this right still had a tremendous journey ahead.

Evolution of Slavery and Human Rights

Although the primary purpose of this paper is to examine human trafficking, one must first delve deeper into how human trafficking came into existence. The most logical place to begin is by defining what a slave really is. A slave, by the word’s most literal definition, is defined as, “a person held in servitude as the chattel of another”. A chattel is essentially a synonym for personal property, so a slave is someone who has become the property of his or her owner. As a modern American (or a member of any privileged group within a contemporary first-world society), it can be difficult for one to truly grasp the concept that a person can literally be the property of another, but this was not just an abstract concept or idea. Rather, around the world, at various points in history slavery has been widely practiced and almost universally accepted in the relatively recent past for many developed states and is still practiced by the individuals of most countries today. One problem is that this definition appears to be lacking to a certain extent because it is somewhat specific and leaves other forms of slavery less than adequately protected.

Even prior to the previously discussed UDHR and ICCPR, another convention was held to specifically address slavery as a human rights concern; this is known as the Slavery Convention, which was signed in Geneva in 1926 and as been amended multiple times since. In theory, the result of this convention should have been instrumental in the protection of human rights in the international community by its establishment of a more expanded definition of slavery and the slave trade. However, this much more comprehensive definition, or perhaps the Slavery Convention as a whole, seems to have fallen short in some regard. One could reasonably assume that this convention was established with the ultimate goal in mind of influencing international binding treaties such as the ICCPR but appears to have missed the mark. This expanded definition states,

“Slavery is the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised. The slave trade includes all acts involved in the capture, acquisition or disposal of a person with the intent to reduce him to slavery; all acts involved in the acquisition of a slave with a view to selling or exchanging him; all acts of disposal by sale or exchange of a slave acquired with a view to being sold or exchanged, and, in general, every act of trade or transport in slaves”.

This classification of slavery was rather progressive and forward-thinking (especially given the time of its establishment), and ultimately, it falls much more in line with more contemporary forms of slavery such as human trafficking. In an effort to bring awareness to the issue, some scholars and activists have touted this definition in comparison to the definitions provided elsewhere in international treaties such as the ICCPR. One such analysis explains that this definition, rather than limiting the scope of slavery, is written to include a much greater range of phenomena across a broad class of social injustice and human rights violations around the world.

Relying upon the definition of slavery provided in the Slavery Convention, one can logically deduce that slavery is a term meant to describe a range of activities including the physical seizure of the person as well as the transportation, exchange of perceived ownership, and ultimate imprisonment (whether it be physical imprisonment, de facto imprisonment via the limitation of the individual’s rights, or a combination thereof). When examining the true purpose that an individual would use to justify the ownership of another person, the most commonly occurring justifications are that the owner wishes to reduce the slave’s rights in order to get her or him to perform some act or a variety of acts including without limitation: forced physical labor, domestic servitude, and sexual exploitation.

Classifications of Slavery

Forced labor is historically one of the most frequent of reasons for slavery. Examples include everything from the use of slaves for the building of the pyramids of Ancient Egypt to the early American enslavement of Africans brought to the newly established colonies predominately for their labor on plantations such as the cultivation and harvesting of cotton in the American South. Forced labor was also addressed specifically by its own United Nations Convention, the Forced Labour Convention, which was adopted on June 28, 1930, in Geneva. This convention, yet again, attempts to establish a more robust definition of the term (this time, “forced or compulsory labor”) to ensure the protection of the rights of those most affected. In doing so, it defines forced or compulsory labor as, “all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily”. However, the convention does ensure that certain categories such as military and civil services, judicial sentences, and emergency situations, are explicitly omitted from the definition.

Although perhaps not as prevalent as forced labor, domestic servitude, cannot be dismissed from the conversation. The women and children involved in both examples listed above, and undeniably countless others, were most commonly used as personal servants to perform primary duties within the home.

Lastly, while slavery for the primary purpose of sexual exploitation has likely occurred throughout all of slavery’s existence, it is this type of slavery that is most commonly evolved to modern-day slavery: human trafficking.

Human Trafficking

As previously discussed, human trafficking may be a relatively contemporary term, but it is not necessarily a new practice. Slavery, as used in the definition within the Slavery Convention, must almost necessarily include trafficking itself.; in the majority of circumstances, it must be an essential component of slavery and the slave trade. In fact, the only situation in which human trafficking would not exist is if the captor was to also be the ultimate owner of the captive slave-to-be. Currently, human trafficking has increasingly become much more widely recognized as a serious global health crisis that affects countless numbers of individuals in nearly every country and region throughout the world, with victims currently identified from at least 152 countries, the overwhelming majority being women and children. In its 2020 Trafficking in Persons Report, the United States Department of State defines human trafficking as,

“sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age; or the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.”

Although there are multiple types of trafficking, the primary motive behind it, which inevitably causes women and children to be those most vulnerable to this abhorrent practice, is sexual exploitation. Multiple instruments have been established as an attempt to quell these human rights violations, one of the most applicable is the Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others. This convention was approved by the General Assembly and entered into force on July 25, 1951; although it acts as a standalone convention, it lays down other important predecessors as its foundation such as: the International Agreement of 18 May 1904 for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic, the International Convention of 4 May 1910 for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic, the International Convention of 30 September 1921 for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children, and the International Convention of 11 October 1933 for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women of Full Age.

If the realization of the magnitude and difficulty to control this human rights issue is not already apparent, the existence of five international conventions over the course of over a century should make it abundantly clear. Reports, which admittingly are not able to capture the entire population of affected individuals, estimate that at least two and a half million children and adults are at risk of human trafficking annually worldwide, but the constantly evolving practices of the traffickers to cover their trail make this one of the most difficult crimes to prevent and even to prosecute after the fact.

What makes this crime so difficult to combat are the methods used to hold the victims in captivity. Some examples include coercion involving smuggling the individual across international borders with false promises of a better life, only to find they have been deprived of their passports or other identification and/or a lack of access (either physically or financially) to escape captivity, even to return to the place they were originally attempting to flee. These individuals may also be held in physical captivity and manipulated using various control tactics, making access to an escape nearly impossible due to language barriers, their presence in an unfamiliar environment or fear of prosecution for illegal immigration or other activities if they were to escape. Many of these victims are indoctrinated by their captors and some are even used to recruit future victims out of fear of being killed or discarded if they become expendable. Sadly, this can result in a vicious, virtually inescapable circle for these individuals, and without, strict national and international laws and full support from individuals around the world, these crimes will continue to occur and will most likely go un-punished. 

Conclusion

Due to the enormous and overwhelming scope of this type of human rights violation, this paper can only provide a modest understanding of the subject matter. However, the key takeaway intended for the reader is the acquisition of basic knowledge. The more widespread the dissemination of information is on this topic, the more likely it is that these violations will subside (at least to some degree). It is the hope that the international community will continue to develop covenants and broaden the definitions of key terms to ensure the highest level of protection is granted to those most vulnerable to these horrendous acts. Conventions and treaties alone will help, but they can never fully prevent or even deter these actions, so individual states need to pass legislation and properly enforce it to the maximum extent possible to protect the victims and potential future victims. Most importantly, society as a whole, must be made aware of the red flags of these crimes and acknowledge the inherent wrong in these human rights violations; without the acceptance of this knowledge, these violations and others will continue to persist.