VIEWPOINTS
HUMAN TRAFFICKING by Peter Cruchley
Some figures According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), an estimated 40.3 million victims are trapped in modern-day slavery.1 24.9 million were exploited for labour. 15.4 million were in forced marriage. There are 5.4 victims of modern slavery for every 1,000 people in the world.2 There are more enslaved labourers than trafficked sex slaves. Many people associate modern-day slavery with sex trafficking, but in reality, 68 percent of enslaved persons are trapped in forced labour.3
The trade is economic, the reasons are economic and so are the solutions Many will ask what should we do about Human Trafficking, what can we do to help those who have been trafficked. There are groups working on this and their advice will be best for action in specific contexts. But, a crucial question to ask is why do we have Human Trafficking? Slavery was apparently abolished around the world through the middle of the 19th Century, so why has it come back? Especially why has it come back in the age of globalisation?
https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/forced-labour/lang--en/ index.htm 2 https://www.stopthetraffik.org/about-human-trafficking/ the-scale-of-human-trafficking/ 3 https://borgenproject.org/top-10-modern-day-slavery-facts/ 4 https://www.oxfam.org/en/even-it/5-shocking-facts-about -extreme-global-inequality-and-how-even-it-davos 1
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