The Crime of Human Trafficking
BY LOUISE SHELLEY
Human trafficking has recently emerged as a major international policy concern. Its consequences are far-reaching and diverse affecting social, political and economic life in countries across the globe. Trafficking is part of the larger phenomenon of international migration that has assumed an enormous scale in recent decades. But it is also a growing form of transnational crime. Some suggest that it is the most lucrative form of organized crime after the drug and arms trade. Yet human trafficking has an important distinction, often the human beings can be exploited repeatedly thereby generating significant long-term profits for the human traffickers.
Despite the importance of this phenomenon, there has been insufficient research on the crime side of the phenomenon and less has been done to link the research to policy that can be implemented. TraCCC (Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center) since its inception almost a decade ago has made analysis to support effective anti-trafficking policies a keystone of its program. Since moving TraCCC to George Mason, we have continued to host visitors and hold fora on this issue. In the coming years, we plan to develop the academic program at the School of Public Policy and to work with different parts of the university to develop research and policy recommendations on combating the crime and corruption that assume such a key role in the phenomenal growth of modern day trafficking and human slavery.
DIMENSIONS OF THE PROBLEM
The number of individuals vulnerable to trafficking has increased dramatically since the collapse of the Soviet Union with the increase in regional conflicts after the end of the Cold War. The increased numbers of refugees resulting from conflicts and natural disasters, the failure of employment to keep up with population growth in developing countries and an economic globalization that has marginalized many rural communities have all contributed to the rise in trafficking. The enduring low status of women and gender discrimination contribute to the rise of sex trafficking.
Globalization, increased international mobility, trade and communications have also contributed to the rise in human trafficking. Human beings are now often trafficked long distances rather than the national and regional patterns of trafficking that characterized the phenomenon in the past. Increasingly, human traffickers move their victims across continents and oceans to markets where there is a demand for cheap labor, sexual services or children.
Population growth in the poorest and developing countries and the population decline in the most affluent countries create an incentive to leave Latin America, Africa, parts of Asia and the Middle East and the former socialist world for more prosperous and stable countries. A demand for laborers and sexual services in the developed world and oil rich countries creates a market for trafficked individuals. Yet this division among countries is not so stark. Countries can simultaneously be sending and receiving countries for trafficking as the research of the TraCCC center has shown. Russian women are trafficked overseas for sexual exploitation and Central Asian men are trafficked into Russia for labor exploitation. Numerous Chinese are labor trafficking victims overseas, whereas Russian and Thai women are trafficked into the sex markets of burgeoning Chinese cities.
A diverse range of illicit actors profits from the trade in human beings. It includes not only new and old organized crime groups, but also terrorists and guerillas as well as those commonly identified as white-collar criminals—individuals with high social status and education. For example, many traffickers from Eurasia are individuals with college level educations. This latter category of human traffickers recalls the slave traders of early centuries, who were often drawn from the elite of society.
Examining the trafficking business, it is evident that there is not one business model. Rather each region of the world has its own trafficking model. Often human traffickers mirror the characteristics of legitimate businesses. For example, Chinese criminal groups follow a trade model whereas Post-Soviet groups treat their trafficking victims as a natural resource to be exploited for short-term profit. Under the trade model, trafficking victims are controlled by their traffickers from the point of recruitment to their ultimate destination maximizing profits for investment at home. Post-Soviet organized crime such as that operating out of Russia, Ukraine and Moldova sells the women to buyers as Russian traders sell off oil, natural gas and minerals. In contrast, trafficking across the US-Mexican border is a business based on volume where the traffickers make their profits on the number of people moved, caring little for the fate of each individual.
Asian crime groups such as the Yakuza in Japan and the “snakeheads” in China are key actors in international human trafficking. Asian crime groups are the only long-standing criminal organizations that traffic heavily in human beings as will be discussed in a new book on Asian perspectives on human trafficking in preparation for TraCCC’s book series with Routledge. Human trafficking outside of Asia is dominated by newer and often smaller crime groups. Flexible and operating globally, they are able to capitalize on the demand for individuals in lucrative labor markets and on unscrupulous employers who exploit this available cheap labor. This is true, particularly of Eurasian groups that have become ever more important actors in human trafficking.
Yet human trafficking is not only a problem of other regions of the world but is also a major problem within the United States. Cases of trafficking have been investigated and prosecuted within close proximity to George Mason campuses. Despite enhanced law enforcement attention, much of the human trafficking remains undetected among the large population of illegal migrants within the United States. Most victims of human trafficking are victims of labor exploitation but an official US government estimate suggests that there are 50,000 victims of sexual trafficking within this country. A member of TraCCC just returned from Russia where she accompanied two Montgomery County law enforcement officials who broke up a Spanish-speaking trafficking ring. Having met TraCCC delegations from Russia, our Russian colleagues wanted their associates to learn how our local law enforcement struggles with our trafficking problem.
STEPS TAKEN TO ADDRESS THE PROBLEM
Human trafficking has grown in public awareness as hundreds of thousands of desperate individuals seeking employment are moved annually within countries and across borders to affluent countries. Pictures of these individuals show up with increasing frequency in the news media and films. Particular attention has been drawn to the large numbers of women and children forced into sexual slavery.
There has been a growing international consensus that this major international crime must be addressed and its victims must be assisted. Much has been done in recent years to adopt a legal framework to address trafficking but much less has been realized in prosecuting its perpetrators or helping its victims. The General Assembly of the United Nations in 2000 adopted a Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and of accompanying protocols on Human Trafficking and Smuggling, The protocols entered into force in 2004 and earlier this year an anti-trafficking initiative was launched by the UN Crime Office in Vienna. These agreements have given the international community a common frame of reference to address trafficking. Insufficient attention, however, is paid to the business of human trafficking—the traffickers, their modes of operation and the ways in which their proceeds are used and laundered.
The American Congress has responded to contemporary trafficking by passing the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TIP) in 2000 and creating numerous programs to address contemporary victims of slavery in the United States. Significant efforts are being made to provide shelters and support services for trafficking victims, but because the legislative focus is on the victim similar energy is not being devoted to dismantling the criminal networks that traffic men, women and children into the United States. Even though the US government reports a 600 percent increase in the number of trafficking cases since 2001, this increase is from an extremely small base. Therefore, the limited number of civil and criminal trafficking cases prosecuted in state and federal courts means that this crime still pays for most traffickers as they have little chance of conviction or loss of their profits.
The international community has been slow to respond to the rise of human trafficking outside of the adoption of laws. Most countries have failed to allocate the needed resources for the scale of the problem nor shown the needed political will to address trafficking. The efforts against human trafficking mounted by both law enforcers and the intelligence community are frequently insufficient to combat human trafficking. In fact, many police and other law enforcement officials are often important facilitators of trafficking. NGOs and civil society should assume an important role in combating the rise of trafficking but the role of criminals in human trafficking limits the ability of citizens to act as they are no match for the well connected and often well equipped traffickers. Large scale prevention campaigns have been launched in major source countries but awareness of trafficking in receiving countries is often limited. Trafficking will grow throughout the 21st century. Therefore, much more public education including that of university students is needed.
The Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center at the School of Public Policy at George Mason seeks to address this need by implementing a multi-faceted program that focuses on research, teaching and training. In the coming years, we will seek to improve policy in this area through preparation of trained specialists, public fora and the dissemination of best practices. We will address new trends in trafficking including the important role that websites and Internet serve in the transnational growth of this phenomenon. In the past year, since TraCCC moved to George Mason University, it has held several well attended events on human trafficking that have featured delegations from the former Soviet Union hosted as part of the Open World program at the Library of Congress. We have hosted a visiting advisor to the Russian Duma. In the future, we plan to have specialists from other regions of the world interested in these issues. TraCCC has several books in preparation for its book series with Routledge on trafficking and illegal migration in Asia, the Baltics and from Central Asia to the United States. A new course is being offered in the School of Public Policy in the fall that is already filled reflecting the significant student interest in the topic. We look forward to working with the many parts of George Mason University and the larger community to study and address trafficking both in our region but also in the larger world.
Louise Shelley (lshelley@gmu.edu) is Professor of Public Policy at the School for Public Policy (http://policy.gmu.edu), founder and Director of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TraCCC).
