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Augustinian Human Trafficking Awareness Campaign

Human Trafficking and Illegal Trafficking of People

Interpol, in a recent brief communication, made the following assertion on the illegal trafficking of persons: “Today, the illegal trafficking of persons has become the preferred objective of an increasingly greater number of world-wide criminal networks, ever more sophisticated and capable of moving large numbers of persons with a greater margin of revenue.”

The illegal trafficking of persons, however, while very serious and worrisome, is quite distinct from human trafficking.

Illegal trafficking deals with facilitating illegal entrance into a certain country for a particular end, many times for better work or greater financial opportunities. These persons are usually considered merely economic immigrants.

In human trafficking, however, physical force is normally used, including violence, lies, and deceit to obtain people and transport them as if they were animals for sale.

The preferred victims are usually women (many young women and girls) with the promise of an education, good work and economic possibilities. The criminals who act without scruples exploit the critical condition of these persons (in many places opportunities for work are lacking) to reprehensible ends: commerce in organs, warfare (many boys and underage youth), drug trafficking, prostitution and hard labor as veritable slaves.

We concur with the assertions of author Maximiliano Hairabedian (Tráfico de personas - La trata de personas y los delitos migratorios en el derecho penal argentino e internacional, Editorial Ad Hoc, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2009) [Trafficking of persons - Human trafficking of persons and migratory crimes in Argentinean and international penal law], saying that human trafficking is actually the “modern and insidious version of slavery”, the worst among so many in our time. The person is carried off from his or her family or place of origin (some do not have a family) and moved to a “macabre destination”, where the individual loses not only dignity but, in many cases, even life itself.

SOME STATISTICS

Where is the source of this illicit commerce in human trafficking? Of course, in the poorest and most unprotected sectors of our societies, that is, in those sectors of society where misery abounds, employment is scarce, in underdeveloped areas where formation and education are lacking, where women are discriminated against and defenseless children are found, as well as in areas of warfare, etc.

According to the United Nations Population Program, this situation affects more than 4 million persons world-wide. Among those victims, the most common form of exploitation is sexual (almost 80 per cent) and 20 per cent of the cases involve children.

However, beyond this there are other statistics which are chilling: 12 million persons endure labor conditions similar to that of slavery (data from the U.N. International Labor Organization).

The U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) calculates that 180 million children between the ages of 15 and 17 years are employed in the most inhumane conditions of child labor and more than 1 million are victims of the trafficking of persons.

This commerce in trafficking guarantees revenues of more than a thousand million dollars a year. Among whom are these millions of dollars shared, revenues of the most felonious criminal activity that our planet endures?

--Adapted from a bulletin of the International Augustinian Secretariate for Justice and Peace

More from the Human Trafficking Awareness Campaign

       » Augustinians Launch Human Trafficking Awareness Campaign
             Nature, extent, causes and consequences of the trafficking of people

       » Restavecs: Duplicity in the Trafficking of Children
             Illegal trafficking of children in Haiti 2010

       » No One’s Daughters: The Nameless Girls
             Trafficking of orphans in Europe (I)

       » Teens Working the Streets
             Trafficking of Orphans in Europe (II)

       » Facing the Influx of Young Immigrants
             How Malta’s Millennium Chapel Ministers to Newly Arrived Youths

       » World Cup Soccer Championship and Exploitation
             The hidden reality behind a major sports event

Additional Resources

       » U.N.O.D.C. on Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling (Opens new window)
             Resources from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

       » Blue Heart Campaign (Opens new window)
             An awareness raising initiative to fight human trafficking and its impact

       » Empowerment Through Knowledge (Opens new window)
             A Web resource for combatting human trafficking

       » Human Trafficking (Opens new window)
             Facts and resources for emergency health care providers

       » Federal Bureal of Investigation: Human Trafficking (Opens new window)
             Human Trafficking in the U. S. A. and how the F. B. I. works to stop it

       » Trafficking in Persons Report 2009: U.S. Department of State (Opens new window)
             Most comprehensive worldwide report on efforts of governments to combat trafficking

       » U.S.C.C.B. Response to Human Trafficking (Opens new window)
             How the Catholic Church combats this modern-day form of slavery

This page offers one of a series of bulletins from the international Augustinian Secretariate for Justice and Peace. It explains some aspects of human trafficking, a pervasive violation of Catholic Christiam morality that has received little attention from news media in the United States.

Human trafficking is sin against human dignity and human life. Christians today are called to be aware of the suffering and harm that human trafficking causes, and to act in support policies and initiatives that will eliminate or reduce this evil. (See Matthew 25: 31-46) The Augustinian Secretariate, committed to assisting Augustinian friars and others in acquiring a greater awareness of the nature, extent, causes and consequences of the trafficking of people, has started a Human Trafficking Awareness Campaign for the years 2009 - 2011.