UN Human Rights Council
Topic: B
Preventing and Dealing with Human Trafficking
Submitted by: Bulgaria School: Monticello Middle School
Imagine you are out of work and hungry but a man offers you a job in a bordering city with food and a place to live. You say yes but wait, then you find yourself brought to the city and forced to work 16-18 hour days with no pay and little food. This may seem like fiction to you but it is the all too real. The reality of human trafficking, is defined by the UNODC as "the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons, by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, and the abuse of power; position of vulnerability; giving or receiving of payments; benefits to achieve the consent of a person; having control over another person for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, slavery, servitude or the removal of organs, etc.” Any country can become a trafficking point just as any person can be trafficked. Men, women, boys, and girls can become a victim of human trafficking. Females, homosexuals, and transsexuals are at a high risk. Women and girls make up 98% of victims trafficked for sexual exploitation. Traffickers target vulnerable communities that have an abundance of unemployed and impoverished people. This puts undeveloped and devolving nations at risk.
European Union citizens from Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary are the most common victims of human trafficking in Europe. Many of them are women who are sexually exploited. On BNR, Bulgaria National Radio, it was announced, “541 Bulgarians were victims of human trafficking in 2011. Ninety of the victims were men who were most commonly exploited for labor". Most Bulgarians that are trafficked leave the country and while abroad, fall into the hands of exploitation. While we do not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination if trafficking we are taking appropriate measures to do so. Local government in Varna are cooperating with an employment agency and the closest university educated students with a prevention campaign entitled "Where Are You Traveling?" The program gave hundreds of students information about trafficking.
Dealing with human trafficking will not be easy, due to the secretive and complex process that these traffickers utilize. We, Bulgaria, designed a 3-phase plan: Phase 1: Education; When you ask a person what comes to mind when they think of human trafficking, it's not just child labor or people being smuggled in barrels. If we were to educate the public about the dangers of human trafficking and how to avoid possible signs of trafficking it could impact the amount of persons trafficked annually. Phase 2: prevention, stopping the trafficking before the victims reach the destination by stopping cars and trucks at borders with x-ray cameras. Phase 3: rescue. Phase 3 will involve setting up an anonymous help line for victims of human trafficking or for people to call in with hints of where trafficking may occur or is occurring. Then an elite team of police can rescue the victims safely. Solving human trafficking will not be easy but it is a pressing issue that needs to be dealt with now. We can't wait for change, we must be the change.
Works Cited
"Menu."Human Trafficking Search.N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2014.
"Human Trafficking: The EU's Dirty Secret | Globalization | DW.DE | 11.02.2014." DW.DE. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Dec. 2014.
"Trafficking."Equality Now.N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2014.
"United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime."United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Dec. 2014.
Submitted by: Costa Rica
Human trafficking is a worldwide issue that is greatly effecting many countries around the world. Human trafficking is the illegal movement of people, which primarily involves explosion that can come in many forms including forcing victims into prosecution, or subjecting victims into slavery. According to the United States State Department, 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders every year. Fifty percent of those being trafficked are children and half of them are females. Human trafficking is illegal in every country on the planet, but that doesn't stop traffickers. Human trafficking doesn't just happen in specific countries. It happens around the world.
Costa Rica is one of the main countries involved with human trafficking. Even though Costa Rica is only considered a "Tier Two" country when regarding trafficking, it is still a major problem in Costa Rica. If a county is a "Tier Two" country, that means that human trafficking is a problem, it is just not as major as other countries. Some Tier Two countries include, Albania, Argentina, Morocco, Nigeria, and India. "Costa Rica is a source, transit, and destination country for human trafficking." according to seneca-international.org. As well as almost every country in the world, Costa Rica is against human trafficking.
The UN as well as all of the countries in the world should help in all of the ways that they can to prevent human trafficking. The UN should reach out to the victims of trafficking. They can also help the people who are trafficking with counseling.
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Submitted By: Ghana School: Monticello Middle School
Do people even realize the devastation that is caused by human trafficking? Girls are forced into prostitution; children are forced to work in sweatshops, begging in the streets, farming, treated like slaves, etc. The conditions these children live and work in are terrible. Sometimes, children are injured on purpose so that people give money to them out of sympathy but this money goes straight into the pockets of the traffickers. The law removes the statute of limitations on prosecuting suspects engaged in human trafficking and bars the common defense claim that the suspects did not know the age of a kidnapped person at the time of the crime. The law also increases the penalties for felony convictions of using children in prostitution or smuggling children for the purpose of slavery or sexual exploitation. State and local governments need anti-trafficking coalition strategies, educational outreach, direct service to victims and collaboration with other national and international organizations to fight against human trafficking. Human trafficking occurs all around the world however, the most common areas since 2013 include, China, Uganda, Ghana, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Haiti, Brazil and Bangladesh.
According to known statistics, thirty million people are victims of human trafficking today and should have the right to be free. (The CNN Freedom Project Ending Modern Slavery).Ghana is trying to address this problem by bringing awareness and providing support to known victims. Short-term projects include a poster campaign in Eastern Europe bringing human trafficking awareness in the schools by placing and conducting seminars systematically throughout Moldova, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Our long-term commitment includes extensive mass media campaigns, partnerships for job creation and crisis counseling for victims. Ghana has a lot of mines, especially gold mines. Because of this, Ghana has become a point of origin and a destination for a lot of trafficking in children. These children are forced to work as laborers in these mines; sometimes with no pay. Ghana feels that and abundance of children, teens, and even adults are in danger due to trafficking. We believe that no matter your level or class in society, it is a violation of our human rights to be forced into labor.
To address the devastating issue of human trafficking, it is our aspiration to bring programs and awareness is the best way to stop current problems you're having. Trafficking may not be common in some areas of the world however it affects everyone in some type of way. Some things you don't always knows about, let's say you just bought a new tea pot off of eBay but it doesn't have what country it's made in, possibly current traffickers are making the product you're buying. What if you needed money for your family went in for a job and they told you that your working for them and no money is going to your family. How would you feel being forced to do something you didn't want to do? Consider other peoples perspective, you might be living your life well but others might be being tortured and living opposite that you are.
Works Cited
justiceforyouth.com
Submitted by: India
Human trafficking is a developed version of slavery, which harms millions of people around the globe. The motives for such horrific behavior are mostly labor and sexual exploitation. Those who enter this vicious cycle are usually lured by the offering of prominent vocations. This industry produces billions of dollars annually, and is one of the fastest growing criminal fields in the world. Absolutely anyone is eligible to be sucked into the “whirlwind” of human trafficking. A father, KamarRamjali, of two children, left Nepal at the promise of foreign employment in Jordan; however, in a near death experience, Ramjali and twelve others were taken to a military base in Iraq. There were two other vans carrying trafficked people to Iraq, insurgents caught one of the vans, and the passengers were killed with their deaths broadcast on the internet. It is an overstatement to say that we could stop human trafficking in just a few years, for it has multiple factors; victims rarely report the crimes, and some countries do not even have anti-trafficking laws that would enable “reported offenders” to be oppressed. Despite the efforts made, it is possible that human trafficking activity will decline at a slow rate. Through creation of laws, effective enforcement of laws, and the development of more opportunities to help victims, human trafficking may become less of a human rights issue over time.
Ten-thousand Nepalese women are transported to India yearly for commercial sexual exploitation, is this morally correct? Also, twenty thousand to twenty-five thousand women and children are trafficked annuallyfrom Bangladesh to India. However, only a fraction of these people arefound by families or close friends. Not only is this a problem, but one whose solving will continue to be almost impossible, this issue is also an important one in other countries. Two-point four million people across the globe are trafficked for labor, making profits of over thirty-one point six billion dollars. Forty-one percent of sex trafficking cases and twenty percent of labor trafficking cases referenced U.S. citizens as victims in two thousand and thirteen. So far, the U.S. State Department has been encouraging India to proceed increasing consciousness of human trafficking, working to begin special anti-trafficking courts, and file and prosecute cases on the district level.
In a few years time, if the number of people being trafficked were to decrease by even a percent, thousands of poverty-stricken civilians would be saved from an ominous fate. Once the people are in the city, agents sell them for one hundred and-twenty dollarsto a domestic worker placement agency. From there they are resold to families as domestic laborers, charging between six hundred dollars and seven-hundred dollars. These people are mostly women, who are made to work fourteen to sixteen hours a day, and paid on the verge of absolutely nothing. According to “Womenunderseigeproject.com” most women are caught in this vicious cycle forever. There are many ways that we can crack down on trafficking in India. If we were to intercept one of the steps in this vicious cycle, a huge difference would be made. Policemen should be placed throughout India, looking for traffickers, who iffound, would be fined a large amount, or serve a certain amount of time in jail. This way, less people would attempt to commit this horrific crime. Once a person is to be caught trafficking, it should be written down, on a permanent record, which should suspend him from being able to participate in certain activities; driving, gun-use, and more. Without some strategy, human trafficking will never be stopped, so why not take this into consideration?
Submitted by: Pakistan
There is a common misperception about human trafficking. Many people in today's modern world, especially first world countries, think that this is something that happens far, far away. The harsh reality of this horrible problem is that it can strike far too close to home. According to the Oxford Dictionaries, human trafficking is, "The illegal movement of people, typically for the purposes of forced labor or commercial sexual exploitation."(Oxford Dictionaries) This happens far more often than someone might know. The International Labor Organization gives an estimate of about 20.9 million people as victims of human trafficking around the world.(Polaris Project) 1.2 million children are trafficked each year.(UNICEF) Like predators, traffickers target the vulnerable. Runaways, the poor, new immigrants and anyone else they can trick into trusting them. The problem with prosecuting trafficking is that there are many countries that do not have a particular policy against human trafficking.
The country of Pakistan is doing our best to combat human trafficking. The UNODC's Global Report on Trafficking in Persons describes our action against human trafficking as "the Prevention and Control of Human Trafficking Ordinance (PACHTO) in 2002 criminalizing trafficking for sexual exploitation, forced labor, slavery, adoption and other forms of trafficking."(United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime) Our national action plan helps with prevention of human trafficking, action against human trafficking and supporting victims and helping them recover. Our country's ordinance against human trafficking punishes human trafficking with up to 10 years in prison depending on the offense.(United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime) 222 persons were convicted for human trafficking between 2003 and 2006 in Pakistan.(United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime) Our country has its own troubles with human trafficking, but we are doing our best to build a better future.
Our country may have a strong policy against human trafficking, but other countries do not. We believe that these countries need policies. We encourage the UN to recommend strong action plans against human trafficking for both countries that already have them and those that do not. We all need to improve our policies, even the countries that already have them. The countries that agree should have policies with specific definitions of the offenses of sexual exploitation, forced labor and any other human trafficking offenses that are problems in their country. Each offense should have a specific sentence. The countries that already have strong policies can fix loopholes or improve enforcement. We can never stop improving our policies against human trafficking. Human trafficking is a problem we can only solve together.
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UNHRC Topic B