An end to human trafficking
by Hillary Rodham Clinton
Elementary students across America are taught that slavery ended in
the 19th Century. But, sadly, nearly 150 years later, the fight to end
this global scourge is far from over. Today it takes a different form
and we call it by a different name — “human trafficking” — but it is
still an affront to basic human dignity in the United States and around
the world.
The estimates vary widely, but it is likely that somewhere between 12
million and 27 million human beings are suffering in bondage around the
world. Men, women and children are trapped in prostitution or labour in
fields and factories under brutal bosses who threaten them with violence
or jail if they try to escape. Earlier this year, six”recruiters” were
indicted in Hawaii in the largest human trafficking case ever charged in
U.S. history. They coerced 400 Thai workers into farm labour by
confiscating their passports and threatening to have them deported.
I have seen firsthand the suffering that human trafficking causes.
Not only does it result in injury and abuse-it also takes away its
victims’ power to control their own destinies. In Thailand I have met
teenage girls who had been prostituted as young children and were dying
of AIDS. In Eastern Europe I have met mothers who lost sons and
daughters to trafficking and had nowhere to turn for help. This is a
violation of our fundamental belief that all people everywhere deserve
to live free, work with dignity, and pursue their dreams.
For decades, the problem went largely unnoticed. But 10 years ago
President Clinton signed the Trafficking Victims’ Protection Act, which
gave us more tools to bring traffickers to justice and to provide
victims with legal services and other support. Today, police officers,
activists, and governments are coordinating their efforts more
effectively. Thousands of victims have been liberated around the world
and many remain in America with legal status and work permits. Some have
even become U.S. citizens and taken up the cause of preventing
traffickers from destroying more lives.
This modern anti-trafficking movement is not limited to the United
States. Almost 150 countries have joined the United Nations’ Trafficking
Protocol to protect victims and promote cooperation among countries.
More than 116 countries have outlawed human trafficking, and the number
of victims identified and traffickers imprisoned is increasing each
year.
But we still have a long way to go. Every year, the State Department
produces a report on human trafficking in 177 countries, now including
our own. The most recent report found that 19 countries have curtailed
their anti-trafficking efforts, and 13 countries fail to meet the
minimum standards for eliminating trafficking and are not trying to
improve.
It is especially important for governments to protect the most
vulnerable - women and children - who are more likely to be victims of
trafficking.
They are not just the targets of sex traffickers, but also labour
traffickers, and they make up a majority of those trapped in forced
labour: picking cotton, mining rare earth minerals, dancing in
nightclubs. The numbers may keep growing, as the global economic crisis
has exposed even more women to unscrupulous recruiters.
We need to redouble our efforts to fight modern slavery. I hope that
the countries that have not yet acceded to the U.N. Trafficking Protocol
will do so. Many other countries can still do more to strengthen their
anti-trafficking laws. And all governments can devote more resources to
finding victims and punishing human traffickers.
Citizens can help too, by advocating for laws that ban all forms of
exploitation and give victims the support they need to recover. They can
also volunteer at a local shelter and encourage companies to root out
forced labour throughout their supply chains by visiting
www.chainstorereaction.com.
The problem of modern trafficking may be entrenched, but it is
solvable. By using every tool at our disposal to put pressure on
traffickers, we can set ourselves on a course to eradicate modern
slavery.
The writer is the Secretary of State of the United States
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