What is Human Trafficking? The United Nations, in Article 3, paragraph (a) of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons defines Trafficking in Persons as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.
The U.S. Government defines human trafficking as:
Sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age.
The recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.
No matter how you define it, human trafficking is a serious crime, a severe violation of human rights, and a threat to us all. Every year, thousands of men, women and children fall into the hands of traffickers, and almost every country in the world is affected by trafficking, whether as a country of origin, transit or destination for victims. It is a largely hidden crime (because victims rarely come forward to seek help because of language barriers, fear of the traffickers, and/or fear of law enforcement) that only recently has come to the attention of law enforcement agencies, advocates, and policy makers as the severe abuse of human rights that it represents. Human trafficking promotes the breakdown of families and communities, it deprives countries of their human capital, fuels organized crime, undermines public health, creates opportunities for extortion and subversion among government officials and imposes huge economic costs to all levels of societies.