A Vegan Ethic by Mark Hawthorne

Author:Mark Hawthorne [Hawthorne, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-78535-403-8
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
Published: 2016-07-29T04:00:00+00:00

Human Trafficking

The practice of trafficking people shares many similarities with animal exploitation, such as using violence or threats of violence to coerce compliance out of an unwilling victim (who may have been transported a long distance) to serve at the pleasure of humans. In the case of human trafficking, the “pleasure” derived is generally labor or sex. Forced labor may involve toiling on a farm or fishing boat, as we’ve seen, or in domestic servitude, health and beauty services, the production of illegal drugs, and other industries. In India, children as young as four years old smash coal in factories that churn out bricks for the nation’s growing construction trade. They are there to pay off debts their elders incurred.

Often such “debts” are payments to the traffickers themselves, who bring workers into countries like the United States with promises of good wages, housing, and other benefits. According to the Urban Institute, labor-trafficking victims pay a “recruitment” fee averaging US$6150, which is more than the annual per-capita income in many of the nations they come from. Once in the US, workers are subjected to physical, mental, and/or financial abuse. A variety of “fees” are typically levied and deducted from paychecks, for instance, leaving workers without the means to pay back the initial amount “owed” to employers and recruiters for bringing them into the country. Consequently, victims are forced to remain enslaved.

Deceitful recruitment methods are also used to traffic victims into the sex trade. Women are enticed with offers of legitimate work—as a food server, perhaps, or a shop assistant or in the housekeeping department of a fancy hotel. Some are sold into trafficking by boyfriends, neighbors, or even relatives. Still others are promised marriage, an education, or other trappings of a better life somewhere. Once ensnared, a woman may be passed from one trafficker to another and moved further from her own country. Her passport or other documents are taken away, making her feel dependent upon her captors. Before she has been forced to “service” a client, the victim is often raped by the trafficker, beginning the cycle of physical abuse that commonly includes death threats, drugs, and physical and psychological torture. Traffickers even threaten the lives of the victims’ families.

One reason that this type of slavery continues to flourish is that women and girls are seen as having little or no power, and it’s in societies where women and girls are considered worthless that they are exposed to the greatest risk.

In addition to women and girls smuggled from other countries, pimps prey on runaways, foster children, and victims of physical and sexual abuse—anyone with vulnerabilities the pimp can use to control them. Women are commonly held against their wills in brothels or other rooms from which they cannot escape sexual servitude. Those who resist or don’t “follow the rules” might be severely beaten or killed.

Often overlooked in the struggle against sex trafficking are the male victims—men and boys who comprise a relatively small but especially taboo segment of human slavery.

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