Slavery: a phenomenon of the past? Not really.

- Daniel Bernal

You scramble through the classifieds, find a number, make a call and an hour later, your sexual thirst is sated and your wallet is a little lighter. Except, maybe this time you’ll ask her what her story is.

It could be the story of any young women in Eastern Europe being deceived by criminals to be trafficked to the West, or the Middle East. It could also be the story of Filipino women shipped to South Korea and Hong Kong to be served as a commodity in the sex-trade market. The locations change, the story does not; it’s like a cheap soap opera being replayed with different actors, over and over again. I say it could be, because not all prostitutes are victims of trafficking, but that it is a possibility should be worrying enough.

Human trafficking is the fastest-growing illicit activity worldwide. Most trafficked people are traded for the sex industry or for forced labour at sweat shops, construction sites and agricultural fields.

The U.S. State Department’s 2006 Trafficking in Persons Report, a common cited source for human trafficking figures, reports that 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked yearly. Of these numbers around 80 percent are women and 50 percent are minors.

In terms of profit, the human trafficking industry amounts to some USD$32 billion. This figure, released in 2006 by the Organisation of Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), makes human trafficking the third most lucrative criminal undertaking, after the drug and arms trade.

As a commodity, people are quite possibly closest to the ideal product. Women can be resold over and over again. Because the “goods” are illegal, hence no regulation, they can be abused and maintained for minimal prices. Since resources are plentiful, once a women is no longer bringing in the desired profits she can be discarded and a new prospect will fill in the gap. In countries where people are desperate and fall into the trap of bogus jobs abroad, the raw materials—young, beautiful, educated girls—are in no shortage.

More numbers by Interpol tell that a single women can bring in anywhere from $75.000 to $250.000 per annum. The rest is simple math and one can easily guess why organized crime is exploiting this old source of revenue.

One problem highlighted by all parties trying to tackle human trafficking is that international law has focused on dealing with the issue as an organized crime problem. Thus, human trafficking falls under the jurisdiction of the Palermo Protocol. This protocol, adopted by the United Nations in 2000, has three specific focuses: prevention, protection and assistance of victims, and cooperation among nations to meet the aforementioned.

While these objectives were drafted undoubtedly in good will, they remain too general and don’t force countries to adopt any specific measures. Moreover, the Palermo protocol remains a tool for battling criminal activities, when the problem is much wider and in need of a more comprehensive approach.

Most resources are being put to combat the supply side of the issue, while very little is being done to curve down demand or too hold accountable those corrupted officials in host countries that make human trafficking possible.

In “The Natashas”, an inquiry into the global sex trade, Viktor Malarek, a renowned Canadian journalist, undertook the task of portraying the misery of those whose lives are taken from them, sold as commodities, while the most of us sit and let the status quo prevail.

In his book there are too many examples of how the human trafficking phenomena is not only reserved for unscrupulous criminals, but it is facilitated by corrupted or oblivious—one may wonder which of these two is worse—authorities in developed countries, the so-called “host nations.”

In Malarek’s book one can also find numerous examples of people doing exactly what it’s outlined in the introduction of these lines. Of course, most clients never go as far as asking for a story.

In these lines, I barely scratch the surface of the issue at hand. I have not even touched upon one of the key issues to tackle; the demand side of the problem. And why do I miss that? Because there is little research done on it, and few conclusive results have arisen. One thing that is clear is this is a crime that needs to be tackled from numerous angles at research isn’t available, or perhaps, it doesn’t exist.

That tells you how unprepared—even unwilling—we are to tackle the problem. After all, it’s countries like Canada that are prime host countries, and it’s the men in our societies, our fathers, brothers, sons, husbands who fuel this whole business. Maybe it’s time to ask them for a story.