"I left Capetown
with a promise of revenue: half the profits and my passage home.
A boon! (…) I would return to my family a duchess, with
watered-silk.", from "The Venus of Hottentot".
As in this poem by Elizabeth Alexander, "a vast majority
of women, who face the cruelty of human trafficking, initially
are not forced to leave their homes and families, but migrate
voluntarily", said Marianne Mollmann, Advocacy Director
of the Women's Rights Division, at Human Rights Watch. She spoke
at a panel discussion on human trafficking, human rights and
redefining challenges, organized by the United Nations Office
on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), at UN Headquarters in New York on
12 April 2007.
Another panelist, Professor John Miller from the Elliot School
of International Affairs at George Washington University, said
that the "largest discreet category of human trafficking
in the advanced world today is what he calls 'sex slavery'--almost
80 per cent of the persons affected by it are women, half of
them minors. Other forms of human trafficking include domestic
servitude, enforced factoring and farm labour and child soldier
trafficking." Prosecution of perpetrators still poses a
big problem for countries globally, said Prof. Miller. In Germany,
for example, approximately 50 per cent of sexual offenders are
being released from prison on probation. In India, prosecution
is rarely pursued; instead victims are given some form of compensation
and their persecutors often remain unpunished, he said.
The focus of the panel discussion was how to achieve a comprehensive,
coordinated and human rights-based approach against human trafficking.
Simone Monasebian, representative and Chief of the UNODC New
York Office, spoke about the power of arts, business and the
media in the fight against human trafficking. She stressed how
important the media has become in raising awareness and encouraging
the public to cooperate in the fight against human trafficking.
She mentioned as a prominent example the case of Pam Cope, who
after reading an article about a six-year-old Ghanaian boy,
Mark Kwadwo, travelled to Ghana to rescue him from forced labour
and found creative ways to support his education.
 |
| Mark Kwadwo
- Photo courtesy of Pam Cope |
This example shows that help starts at a personal level. Prof.
Miller emphasizes the challenges of helping victims and the
possible solutions: "In order to help, victims have to
be reassured and, after recovery, be reintegrated into society.
One way of reintegrating victims of human trafficking was to
develop employment programmes for them." However, the most
critical component in the fight against trafficking, he said,
is prevention. It was important to raise awareness in the developed
world and, in particular, of companies that employ enforced
labour.
Much more remains to be done on national and international levels,
but there are signs of progress. According to Prof. Miller,
the number of shelters created for victims and legislation against
human trafficking has increased worldwide. Another encouraging
development is that news media references about the problem
are multiplying. The number of people being trafficked through
borders each year has been declining, he said. |
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