Work together against trafficking in persons

MNA Feature Desk: On this World Day against Trafficking in Persons, let us pledge to work together to give victims, as well as the many children, women, and men on the move, who remain far too helpless to trafficking, a much-needed voice and a helping hand.

Ten millions of people are badly seeking refuge, many of them far from home and even farther from safety.  Migrants and refugees face imposing physical difficulties and administrative barriers. Miserably, they are also vulnerable to human rights violations and manipulation by human traffickers.

Human traffickers target on the most desperate and vulnerable. To end this inhumane practice, we must do more to shield migrants and refugees — and mainly young people, women and children — from those who would exploit their yearnings for a better, safer and more honorable future.

We must over see immigration in a safe and rights-based way, create adequate and accessible pathways for the entry of migrants and refugees, and eventually tackle the root causes of the conflicts — dangerous poverty, environmental degradation and other disasters which force people across borders, seas and deserts.

Human trafficking is a crime that abuses women, children and men for many purposes including forced labor and sex. The International Labor Organization estimates that 21 million people are victims of involuntary labor internationally.

Every country in the world is affected by human trafficking, whether as a country of origin, transit or endpoint for victims. The link between the refugee and migration disaster and trafficking in persons was emphasized at this year’s adherence of the day by the UN Office for Drugs and Crime.

While the global community fights with what UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called the biggest refugee and migration crisis since World War Two, human traffickers are taking benefit of unhappiness to turn a profit.

Some migration flows appear mainly vulnerable to trafficking in persons. Citizens from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador represent about 20% of the victims spotted in the United States, while the legal migration flows from these countries represent about five per cent of the total.

We clearly need to do more to stop human traffickers as part of coordinated and comprehensive responses to the refugee crisis and continuing migration challenges we are facing around the world.