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Human trafficking is the form of modern day slavery. It involves trafficking men, women and children for forced labour and sex work. Trafficking in persons is considered to be the second largest criminal industry in the world. It is being second only to drug trafficking. This is growing and has become a grave issue across the globe.
Human trafficking in a nutshell is deception, recruitment, transportation and exploitation of men, women and children. In ancient times, when the man was not as civilised as today, slave trade had been a lucrative business around the world. Human beings from the African Continent and poor countries in other parts of the world were trafficked to Europe and America as slaves.
In the 21st century, governments and global organisations are highly emphasising about the concepts on human-centred development, improvement of physical quality of life, equal distribution of development benefits and particularly safeguarding human rights and human dignity. Efforts are being made by the international organisations and countries to achieve these objectives.
From each corner of the world, voices are raised on the need for interventions and programs that make the human life more comfortable and convenient. Human-focused development has come into the forefront of global development agenda. With all these new interventions to develop mankind creating an environment with spiritual and physical freedom, the slave trade has spread all over the world in a disguised form, as offering better employment opportunities.
The United Nations Office on Drug and Crime (UN ODC) observes that millions of men, women and children in many parts of the world have willingly or unwillingly become victims of this organised crime. This is an unpardonable offense, a gross violation of human rights and ruining of human values in the context of the so-called civilised world today.
Modern slavery or human trafficking is growing faster due to several factors. There is an increasing demand for cheap labour from many parts of the world. The main target group of traffickers are economically disadvantaged and vulnerable individuals, both men and women, in developing countries. Such individuals become easy prey of traffickers due to poverty, social exclusion, armed conflicts, natural calamities and marginalisation. Individuals in these groups are lured to migrate to so-called rich countries seeking better job opportunities.
Traffickers take advantage of their poverty and vulnerability and earn colossal sums of money. They collect money from the three parties, traffikees, local agents and agents in foreign destinations. It is a lucrative business for traffickers. They produce a rosy picture on the availability of job opportunities, comforts and salaries offered. Individuals isolated geographically from the rest of the world and are far from modern knowledge do not have access to formal sources of information. They fully rely on the false information provided by traffickers. It is after reaching the foreign destination that they realise the reality. Then they are at the mercy of the laws and regulations of that country, encountering a number of unexpected consequences, hardships and problems.
Physical and mental agonies they undergo differ from country to country and person to person. There are substantial records and complaints on breach of contract agreements, harsh working conditions, lengthy delay in payment of salaries or lower salaries than the agreed long hours of work, exploitation of labour, assaulting and other kinds of physical harassments, sexual abuse, lack of mobility and communication obstructions.
Some people return to their own country after few months with empty hands. Many youngsters misled by traffickers are not able to reach their anticipated destinations and employment. The clandestine nature of trafficking process prevents organisations to collect accurate information and data to ascertain the gravity of this global issue. Yet, UN observes that it is taking place on a wide scale across the globe and is fast growing. Millions of people become victims annually. Economically and socially marginalised community members of developing countries in Asia, Africa and Caribbean regions have become easy targets for traffickers.
According to the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE), around 24% of the total country labour force is employed abroad. The number leaving abroad for employment on legal means increased from 42,625 in year 1990 to 146,456 in 2011. Total number of departures through registered and unregistered agencies amounted to 279,482 in 2012. Out of total departures, nearly 60% is said to be women. The majority of them leave as domestic servants. Skilled category of youth employed abroad is comparatively less. Foreign employment reduces the burden of the Government on unemployment. It is a vital source of export earnings, generating 4.65 billion a year, about 35% of total export earnings in Sri Lanka.
Despite this encouraging performance, involuntary trafficking of persons for forced labour from Sri Lanka to so-called affluent countries in Europe and oil rich Middle East countries is a growing illegal business. The Trafficking In Persons Report of the State Department, USA, 2010 ranked Sri Lanka in the level 2 category in terms of human trafficking in the world. This is one level above the worst category. In 2000, the UN adopted a protocol to prevent human trafficking and take action against traffickers. Sri Lanka has ratified this protocol, but the report states that Sri Lanka has not achieved considerable improvement in combating trafficking persons since then.
Trafficking Sri Lankan men and women for the purpose of forced labour in foreign destinations is taking place via legal and illegal means. It is reported that even many of the women travel abroad through registered agencies and SLBFE become victims in their workplaces.
In the recruitment process for foreign employment, there is a number of links involved. Job seeking youth in poor rural families approach recruiting agencies through a local agent. From local agent, the chain involves recruiting agency, agent in the foreign country and the employer. If anyone of the above links act in a deceptive manner or does not provide accurate information, the recruit become victimised in the foreign destination.Those who seek the assistance of traffickers outside registered agencies and SLBFE face more severe problems. This illegal process from beginning to end takes place on the sly and in a hurry. There is no systematic course of action adopted. The hidden objective of traffickers is to take money from job seekers and get them to leave Sri Lanka in a hurry rather than providing a reasonable service.
The youth are willing to go for foreign jobs keeping the small property they own and even their life at risks rather than being unemployed in Sri Lanka. These youth are trafficked in groups illegally, in jam packed small vessels. There are substantial number of incidents reported on the hardships and agonies undergone by them in foreign countries if they somehow managed to reach the destination. Most groups are deserted in some other countries on the way before they reach agreed destinations.
Most Sri Lankan women leave for domestic servitude in Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar and they suffer enormous misery. Even the women travel through legal means are deceived by local agents and recruiting agencies. They are lacking knowledge on labour migration laws, interests of foreign employer and socio cultural realities in job offering countries. There is no service contract signed in many cases.
Women have to work from early morning to late night, need to serve for several masters, susceptible to sexual abuse at the hands of master, his children and friends. They are also subject to physical harassment. The SLBFE is not in a position to help in such situations since the employees are at the mercy of laws and regulations of the country and the employer concerned.
Apart from trafficking people across the national border, women and girls from rural and estate sectors are being trafficked within the country from rural to urban households as domestic servants where they undergo massive physical and mental hardships. The boys between the ages of eight to 14 years are transported with or without the wishes of parents in the guise of employment offering. Some children are kidnapped, deceived and produced to employers in the city. Such small children are being used to serve in shops, hotels, mines, construction sites and other different types of laborious works.
Heavy work and lengthy hours of working under harsh conditions cause many of these children to leave the place soon and engage in other illegal or anti social activities. Boys in fishing villages in coastal areas are provided by local traffickers as sexual partners for tourists in urban hotels, brothels, restaurants, etc. Some children are used for pornography. Informal statistics reveal that 16,000 to 35,000 boys are used for the sex trade in various places in coastal and hill country areas.
According to the existing law of the country trafficking of persons is a crime. Utilising underage children in laborious work and domestic servitude is prohibited. Due to the clandestine nature of these transactions, 95% of the incidents are not reported. When they become victimised, few cases are reported not against trafficking, but against some other difficulties and sufferings faced by traffickees in the place of work. Therefore, traffickers are very rarely brought before the legal system.
Apart from the few reported cases to police stations, the National Child Protection Authority and some NGOs, no accurate set of data is available to ascertain the comprehensive picture of the issue. Victims are reluctant to seek the assistance of legal authorities due to social stigma and the lengthy process involved in the justice system and many incidents go unreported. They are also not aware of the availability of rehabilitation process for such victims. In the absence of other alternative the victimised children opt for the same activity for living or do engage in various anti social activities.
Leading causes for our men, women and children to become the victims of human trafficking are poverty, unemployment, debt problems of the family and lack of access to proper and accurate information. Parents in many instances unwillingly agree to hand over their children to traffickers to resolve these economic problems in the family. The next key factor is the poor knowledge of parents about the consequences. In addition, there is a growing fashion among youth to go abroad and earn more money for a sophisticated style of living seen over the television and internet.
We should not underestimate the role played by the SLBFE, Police Department, NCPA and other stakeholders responsible in combating this inhuman crime. Shortcomings prevailing in other areas have led to performance gaps in the system. The lack of staff in relevant sections of Police stations, reluctance of victims to report incidents and reveal information with regard to traffickers in fear of losing benefits or any other reasons, social stigma attached to incidents of this nature, time involved in the legal process and inadequate training of officers concerning human trafficking and producing culprits before the law and poor assistance extended by civil society to law enforcement authorities are the limiting factors affecting the performance of respective public sector agencies.
(The writer is Deputy Minister of Education and Monitoring MP for Ministry of Youth Affairs and Skills Development.)
