Anti-Slavery Week 2021
19th October: What is Human Trafficking?
During Anti-slavery Week 2021 we will be using our blog to share about Hope For Justice as well as their incredible work in fighting against exploitation, rescuing victims, restoring lives and reforming our society.
Thanks for joining us with our daily posts, you can view our previous blogs from this week in our main blog menu.
What is Human Trafficking?
Human trafficking is often linked with modern slavery, where one person controls another by exploiting a vulnerability. In modern slavery a person is forced into a service against their will through physical, financial or psychological control, usually into forced work or prostitution.
Human trafficking does not simply mean transporting victims across international borders. Each case of trafficking and modern slavery looks different but there are also some common indicators. Human trafficking impacts our society in the UK as well as throughout other countries around the world.
Types of human trafficking
The best way to understand human trafficking is to split it into its three elements; each element must be present to establish a case of trafficking.
The Act
What is done: this includes recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons.
The Means
How it is done: threat or use of force, coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power or position of vulnerability, giving or receiving of payments/benefits.
The Purpose
Why is it done: prostitution, sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery, servitude, removal of organs.
Where the suspected victim is a child, it’s only necessary to demonstrate that the ‘act’ and ‘exploitation’ elements exist.
About Human Trafficking
Human trafficking isn’t just about the movement of victims. Force, abduction, physical confinement and rough handling is what is most often associated with trafficking. This can include victims tied to a bed or locked in a trailer, for example.
But traffickers more often use psychological or emotional manipulation, such as threats against the victim’s family, debt bondage, the use of shame as a weapon, insidious threats of violence, or the long-term ‘grooming’ of a victim to believe the trafficker is their lover or friend.
Traffickers may manipulate their victims by creating fear of others; there have been instances of traffickers dressing as police officers before raping a victim. Acts like this falsely convince a victim that the police cannot be trusted and should be feared. There has been an increasing trend of traffickers targeting vulnerable groups in society for recruiting victims. Their vulnerabilities can make them easy to control without needing to resort to physical measures. Common examples include alcoholics and the homeless.
International Trafficking
If a person is trafficked into one country from another country it is case of external trafficking. An example would be a homeless man in Warsaw, Poland who is offered a job in the UK and travels to the UK but then finds himself trapped in forced labour. He is unable to leave because he has no money, can’t speak English and his trafficker has taken his passport.
Internal Trafficking
Internal trafficking occurs when a person is recruited in one area of a country or city and moved from area to area or city to city within the same country for the purposes of exploitation. An example would be a runaway girl picked up in Philadelphia, USA who is then driven from truck stop to truck stop up and down America’s East coast to be sold for sex.
Take action
Hope for Justice has loads of helpful ways of supporting their mission to tackle modern-slavery. Here are some of the ways you can get involved:
– Become a Guardian
– Volunteer with Hope for Justice
– Pledge your birthday
– Fundraise
– Book a speaker for event/training
– Protect your business with the Slav-Free Alliance
– Donate
– Follow their mission and share their posts
Download and share this flyer for spotting the signs of modern-slavery: Click Here
Hope for Justice works with all victims of human trafficking. Whether it’s a young girl sold for sex again and again in the city where she grew up or a father who’s travelled overseas trying to support his family at home, we believe in the incredible value of every life.
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