Rikkilee Moser† | 4 Regent J. Glob. Just. & Pub. Pol. 73
I. INTRODUCTION
One of the most horrific and exceedingly pervasive human rights violations today is human trafficking—otherwise known as modern slavery. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has admitted that it is not only one of the largest sources of income for organized crime, but also the fastest growing.1 Despite heightened attention by activist groups and the international community as a whole, victims continue to be exploited at alarmingly high rates.2 In fact, with upwards of 21 million victims worldwide, it has become one of the largest illegal industries, second only to drug trafficking.3 Human trafficking earns roughly $150 billion USD a year ($99 billion of which comes from sexual exploitation alone).4 To put that into perspective: the enslavement of human beings earns well over the annual revenue of Microsoft, Nike and Starbucks combined.5 Yet despite the blatant human rights crisis implied by these gut wrenching numbers, survivors of human trafficking are often unfairly overlooked as deserving recipients of international asylum protection.6
So what exactly is human trafficking, and why has it been allowed to fester into such a global atrocity? Although the term trafficking may imply movement, it is not required by definition, and in fact is much more inclusive in its scope.7 Article 3(a) of the United Nations’ Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children (“Trafficking Protocol”) defines trafficking in persons as:
[T]he recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.8
This definition comprises three essential elements: action, means, and purpose. The actus reus (action) of recruiting, transporting, transferring, harbouring, or receiving can normally be neutral on its own, but when combined with the mens rea (purpose) of exploitation any innocence in the behavior itself is distorted.9 In most cases all three elements must be present before finding that trafficking in persons has occurred, yet in instances where the victim is a minor, the means requirement is vacated and courts focus solely on the action and the purpose.10
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The means of exploitation, as evidenced by the lengthy list offered in Article 3(a), can be numerous. Although abduction or sale by a family member is not uncommon, one of the most prevalent approaches used by traffickers is to recruit individuals using false pretenses of lavish jobs with better earning capabilities.11 Presented with the promise of a better life, these often poor and uneducated individuals leave home with their recruiter only to find themselves in situations drastically different than they expected.12 Additionally, because the recruiter typically covers the cost of travel, victims are considered indebted and forced to work without compensation in order to pay off the recruiter’s fees and other travel expenses.13 Furthermore, although the Trafficking Protocol provides no definition of exploitation, international law recognizes that it can be carried out in many ways.14 The most common are through sexual slavery, which makes up 72% of all trafficking occurrences, and forced labor, which makes up 20% of all trafficking occurrences.15 The remaining 8% is a conglomeration of equally appalling methods, including trafficking children to be used as soldiers or for forced and sham marriages, as well as pornography, street begging, and even organ removal.16 Once enslaved, victims face repeated rape and sexual abuse, violent beatings, humiliation, degradation and other forms of psychological manipulation. 17 Additionally, in order to assert control, traffickers often implement forced drug use in order to keep the victim in a weakened state and, once addiction takes hold, dependent on the traffickers themselves.18
† Rikkilee Moser earned her J.D. in 2016 from Northern Illinois University, and in 2017, she earned her L.L.M. in Human Rights from UCL in the United Kingdom. She currently lives in London and works as an immigration attorney for a U.S. immigration firm.
1 See Human Trafficking: Organized Crime and the Multibillion Dollar Sale of People, U.N. OFFICE ON DRUGS AND CRIME (July 19, 2012), http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/2012/July/human-trafficking_-organized-crime-and-the-multibillion-dollar-sale-of-people.html.
2 See The Scale of The Issue, STOP THE TRAFFIK, https://www.stopthetraffik.org/about-human-trafficking/the-scale-of-human-trafficking/ (last visited Jan. 26, 2018).
3 See id.; CAL. DEP’T OF JUSTICE , THE STATE OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN CALIFORNIA 3 (2012), http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/BTB24-4L-4.pdf.
4 Human Trafficking by the Numbers, H UM . RTS . F IRST (Jan. 7, 2017), http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/resource/human-trafficking-numbers.
5 The combined revenue of Microsoft, Nike, and Starbucks in 2017 totaled $146.03 billion. See Microsoft Corp., MARKET WATCH,
http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/msft/financials (last visited Apr. 29, 2018); Starbucks Corp., MARKET WATCH ,
http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/sbux/financials (last visited Apr. 29, 2018); Nike Inc., MARKET WATCH , http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/nke/financials (last visited Apr. 29, 2018).
6 See Smuggling and Trafficking, RIGHTS IN EXILE PROGRAMME,
http://www.refugeelegalaidinformation.org/smuggling-and-trafficking (last visited Feb. 14, 2018).
7 See Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, art. 3(a), Dec. 25, 2003, 2237 U.N.T.S. 319, 344 [hereinafter Trafficking Protocol].
8 Id.
9 U.N. Office of Drugs & Crime, The Role of ‘Consent’ in the Trafficking in Persons Protocol 2, 24 (2014), http://www.unodc.org/documents/human-trafficking/2014/UNODC_2014_Issue_Paper_Consent.pdf [hereinafter The Role of ‘Consent’].
10 See id. at 25.
11 U.S. DEP’T OF S TATE, TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS REPORT 15 (2015), http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/245365.pdf.
12 See id.
13 Id. at 15, 17.
14 U.N. Office of Drugs & Crime, The Role of ‘Exploitation’ in the Trafficking in Persons Protocol 2, 21, 23–24 (2014), https://www.unodc.org/documents/congress/background-information/Human_Trafficking/UNODC_2015_Issue_Paper_Exploitation.pdf [hereinafter The Role of ‘Exploitation’].
15 U.N. Office of Drugs & Crime, Global Report on Trafficking in Persons 1, 28 (2016), https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-
analysis/glotip/2016_Global_Report_on_Trafficking_in_Persons.pdf [hereinafter Global Report on Trafficking in Persons].
16 See id. at 8, 28.
17 Kelly Karvelis, The Asylum Claim for Victims of Attempted Trafficking, 8 NW. J. L. & SOC. POL’Y 274, 277 (2013).
18 Id.