Trafficking – a problem everywhere

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?” Isaiah 58:6

• TRAFFICKING IS…
  to be deceived or taken against your will, bought, sold and transported into slavery for sexual exploitation, sweat shops, child brides, circuses, sacrificial worship, forced begging, sale of human organs, farm labour, domestic servitude.
• TRAFFICKING IS…
  where family members and friends deceive parents to release their children or sell them for as little as $20 each, selling them on to local gangmasters or serious organised international trafficking rings.
• TRAFFICKING IS…
  growing. 2–4 MILLION men, women and children are trafficked across borders and within their own country every year. More than one person is trafficked across borders EVERY MINUTE, which is equivalent to five jumbo jets every day. a trade that earns twice as much worldwide revenue as Coca Cola.
• TRAFFICKING IS…
  where victims usually suffer repeated physical abuse, fear, torture and threats to families to break their spirits and turn them into saleable commodities. a person can be sold and trafficked many times.
  

Due to the hidden and illegal nature of human trafficking, gathering statistics on the scale of the problem is difficult. The following statistics may represent an underestimation of trafficking, but are the most credible and frequently quoted.

• People trafficking is the fastest growing means by which people are enslaved, the fastest growing international crime, and one of the largest sources of income for organised crime
  The UN Office on Drugs and Crime
• 1.2 million children are trafficked every year
  Estimate by UNICEF
• At least 12.3 million people are victims of forced labour worldwide.  Of these 2.4 million are as a result of human trafficking.
  A global alliance against forced labor, International Labour Organisation, 2005
• 600,000-800,000 men, women and children trafficked across international borders each year. Approximately 80 per cent are women and girls. Up to 50% are minors.
  US Department of State Trafficking in Persons Report 2005
• The majority of trafficked victims arguably come from the poorest countries and poorest strata of the national population.
  A global alliance against forced labor, International Labour Organisation, 2005
• Human trafficking in the second largest source of illegal income worldwide exceeded only by drugs trafficking.
  (belser 2005)
• There are even reports that some trafficking groups are switching their cargo from drugs to human beings, in a search of high profits at lower risk.
  Un office on drugs and crime
• People are trafficked into prostitution, begging, forced labour, military service, domestic service, forced illegal adoption, forced marriage etc.
• Types of recruitment; include abduction, false agreement with parents, sold by parents, runaways, travel with family, orphans sold from street or institutions.