Economic pressures are fueling a rise in worldwide human trafficking as crime rings prey on desperate migrant workers.
By Amy Woolam Echeverria

In today’s global economy, not all migrant workers know what they are getting into when they travel to find work. Many times, they fall prey to human trafficking, which is essentially a form of modern-day slavery. Indeed, human trafficking is one of the darkest aspects of current global migration trends.

Much like organized crime rings, human trafficking relies on whole networks of savvy recruiters, brokers and employers in both sending and receiving countries that direct migrant workers into illegal and dangerous jobs. Connecting migrant workers with unethical employers is a lucrative business: victims pay these recruiters, brokers and employers anywhere from a few hundred to thousands of dollars to migrate to find work.

Promises of marriage, employment, education and financial gain are made to entice victims into these trafficking networks. Many migrants believe that paying such fees and using “broker” services is the only way they can migrate.

Women and children who migrate are especially vulnerable to trafficking, usually being used and abused as sex workers, in the tourism industry or as laborers. Migrants who are trafficked to work in factories or on farms often find themselves living in dormitories more akin to prisons than college campuses.

Many times migrant workers are stripped of their identification and travel documents, are forced to stay with one employer even if that employer makes them work in sweatshop conditions, and must keep a curfew that limits their freedom of movement.

In the most-extreme cases, there are numerous reports of migrant workers committing suicide, unable to cope with such living conditions.

The United Nations defines human trafficking in persons as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of 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 or payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.”

Although exact human-trafficking figures are hard to come by, the U.S. State Department reported in 2004 that an estimated 600,000 to 800,000 men, women and children are trafficked across international borders—some international and non-governmental organizations place the number far higher—and the trade is growing.

The report says 70 percent of those trafficked are female, and 50 percent are children. Most of these victims are forced into the commercial sex trade.

In the United States, the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (TIP) publishes an annual country-by-country report on the state of human trafficking

The TIP office uses a four-tier system to gauge the progress of nations in addressing the problem. “Tier 1” countries are those that have made the most progress. “Tier 2,” “Tier 2 Watch List” and “Tier 3” countries have trafficking problems they are not sufficiently addressing.

Monitoring Help From The Columbans
In 2004, Columban missionaries working in migrant ministry decided to work with the TIP Office to influence some country placements in the tiered system.

Taiwan, for example, was ranked as a Tier 1 country. Columbans working with migrants in Taiwan thought this ranking was far too generous. Indeed, migrant workers were arriving in Taiwan through a legalized broker system, a kind of guest-worker program, and working in some of the most deplorable conditions imaginable.

Based in part on the documentation Columbans provided, the TIP Office in June 2006 placed Taiwan on the Tier 2 Watch List—a significant downgrade.

This is a dubious victory to be sure. It is tragic because it showed how well-masked human trafficking had become. Yet now some light can be shed on the situation, and perhaps positive change can come about for migrant workers in Taiwan.

The problem of human trafficking is a consequence of our globalized world. Economic pressures play a huge role in the human-trafficking phenomenon. How desperate life must be for hundreds of thousands of people to risk their lives every year to migrate only to find themselves in inhumane conditions. An unpleasant answer to that question can be found in the shape of the globalized economy.

For example, while free-trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and, more recently, the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) have made it easier to move goods and services across international borders, most countries around the world, including the United States, have begun to tighten even further their national immigration policies, making it harder for migrants to move legally.

By liberalizing local markets, these free-trade agreements have caused many small-scale farmers and industries in developing countries to close down because they can no longer compete with the huge multinational companies that either buy out the smaller farms and industries or import their cheaper products to the local market.

Without a livelihood, these people are forced to either migrate internally to big cities or across borders to countries where they perceive possible opportunity to provide for their families back home.

It is important to make the link between globalization and migration to understand the root causes of this unprecedented movement of people. By making these connections, people can be better advocates for more just migration and economic policies when choosing and engaging with their elected officials.