More Humans Than Drugs Trafficked In Europe

Published April 15, 2009 @ 12:00PM PT

For the first time, a recent report from the European Commission says that "the current scale of human trafficking outweighs the smuggling and spreading of drugs." This report sadly gives human cargo status as the most trafficked commodity in Europe- more than illegal drugs or arms.

Why has human trafficking outstripped illegal drug and arms smuggling as the raison d'être for international organized crime rings, pimps, and criminal entrepreneurs? The simplified answer is this: you can sell a gun once. You can sell an ounce of cocaine once. You can sell a woman in prostitution over and over again. You can exploit the labor of an enslaved fruit picker day after day. In other words, human trafficking is more profitable for many criminals, so they have traded in their old cargo for human cargo.

But the simplified answer is never the whole story. As criminals become aware of the profitability of human trafficking, governments are also becoming aware of how to combat it. Many have developed better border controls and immigration policies to prevent trafficking into or out of their country. This didn't make the traffickers stop- it just made them look a little closer to home, begin trafficking within country instead of between. And law enforcement are raiding workplaces, brothels, and recruiting sites, traffickers are increasingly selling their victims online, advertising through new technologies and media.

The fact is that trafficking is growing and changing. And the traffickers are not going to sit back and wait while we get our act together. We need to get ahead and stay of the creative criminals, or human trafficking as an industry will continue to grow.

Image from simianuprising.com

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Comments (10)

This is another reason why I am a strong supporter with Comprehensive Immigration Reform. As long as our current immigration system is broken...more women become vulnerable to the target of this horrific crime. I ask the many of you who are concerned with solutions to this issue to bring this problem to the table of immigration reform. I ask you to join the cause. We must find reasonable solutions that give criminals less ways to exploit the innocent.

Posted by Mary Pranzatelli on 04/15/2009 @ 01:10PM PT
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Mary, thank you for addressing the issue of public policy reform, which is so often left out of discussions and actions surrounding human trafficking. Though it's important to provide services to trafficked people as well as identify such people and remove them from the trafficking situations, it's also essential to reform public policies in a way that decreases the likelihood of people becoming trafficking victims in the first place. Reforming immigration laws is a major component of this, but we also need to reform socioeconomic systems so that people are less likely to be put in a position where they must migrate to make a living when they do not wish to do this. People become more vulnerable to traffickers when they're in such a position. Can we achieve this type of reform under capitalism, or do you need to move toward more of a socialist economy? There are such a complexity of issues involved in globalization.

Posted by Passionate Activist on 04/18/2009 @ 05:26PM PT
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Capitalism, with many social programs has always seemed to work best in America. Pure Capitalism with limited social programs has been proven not to work. As we have seen our country fall apart in the last 8 years from our programs diminishing. Whatever we have left we still reap the benefits from those programs that LBJ gave us years ago. Holly, I do agree with you...people become most vulnerable to traffickers when the live in bad socioeconomic systems and we need reform on all levels to protect the innocent from being exploited.

Posted by Mary Pranzatelli on 04/19/2009 @ 02:58PM PT
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All life is sacred and living beings of many species are trafficked, exploited and abused. This should be an issue of extreme priority to everyone! and everyone can be involved in fighting it, by being vigilant, by reporting it and by being politically/socially involved.

Posted by Jamaka Petzak on 04/17/2009 @ 01:31PM PT
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Can this really be solved with more and more control? Or do we need to also give our attention to the cause level? Who's buying, and why? What kind of change is needed to eliminate the market? Seems like a naive dreamers question, and an impossibly broad one. But I think it's essential. And more possible than it seems.

Posted by a j kehoe on 04/17/2009 @ 11:26PM PT
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This is why ignoring feminism is such a spectacularly bad idea. As long as we keep thinking feminism is about hating men, or is archaic because "women already have equal rights," we're going to continue seeing things like this happening. And the fact is that women are already treated as a commodity, even in the First World, even among Western whites. Any time you see a woman's body used in visual advertising for a product having nothing whatsoever to do with women's bodies, you see this happening. Women being sold as prostitutes is simply on the other end of the exploitation continuum. It is all of a piece.

Posted by Dana Seilhan on 04/18/2009 @ 08:03PM PT
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For information on how you can help end slavery, visit the website freetheslaves.net or contact the local meetup DC Stop Modern Slavery.

Posted by Pamela Woolford on 04/18/2009 @ 03:28AM PT
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The website for the meetup is stopmodernslavery.org. And thanks, Amanda for all you do!

Posted by Pamela Woolford on 04/18/2009 @ 03:42AM PT
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I live in South Korea and there is a bit problem here with human trafficking. From what I've heard, one of the reasons why Korea could not get on the Visa Waiver program with the US until recently was that the visa overstay and rejection rate among Koreans was too high. My understanding is that they raised it to get around that and allow Korea on the Visa Waiver Progam.

Posted by David English on 04/21/2009 @ 02:34AM PT
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Although I found this article both interesting and relevant, I am questioning why the article is about Europe, when right here in the U.S. we have a billions of dollars market: exploiting women and youth. The average age of entry for exploitation in the US is 12 -- they should be entering 7th grade, and instead they are being repeatedly bought and sold.

Again, I don't want to take any attention away from this issue that is occuring world-wide, but as a case manager who provides 24/7 access to a case-load of teens who have been exploited, or are currently being exploited, I wish that there was more awareness being created in our own towns and cities.

Posted by Liz Meffen on 07/07/2009 @ 08:11AM PT
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Author

Amanda has been a full-time abolitionist for six years. During that time, she has created reports, documentaries and training materials on human trafficking in the United States and around the world.