Human Trafficking, Globalization, and Ethics William L. Richter and Linda K. Richter Introduction Fifty thousand sex slaves are imported annually into the United States! That’s not a headline we’ve seen! Slavery is supposed to have ended more than a century ago, but it thrives in the United States. Indeed, human trafficking has emerged as a major global problem with serious implications for U.S. immigration policy and law enforcement. Trafficked people are held in a bondage that is aptly described by Kevin Bales in Disposable People (1999), as modern-day slavery. Globalization is a critical factor exacerbating human trafficking. The ethical dimensions are enormous. A review of some of the issues of human trafficking, globalization, and ethics points to a need to integrate trafficking issues into public administration training, immigration and foreign policies, and media awareness. Human Trafficking In the United States, trafficking has become an inside-the-beltway issue, attracting Congressional attention from politicians as divergent as Senators Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) and the late Paul Wellstone (D-Minnesota). In 2000, with little fanfare, the United States enacted the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act. Among other things, this new legislation required the Department of State to issue an annual report on the status of human trafficking throughout the world. The report grades the performance of every country except the United States, a fact that many critics see as hypocritical. The State Department has also been faulted for letting strategic considerations affect its country ratings. Whatever its limitations, the Act signals an attempt to measure and ameliorate the horror of trafficking. The most recent report notes: “Over the past year, at least 700,000, and possibly as many as four million men, women and children worldwide were bought, sold, transported and held against their will in slave-like conditions. In this modern form of slavery, known as ‘trafficking in persons,’ traffickers use threats, intimidation and violence to force victims to engage in sex acts or to labor under conditions comparable to slavery for the traffickers’ financial gain.” (Trafficking in Persons Report, June 2002, p. 1.)
Trafficking takes place both within and across national boundaries. Some countries, such as Nepal and Bangladesh, operate primarily as supplier countries. Others, like India and Thailand, are both suppliers and users of trafficked persons. The United States, as the 2002 Report notes, is “principally a transit and destination country.” (Trafficking in Persons Report, June 2002, p. 1.) While sexual exploitation is the fate of thousands – many just children – other important categories include domestic workers, production workers, and laborers. Women and children are especially vulnerable victims of trafficking, but men also find themselves powerless to escape from exploitative work situations. The plight of trafficked persons has often been exacerbated by immigration policies and administrative practices that treat those trafficked as criminals to be incarcerated or deported. Trafficking thrives on the tremendous profits it generates and on the climate of fear that leaves many victims feeling that
they have no options. Still, much more is being done than is generally perceived. Trafficking is being attacked on many fronts. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the United Nations Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and numerous non-governmental organizations are assisting countries like India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and the Philippines to address trafficking issues. Globalization Slavery and trafficking are heavily affected by the complex set of world-wide processes we collectively label globalization. They are facilitated by the mobility of capital, the openness of political borders, and the deregulation of trade. They are complicated by the transient nature of many exchanges and the lack of adequate enforcement personnel and policies. More recently, the global war on terrorism and issues of homeland security have been much more salient than trafficking, although many more people suffer from trafficking each year than from terrorism. Globalization impacts trafficking with both “push” and “pull” factors. Impoverishment in the supply countries is a push factor that forces people to seek ways to improve their economic situation. Many trafficked persons begin their ordeals with the expectation that they will get respectable employment, only to discover the deception after it is too late. The spread of “global culture” serves as a pull factor, raising expectations of a better life elsewhere. Like the global drug trade, trafficking is a mammoth economic enterprise, providing traffickers with financial resources and technological capabilities to enhance and shield their activities from public scrutiny or interference. In November, 2002, the University of Hawaii’s Globalization Research Center and the East-West Center hosted a conference on “The Human Rights Challenge of Globalization in Asia-Pacific-U.S.: The Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children.” The State Department and the non-governmental War Against Trafficking Alliance will hold a conference in Washington, D.C. in February, 2003, on “Pathbreaking Strategies in the Global Fight Against Sex Trafficking.” These conferences are helping to focus attention on trafficking’s enormous challenges. Much more will be needed. Ethics If the outrage that toppled Trent Lott from the position of Senate Majority Leader could be summoned to confront the real and growing humanitarian crisis that is trafficking, perhaps results would match rhetoric. As it is, too often trafficking simply does not make it to C-SPAN or the talk shows. Some of the ethical issues involved in human trafficking are obvious. Slavery is as odious today as at any time, though perhaps the term “trafficking” obscures what is really happening. We tend to think of slavery as a practice of the past and are not aware that there are actually more slaves today than at any earlier time. As Bales and others note, official corruption is a major variable affecting the prevalence of trafficking and slavery. The same economic factors that encourage trafficking also provide a fertile environment for bribery or collusion of police, military, and customs and immigration officials.
Whistleblowers are badly needed. Even when officials intend to act ethically, they may still treat trafficked persons as illegal aliens rather than as victims. Recognizing this problem, the U.S. Attorney-General signed a regulation in January 2002 that created the “T” visa program for trafficking victims. The new visa allows victims to remain in the United States if they cooperate with the prosecution of the traffickers and if it is determined that being returned to their homeland would harm or endanger them. After three years on the visa they are eligible to seek U.S. citizenship. It is too soon to tell how effective this mechanism will be in supporting more victims to escape their abusers and to confront them legally, but it illustrates one approach nations are using to build victim support into their anti-trafficking strategies. Some critics of U.S. immigration policy argue that the United States (along with the UK and the major international financial institutions) helped create a system in which there is global movement of goods without comparable movement of people. They call for a total opening of borders, an unlikely prospect in an era of anti-terrorist limitations on individual freedom. What can public administrators — practitioners, scholars, and students — do to address issues of global trafficking in the twenty-first century? The first task is to become better informed ourselves and to inform others. Trafficking should be a more visible topic of discussion in our media and in our professional preparation of administrators. Globalization has become an issue of considerable prominence, but the illegal human rights atrocities associated with it have not. References: Bales, Kevin. Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act 2000, Trafficking in Persons Report, June 2002, is available at: http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/10815.pdf Other selected web sites: http://humantrafficking.org/ [Home page of HumanTrafficking.org] http://humantrafficking.org/events/tip2003.html [Information on February 2003 Conference] http://www.globalhawaii.org/PDF/trafficking.htm [Information on November 2002 Conference] http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2002/ [Press release on publication of June 2002 Report] William and Linda Richter, Ethics Section members, are professors of political science and MPA faculty at Kansas State University. They can be reached at
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