Stop the
Traffic!
Kyung-wha Kang was blunt: “We have not succeeded in eliminating this
trade in people for profit,” the Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights
told a panel on human trafficking at the United Nations General Assembly.
“We have not even managed to stem the tide. More people are being
trafficked than ever before.”
That frank assessment gives a
clear indication of how much needs to be done before the last woman
deceived into a life of sexual slavery is rescued, or the last child held
in bondage to a cruel employer is freed. Indeed, an end to human
trafficking remains a distant goal as the pool of potential trafficking
victims continues to be enlarged by social and economic turmoil, poverty,
discrimination and mass displacement.
As globalization makes it easier for traffickers to build and sustain
their criminal networks, international efforts to combat the scourge have
taken on greater urgency. In this context, the United Nations General
Assembly Special Thematic Debate on Human Trafficking in New York on 3 June
was the latest in a series of events designed to sustain the momentum of
international anti-trafficking efforts.
In his address at the opening of the debate in New York, General
Assembly President Srgjan Kerim said of human trafficking: “Two hundred
years after the end of the transatlantic slave trade, and as we celebrate
the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it
remains a flagrant breach of human dignity.” Trafficking could only be
fought successfully, Kerim stressed, “if we work in partnership, across
borders and across all parts of society.”
That kind of partnership was on display at the Vienna Forum, held in
February this year under the framework of the United Nations Global
Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking (UN.GIFT). Led by the United Nations
Office on Drugs and Crime, together with five other multilateral
organizations including OHCHR, the initiative has also attracted
non-governmental and private sector partners. The Vienna meeting brought
representatives from 116 countries together to help them forge new ties and
raise awareness of trafficking.
Emphasizing the primacy of human rights in efforts to fight human
trafficking, Deputy High Commissioner Kang said in her speech in New York
that trafficking is a clear violation of fundamental human rights, such as
those to dignity, security and freedom from violence and abuse, to which we
are all entitled. Victims of trafficking who have been bought and sold as
commodities and terrorized by violence and intimidation are denied this
sense of entitlement and cowed into thinking of themselves as less than
deserving, Kang said. “They should be actively assisted in retrieving that
sense of entitlement.”
The Deputy High Commissioner stressed that states and international
organizations must focus on the rights of victims in their efforts to
understand and respond to trafficking, besides looking to punish its
perpetrators. But, she warned: “We must not be so callous and short-sighted
as to think that trafficking can be dealt with solely as a problem of law
enforcement or organized crime, although clearly more effective law
enforcement is needed.”
Indeed, the first guideline in the Office’s Recommended Principles and
Guidelines on Human Rights and Human Trafficking states in part: “It is
essential to place the protection of all human rights at the centre of any
measures taken to prevent and end trafficking. Anti-trafficking measures
should not adversely affect the human rights and dignity of persons and, in
particular, the rights of those who have been trafficked.”
Kang said the fight against trafficking must address “the clear link
between demand and the huge financial gains that can be secured through the
predatory exploitation of others.” That means, she said, taking effective
measures to lower the demand for prostitution and exploited labour that are
the main ‘products’ of this sordid trade. Human beings, the Deputy High
Commissioner concluded, “are not objects to be bought or sold.”
