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WHAT IS HUMAN TRAFFICKING? Human Trafficking is defined as the recruitment, harbouring, transportation, provision or obtaining of a person for commercial sex, labour or services through the use of force, fraud, or coercion, for the purpose of subjecting that person to involuntary servitudes, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery. As defined by United Nations
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Martin Luther King Jr. Letter from Birmingham Jail 1963
Money made from human trafficking rivals that made from drug trafficking and illegal arms trade for the top criminal activity • Trafficking is a $10 billion a year enterprise • There are more human slaves today than when slavery was legal in the world
It is estimated that 27,000,000 slaves exist in our world today • Each year, 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders • 80% female and 50% children
SOME CAUSES OF TRAFFICKING • Poverty especially among women worldwide • Inadequate education • Inadequate employment • Erosion of traditional family values • Racial discrimination, racism and intolerance • Media, new technologies, pornography • Discrimination of women, male attitudes • Economic disparities within countries • Globalization and economic liberalisation • Civil and military conflicts/military bases • Transnational crime and weak law enforcement • Corruption by police, law enforcers, officials • Expanding commercial sex industry
Victims exploited for sexual purposes: • are used as prostitutes or sex slaves • work 18 or more hours a day, 7 days a week • are often chained to beds; or • made drug addicts to control them • are subjected to physical violence
Victims often: • contract tuberculosis, AIDS/HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases • have other medical conditions due to their living/working conditions • suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome
Because of fear of AIDS/HIV, traffickers are selling young children to men for sexual purposes • Extreme poverty causes parents in some developing countries to sell their daughters • Women and children can be sold up to 10 times
“No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.” Article 4, United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948
Victims of slave labour are often: • forced to work 18-20 hours a day, seven days a week in sweat shops, fields, construction, restaurants or domestic situations • chained to their work stations or locked into rooms
given no breaks and little food or water • tricked into taking out a loan at extremely high interest rates • physically abused if they refuse to pay the high interest rates
Malo (5 years old) holds a sharp grass cutting tool in her hand that she uses to work in the fields
Boys as young as 6are stolen from theirvillages to becomesoldiers in manycountries • Are forced tocommit atrocities • Are tortured and abusedby captors
According to the RCMP, each year some 800 people are trafficked into Canada • Non-governmentorganizations (NGOs) estimate 16,000 annually • 1,500 – 2,200 people are trafficked through Canada into the United States
Canada is a destination/transit country for women/children trafficked for sexual exploitation • Between $120 - $400 million is brought into Canada each year through trafficking.
Aboriginal women are driven into trafficking by poverty and conditions on the reserve • Traffickers start them in Vancouver, then sell them to someone in Winnipeg, Toronto or other places across the country
“Every religion emphasizes human improvement, love, respect for others, sharing other people’s suffering. On these lines every religion has more or less the same viewpoint and the same goal.” The Dalai Lama
2002 - Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) makes it illegal to traffic in human beings • 2004 - Interdepartmental Working Group on Trafficking led by Foreign Affairs and Justice Department created with 3 goals • Prevention • Prosecution • Protection • More emphasis needed on prosecution and protection.
May 2006 – Citizenship and Immigration created Temporary Residents Permits (TRPs) for trafficked persons for up to 120 days to access medical, dental, psychological and trauma counselling • May 2007 - amendment to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (Bill-C57) passed to end granting of work permits for immigrant exotic dancers
GOLDEN RULE“Do Unto Others As You Would Wish Them To Do Unto You!”
The Ethic According to Several World Faiths BUDDHISM …a state that is not pleasing or delightful to me, how could I inflict that upon another? Samyutta Nikaya v. 353 Hurt not other in ways that you yourself would Find hurtful.” Udana-Varga 5:18
CHRISTIANITY In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets. Matthew 7:12 (NRSV) Do to others as you would have them do to you. Luke 6:31 (NRSV)
ISLAM None of you [truly] believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself. Number 13 of Imam "Al-Nawawi's Forty Hadiths.
HINDUISM This is the sum of duty: do not do to others what would cause pain if done to you. Mahabharata 5:1517
JUDAISM You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your countrymen. Love your fellow as yourself: I am the Lord. Leviticus 19:18 (TANAKH) What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man. This is the law: all the rest is commentary. Talmud, Shabbat 31a.
Although Hebrew Scriptures have been used to justify slavery, the Bible should not be used to exploit, indenture, demean, and dehumanise fellow human beings. • The Scriptural account of slavery is not the same as the slavery of later centuries which involved kidnapping African people for export around the world as a commodity or, indeed, as the modern slavery that plagues nations today • Most slaves in Ancient Israel were sold into servitude as a way of paying debts • There was a system of emancipation to ensure that slaves would not remain permanently indentured (Sabbath and Jubilee years)
Treating people as a commodity is an affront to the human dignity and the worth of a person, and a sin before the eyes of God • The abuse of other human beings for profit and personal enjoyment is deplorable • When one is abused, whether financially, sexually, emotionally, physically or otherwise, even God cries out at the injustice • The inequality of personhood is offensive to most faiths
Raise Awareness about Trafficking • Lobby Government • Seek justice and healing for Victims • Support Fair Trade to help eliminate poverty which can lead to Trafficking • Purchase Fair Trade Products • Pray for Victims
“It is from the numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time one person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, that person sends a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest wall of oppression and resistance.” Robert Kennedy
The Committee on Human Trafficking is a sub-committee of the Justice and Peace Commission VISION • Our Vision is to educate ourselves, our parishes and communities on issues related to human trafficking and to advocate for victims of human trafficking. OUR GOALS • To prepare an educational package that can be used to make presentations or do workshops for interested groups. • To develop an Education Plan that can be used by parishes/faith communities to educate their faithful.
