Thursday, November 26th, 2009 - One comment

Anti-trafficking policies should emphasize human rights

Economic and political policies made at international, regional and national levels strongly affect the fight against trafficking.  The approach to build a strategy must be holistic.

There are certain economic, political and social/cultural factors in origin states (from where the trafficking of women and children starts) and destination states (the end points of a person who is sold or enslaved), which cause the problem of trafficking particularly of women and children.

Risk factors

Economic risk factors include poverty in origin states and prosperity and strong demand in destination states. Political risk factors include instability and civil wars in origin states. Social and cultural risk factors include inequalities and vulnerabilities in the population, generated by traditionalism and tribalism.

Criminal gangs operating in origin, destination and transit States facilitate travel of trafficked persons in miserable conditions.

Human rights dimension

Trafficking can be countered by adopting an approach that integrates labor, migration, criminal and human rights dimensions of this problem. The most important dimension of this problem is its human rights dimension.  Global emphasis on a human rights dialogue would help address issues of exploitation, slavery, violence, arbitrary detention and protection from further abuse.

Integration of human rights in anti-trafficking strategies:

1. Domestic laws should comply with human rights instruments that states have already ratified.
2. Implementation of laws should be monitored through an inter-agency, or multiple government agencies mechanism involving Ministries of Interior (Law Enforcement Agencies), Foreign Affairs, Social Welfare and Human Rights and also the Civil Society.
3. [State] Border policy should be improved.
4. A regional database of criminal gangs involved in trafficking should be prepared. Bilateral and multilateral cooperative mechanisms are critical for proper information exchange. Convention on Transnational Organized Crimes (TOC) and its protocols provide an important mechanism to establish a global alliance against criminal elements involved in trafficking.

Administrative steps apart, international economic, political and social policies will need to be reconsidered between the rich and poor countries while developing an effective international strategy to address this issue.

This is a response to the blog-post, “Help stop trafficking now.”

The views expressed in this blog-post are solely those of the author.