What is People Trafficking?
‘Trafficking involves transporting people away from the communities in which they live and forcing them to work against their will using violence, deception, or coercion. When children are trafficked, no violence, deception or coercion needs to be involved: simply transporting them into exploitative conditions constitutes trafficking. People are trafficked both between countries and within the borders of a state.’ Definition by Anti-Slavery, Read in full
Stories of Victims indicate the damage this crime inflicts.
Trafficking is a crime that is hidden from view, isolating victims and destroying them psychologically.
What is the difference between People Trafficking and People Smuggling?
‘Smuggling’ or ‘trafficking’ both usually involve crossing international borders in an unauthorised way. The difference is that people who are smuggled are assumed to have given their consent, and people who are trafficked are moved against their will. Those who are controlled by others in their own country are also trafficked people.
Families and individuals may have to move because of poverty or fear, and travelling with legal documents may not be an option. Others may travel legally, thinking that they are going to proper jobs in a new country, only to find they are in the power of gangsters, or have been deceived about the work or remuneration. In either trafficking or smuggling, people often end up with large debts, owed to the people who smuggled or trafficked them. There can also be subtle ways in which they are ‘bound’ to individuals or gangs back home, who arranged their transport. To assert one’s rights might seem to be breaking a debt of honour, and family at home may be at physical risk.
Stricter border controls and entry requirements create an underground economy where money is made in providing fraudulent documents, help with transport, guided border crossings, and the facilitation of jobs and accommodation. The difficulty in getting successful prosecutions has led to suspected traffickers being charged with other offences such as failure to pay tax or living off immoral earnings.
It is often assumed that people trafficking refers only to the movement of women for sexual exploitation but the economic exploitation of people in legal areas of the economy is also common – a modern form of slavery, which is rarely prosecuted. The arrival of unaccompanied minors is another increasing cause for concern. Children may end up in domestic or sexual servitude, or be used in street crime, associated with begging, or to facilitate benefit fraud.
Has Trafficking Anything to Do with Claiming Asylum?
‘Trafficking need have nothing to do with refugees. Some people who are trafficked come on a visitor’s, or student, visa. Some never come into contact with the immigration authorities at all. There are two key points of contact between trafficking and refugees:
i) Traffickers may get people into a country by getting the people to claim asylum;
ii) Trafficked people found in a country may, for reasons that may or may not be related to their experience of being trafficked, claim asylum.’
Part of a presentation by Alison Harvey, General Secretary of the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association for the North-South Immigration Forum, 9 July 2008. For more on definitions read this presentation in full: Trafficking presentation A Harvey.
Further background reading
House of Commons Home Affairs Committee
The Trade in Human Beings: Human Trafficking in the UK,Sixth Report of Session 2008–09
Volume I http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmhaff/23/23i.pdf
Volume 2 http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmhaff/23/23ii.pdf
