Introduction to human trafficking

Much of the time, policy makers and activists put a lot of focus on getting people out of slavery. Considering the number of people who are in slavery, which again is conservatively put at 27 million and is likely quite higher, this is absolutely critical. However, surprisingly little consideration and focus is given to stopping people from going into slavery in the first place. Thus we will consider the supply side. But instead of talking about this in theoretical terms, let me tell you a story.
Consider Dara. Dara is from a tribal group called the Akha. She and her people live in the mountains of Burma. They have always been marginalized by the dominant lowland civilizations because they are thought of as primitive and backwards. Likewise, most of them can’t speak the national language of the country that has drawn borders around them. This makes education and employment difficult, but it has never really been a problem for them because they have always been able to grow enough food to stay alive. Until now. There is a war in Burma and many Akha are moving to Thailand to avoid being used as human minesweepers. Dara and her family are among them. They live in a small village with no running water or electricity and don’t seem to be able to get enough food anymore. This is because the Thai government frowns on their slash and burn agriculture because it is destroying the rainforest. So Dara’s family resorted to growing and selling opium.

This went well for a while until the Thai government cracked down on opium growing. To their credit, they tried to introduce new cash crops like coffee and fruit trees, but these have a slow turnaround and those in the village need money to buy food now. They scrimp and save and do the best they can. But then Dara’s father died in a traffic accident while trying to transport some of the coffee they grow to market. In addition to growing coffee he also worked seasonally on construction sights in the city, when it wasn’t planting or harvest time. This brought in some extra cash for the family–enough to send Dara to school a few days a week. Since her father died this is no longer possible. Getting enough money for food is no longer possible either.
Things become really complicated when Dara’s little sister contracts a major infection from bad drinking water. Mother borrows what money she can to pay for the medicine. Little sister is safe for now. But the family is in serious debt, with not much hope. Mother does what is normal in the tribe and remarries with the hope that a new man will be able to bring in more income. Unfortunately, the man she marries already has a plan for getting more income. “That girl of yours is getting old enough. It’s time to put her to work in the Karaoke bars down in the city”, he says.

All the older people know what working in the karaoke bars means and everyone expects Dara to do it. After all, it is her duty to do whatever she has to do to support the family. It is every daughter’s obligation to do whatever she can when she is old enough. At 11, she is old enough. The next time the recruiter comes to the village, Dara is handed off to her. She doesn’t know what awaits her in the big city. She also doesn’t know she will never see her family again. After being “broken in” in the city, she is sent to Bangkok for a while and is then sold to a criminal organization that exports her. She ends up in Japan servicing those with a taste for “fresh meat”. She passes away not long after, beaten to death as an “example” to the other children.
This doesn’t need to happen. It wouldn’t have happened if the new stepfather actually cared about her. But it also wouldn’t have happened if the family hadn’t gone into debt paying for medicine to cure water born disease that would not exist if the village had running water. It wouldn’t have happened if her father didn’t have to travel on unsafe roads to get his produce to market. It wouldn’t have happened if there were better agricultural practices in place to provide enough food in the first place. It wouldn’t have happened if education were available to her village so people could learn the national language and get better paying jobs if they wanted. It wouldn’t have happened if there actually were alternative jobs to extremely low wage manual labor or prostitution. It wouldn’t have happened if villagers could have a safe place to bank what little money they have and to get low interest loans in order to start new enterprises. It wouldn’t have happened if the “recruiter” had been restricted from so easily going from place to place. It wouldn’t have happened if her family hadn’t moved from Burma. That wouldn’t have happened if the war were brought to an end in the first place.

This story plays itself out every day in various ways, in millions of lives, all over the world. It will continue to do so until all these the factors contributing to end “product” are dealt with. Stay tuned as we examine how to remedy these contributing factors.