In recent years there has been a significant increase worldwide in discussion about the problem of trafficking. The abuses of the basic human rights of trafficked persons, who are mainly women and girls, arouse great concern. NGOs, governments, the United Nations and others have attempted to respond to the problem. However, there are many different opinions about what trafficking is, how widespread trafficking is, how to understand the problem and what needs to be done to respond to it and to address the growing restrictions against legal and safe migration that people around the world are facing.
What is trafficking?
"Trafficking" has been defined in various ways over the years and by different groups. Since 2000, a widely used definition is that of the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially women and children (also known as the Palermo Protocol). According to this document, trafficking in persons is the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.
Trafficking vs. Smuggling
It is useful to distinguish between trafficking in persons and people smuggling. A person who is trafficked is kept under the control of the traffickers, whereas a migrant smuggler simply facilitates clandestine entry into a country.
Some key elements of a definition of trafficking
Consent: Trafficking is usually defined as requiring that those trafficked be unwilling, i.e. that they have been deceived or abducted by force. This is contrasted with smuggled persons, who are assumed to want entry into the other country. This distinction, however, is not a simple one, since many if not most migrants experience varying degrees of coercion and deception. Also individuals may knowingly accept a situation of exploitation, because it is the best option available to them, or may start by agreeing with a proposal and later become unwilling when they learn of the real situation. The issue of consent on its own therefore does not tell us whether a person has been trafficked or not.
Forced labour: Most definitions of trafficking include reference to some kind of forced labour. The traffickers’ purpose is to exploit the labour or services of those who are trafficked. According to the Palermo Protocol, exploitation includes “the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.” Some groups consider any form of prostitution to be by definition exploitative, with the result that they consider large numbers of women to be trafficked. Others reject such an approach on the basis that it denies the limited agency available to migrant (and other) sex workers and assumes that other forms of labour exploitation are less abhorrent to women. There is often a lot of focus on sexual exploitation in discussions of trafficking, but trafficking might also include such things as sweatshop labour, domestic labour or selling drugs, work in restaurants, farms, or factories, etc.
Migration: While some definitions of trafficking include situations where the trafficked persons are still in their home community, the term "trafficking" is most often used to apply to persons who have moved or are forced from their homes. As The UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women has pointed out "[t]he movement or transport of women is such as to place the victim in unfamiliar milieu where she is culturally, linguistically or physically isolated and denied legal identity or access to justice. Such dislocation increases trafficked women's marginalization and therefore increases the risk of abuse, violence, exploitation, domination or discrimination by both traffickers, police officials, the courts, immigration officials, etc."(Report on trafficking in women, women's migration and violence against women, submitted in accordance with Commission on Human Rights by Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy, the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, 29 Feb 2000: p. 7)
Migration and exploitation are clearly linked. This is most often due to the discrimination that migrants face because they have been classified as 'illegal' by 'receiving' countries and because employers seek ever-cheaper and more vulnerable supplies of labour.
Understanding the context of the problem
Clearly, there are serious human rights abuses occurring in any situation where women, children or men are forced or tricked into travelling to a place where they are coerced into an exploitative labour relationship. How the situation is understood will affect the solutions that seem most appropriate to address the human rights abuses.
Numbers of trafficked persons
One question that comes up repeatedly in discussions of trafficking concerns the extent of trafficking. Estimates of the number of trafficked persons vary widely. The variation can be explained partly by the fact that, since trafficking involves numerous illegal activities, there are no official statistics available. However, the variation is also the consequence of widely differing interpretations of what it means to be trafficked. For example, those who consider all women who are brought to another country to work as prostitutes to be trafficked clearly come up with much larger numbers of trafficked persons than those accept that a woman can consent to work as a prostitute.
Global inequalities
Much international migration, including “trafficking”, occurs in a context of global economic inequalities and a systematic failure to respect the basic human rights of a large part of the world's population. Large numbers of people find themselves unable to protect and provide for themselves and their families in their own homes. At the same time, efforts by governments to restrict migration prevent most of the world (and especially women) from migrating legally. While migration controls are enforced, there remains in the countries of destination a demand for exploitable labour. Women and girls are particularly vulnerable to being caught in the middle of these conflicting pressures, because of gendered social, economic, cultural and political systems.
This context leads to widespread human rights abuses of many of those people who seek to leave home or who live and work in situations of varying degrees of exploitation. This abuse and exploitation is, therefore, shaped not just by those people labelled as 'traffickers' but also by governments, employers and those within 'receiving' countries who accept discrimination against people on the basis of their nationality and immigration status.
Different interpretations of trafficking
Some groups use trafficking as a framework to view the situation of poor migrants very broadly. This approach emphasizes the widely shared experiences of deception, coercion and exploitation (although they may be experienced in different degrees).
Others use trafficking to cover the situation of the much smaller group of migrants who do not consent to the exploitative situation they are in but who are forced to remain in it, usually by violence or threat of violence. This approach recognizes that some migrants are experiencing extreme forms of coercion.
Still others question whether it is useful to use the trafficking framework at all, on the grounds that it does not correspond to migrants' own experiences and does not address the problems faced by the vast majority of undocumented migrants. They are concerned that by presenting migrants as victims of trafficking, the role of women as active agents is obscured and attention is not paid to the forces that make the migrants vulnerable to exploitation.
Responding to the problem
Measures chosen to respond to trafficking obviously depend on one's analysis of the problem.
Law enforcement approach and its shortcomings
Governments involved in negotiating the Palermo Protocol showed that they analyzed the problem as one of international crime and their solution was one of law enforcement. It is a Protocol to Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. Although the Protocol does include measures to protect trafficked persons, these are [at the bottom of government's priority list and] not made strict requirements and the focus is rather on criminalizing the traffickers.
People who traffic in human beings deserve to be brought to justice. However, an approach focusing on punitive measures against traffickers leaves aside the role other parties play in the violations of migrants' rights. This includes the role of the state and its officials in restricting women's movement across borders through restrictive and discriminatory immigration policies and the role of employers and those who accept the discrimination faced by migrants.
Another criticism of the law enforcement approach is that it functions as an extension of states' efforts to curb migration. This view seems to be supported by the emphasis laid on measures of repression, while the rights of those trafficked are given a lower priority. In many anti-trafficking programs, the trafficked persons are sent home, even though in many cases women had compelling reasons to leave in the first place. Combating trafficking without addressing the need for women to be able to migrate in safety does not get to the root of the problem.
Programs offering status to trafficked persons
An alternative approach is to allow trafficked persons to regularize their status in the country to which they have been trafficked. Some countries, including the US, have such programs. However, where testifying against their traffickers is a condition of receiving status, trafficked persons may be unwilling because they fear that this would put themselves or their families at risk.
Further reflection
Some questions have been prepared that may be helpful for those wanting to think more deeply about the concept of trafficking and the implications of anti-trafficking measures.
For more information:
Report on trafficking in women, women's migration and violence against women, submitted in accordance with Commission on Human Rights by Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy, the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
The most complete report about trafficking and exploitation of women: historical evolution of trafficking, current definitions, responsibility of states, the root causes of trafficking, recommendations and remedies...
US government's 2003 report on Trafficking in Persons
The new report from the State Department about trafficking in human being. This report covers those countries that, according to the US, have a significant number of victims of severe forms of trafficking. An overview of the trafficking situation in the country and the government’s efforts to combat trafficking is provided.
Human Rights Watch: U.S. State Department Trafficking Report Undercut by Lack of Analysis
A critique of the US government’s 2003 report on trafficking in persons by Human Rights Watch.
IOM, Counter Trafficking
This document give basic information about trafficking (Trafficking in persons: updates and perspectives), explains the mandate of the IOM for the prevention of trafficking and gives a overview of the services provided by IOM.
TOUPIN L., La question du «trafic des femmes» : points de repères dans la documentation des coalitions féministes internationales anti-trafic.
Il s’agit d’un document extrèmement complet sur la définition de la traite depuis les premières conventions vers 1900 jusqu’au Protocole de Palerme. Il y est également question des stratégies de plusieurs ONG tels que CATW (Coalition against Trafficking in Women) et le GAATW (Global Alliance against Traffic in Women) pour lutter contre la traite.
Sharma. Nandita. “Travel Agency: A Critique of Anti-Trafficking Campaigns”, Refuge, July 2003. http://www.globalhawaii.org/PDF/traffickpapers/Sharma.pdf
John Davies, "The role of Migration Policy in Creating and Sustaining Trafficking Harm", Paper, European Conference on Preventing and Combating Trafficking of Human Beings, 18-20 September 2002 
Joanna Apap, Peter Cullen and Felicita Medved, "Counteracting Human Trafficking - Protecting the Victims of Trafficking", Paper, European Conference on Preventing and Combating Trafficking of Human Beings, 18-20 September 2002
Other papers from the European Conference on Preventing and Combating Trafficking of Human Beings, 18-20 September 2002
Brussels Declaration on Preventing and Combating Trafficking in Human Beings
International Labour Office (ILO), “Getting at the Roots: Stopping Exploitation of Migrant Workers by Organized Crime,” (International Symposium, The UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime: Requirements for Effective Implementation, Turin, Italy 22-23 February 2002).
- The United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime and its two supplementary Protocols were signed by 120 states of 148 present in Palermo, Italy in December 2000.
- The Trafficking Protocol recognizes the need for a combined approach that integrates effective prevention of trafficking with the prosecution of traffickers and the protection of human rights and assistance to victims of trafficking.
- Over 140 NGOs participated in the negotiations leading to the signature of the instruments in Palermo. The NGO coalition worked to ensure that the Convention and its Protocols were consistent with the human rights principles expressed in various international instruments. However, many NGOs have been highly critical of the protocol, notably because it addresses trafficking within the context of organized crime, rather than within the framework of migrants' rights. The Protocol does not acknowledge the responsibility of states for creating the conditions within which trafficking flourishes. It frames anti-trafficking measures as migration control measures.
- The text calls on States parties adopt measures to:
- Prevent trafficking in persons, especially women and children, as well as to hunt down and punish international traffickers
- Boost cooperation among nations to combat trafficking more effectively
- Protect trafficking victims and help them return safely to their own or a third country
- Inform the public about trafficking and its negative consequences for both traffickers and victims.
United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially women and children (Palermo Protocol)
UN , ODCCP, After Palermo: An Overview of what the Convention and Protocols Hope to Accomplish (2001)
Guide to the new UN trafficking protocol by CATW (Coalition against Trafficking in Women), MAPP, Article Premier, AFEM (Association des femmes de l'Europe méridionale) and the EWL (European Women's Lobby)
The Annotated Guide to the Complete UN Trafficking Protocol, Ann Jordan, Initiative Against Trafficking in Persons at the International, Human Rights Law Group (2002)
- Trafficking is a term that focuses on the international dimensions of the problem. While this is important, it can be misleading in that it may suggest that trafficking is a "foreign" problem that has been imported from abroad. It is therefore important to recognize that trafficking is a form of forced labour and that it responds to demands in Canada. It is a Canadian problem.
- Information about the problem of trafficking is inherently difficult to obtain. Many people know a little about the reality of trafficked women and girls in Canada, but no one has a good idea of the full extent of the problem.
- Canada's Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (in force since June 28, 2002) contains increased penalties for traffickers. However, there are no provisions to protect the rights of those trafficked. On the contrary, the law in fact contains punitive measures for people who have been smuggled or trafficked, including increased powers of detention. The Regulations specifically target for detention people who have smuggled or trafficked.
- According to a study by the Consulting and Audit Canada (2000), there is no agreed-upon definition of trafficking in women among individual member departments of the Canadian government's Interdepartmental Working Group on Trafficking in Women (IWGT). In addition, there are no process and criteria in place to identify the trafficked victims, making it difficult if not impossible for the government to be able to grant victims of trafficking measures of protection.
- There is no legal, policy or administrative framework to ensure that the rights and dignity of trafficked woman and girls in Canada are respected.
- The US government’s 2003 report on Trafficking in Persons placed Canada in Tier 2. This means that, in the view of the US, the Canadian government does not fully comply with minimum standards in the prevention of trafficking but is making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards.
For more information on the situation in Canada according to the US government's 2003 report on Trafficking in Persons
The CCR is currently undertaking a project to:
- Develop the capacity among Canadian NGOs, including immigrant and refugee-serving NGOs, to respond appropriately to the needs of trafficked persons in Canada, specially women and girls, and to work towards the expansion of options for them to regularize their status and towards the eradication of forced labour in Canada.
- Provide a forum for expression and debate among NGOs and other stakeholders, holding different views on trafficking issues, whereby participants could explore their assumptions, reach a better and more critical understanding of the trafficking and come up with resolutions and action plans.
- Organize regional meetings bringing together different players interested in combating trafficking. To follow up on the local meetings, we will organize a one-day national meeting in Winnipeg (in conjunction with the CCR fall consultation, Nov. 20-22, 2003).
- Provide information to sensitize NGOs in Canada to the needs and realities of trafficked women and girls. The project is aimed primarily at NGOs, who are best placed to provide a safe environment and appropriate support for trafficked persons and to advocate their rights. However, the project will also promote networking with others (academics, government officials, police, etc).
For more background on the CCR and trafficking
- Trafficking takes place in a context of international migration and more specifically the context of extreme hostility to so-called "illegal migration". When police and immigration officials uncover a situation of trafficking, the trafficked persons are not necessarily identified as victims of trafficking or offered protection. Instead, victims of trafficking are frequently identified in the public and official mind as "illegal migrants".
- Being women, foreigners and without legal status, these trafficked victims are triply vulnerable.
- Community-based NGOs are best placed to provide a safe environment and appropriate support for persons in this vulnerable situation. There is therefore an onus on NGOs to sensitize themselves to the issue, to explore the needs of trafficked persons, especially women and girls, and develop responses.
- According to the guide Assisting Victims of Trafficking in Human Beings, properly adapted assistance consists of the following elements:
Specialized assistance
Respect of victim’s choices
Prior training of staff of the associations and social partners
Awareness-raising of professionals involved in protecting and assisting victims (for example, police officers, judges, lawyers, doctors, interpreters, social workers, etc.)
For more information:
Assisting Victims of Trafficking in Human Beings
This document is a guide addressed to people working with victims of trafficking. It answers questions about the psychology of the victims.
International Human Rights Law Group, Human Rights Standards for the Treatment of Trafficked Persons
The Standards aim to protect and promote respect for the human rights of individuals who have been victims of trafficking. They protect the rights of trafficked persons by providing them with an effective legal remedy, legal protection, non-discriminatory treatment, and restitution, compensation and recovery.
Victims of Trafficking, Trafficking in human beings as a phenomenon
Good résumé about the situation of the victims of trafficking (recruitment, travel conditions, different sort of exploitation…)
Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to the Economic and Social Council Recommended Principles and Guidelines on Human Rights and Human Trafficking, June 2002
This document recommends human rights principles in relation with human trafficking. It reminds States how trafficked people must be treated (ie their status as victims, their need for help and protection).
The goal of the CCR project is to develop the capacity among Canadian NGOs to respond appropriately to the needs of trafficked persons in Canada and to work towards the eradication of forced labor in Canada.
- Contact us if you would like to receive more information about this project
- Give us input about your work and experience in the area of trafficking in persons
- Pass on to us useful resources or contacts
- Participate in or organize a meeting in your region
- Contact us if you would like to get involved in any other aspect of this project
Contact information:
Project coordinator, Afsaneh Hojabri
afsaneh@videotron.ca
