According to a 2005 survey by the respected International Labor Organization (ILO), at least 12.3 million people around the world are toiling in some form of forced slave labor. Of these, about 2.45 million individuals are caught in a vast, largely hidden human trafficking economy whose tentacles reach throughout the globe, including some 15,000 – 20,000 who are trafficked into the U.S. annually. Just under half (43%) of those being trafficked worldwide are involved in some form of commercial sexual exploitation. Far and away, according to the ILO, most trafficking occurs in Asia, but it is increasing everywhere.
And yet fighting this rising tide of the slave trade is, for most police organizations around the world, like trying to find a light switch in a pitch-black room. They know it’s there, but from cops on the beat to national and trans-national security agencies, understanding the extent of the trafficking problem — and where it is happening — remains a significant challenge. As the DCAF report notes, “Although various international and national entities are today tackling human trafficking, reliable information is still lacking on the scale of the phenomenon, on the way it works, and on the most effective means to prevent it.”
Macro data and estimates of the extent of trafficking are available. What’s lacking are local and regional statistics (or “intelligence,” as police call it) that could help counter-trafficking officials pinpoint problems in their jurisdictions.
The DCAF authors stress that getting a handle on tangible trafficking data is the first step to effective law enforcement. But to get to that point, a myriad of issues confronting police agencies will have to be dealt with, including:
The lack of a common definition of trafficking among nations. Most nations have laws outlawing contemporary forms of slavery, and many have tough anti-trafficking statutes. But what constitutes actual trafficking situations varies not only among nations but also within countries. As a result, most observers believe that trafficking crimes are vastly under-reported.
Police agencies and governments vary widely in how they gather and report trafficking intelligence. Many nations don’t collect data specifically related to trafficking. Some countries do not distinguish in the law between illegal immigration, forced migration or trafficking, leading to widespread confusion. Making matters worse, the DCAF report says that police agencies have up to now been reluctant to share intelligence with their counterparts in other countries;
Law enforcement training in human trafficking remains uneven. Police the world over know how to investigate a drug deal or a murder because they’ve been trained in the details of these kinds of crimes. Police training in human trafficking is very much in its infancy.
Competing and oftentimes conflicting levels of responsibilities for enforcement and prosecution create bureaucratic standoffs over which agency or department has the lead role in anti-trafficking efforts. Like virtually every other governmental activity, jurisdiction is often diffused among local, regional and national police and justice agencies. What often results, the DCAF study asserts, is a pervasive passing-of-the-buck culture.
Lack of political will to take on the issue. With so much on their plates, the last thing prosecutors need is to get involved in what is essentially a hidden, underground issue whose victims are most often perceived as rootless souls with no political constituency. The DCAF authors assert that a nation can enact as many tough counter-trafficking laws as it wishes, but without pressure from “the top” (i.e., the President, the Prime Minister, the Police Commissioner, et al), police and prosecutors will stick to going after higher profile criminal activity.
The headline-grabbing issue of sex trafficking is leaving other forms of slavery (such as forced labor) under-reported. The DCAF report makes clear that the rapid increase in sex trafficking is an alarming trans-national development. But the focus on this form of modern-day slavery, the report adds, is obscuring data collection about other egregious forms of trafficking, such as domestic servitude and forced agricultural work.
In their defense, police officials point out that it is often difficult — if not impossible — for trafficking victims to come forward for fear of violent retribution, cultural and language barriers and other impediments.
Whatever the cause, the dearth of pin-point data about trafficking is holding back progress in addressing the crime. Absent good numbers, enforcement agencies are hard-pressed to justify directing scarce resources to counter-trafficking efforts when other crimes, such as illicit drug trading, command attention. Without convincing evidence that trafficking in humans is on the rise in their locales, governments at all levels are reluctant to treat the issue as any sort of priority, adopting a more passive “wait and see” approach. The lack of reliable data also hinders organizations and NGOs that are largely dependent upon private underwriting and foundation grants to carry on their missions of intervention, victim services and public awareness-building.
There’s a great big chicken-and-egg issue in all this, clearly. Reliable data can only be generated through solid investigative police work. But for that to happen, training in trafficking is desperately needed. Prosecutors can’t move ahead without solid cases and good evidence to take to court. Having good cases also implies a much higher level of police agency cooperation across state lines and national borders. And in nations all over the world, victims somehow need to understand — and believe — that they can step forward and be safe.
This conundrum was expressed succinctly just this past week by Major Ken Jarnigan of the Independence, Missouri, Police Department. His department had received three-year Justice Department grants in 2006 to fight trafficking, but Jarnigan said the department won’t be re-applying.
“It was a juggling act; which priority do we focus on,” Jarnigan explained. We felt like our department and citizens would be better served by (detectives) doing cyber crimes rather than human trafficking. In a perfect world, we would have tried to do both.”
Next: Who are the traffickers?
Tags: trafficking data, trafficking statistics
Posted on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 1:28 pm in Commentary, Human Trafficking, News, Slavery Today.
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