Human trafficking: A modern day plague

Human trafficking is similar to arms and drug trafficking and is a heinous crime which poses a major threat to the international community. It presents a special threat to women and adolescents, both girls and boys, especially those who have a low socioeconomic status. Trafficking in persons can be separated into two distinct categories: 1.forced labor and 2.prostitution, also known as sex trafficking. Both forms of human trafficking have been especially driven by the growing demands of cheap and profitable unskilled labor and sexual exploitation. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights recognizes it as “one of the world's fastest growing crimes.”4 The United Nations Population Fund's State of the World Population 2006 report states that human trafficking is the third most lucrative illicit business in the world after arms and drug trafficking. Human trafficking in a quantifiable number of cases is a gender-based human rights violation against women and children( especially the girl child). Human trafficking contributes to the spread of sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis, gonorrhea and HIV/AIDS. Additionally, victims of trafficking are at an increased risk for depression, post traumatic stress disorders, suicide, and substance abuse. Human trafficking is defined by The UN as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons. It involves using threat, force or other forms of coercion, abduction, fraud, and deception, to control over another person for the purpose of exploitation.