Introduction
Over past decades, human trafficking and modern slavery have turned out to be a key public issue and a concern. The UN reports indicate that, by 2012, over 134 nations had already ratified laws that criminalized human trafficking (United Nations 88). The international community comprising of different organizations, governments, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has supported a range of research ingenuities and programs to locate and assist victims. Besides, more funds are being allocated to address human trafficking and slavery, in both domestic and international spheres. Being a historic challenge, human trafficking has drawn differing explanation approaches from different researchers and scholars. This paper will discuss ways in which J. Quirk’s and O. Patterson’s historical approaches and definitions of human trafficking are confirmed or challenged by various selected primary sources and also provide conclusions based on secondary sources.
Health and Human Trafficking
The text has documented health issues like injuries, illnesses, and impairments brought about by human trafficking (“Primary Source” 292). In this text, the author unfolds that 87% of the survivors seek health services while still in the torturing situation. As a result, many health providers are trained ways of identifying those suffering from human trafficking to enable them to respond or offer help to the victims accordingly.
The text starts with a narration of a victim, saying how at the age of 13 became a victim of human trafficking. From the incident, and after a sexual assault that the victim experienced, she found herself practicing prostitution, engaging with violent customers. The author thus opens with an argument that the case of this victim is an example of women and girls who are trafficked for commercial sex in the US. She ended up contracting diseases like hepatitis C and psychological problems. This goes with what Quirk had extensively addressed in Trafficked into Slavery, where he elucidates that sexual slavery or forced prostitution was an element in human trafficking in the aftermath of the cold war (Quirk 181). It also aligns with Patterson's points in Trafficking, Gender & Slavery: Past and Present, where he states that human trafficking has grown mostly in “the trafficking of women and girls for commercial sexual purposes” (Patterson 1).
The study presented in the text indicates that 99.1% of those trafficked reported at least one physical injury. The major physical health issues were neurological and insomnia ( (“Primary Source” 293). Also, over 54% of the trafficked women reported dental issues, where the majority was the challenge of tooth losses. The study outcome confirms Patterson's ideas that most of the trafficked women were physically injured. As a result, the masters used to be compensated when their slaves got injured (Patterson 3). Also, Quirk had, in his studies, remarked that all the forced labor resulted in physical violence, which is confirmed in this study (Quirk 196).
Additionally, this study indicated that human trafficking victims were traumatized mentally and had critical psychological conditions. There was 98% of the victims of human trafficking who reported at least one psychological issue. Among the psychological problems reported were depression, nightmares, shame, and low self-esteem. The study outcomes confirm Patterson's view in Trafficking, Gender & Slavery: Past and Present, where he elucidates that due to gang rape, beatings, and starvation, there psychological terror among the victims.
According to Kaylor, human trafficking has both physical and psychological effects on the victims. The traffickers usually use excessive physical violence to dominate and control their victims (Kaylor 3). Kaylor also points out that they experience psychological issues like mental illnesses and anxiety (Kaylor 3). The maneuvers they use include starvation, beatings, raping, and gang rape (Kaylor 3). Thus, it is imperative to conclude that human trafficking does bring about physical and psychological problems to the victims, and as a result, they always try to find a way to get help.
The MS -13 Sex Trafficking Cases
The document presents high profile cases of gang rapes that were spotlighted as they gave way to sex trafficking (“Primary Source” 286). The cases are a section of many issues in the Eastern District of Virginia and announce the prosecution of various street gang rape members, and sex trafficking perpetrators. These perpetrators engaged in recruiting, harboring, and selling human beings for sex (“Primary Source” 287).
The case starts with the story of a young girl,12, being prostituted to different clients (“Primary Source” 288). The convicted had engaged in the sex trade with the minor to earn profits. The case still confirms Patterson’s views in Trafficking, Gender & Slavery: Past and Present, as he states that young girls and children are mostly kidnapped after being lured, later used in the sex trade (Patterson 25). Additionally, there is Brita’s story about how she became a victim of sex trafficking at the age of 14 after having troubles with her mother.
She narrates how, after running away, she came across a man, probably after realizing her weakness- that she was not living with her parents, took advantage to engage her in forced prostitution. This is a confirmation of Patterson’s historical findings on how many adults gain control of young women and girls by identifying their weaknesses and exploiting them (Patterson 28). He further states that once they get the vulnerable young girls, it becomes easy for them to maintain control, like domestic abusers.
Besides, from the same document, Brita indicates how she was constantly getting physically abused through beatings from the perpetrator ( “Primary Source” 228). She was forced to stay and became a drug addict through coercion. She was so scared and psychologically affected. Thus, it confirms that Patterson's idea that sex trafficking will have a psychological impact on the minor and that they get traumatized into emotional dependency on their victimizers (Patterson 28).
Therefore, just as Kaylor stated in her study, sexual trafficking can bring psychological and physical trauma, and engaging in sexual acts under threat or coercion can be devastating as the case in the document has elaborated upon (Kaylor 4). Thus, most traffickers take advantage of the young girls to lure them, after which they infiltrate physical and psychological traumas to control them.
Feminist Response to Amnesty’s Call of Decriminalizing Sex Trade
The article “Feminist Response to Amnesty’s Call” is retorting to a draft resolution from Amnesty International advocating for decriminalizing sex trade completely (“Primary Source” 336). The short critical text has raised various philosophical, political, and practical issues that may arise if prostitution is categorized as a form of work. The author has raised her feminist point of view and highlighted that prostitution is a form of sex trafficking as well as sex slavery and thus does not uphold human rights.
The issue raised in the text confirms Patterson’s definition of slavery. Patterson had defined slavery as “the violent, corporeal possession of socially isolated and parasitically degraded persons” (Patterson 6). In this definition, Patterson further elucidates that the worst forms of child labor and domestic vassalage, together with the international and domestic sex trafficking, all do satisfy his polythetic definition of slavery (Patterson 2). Prostitution falls in the category of sexual trafficking and is a form of corporeal possession as Patterson views it. Therefore, according to the text, decriminalizing prostitution is a human trafficking strategy that will deny women the right to make decisions on their health, body, sexuality, and reproductive life (“Primary Source” 337). This further confirms Patterson’s observation that “there are many cases of internationally trafficked women who are held in long‐term slave‐like relationships” (Patterson 8).
Besides, within the text, the responding author makes advocates that sexual trafficking, being a form of slavery, brings about predilection of dehumanization (337). According to her, sexual trafficking, alongside other issues like genital mutilation, is the basis of women's torture that crops from gender inequality. This is yet another confirmation of what Quirk elucidates in Trafficked into Slavery, where he asserts that sexual trafficking “is emblematic of patriarchal violence and subordination and can thus be placed alongside rape, sexual harassment, sexual abuse of children, genital mutilation, and pornography” (Quirk 199). He further clarifies that prostitution essentially and inexorably includes subjugation and abuse.
According to the UN definition, human trafficking refers to the “process by which people are recruited in their community and exploited by traffickers using deception and/or some form of coercion to lure and control them” (United Nations 16). It involves three elements, which are the act, means, and purpose. Looking to prostitution, it also involves an act, where there is sexual contact, and means usually involves enticing. According to Andriano, the purpose of engaging in prostitution can be out of coercion, poverty, and violence (Andriano 2). That means it may not necessarily be out of willingness. Based on this fact, prostitution can be largely categorized as a form of human trafficking. Thus, just as the author argued in the response article, decriminalizing, it will be contradictory to the fact that there are laws against it being a form of trafficking.
Preventing Human Trafficking in the Global Supply Chain
In this source material, there is a summary given in the 2015 Trafficking in Person’s Report that is about different ways in which trafficking is being infiltrated within the private business supply chain. The article has further outlined the role of both the government and the private sector in the context of how the supply chain is monitored in an attempt to prevent human trafficking.
One issue raised in the article is that labor shortages have been one cause of human trafficking. There is also an inclusion of child labor in an attempt to seal the gap created by the shortages. As the text indicates, the main victims are immigrants, who encompass children, women, foreign nationals, and citizens who travel abroad, either legally or illegally (“Primary Source” 305). This is an exact confirmation of Patterson’s view that immigrants formed a rich ground of human trafficking, leading to exploitation of various categories of people, including women and children (Patterson 10).
One of the main arguments raised in this text is the role of government in abolishing human trafficking within the supply chain. The author elucidates that the government should prevent human trafficking through prosecution and protecting the victims (“Primary Source” 308). However, this argument contravenes what Joel Quirk advocates for in The Anti-Slavery Project: From the Slave Trade to Human Trafficking work. Quirk in the “The Anti-slavery Project” examines the developing political project of the anti-slavery movement. He notices that there is little improvement in the implementation of the legal abolition of human trafficking by the government. He proves his point by extensively analyzing historical events that include the legal abolition of slavery, history of the British anti-slavery movement, and colonialism, together with discursive analysis of discrimination and debt.
