Essay on How Can Human Trafficking Be Reduced in the US

Human trafficking remains one of the traditional illegal activities in the US that has been carried forward through different centuries despite the government and society interventions to curb it. It is said that over 49, 000 individuals are trafficked in the country every year and later violate their rights and wellbeing. Human trafficking tampers with societal sanity since it is a crime against humanity. Trafficking leads to exploitation of different forms such as organ removal, forced labor, prostitution, and other inhumane actions. The exploitation goes against humanity’s wellbeing since individuals are made working slaves involuntarily while others are subjected to other unfavorable living conditions. The kind of human trafficking experienced in the US can be reduced by enhanced relationships between the government, the public, and other relevant bodies and organizations that focus on curbing the crime. Thus, for the societal sanity and human dignity maintenance, human trafficking should be reduced by strengthening governmental bodies and institutions. The public should also be enlightened about the importance of preventing human exploitation and trafficking.

1. Statistics
2. Exploitation, humanity wellbeing

Source: DiRienzo on Human Trafficking, page 1-15.

Creating Awareness

1. Educating the public on various practices of trafficking
2. Negative issues of trafficking
3. Ways the public can employ to reduce human trafficking

Source 1: Farrell on public awareness, page 4

Source 2: Recknor and Chisolm-Straker on human trafficking as a public health issue, page 1

Source 3: Stickle and White on human trafficking

There are still many individuals in the country who do not understand various aspects of trafficking. Others do not even know that trafficking exists amongst them, whereby some have even been used to enhance human trafficking unknowingly. Raising awareness about the issue through the media, promoting educational programs in the community institutions and groups can enable individuals to learn various forms of human trafficking, how it exists, where it exists, and how it is executed in the country. Awareness can also enlighten the public on the negative impacts of trafficking on society and their direct or indirect effects. Some of the adverse effects may include effects on human health, interference on the food supply chains, whereby the victims are subjected to forced labor since they will be less productive. Another effect is the creation of gangs to protect the illegal activity, which ends up engaging in other crimes such as stealing to fund their operations. Lastly, people can be taught how to protect themselves and others, assisting victims of trafficking, and also different ways of reporting and castigating human trafficking around them. The approaches will make the government efforts of curbing the crime easy and effective, thus reducing trafficking across the country.

Counter-Trafficking Techniques

1. Preventing Trafficking
2. Protecting victims
3. Punishing traffickers

Source 1: Todres on preventing human trafficking

Source 2: Barbagiannis on protecting victims of human trafficking, page 574

The government should be at the forefront to reduce human trafficking through various techniques. First, it should initiate techniques to prevent or reduce crime, such as tracking individuals and companies’ supply chains to reduce forced labor. It should also hold the violators accountable for hiring individuals without following various conditions that reduce the crime. The prevention policies can also include warning traffickers of conviction and heavy penalties that surpass the benefits of trafficking to make traffickers afraid of engaging in the crime.

Secondly, protecting the victims of trafficking by catering to their basic needs and other crucial necessities until they revitalize their lives will encourage them to escape or report trafficking. Supporting the victims will eventually reduce human trafficking since it will be hard for traffickers and companies to contain them under unbearable conditions when they can live freely with government support. The protection programs will also prevent them from falling back to the tricks of their previous traffickers. Lastly, the government should coin laws and penalty policies for punishing the traffickers. The punishment can include seizure of the trafficker’s property, hefty penalties, and lengthy jail terms for the perpetrators to make them abandon the crime and prevent potential traffickers from getting into the illegal venture.

Legislative Policies

1. Creation, strengthening, and implementation of anti-trafficking Acts
2. Internet regulation

Source 1: Coleman on The Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA)

Source 2: Reid and Fox on human trafficking and the darknet

The government should increase the implementation of the existing anti-trafficking Acts and develop other acts to reduce the cases of trafficking across the country. Although there have been Acts such as the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which was designed to curb labor and sex trafficking in the US, its implementation has not been effective. Thus such an Act should be strengthened and be expanded to cover a broader scope to avert trafficking. Trafficking task forces should also be formed in all states to investigate employee exploitation claims and protect the victims of trafficking. Other Acts should be created to ensure internet regulation and set a legal punishment for those who engage in trafficking and recruitment through the internet.

Police Support and Reforms

1. Offering financial support
2. Creating a rapport between the law enforcement officers and the public.
3. Educating and training police officers on human trafficking.

Source 1: Dandurand on Human trafficking and police governance, page 324

Police are the most effective tool that the government can use to investigate trafficking crimes, arrest traffickers, rescue the crime victims, and prevent it. Supporting and funding law enforcement officers can aid in averting the crime. For example, financial support can be channeled towards setting up essential surveillance cameras across the trafficking hotspots and funding their investigations and other operations to avert the crime. Policing can also be improved by strengthening the rapport between the public, the trafficking victims, and the police to boost trust and enhance the crime reporting. Trust and proper reporting will increase police intelligence regarding trafficking, enabling them to arrest all those involved in the crime or take other relevant steps to reduce it. Lastly, educating the officers on the issue will allow them to understand what the crime entails, its signs, general execution plans, and other necessary aspects. Therefore, education and training will enable the officers to concentrate on the crime’s crucial aspects and strategies to avert it.

Poverty Eradication

1. Promoting children education
2. Poverty eradication programs

Source 1: Toney-Butler and Mittel on human trafficking.

Education is also a useful tool that can lower the rates of trafficking among young people. Free education programs and other programs that mobilize the public to educate their children enable the development of an elite society that cant fall prey to traffickers enticing offers. Education empowerment among children from their early ages also helps shape their skills and knowledge for future employment and career growth, thus encouraging them to pursue their goals. Educated individuals not only have the opportunity to develop their skills and avoid crimes amongst themselves, but they also prevent their families from being taken advantage of by traffickers. On the other hand, poverty eradication programs can help individuals meet their daily needs and their families. It prevents them from desperation and vulnerability to traffickers since most victims are tricked when searching for means to start earning.

Labour

1. Increasing labor supply
2. Creation of safe labor websites

Source 1: Reid and Fox on human trafficking and the darknet

Source 2: Toney-Butler and Mittel on human trafficking

The prominent cause of trafficking to various sectors is the demand for cheap industrial labor and exploitation. Industries seek abusive ways of increasing their profit margin by employing cheap charging trafficked employees and those they can easily exploit without realizing it. Traffickers rely on various websites such as Backpage to trick victims who are sometimes desperately looking for employment. The government should employ strict websites validation and regular tracking of their activities to ensure that they counter the trafficker’s recruitment techniques. It should also create a secure online platform where the employers and potential employees can interact and agree on mutual legal terms. Thus, a safe website will ensure a constant labor supply in the industries, thus minimizing human trafficking and exploitation.

Counterargument

1. Failure to implement legislation policies to reduce trafficking
2. Changing nature of trafficking which ensure trafficking goes on undetected
3. The public unwillingness to report traffickers
4. Increasing labor supply will not necessarily reduce exploitation

Source: Andrade on combating human trafficking in the US

Government efforts to curb the trafficking through various legislations are limited by the unwillingness to implement the passed legislation policies and other factors such as little understanding of the relevant bodies’ provisions crucial in curbing the crime. The government prevention efforts do not match the changing nature of human trafficking since the traffickers are always wiser in their dealing by using different techniques that neither the public nor the government quickly detects. The public is also reluctant to report traffickers if the issue does not affect them directly or do not fully understand various aspects of trafficking. Others fail to report since they do not get any rewards for reporting or fear to expose their lives to danger if the traffickers know who exposed them. Lastly, increasing the labor supply will most likely not reduce trafficking since a regulated labor supply chain will not allow companies to exploit them. Thus companies will opt for the trafficked individuals who have no power to influence the labor price or complain when exploited.

Conclusion

The nature of human trafficking keeps changing, thus making it not easy to stop the crime. There is also poor legislation policy implementation, which encourages trafficking. Despite being a severe crime to eliminate, sensitizing the public on human trafficking, and the importance of reducing can help prevent the crime across the country and the promotion of human wellbeing. However, the best way to reduce human trafficking is by strengthening the relevant governing bodies by supporting them financially, with appropriate education and training, and laws to improve their effectiveness in reducing the crime. With proper support, bodies can work together towards trafficking investigations, arrest, and prosecution of the traffickers. They can also work towards protecting the victims of this crime from traffickers by preventing them from reaching the victims again. Thus, strengthening government bodies and institutions and increased public relations can help curb human trafficking, eventually leading to society’s sanity and upholding human dignity.

Reflection Questions

1. The most challenging aspects were validating the information since I had to compare the information from different sources to affirm its correctness. The topic was also broad, so it took me time to narrow down to specific information essential for this paper.
2. My thesis statement is effective and debatable in one position: strengthening government institutions and bodies with funding and laws to enhance their operations in curbing the crime. My thesis statement is specific since it even specified that strengthening the institutions would reduce human trafficking hence improving human dignity and societal sanity. My explanations focused on reducing human trafficking across the nation. I even included public sensitization to supplement the government efforts to curb the crime, whether working together or independently but to achieve similar results.
3. I started by human trafficking and exploitation, which are the primary issues in this paper, highlighted statistics on the topic, and why trafficking occurs even to this century. I then discussed ways of reducing it, such as creating awareness among the public, employing legislative means, and other crucial techniques such as empowering children with an education to avert desperation that contributes to trafficking. The counterargument focused on the government’s ineffectiveness and the public in eradicating human trafficking. The ineffectiveness is as a result of the crime complexity and changing nature. My arguments regarding reducing human trafficking involve supporting public bodies by various resources and information from the public and the victims to end the crime.
4. I would like to know whether the paper’s general outline and ideas are clear. I have two questions that I would like to be addressed. The first is whether there are crucial ideas or information not included in this paper, but it should be included. Secondly, if the ideas presented are realistic or effective in reducing human trafficking.

References

Andrade, M. A. (2019). Combating Human Trafficking in the United States: Causes, Misconceptions, and Indicators.

Barbagiannis, E. (2016). Protecting Victims of Human Trafficking: Creating Better Residency Visas. Cardozo J. Int’l & Comp. L., 25, 561.

Coleman, S. S. (2016). The Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) 2000: A policy analysis. California State University, Long Beach.

Dandurand, Y. (2017). Human trafficking and police governance. Police Practice and Research, 18(3), 322-336.

DiRienzo, C. E. (2020). Human Trafficking: What the New IOM Dataset Reveals. Journal of Human Trafficking, 1-15.

Farrell, C. A. (2018). Public Awareness of Human Trafficking.

Recknor, F. H., & Chisolm-Straker, M. (2018). Human trafficking: It’s not just a crime. Journal of Family Strengths, 18(1), 7.

Reid, J., & Fox, B. (2020). Human Trafficking and the Darknet: Technology, Innovation, and Evolving Criminal Justice Strategies. In Science Informed Policing (pp. 77-96). Springer, Cham.

Stickle, W., Hickman, S., & White, C. (2019). Human Trafficking: A Comprehensive Exploration of Modern Day Slavery. SAGE Publications, Incorporated.

Todres, J. (2020). Foreword: Preventing Human Trafficking. Georgia State University Law Review, 36(4), vi.

Toney-Butler, T. J., & Mittel, O. (2017). Human trafficking.

.