You think it won’t happen with you? Shocking reality of Latin America.

Human trafficking is a problem of the global scale that affects negatively millions of people in the world and deprives them from the human’s dignity. In Latin American and Caribbean countries where the local cultural-historical features from the one side and immense level of social polarization from the another one create a fertile ground for preserving such cruel phenomenon as human trafficking. Being one of the most disgraceful kinds of a crime, human trafficking confuses and makes vulnerable men, women and kids from all corners of our world to be exploited. Unfortunately even with the large effort of international organizations the problem has not been solved yet.

According to the International Labor Organization, Latin American and the Caribbean crime organizations profit 12 billion dollars annually from human trafficking with the aim of labor and sexual exploitation. Moreover, such type of activity even becomes more secure and profitable for crime organizations than drug trafficking that eventually leads to a steady increase in the human trafficking rate in the region.

“We estimate that trafficking in people is growing in the region and, especially in the Caribbean, it can triple in the next few years,” said Amado Philip de Andrés, regional representative for Central America and the Caribbean of the United Nations Against Drugs and Crime

At the South American level, the most reports cases of human trafficking were recorded in Argentina approximately 1142 records in 2015, on the second place we have Bolivia 700 in 2015 and finally Peru 556 records in 2015. In Argentina sexual trafficking prevails as a form of trafficking, however males and females from extremely poor regions or violent environment are also vulnerable to forced labor. On the basis of the data currently providing on the web-site of Ministry of Justice and Human rights in Argentina in 2015 42% of all reported cases were connected with sexual exploitation and 24% with forced labor.

There is a growing concern about local people in Bolivia who state that it serves as a transit and destination country for migrants from the Caribbean, Chile and even Africa, some of whom become victims of forced labor and sex trafficking. In Bolivia traffickers take advantage of the absence of a national registry of employment center that consequently allows criminals to set up fake employment agencies and hire potential victims.

Peruvian men are mainly exploited in gold mining and agriculture, the shocking fact that the government and NGOs were acknowledged about male victims of forced labor. Furthermore the fact that child sex tourism is present in some regions of Peru even makes the situation worse. The data generated by police annual report claims that 25.84 % of all cases are forced labor trafficking, 20.17% sex trafficking and 55% are forced to begging. A closer look at the following data reveals a shocking fact that approximately half of victims were in the age category of 14–17 years.

As many people suppose sex trafficking being the most popular way of trafficking the IOM’s experts emphasize on the importance of solving labor trafficking.

Agueda Marí states “There is a lot of talk about sex trafficking, but IOM insists on labor trafficking because there is a lot of work to be done with the countries and we want to stress the existence of this type of exploitation”

Forced labor trafficking is extremely wide-spread among the countries with the highest level of poverty. For instance, Paraguay where the 25% of the population live below the poverty line and 10% live in absolute poverty, kids make up half of the country’s population 44% of kids aged 10–14 are involved in forced labor, 66% in local agriculture 32% in services and 6.2% in manufacturing.

Depressive economic situation in Venezuela has a devastating impact on people from poor environment. This reality enforces Venezuelans struggle to survive and makes their lives desperate. Consequently the majority of females who want to live in better conditions become an easy prey for human trafficking. The data appears to suggest that since the economic collapse in Venezuela, human trafficking has increased in 3 times. Young females aged 12 are placed on auctions for bidding by local pimps and brothels. They are tempted by empty promises of good-paid jobs and education in other countries but eventually they become victims of forced labor, domestic servitude and sexual exploitation.

The situation in the Caribbean countries leaves much to be desired. Socio-economic factors like unemployment, poverty, illiteracy, drug use accelerate and provide fertile conditions for human trafficking in Caribbean countries. Sex trafficking, forced labor are also wide spread in this region, however human organs trafficking has a significant presence. Haiti is considered one of the poorest countries in the world unfortunately the situation became even worse after the earthquake in 2010. In June 11, 2012, Haiti ratified the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in respect of International Adoption, which aims to protect children against the risks of illegal, irregular, premature or ill-prepared adoptions. Yet some traffickers do not hesitate to create NGOs or set up orphanages to obtain children and sell them for adoption or sex trafficking. Nowadays in Haiti literacy rate is only 52% and two-third of the population is unemployed and half of the population is less than 20 years old. In 2010 trafficking of organs killed approximately 150 000 young kids in the country.

In a remote city of Costa Rica near Panama an organ trafficking gang profited about 200$ million every year. The activity of the organization was revealed on October 2013, according to the investigation gang trafficked organs to Greece, US and Israel. Following ratified by Puerto Rico international conventions were violated: convention against torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, the Palerno protocol to prevent suppress and punish trafficking, especially in women and girls.

Solutions

International efforts towards fighting human trafficking started in 1949 when on 2nd December UNO’s convention for the Suppression of the traffic in persons and of the exploitation of the prostitution of others. In this conventions sex trafficked females were exposed as victims but not as criminals. Convention advocates punishment for anyone who keeps or manages, or knowingly finances or takes part in the financing of a brothel;” or “knowingly lets or rents a building or other place or any part thereof for the purpose of the prostitution of others” (Article 2). Firstly In Convention on the Rights of the 20th November 1989 also contains several points and pieces of advices towards solving a human trafficking problem on the national terms. According to article 35 The government should take all measures possible to make sure that children are not abducted, sold or trafficked. This provision in the Convention is augmented by the Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography On 30 July 2010 was also developed United Nations Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons. One of the most significant elements of the plan is the United Nations Voluntary Trust Fund for Victims of Trafficking in Persons, which was launched in November 2010 to support human trafficking victims through financial, legal, and humanitarian aid.

Moreover, other international organizations are dedicated a lot to solve this global issue. For instance, Interpol in 2016 rescued 2700 victims and convicted 134 arrests.

Furthermore, governments organize national programs and invest sufficient amount of funds to eradicate the problem. For instance, in 2015 Peru invested 9$ million to combat trafficking, in comparison to 2014 when they invested 4$ million. Argentina mainly due to its National Program for the Rescue and Accompaniment of Victims of Human Trafficking, which helps victims and their families with psychological, social, medical, and legal support. Despite having the biggest trafficked people in the region Argentinian government rescued over 10 000 trafficking victims in 8 years.

The greatest example of solving this problem is Chile, according to the U.S. Department of state Chile has Tier 1 in 2016. Chile invests sufficient amount of funds in local NGOs, as well they tightened up their trafficking legislation all these eventually gave beneficial result. However, we believe that country’s policy towards reducing poverty, creating more employment opportunities and other programs that were aimed to change for the better socio-economic situation in the country contributed more to decreasing human trafficking rate. Undoubtedly, Chile is the most economic stable country in the region, consequently flourishing conditions make local people less vulnerable to be trafficked.

Conclusion

Through examining the growing industry of human trafficking in Latin America, we can clearly see that the reason of human trafficking underlies mainly in social-economic factors. High unemployment rate, overpopulation, illiteracy, poverty and other factors of Latin American and the Caribbean region lead to forced kid labor and sex trafficking. Moreover, we shouldn’t forget about moral-ethic corruption of the society. For instance in countries like Cuba, Antigua and Barbuda, Jamaica, Venezuela females become prostitutes on their own accord because for them it is the only way to survive, definitely they can do agricultural work as their mothers and grand-mothers however spread of mass culture, consumer’s values impact significantly even the remote areas of these regions. We think until the socio-economic, cultural and political reasons won’t be solved the human trafficking prosper in the Latin American and the Caribbean scale.