Post #7
Human Trafficking: modern-day slavery that involves the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act. This crime occurs every day and even with the millions of men, women, and children that are trafficked every year, it often goes unnoticed (What is Human Trafficking, 2018). Now how is it that such a large form of crime like this can go unnoticed to so many around the world?
Human Trafficking and Sex Trafficking happen everywhere and in broad daylight. A reason it may go unnoticed is because they lure people in through smart tactics and target those in areas experiencing severe adversity or violence, discrimination, economic vulnerability, or dependence (What is Human Trafficking, 2018). In Brazil, there are many areas that suffer from these problems and see human and sex trafficking issues occur as a result.
It is hard to put exact numbers to the amount of individuals being used for sex trafficking in Brazil, but according to The Global Slavery Index in 2016, there were about 369,000 people in conditions of modern slavery on any given day in Brazil (The Global Slavery Index: Brazil, 2018). Brazil has been working to improve this issue, but their government currently does not meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. Brazil has made efforts to increase the number of investigations and convictions, but those efforts are still seen as weak and that is why they have remained on Tier 2 (Trafficking in Persons Report: Brazil, 2018).
Tier 2: Countries whose governments do not fully meet the TVPA’s minimum standards, but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards (Trafficking in Persons Report: Brazil, 2018).
The South American region is learning more and more every year on how to handle these issues. There is no exact solution to end this problem quickly, but working with the local governments, foundations, and other organizations in these areas will allow progress to be made in a positive direction.
Currently, the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) do not include human or sex trafficking as a part of their goals to help aid. The MDGs were put together back in 2000 to send billions of dollars from large donors to provide help on issues such as, extreme poverty, decreasing HIV rates, and so on (Mendelson, 2014). Back then, human trafficking was not seen as such a large issue or as well known as the other ones they made goals for. If they had recognized human trafficking, there would be many more organizations and agencies working towards some solutions to this growing issue.
The U.S. Agency for International Development has been working on a new policy to “advocate for integrated programming for combating trafficking” (Mendelson, 2014). These policies take time to get put into effect and see results and the USAID worries that this policy could actually have negative effects on the funding and progress for trafficking. Since the USAID made this policy, other agencies are working to make some of their own as well.
Along with that, the MDGs came to an end in 2015 and there was efforts to work on the “post-MDGs”, also known as the Sustainable Development Goals (Mendelson, 2014). Since then, they have been continuing to work on how to provide the right solutions to human trafficking in so many areas around the world. I feel as though there is more awareness because of these agencies and the work that has been made thus far, but I also feel that more can be done. This task is large and brings a great challenge to so many, but with continuous efforts to improve there will be great progress.
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