Government inaction and barriers to combating human trafficking

Human Trafficking

Governments are not doing enough to eradicate human trafficking. There are several contributing factors to the lack of action on this issue. The first is that it is not a singular issue -- there are a number of sub-issues including prostitution, organized crime, child labor and illegal immigration. Each of these is a significant issue on its own that demands action, but it also creates a diversity of individual challenges under the rubric of human trafficking, presenting a challenge for tackling the issue in any sort of coordinated way.

A further problem is that human trafficking often involves moving people across borders. Thus, tackling the problem requires multinational cooperation, and this is usually between countries that are wealthy and those that are not. There are a host of jurisdictional problems that arise, and beyond that many of the poorer countries will choose to dedicate whatever funds they have to challenges that affect people who are still within their borders, not ones who have left. It can be difficult to motivate many of the source nations to act on this issue, even though it has a negative impact on their economies as well.

Domestically, another problem is that many domestic interests benefit from human trafficking. A recent study highlighted the problem -- businesses will employ bonded labor at lower costs -- and the result is political inaction. There is also a social stigma attached. Many affected individuals in the United States are women, and they are forced into sexual slavery. For politicians -- a male-dominated group -- there is little incentive to work hard for these people. They are not voters, and that is before issues of race, gender and class enter into the equation. The result is that there is low prioritization among law enforcement as well, especially in the area of funding. The relatively low visibility of the crime contributes significantly to the lack of police resources, because in many instances voters want to see police resources applied to the more visible crimes that affect their lives more directly. Inaction on the part of law enforcement is therefore not just a matter of a lack of political will but a lack of public will.

Human trafficking can best be tackled through coordinated international efforts, something that is challenged by a total lack of legal infrastructure. While countries in places like Europe typically will have a comprehensive set of laws regarding human trafficking -- constrained only by law enforcement resource deployment issues -- half of the countries in the world have no laws whatsoever. Certainly, in those countries where trafficking is not technically illegal, it will be harder to stem the flow of migrants coming from such places.