From Unity, 7 March 2009

Women: Advances made, but exploitation still exists

As we celebrate International Women’s Day, the 8th of March, we recognise the role women played in our evolving economic, political, social and cultural life.
     Particularly significant is the role women have played, and continue to play, in the workers’ and trade union movements and in the social struggles of society.
     In the past, the audacity and selflessness of the match girls, the heroism of Dolores Ibárruri, the leadership of Betty Sinclair and the dedication of Women’s Committee against War and Fascism are some examples of our human progression.
     In spite of all the advances made regarding non-discrimination in occupations, the elimination of forced and compulsory labour in legal employment, the abolition of child labour, and fundamental rights at work, the worst type of exploitation and abuse continues to grow in the form of people-trafficking.
     Globally there are an estimated 5 million victims of human trafficking and forced labour each year; 2 million of these are girls between the ages of five and fifteen.
     Annually there are 300,000 humans under forced labour or trafficked conditions in Europe. Although traffickers do not discriminate on grounds of age or gender, women and girls make up a disproportionately high percentage of the victims. The final destination for most is the “sex industry” or domestic slavery.
     The trafficking in human beings is now one of most profitable criminal activities, with only arms and drugs being more lucrative.
     As with most criminal activity, the perpetrators depend as much on the customer as they do on the victim.
     Trafficking in human beings for the purpose of enforced labour is certainly not a new phenomenon. Enslavement and exploitation were ever-present throughout history. Economic or social migration characteristically places the individual in a vulnerable situation. Unfortunately, there are always those willing to exploit those who are vulnerable for personal gain.
     Many of us have an image of people-trafficking as the kidnapping and smuggling of individuals against their will. While this might be the case in some instances, in the vast majority of trafficking cases the victim is simply someone seeking a job abroad but who, in the process, falls into the hands of traffickers posing as employers or employment agents, only to be sold in airports to pimps or slavemasters on arrival.
     There has been a huge increase in economic migration over the past twenty years, and in turn an increase in the number of victims of trafficking.
     Millions of former state employees of the Soviet Union are competing for work in a global job market, as are millions of Chinese. The “structural adjustment programmes ” imposed by the World Trade Organisation and International Monetary Fund on developing countries have led to the privatisation of tribal and communal lands and natural resources and have left countless millions landless and jobless.
     Internecine conflicts and ecological devastation also add to the number of migrants and potential trafficking victims.
     Every country is a country of origin, of transit, or of destination. Many are all three.
     Despite numerous national and international conventions, protocols and recommendations, there is a distinct lack of universal political will to prevent the gross exploitation and abuse of the most vulnerable groups of people on the planet.
     The universal decriminalisation of undocumented migrants could be one step in the right direction. At least then the victim can go to the authorities, without fear of arrest.
[GD]

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