DEFINING TRAFFICKING
Despite the different legal definitions of human trafficking, forced labour and modern slavery that exist in the relevant international instruments, people affected by these three violations are not always distinct.
DEFINING TRAFFICKING
Despite the different legal definitions of human trafficking, forced labour and modern slavery that exist in the relevant international instruments, people affected by these three violations are not always distinct.
THREE DEFINITIONS:
FORCED LABOUR
According to Article 2 of the Forced Labour Convention, forced labour is “all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily”. Almost 25 million people around the world are trapped in forced labour
HUMAN TRAFFICKING
According to the Palermo protocol, the legal definition of human trafficking is a crime that includes three elements:
MODERN SLAVERY
According to Article 2 of the Slavery Convention, 1926, modern slavery is the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised. It refers to the situation of exploitation that a person cannot refuse or leave because of threats, violence, coercion, deception, and/or abuse of power.
Due to problems of environmental degradation, migration and shifting demographics, modern slavery is expected to grow (Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, 9 September 2019)
WHO ARE TODAY’S VICTIMS?
Women and men, boys and girls are bought and sold worldwide. They may be living in poverty, unaccompanied children, migrants or people displaced by conflict. They are abused in many ways:
WHO ARE TODAY’S VICTIMS?
Women and men, boys and girls are bought and sold worldwide. They may be living in poverty, unaccompanied children, migrants or people displaced by conflict. They are abused in many ways:
Of 136 countries
recorded ten or fewer convictions
Justice is rare. Of 136 countries surveyed in 2012-14, 40 per cent recorded ten or fewer convictions (UNODC Global Report on Trafficking in Persons 2016).
One victim out of 3
is a child (UNICEF 2019)
Across regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa, Central America and the Caribbean, children account for an even higher proportion of identified trafficking victims, at 64 and 62 per cent respectively.
The number of children might be even higher: the reality is that children are infrequently identified as victims of trafficking.
TRAFFICKED TO A BROTHEL:
CHARIMAYA’S STORY
Charimaya Tamang was one of the first women in Nepal to prosecute the person who trafficked her. She now leads awareness-raising sessions in rural areas and runs a shelter for survivors of trafficking.
Credits: Laura Sheahen/Caritas
DRUGGED, KIDNAPPED AND ENSLAVED IN BROTHEL: HOW ONE NEPALESE WOMAN FOUGHT BACK
“In the brothel, there were no windows. The only light was from the lightbulb—that was the sun and the moon for us.” Charimaya Tamang grew up in the hill country of Nepal, working on her family’s farm. She was used to the outdoors and sunshine and freedom. But after waking from a drugged sleep thousands of miles from her village, the sixteen-year-old was shut in a room behind three doors, each one locked after the other.
Unlike most girls from rural Nepal, Charimaya knew early on that the men who eventually abducted her were criminals. One had approached her in her village, complimenting her intelligence and her classroom work, suggesting she leave her home for better opportunities. “They’d say, ‘You have potential, you could work in a business,’” she remembers.
But Charimaya had read in a book about human traffickers who buy and sell unsuspecting people into forced prostitution, beggary or labour. She knew that people were sometimes promised jobs that didn’t exist, or taken to the big city without knowing what would happen next.
Charimaya Tamang was one of the first women in Nepal to prosecute the person who trafficked her. She now leads awareness-raising sessions in rural areas and runs a shelter for survivors of trafficking.
Credits: Laura Sheahen/Caritas
DRUGGED, KIDNAPPED AND ENSLAVED IN BROTHEL: HOW ONE NEPALESE WOMAN FOUGHT BACK
“In the brothel, there were no windows. The only light was from the lightbulb—that was the sun and the moon for us.” Charimaya Tamang grew up in the hill country of Nepal, working on her family’s farm. She was used to the outdoors and sunshine and freedom. But after waking from a drugged sleep thousands of miles from her village, the sixteen-year-old was shut in a room behind three doors, each one locked after the other.
Unlike most girls from rural Nepal, Charimaya knew early on that the men who eventually abducted her were criminals. One had approached her in her village, complimenting her intelligence and her classroom work, suggesting she leave her home for better opportunities. “They’d say, ‘You have potential, you could work in a business,’” she remembers.
But Charimaya had read in a book about human traffickers who buy and sell unsuspecting people into forced prostitution, beggary or labour. She knew that people were sometimes promised jobs that didn’t exist, or taken to the big city without knowing what would happen next.