Human Trafficking . . . a Global Problem - the Lord Mccoll of Dulwich

• Jurisdiction: United States,Federal
• Publication year: 2009
• Citation: Vol. 60 No. 2

Human Trafficking . . .

A Global Problem

The Eighth Annual

John E. James

Distinguished Lecture

Walter F. George School of Law

Mercer University

Macon, Georgia

September 16, 2008by The Lord McColl of Dulwich^*

May I begin by thanking my hosts: William Underwood, President of Mercer University; Daisy Hurst Floyd, Dean of the Walter F. George School of Law; and The Right Honorable Lord Gordon Slynn. I would also like to pay tribute to and thank Mr. John James, who has generously founded this lecture series. He has been very much supported by his wife, Dr. Lil James, who has had great experience in the medical profession, especially in the care of women and children.

John E. James is a distinguished graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology and of Mercer University. He received the Tradition of Excellence Award from the General Practice and Trial Law section of the State Bar of Georgia and the Outstanding Alumnus Award from the Walter F. George School of Law Alumni Association, and he also is a former President of the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association.

The subject of this lecture, human trafficking, is somewhat depressing, but the more it is publicised, the more likely it is that this terrible trade can be curtailed. Human trafficking is the debasement and violation of one's human rights by another. The United Nations's definition is "the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of . . . force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud [and] of deception . . . for the purpose of exploitation . . . [and] include[s] . . . prostitution, . . . forced labour, . . . practices similar to slavery, . . . or the removal of organs."¹ In other words, the dislocation of men, women, and children by deception or coercion for the purpose of exploitation.

Human trafficking is a scourge that affects every country worldwide. The Council of Europe estimates that revenues from people-trafficking have reached a staggering $42 billion, which equal those of Microsoft and twice those of Coca-Cola.

What is the extent of human trafficking? The International Labour Organisation says that worldwide there are approximately 12.3 million people in forced labour, bonded labour, forced child labour, and sexual servitude at any given time. Of those, 2.4 million are in that situation as a result of human trafficking. The United States Department of State estimates that, Annually about six to eight hundred thousand people, mostly women and children, are trafficked across international borders; this does not include the millions who are trafficked within their own countries.² Approximately eighty percent of those trafficked are women and girls and up to fifty percent, or 1.2 million, of these victims are children.³ The United Nations Children's Fund believes that a child is being trafficked every thirty seconds domestically and internationally. The majority of these victims come from the poorest countries and the poorest strata. A recent report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime concludes that no country is immune to human trafficking, be it as a country of origin, destination, or transit.⁴ This report points out that human trafficking equals arms dealing as the second largest criminal industry in the world, after narcotics, and it is fast-grow-ing.⁵ Of course, the nature of this abhorrent crime makes it very difficult to obtain accurate statistics about it. All the figures included in this lecture are necessarily somewhat speculative. They may overestimate the problem. But even if they over-estimate by as much as a third, the human trafficking trade would still be enormous. And then there is the possibility that they may be under-estimates. This would suggest that we have a problem that is too dreadful to think about. And that is perhaps one of the causes of this growing problem. We find it painful to think about human trafficking. So we are tempted to look away and to walk by on the other side, allowing this disaster to get even worse.

There have been some very significant changes since I started practicing as a surgeon. Heart transplants, keyhole surgery, cataract lens replacement operations: these were the stuff of dreams when I started. There have been huge changes. But some things have stayed the same. What has not changed is the fact that if we ignore a disease or an illness, averting our eyes and hoping for the best, the disease may get worse. Hoping for the best and looking away may provide a period of solace. But it is a false solace. It allows the disease to fester, and the longer we leave it, the more drastic the eventual treatment may have to be. There is always the possibility that if we ignore the problem for too long, it may become overwhelming.

We owe it to the victims of trafficking not to look away. We owe it to our society to bring this problem into the daylight and to expose it to scrutiny. That is a major purpose of today's talk. I do not have any magic solutions to this international problem. But by bringing the facts, repulsive as they are, into the public view, there is always the hope that able and creative minds, such as yours, may rise to the challenge of confronting this trade and reducing it, even if its complete elimination may be impossible.

I was reminded the other day of the amazing skill and courage of one of your countrymen, Dr. Dwight Harkin, who pioneered operations on the human heart. Until his work, the mortality rate of operations on the heart was such that no one would do it. Soldiers with shrapnel wounds to the heart were regarded as untreatable. In 1944 Dr. Harkin was working in a field hospital in England and was confronted with a large number of servicemen who had no hope of anything like a normal life unless some way was found to repair the shrapnel wounds they had suffered. Your Dr. Harkin had the skill, the courage, and the compassion to confront the problem. On the back of his work others followed, and today open heart surgery is regarded as unremarkable. Today, it is no exaggeration to say that the world is faced with a problem that requires every bit as much courage to confront—the problem of human trafficking.

The British Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights considers human trafficking to be "one of the most serious human rights issues in the modern world."⁶ The committee outlines the varying forms of enslavement, including children drugged and forced to fight as soldiers; men bonded or chained in labour on mines and farms; women enslaved in quarries and households; women and girls trapped in the sex trade; and boys forced to fish in dangerous waters.⁷ Save the Children, an international charity based in the United Kingdom (U.K.), estimates that there are five thousand children prostitutes in the U.K., nearly all of whom were trafficked. It is reported that an average of one hundred unaccompanied minors come through U.K. immigration at an Immigration Centre in South London each week. Of those, some eighty disappear. The strong belief is that most are taken by traffickers.

May I tell you about Anna, whose nightmare began in Eastern Europe when her father sold her into the sex trade at the age of eighteen years? Alone, frightened, and so very vulnerable, she was shipped to Italy where she was kept as a prisoner for seven months. From there she was smuggled into the U.K. in a lorry and then transported to London. Her life became a living hell as she became a sex slave and was required to service sixty-five to seventy customers every day for five agonising years. She wanted so badly to plead with her customers for help, but her traffickers threatened to kill her if ever she told anyone. To show Anna that they were serious, they beat her without mercy, breaking her arm, and then raped her repeatedly. Surely some of those customers must have sensed that she was there under duress. Finally, Anna escaped, but she will never escape the haunting memories or the physical and emotional scars that she will always bear.

It is reckoned that fifty percent of this trade is fueled by the demand created through adverts in our local newspapers. Surely, carefully crafted legislation should be put in place to outlaw such advertisements if newspapers fail to put their own houses in order.

The United States Central Intelligence Agency estimates that fifty thousand people are trafficked into or transited through the United States annually for sexual and labour exploitation. In 2007 the U.S. Government continued to advance the goal of eradicating human trafficking within its country.⁸ This coordinated effort included several federal agencies and approximately $23 million in the Fiscal Year 2007 for domestic programs: (1) to boost antitrafficking law enforcement efforts, (2) to identify and protect victims of trafficking, and (3) to raise awareness of trafficking to try to prevent new incidents.⁹

The following reports are culled from over two hundred studies found on the web:

(1) California is the top destination in the U.S. for people who force women and girls into hard labour and sex trade. Researchers from the University of California at Berkeley found fifty-seven forced labour operations over a five-year period in about a dozen California cities, involving more than five hundred people from eighteen countries.

(2) Minnesota social service groups have assisted up...