10 years of fighting modern slavery
The 2010 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report marks the 10th anniversary of key
milestones in the fight against modern slavery. In 2000, the United States enacted
the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), and the United Nations adopted the
Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women
and Children, also known as the Palermo Protocol. Since then, the world has
made great strides in combating this ultimate exploitation – both in terms of what
we know about this crime and how we respond.
The Palermo Protocol focused the attention of the global community on combating
human trafficking. For the first time, an international instrument called for the
criminalization of all acts of trafficking – including forced labor, slavery, and slaverylike
practices – and that governmental response should incorporate the “3P” paradigm:
prevention, criminal prosecution, and victim protection.
Over 10 years, governments worldwide have made appreciable progress in understanding
a number of realities about human trafficking: people are in situations of
modern slavery in most countries; trafficking is a fluid phenomenon responding to
market demands, weakness in laws and penalties, and economic and development
disparities. More people are trafficked for forced labor than for commercial sex.
The crime is less often about the flat-out duping and kidnapping of naïve victims
than it is about the coercion and exploitation of people who initially entered a
particular form of service voluntarily or migrated willingly. Trafficking can occur
without movement across borders or domestically, but many countries and
commentators still assume some movement is required. Men comprise a significant
number of trafficking victims. And traffickers often use sexual violence as a
weapon against women to keep them in compelled service, whether in a field, a
factory, a brothel, a home, or a war zone.
The “3P” paradigm is an interlocking one. It is not enough to prosecute traffickers
if we do not also provide assistance to the survivors and work to ensure that
no one else is victimized. No country has yet attained a truly comprehensive response
to this massive, ever increasing, ever changing crime. Ten years of focused
efforts is the mere infancy of this modern movement; many countries are still
learning about human trafficking and the best responses to it.