(Presidentialwire.com)- When a person is used as slave-like forced labor, as a criminal, or even for organ harvesting, it is called trafficking.
The number of persons identified as victims of trafficking decreased by 11% last year, according to the United Nations Global Report on Trafficking in Persons for 2022. Even though this is the first reduction in 20 years, one of the authors of the research said it isn’t always a reason to celebrate.
Globally, the number of convictions for trafficking decreased by 27% from the previous year in 2020; South Asia had the most significant drop, at 56%; Central America and the Caribbean, at 54%; and South America, at 46%.
According to Angela Me, head of the UNODC’s Research Branch, “Trafficking hasn’t decreased, unfortunately. We have observed a decline in the ability of authorities to identify victims.”
Me participated in a panel discussion with Ilias Chatzis, the head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s Human and Migrant Smuggling Section, and Desirée Suo Weymont, the office to monitor and combat human trafficking’s senior coordinator for reports and political affairs, to unveil the new report on February 1 at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
One unsettling discovery, according to Me, was that most individuals rescued from a scenario involving human trafficking were “self-rescued.” In other words, they were able to get assistance on their own.
It’s critical to comprehend what human trafficking is, according to Chatzis. He said that many people automatically link human trafficking to the illegal transport of persons from one nation to another. And it may even be a crime, he said. However, smuggling is the method used to transfer individuals for illegal immigration.
According to a U.N. study from 2004, women comprised 74% of the casualties, with men and children comprising the remaining 26%.
Smugglers often employ intimidation and trickery to get victims into working whether or not they want to. The panel agreed that governments should carefully examine their labor laws and policies.
Many times, refugees are battling to live after losing everything. They fall within the category of high-risk groups as a result. The group also attributed the problem’s escalation to, you guessed it, climate change.
