Affects all countries, without regard to level of development or type of government, while the way a country may be impacted by these factors, they are all influenced. Different places of the world experience human trafficking slightly differently. Nonetheless, through globalization 3. 0, they are all interconnected. One of the oldest places for human trafficking is in Asia. This originated with Japanese Yakuza and Chinese triads (Shelley). They were some of the first crime organizations that would sell people, often members of their own families into sex trafficking (Shelley).
These illicit Asian human trafficking markets were eventually introduced in Europe and the Middle East as human trafficking began to grow more global in earlier phases of globalization. In Africa, specifically North Africa, humans are transported to Europe and are sometimes used to move drugs into European nations (Shelley). Additionally, labor trafficking is prominent throughout Africa to produce goods sold to the rest of the world, such as the cocoa industry (Nagle). Latin America is one the newest locations for human trafficking. In the past, Latin America was prominent in drug trafficking.
However, recently the drug trafficking organizations in Latin America have gotten into the lucrative business of human trafficking (Shelley). The Western world, is far from exempt from issues of human trafficking, as it is truly a global phenomenon. However, these nations do differ from the rest of the world slightly. This being many of the traffickers are from these nations (Shelley). As many of the citizens in these developed and wealthier nations would not be engaging in activities such as prostitution and jobs in the unskilled labor market, there is demand yet little supply.
This creates the large market of migrants as forced labor in these countries (Shelley). As the world deals with issues in a global context, the way problems are solved may need to be altered. Due to the fact that this is a transnational issue that touches everywhere regardless of development, type of government, or culture a one sided approach may not be the best way to deal with the problem. For example, there have been multiple human rights interventions by the United Nations that led to further problems.
These interventions were included United Nations interventions to combat human trafficking as well as other humanitarian crisis’s (Smith and Smith). The United Nations sends peacekeepers to different nations to deal with internal humanitarian issues. There have been multiple times the UN has sent peacekeepers to deal with the issue of human trafficking. However, this has not always been helpful in dealing with this global phenomenon. Charles Smith and Heather Smith conducted a case study of different regions, including Kosovo, Haiti, and Sierra Leone, where intervention by the United Nations made the human trafficking problem worse.
In the early 2000s, the UN set up a special police unit to try and stop human trafficking because this problem had escalated there in recent years. They were there for seven years and during this time the number of human trafficking cases spiked. Efforts were also done in Haiti to deal with this same problem. The case in Haiti was severe and they were listed as a tier three country, meaning they were doing less to stop human trafficking in their country that they had done in previous years (Smith and Smith).
Therefore, in the early 2000s peacekeepers were also sent to Haiti, this was a difficult mission, as they government of Haiti collapsed during this time and there was not a government for the peacekeepers to effectively work with (Smith and Smith). Nonetheless, human trafficking increased under the peacekeeping mission, specifically as women were trafficked into Haiti from the Dominican Republic (Smith and Smith). Contributing to this, there were problems with the UN peacekeeping officials, as it was discovered that many of sex trafficking victims were coerced into serving for the UN peacekeepers (Smith and Smith).
This was also an issue in Sierra Leone where the presence of UN forces led to an increase in sexual exploitation (Smith and Smith). A link that was also present in each of these three cases was the more UN forces present in one of these places, the higher the levels of human trafficking the country experienced. Human trafficking is a transnational criminal market, this makes it difficult to manage or attempt to reduce. This causes problems because tradition ways of dealing with international issues are becoming ineffective.
The current phase of globalization 3. 0 makes it harder to combat human trafficking. This is a lucrative black market, and similar to the drug trade it has supply and demand, which make more people around the globe look to make money off of trafficking individuals. This issue is widespread and difficult to discover. In the past this industry was relatively small, and due to the fact that there were more borders and difficulties moving people between countries this issue was not able to grow as fast.
However, since borders have begun to open after the fall of the Belin wall there is more opportunity for movement and financial gain in this industry (Perruci 11). Therefore, effective methods of the past need to be modified in order to solve this problem and other issues that arise out of the new global context. This issue, while it cannot be solved solely with the solutions of the past such as, the use of the United Nations forces and other intergovernmental forces alone, it also cannot be solved by one nations unilaterally.
These issues arise not within a national or a region, but rather all over the world. Therefore, a broader solution must be implemented. As of today a solution like this has not been developed, the world needs the nations working together. However, this issue and others similar to it such as drug trafficking has shown the efforts of the UN are solely not enough to combat the problem. Therefore, these methods need to be modified and updates to keep up with the ever-changing world of globalization. As globalization continues to evolve these issues appear to continue to arise.
Consequently, new global problem solving methods will have to arise in order to effectively deal with these types of transnational issues. Human trafficking has been an issue for many years, however, globalization has made the issue more prevalent and widespread. This issue does not simply affect one area or group of people. It is a transnational crime that exists without borders. As globalization has moved through its different phases so has the issue of human trafficking becoming more widespread as the world become metaphorically smaller.
Globalization has many positive benefits and contributions to the world. However, there are also some negative aspects of globalization. It is important to recognize these issues and see what can be done alleviate these kinds of issues. Within the new global context where ideas, good, and services can move at a rapid rate it is important to acknowledge the pitfalls to see what can be done, especially considering the need for more international collaboration to deal with transnational problems.
