Bringing Awareness to Human Trafficking

It’s possible one has heard the term human trafficking or has some vague idea of it. Maybe they saw Pierre Morel’s movie Taken, where Liam Neeson plays the heroic ex-CIA dad who uses his skills to rescue his abducted daughter from being sold as a sex slave in Europe. The thing is this movie isn’t too far from the truth. In reality, this truth isn’t too far away either.

Many who hear of human trafficking usually think of only sex trafficking, the exploitation of women and children who are locally kidnapped or brought in as foreigners from other countries. Though many of these modern day slaves are sexually used and abused, many others are simply forced to do labor. The Florida Coalition Against Human Trafficking’s website lists Florida as one of the biggest states responsible for using, selling, buying, and trading of people here in the U.S.

Florida tomato workers are receiving poor wages and being forced to work 10 hour work days. Photo by colorline via Flickr.com.

These modern day, low-wage workers are hired mostly to do farm work in central Florida or simply as cheap labor elsewhere. In response to the new awareness of the 2.7 million modern day slaves, organizations have sprung up all over the country to help ensure slavery is completely abolished someday in the future. Many local groups such as Not For Sale, The Polaris Project, The A21 Campaign, and The Coalition of Immokalee workers fight in their own way for certain areas of human trafficking.

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers fights to get major food companies to sign a fair food agreement where they would be obligated to make sure the conditions of their food sources are fair to the workers. Recently, CIW has called attention to Publix and Chipotle. The latter being a major supermarket in the southeast that though is known for being charitable and active in several organizations such as March of Dimes, The Special Olympics, and Children’s Miracle Network among other organizations. Yet, according to CIW, Publix still has one vice. Tomatoes. According to CIW many Florida tomato workers receive sub poverty wages and are usually coerced into picking over two tons to earn minimum wage in a ten hour workday, which really isn’t feasible. Chipotle is being emailed and boycotted by the coalition too for not signing the Fair Food Agreement.

While CIW deals with more local issues, Not For Sale confronts human trafficking on the global scale. Not For Sale is tied in with a recent law passed by the U.S. State Department that requires the U.S. to get involved using political and economic influence. The law, The Victims of Human Trafficking and Violence Protection Act, requires that America and other countries comply with this law and take action to reduce and abolish human trafficking within their borders. This law is one of few that has actual consequence.

Chipotle is being boycotted by The Coalition of Immokalee Workers for not signing the Fair Food Agreement. Photo by ishane via Flickr.com.

When a country is evaluated to see how they do regarding this mandate, the U.S. State Department then ranks these countries within three tiers. The first one contains compliant countries, the second rank goes to countries who are working to comply, and third rank belongs to those who do not follow the mandate nor seem to be concerned with it. Upon the first censure of the legislation and evaluation, the U.S. was brutally honest in its judgments, even ranking close allies such as Israel, South Korea, and Greece in the third rank for not complying. Immediately, the U.S. State Department released the rankings to the world and made cuts to foreign aid along with access to the World Bank and International Monetary fund for those countries. So far, this has been proven effective and since then, countries like Israel have scrambled to their feet to comply as quickly as possible.

Still, awareness is a key factor in cutting down human trafficking. Once people understand how human trafficking involves them, they could take action. Like most products imported and even many of those cheaply made in the U.S. are made with underage, underpaid, or forced labor. There are many sites and stores who offer “sweat-free” products or are labeled as “made without child labor”. Consumers who wish to stand against human trafficking can begin to buy from these sellers or if anyone has any tips or information regarding knowledge of those being exploited, they may call the local police and not accost those involved or suspects.