North America
Modern-day slavery in the form of labour trafficking remains frighteningly promiment across the continent despite the eradication of racially-based. Labour trafficking is enslaving persons to work using fraud, force, or coercion. Common types of labour trafficking prevalent in North America include forced work in homes as domestic servants, farm workers coerced through violence as they harvest crops, or factory workers. Subsets to this can also include domestic servitude, child labour, bonded labour, and forced sex.
The North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994 helped North American countries such as Canada, Mexico, and the United States to empower their economies. Nonetheless, stricter immigration policies and stronger border patrols combined with an increasing demand for labour in the United States encouraged migrant labourers to find work through underground means and subsequently increased their vulnerability to trafficking. Persons with insecure immigration status or no status such as temporary foreign workers, refugee claimants, students, and tourists in particular are targeted.
A global report on Trafficking in Persons by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported that cross-border trafficking originating in Central America and The Caribbean accounts for 12% of the all human trafficking detected in North America. There are currently about 10,000 forced labourers in the U.S., around one-third of whom are domestic servants and some portion of whom are children. In reality, this number could be far higher due to the difficulty in gathering exact numbers of victims. It is estimated that there are 2.4 million victims of human trafficking among illegal Mexican immigrants. A 2014 study reports that during 2001 and 2011, 787 repatriations occurred among 170,315 migrant farm workers arriving in Ontario as they faced many medical or surgical issues (41.3 percent), external injuries, trauma and including poisoning (25.5 percent). Some Jamaican women and girls have been trafficked to Canada, the United States, the Bahamas, and other Caribbean destinations for commercial sexual exploitation. In the Americas, Guatemala has highest rates of trafficked child labour with over 800,000 children forcefully working for gangs and other organizations. Cases have also been reported of foreigners, both men and women, who are trafficked into Puerto Rico for labour exploitation. Women from the Dominican Republic, and Jamaica who entered Barbados illegally are exploited in involuntary domestic servitude in private homes. Foreign men have been transported to Barbados for the purpose of labour exploitation in construction and other sectors.
Those who have been trafficked into labour are compelled into working – mentally and physically. They are given meager wages, no proper spaces to reside, and no social security. Moreover, they are made to work overtime under hostile conditions without their due paycheck. A lot of these individuals are drugged, and sexually exploited, which scars them mentally. Due to unfamiliarity with the place, cultural, and linguistic differences, the dependency on the trafficker for basic needs such as food and clothing, and the fear of being judged, holds these enslaved individuals from escaping.
Labour trafficking can be abolished by ethical and legal measures. Rescuing, empowering, and taking proper care of the former enslaved individuals to return to the society. Moreover, through the investment and creation of communities and survivor leadership programs such as the National Survivor Network, victims are better able to feel involved and accepted. Targeted public and private policies must also be enacted to unfold a movement. Legal action such as criminal and civil laws to prosecute traffickers must be initiated. Laws to increase access to permanent status, expansion of the rights of those with temporary status and enforcing laws to protect them from abuse and legal protections for trafficked persons without secure immigration status could be proposed.
The North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994 helped North American countries such as Canada, Mexico, and the United States to empower their economies. Nonetheless, stricter immigration policies and stronger border patrols combined with an increasing demand for labour in the United States encouraged migrant labourers to find work through underground means and subsequently increased their vulnerability to trafficking. Persons with insecure immigration status or no status such as temporary foreign workers, refugee claimants, students, and tourists in particular are targeted.
A global report on Trafficking in Persons by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported that cross-border trafficking originating in Central America and The Caribbean accounts for 12% of the all human trafficking detected in North America. There are currently about 10,000 forced labourers in the U.S., around one-third of whom are domestic servants and some portion of whom are children. In reality, this number could be far higher due to the difficulty in gathering exact numbers of victims. It is estimated that there are 2.4 million victims of human trafficking among illegal Mexican immigrants. A 2014 study reports that during 2001 and 2011, 787 repatriations occurred among 170,315 migrant farm workers arriving in Ontario as they faced many medical or surgical issues (41.3 percent), external injuries, trauma and including poisoning (25.5 percent). Some Jamaican women and girls have been trafficked to Canada, the United States, the Bahamas, and other Caribbean destinations for commercial sexual exploitation. In the Americas, Guatemala has highest rates of trafficked child labour with over 800,000 children forcefully working for gangs and other organizations. Cases have also been reported of foreigners, both men and women, who are trafficked into Puerto Rico for labour exploitation. Women from the Dominican Republic, and Jamaica who entered Barbados illegally are exploited in involuntary domestic servitude in private homes. Foreign men have been transported to Barbados for the purpose of labour exploitation in construction and other sectors.
Those who have been trafficked into labour are compelled into working – mentally and physically. They are given meager wages, no proper spaces to reside, and no social security. Moreover, they are made to work overtime under hostile conditions without their due paycheck. A lot of these individuals are drugged, and sexually exploited, which scars them mentally. Due to unfamiliarity with the place, cultural, and linguistic differences, the dependency on the trafficker for basic needs such as food and clothing, and the fear of being judged, holds these enslaved individuals from escaping.
Labour trafficking can be abolished by ethical and legal measures. Rescuing, empowering, and taking proper care of the former enslaved individuals to return to the society. Moreover, through the investment and creation of communities and survivor leadership programs such as the National Survivor Network, victims are better able to feel involved and accepted. Targeted public and private policies must also be enacted to unfold a movement. Legal action such as criminal and civil laws to prosecute traffickers must be initiated. Laws to increase access to permanent status, expansion of the rights of those with temporary status and enforcing laws to protect them from abuse and legal protections for trafficked persons without secure immigration status could be proposed.
