Po Chiao
Global Economic
Word Count: 947
Human Trafficking v.s.
Slave Trade
Have
slave trade changes over time? Some of the time people will refer modern human
trafficking as the same as African slave trade. Indeed, the do share some
similarity, yet they still have fact that are different. People commonly
believe human trafficking isn't that bad in comparison to African slave trade,
since we all think that government pay more attention on this topic and are
more capable of preventing this kind of thing from happening. However, these
awful things did happen to us every single day. The worst part is that we don't
really realize these things occur around us. According to UNODC (United Nation
of Drugs and Crime), a conservative estimate of the
crime puts the number of victims at any one time at 2.5 million and human
trafficking generates tens of billions of dollars in profits for criminals each
year. In addition, European countries and United States are usually were the
victims been trafficking to and victims are usually from Asian country or the
third world. In contrast, the slaves in the past are usually been trafficked
from Africa to America. Furthermore, the most unfortunate statistic is that
estimates range from 800,000 new victims each year according to U.S. states
department. In contrast, only 80,000 African have been trafficking to America
annually. Moreover, 40 percent of the countries where the problem exists have
not convicted one person of trafficking charges according to UNODC chief.
Modern
human trafficking is definitely worse than slave trade in Africa. There are
some reasons why modern human trafficking is so widespread and different from
the slave trade back in that era. The transportation technology has been
improved a lot since the 19 century. It is a lot easier for trafficker to
trafficking human to other country. Unlike in the old time, it takes quite fair
amount of time to traffic an African in to the states. Usually it take 40 to 150
days for African to been trafficked to United State. The improvement of
transportation not only speed up the process of trafficking, but also spreads
the range of the victim, since with better transportation, trafficker could
trafficking other victim from other country beside Africa. Furthermore, the
transportation technologies we have nowadays allow us to trafficking more
people since we are now trafficking with bigger ship.
Furthermore,
modern human trafficking involves more in prostitution than slave labor.
According to UNODC chief Antonio Maria Costa, about 80 percent of these crimes
are concentrated on sexual exploitation and 20 percent of those forced into the
sex trade are under 18 years of age. This is a lot different from slave trade
back in the days, since slave are commonly use in labor in farm instead of the
prostitution. The raise of demand in agriculture in the new word urges the
Trans Atlantic. African are usually been use as labor for harvesting crops such as
sugar cane, tobacco and cotton. This might due to most of our factory nowadays
are computerize.
The technology and medical
advancement we have also enable the modern human
trafficking to be worse than slave trade. Back in the day, 15 percent of slave
will die on the way to America. Mainly because the bad condition and the lack
of food they have. Usually there were rats and bugs everywhere. Drinking water
and food are spoiled. Dead people usually lied beside living people, which is
why they usually die from diseases. Furthermore, often times slave trader choose
to fit as many slave in the ship which mean slave have their body touching each
other. All this condition could be the reason why they couldn’t survive the 40
days long trip to America. However, modern human trafficking is more reliable
and efficient. The death rate of modern human trafficking is less that slave
trade due to the advancement of technology and medical technology.
Moreover, lots of people aren’t aware
of the modern slave trade. In fact, numerous amounts of people kind of assume
that we live in a modern and civilize world that no one will possibly do this
to others. Modern human trafficking occurs underground, which is why people are
aware of it. In comparison, slave trade in 18th is so conspicuous
that everyone knew it, since slave traders were selling their slave publicly.
For instance, usually slave trader will sell them in a fort, which is like a
market essentially. Therefore, in that time era, people could really witness
slave trade occurring. On the other hand, modern human trafficking could not be
spot by people, which allow human trafficking to grow exponentially.
The
other reason why modern human trafficking is a lot worse is the worldwide
economic crisis. Lots of enterprises have limited budget, which drive them
toward using cheap labor from other country. According to Costa, the bottom
line of so many enterprises, including the multinationals are using more cheap
sources of labors than in the past.
Overall,
human trafficking inevitably still exists in our society. In fact, it became
worsen than slave trade in the past. We should not ignore this issue. This is
not just an issue for some particular countries; this is a global issue for all
of us. Hundred and hundreds of child have been trafficking to other countries
for labor or prostitution. Usually people think this kind of thing does not occur,
as often, yet human trafficking doesn't discriminate on the basis of race, age,
gender, or religion, thus, anyone can be a victim. Lets do this together
collectively; we can stop catastrophic in out lifetime. Although human trafficking
has been happening for century and century, we can still prevent this from happening,
starting with our generation.
MLA citation
“UN Says Human Trafficking Appears To Be Worsening” Radio Free Europe., February
13, 2009
<http://www.rferl.org/content/UN_Says_Human_Trafficking_Appears_To_Be_Worsening_/1492561.html>
. N.p.. Web. "Communist Vietnam -- Human Trafficker
Extraordinaire." American
Thinker. N.p., 4 may 2013. Web. 9 Sep 2013.
<http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/05/communist_vietnam_human_trafficker_extraordinaire.html>.
“Slave Trade: the African Connection” Eye Witeness to History 2007 <www.eyewitnesstohistory.com>
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