President Obama declared January “Human Trafficking Awareness Month” to bring to light the issues and the victims of slavery. Organizations and governments around the world organize events and conferences to educate as many people as possible about slavery. In September 2012, President Obama addressed an audience at the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting and stated:
“It ought to concern every person, because it’s a debasement of our common humanity. It ought to concern every community, because it tears at the social fabric. It ought to concern every business, because it distorts markets. It ought to concern every nation, because it endangers public health and fuels violence and organized crime. I’m talking about the injustice, the outrage, of human trafficking, which must be called by its true name—modern slavery.”
Human trafficking is slavery. The U.S. Department of State in their annual Trafficking in Persons Report, as well as experts in the field, use the terms slavery or “modern-day slavery” to encompass all forms of trafficking. It has taken on different forms from sex trafficking to labor trafficking. Slave “owners” now have the ability to use different means of technology to provide slaves to people and organizations and the number of people enslaved and profits earned by traffickers is constantly growing.
Both terms, slavery and human trafficking are defined to include the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, fraud, deception, the abuse of power or exploitation of vulnerability. It is important to remember that those enslaved cannot walk away from those that have imprisoned them. There are many reasons why victims cannot leave, including lacking access to their passports, mental trauma or being beaten badly enough that physically they cannot walk away.
There are many ways that individuals, organizations, and communities can get involved. One simple way is to reach out to your Congressperson to let them know this is an important issue they need to get involved. At this time, the US Federal law, The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) has not been reauthorized by the Senate. Many states, including Virginia, do not have robust state laws that specifically get to the heart of the issue but focus on other ways such as racketeering to convict traffickers of their crimes. Click here for more information on the laws by state. There are also many petitions that individuals can sign focused on legislation and other slavery advocacy issues through Change.org and others.
You can educate yourself, your employer, your friends about the issues and determine how you can be involved in eradicating slavery. As you learn about modern-day slavery and think you might have observed someone who is a victim of slavery, call the National Human Trafficking Resource Center Hotline to report: 1-888-373-7888.