140 Years After Emancipation, Trafficking in Humans Persists Coshocton Tribune

USA 140 years after emancipation, trafficking in humans persists Coshocton Tribune - Coshocton,OH,USA .... tackling the issue. They say human trafficking threatens public health by increasing the spread of diseases including AIDS. It's a ...

140 years after emancipation, trafficking in humans persists

By KRISTINA GOETZ The Cincinnati Enquirer

16 August. They are used in prostitution, farming and mining. Overwhelmingly, they are women and children.

They are slaves, and scholars say there are as many as 27 million around the world 140 years after slavery was abolished in the United States.

"We must show new energy in fighting back an old evil," President Bush said last fall at the United Nations. "Nearly two centuries after the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, and more than a century after slavery was officially ended in its last strongholds, the trade in human beings for any purpose must not be allowed to thrive in our time."

Activists, human rights organizations and, increasingly, governments are aggressively tackling the issue. They say human trafficking threatens public health by increasing the spread of diseases including AIDS. It's a major source of revenue for organized crime, and contributes to the breakdown of peace and social order in developing nations.

"Many Americans today, if they hear the word 'slavery,' would respond, 'Didn't it end with the American Civil War?' " says John Miller, director of the U.S. State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. "Yet here we are in the 21st century and slavery is still going on.

"It should be of concern to the soccer moms and the bank tellers, because slavery is going on in every country in the world, including the United States. It's still a worldwide problem."

Last year, the federal government enacted the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2003, which strengthened the tools law enforcement officials use to prosecute offenders and provided for more assistance for victims.

There has been noticeable progress, Miller says. In the past year, 24 countries have implemented comprehensive anti-trafficking laws. In addition, 8,000 people have been prosecuted, resulting in nearly 3,000 convictions worldwide. "Steps are finally being taken, but there's a lot more to do," Miller says.

He says the largest category of contemporary slaves is those held for sex. In one form of this trade, children serve as sex slaves to tourists from other countries. Tourists from Japan, for example, travel to Thailand for child sex, and Americans tend to travel to Mexico or Central America, the State Department reports.

"It is a very serious issue," says Congressman Frank Wolf (R-Va.), co-chairman of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus. "It's one of the major human rights issues not only confronting the United States, but the world. I just don't think the average family has any concept of what's happening.

"Why? I don't know."

 Learn more

For more information on the enslavement of people today, visit these Web sites:

 www.state.gov/g/tip, U.S. Department of State, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons  www.freetheslaves.net, Free the Slaves, a nonprofit organization working to end slavery worldwide  www.worldrevolution.org, The World Revolution, a global social movement  www.antislavery.org, Anti-Slavery International, the world's oldest international human rights organization  www.un.org, United Nations  www.ecpat.org, Child Wise, an Australian-based organization dedicated to ending the sexual abuse and exploitation of children across the globe  www.ecpat.org, Human Trafficking, a Washington, D.C.-based site aims to link government and non-governmental agencies in East Asia and the Pacific to cooperate and share information on combating human trafficking.

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Originally published Monday, August 16, 2004