Human Trafficking: Issues Beyond Criminalization
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THE PONTIFICAL ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES PLENARY SESSION Human Trafficking: Issues Beyond Criminalization 17-21 April 2015 • Casina Pio IV SCIE IA NT EM IA D R A V C M A S S O O O A A I I I C C C C C C C I I I I I I I I A A A A A A A F F F I I I I L L L L L L T T T T I I I I V V V N N N N M M O O O P P P Vatican city 2015 Translation: Marcelo, I think it would be good to examine human trafficking and modern slavery. Organ trafficking could be examined in connection with human trafficking. Many thanks, Francis Human Trafficking: Issues Beyond Criminalization PREFACE here are two statements that Pope Francis without the language needed, they are defenceless has constantly repeated from the beginning against assimilation into the local ‘black’ economy, t of his Pontificate: that ‘Human trafficking is its sweatshops, drug rings, and organized street Modern Slavery’ and that this practice is a ‘crime prostitution. in other words, they join the reserve against Humanity’. PaSS endorses both without army of ‘illegal migrants’ and face the prospect of reservation having, in fact, been the first to coin extradition. alternatively, given certain circum - the latter phrase. However, each statement merits stances and conditions, they may give legal evidence closer inspection because they denote rather different against their traffickers. yet, usually, after a brief issues. Both have been crucial in shaping the lead - respite in a witness protection programme, they ership that the catholic church has assumed and then face the prospect of repatriation. the agenda she has adopted in spearheading a these contemporary versions of ‘manumission’ social movement opposing this morally horrendous require the closest inspection of the data available. treatment of human persons. in examining it, what becomes clear is that the as many social scientists have noted, today’s human story of those trafficked does not end with digital media make initial protests and demon - either their ‘vanishing’ through the holes of the strations by new social movements easier to organize social fabric in the developed world nor with their than ever before. conversely, to hold a movement ‘departure’ after a prosecution case. criminal con - together whilst pushing its agenda forward remains viction of the (proximate) trafficker is necessary as difficult as ever. the latter is where our academy and desirable but, in itself, does nothing positive (in fact, the two academies) can make a contribu - to restore the proper self-esteem, the subjective tion. We are not ‘beyond moral outrage’; that re - recognition of their own human dignity, of those mains our constant bedrock. However, it also trafficked. requires a clearer definition of what new social this very brief reflection leads us to at least re - provisions are needed not merely to eliminate Hu - consider the quasi-automatic outcome of ‘repatri - man trafficking quickly but to restore respect – ation’ after a court hearing, although both the and self-esteem – to those whose human dignity legal cases brought and successful convictions has been assaulted and battered through the made are a small percentage of the estimated vol - process of being trafficked. it is to this that the first ume of trafficking. Moreover, in terms of carrying statement points unequivocally. the agenda forward, it forewarns us of three issues that need to be confronted: ‘Human Trafficking is Modern Slavery’ Firstly, should we not question the conditions compared with the many and various historic that too often have gone hand in hand with forms of slavery, the current victims of trafficking national ratification of the iLO 2002 ‘Palermo Pro - share three common denominators with those en - tocol’, namely ‘repatriation’? slaved in the past: subjection to one of the most Secondly, should we not be alert to the fact that extreme forms of violent social domination; alien - ‘criminalization’ by successful prosecution – nec - ation from any legitimate social order; degradation essary as it is – works almost exclusively on the and dishonour because freedom is necessary to at - suppliers of trafficked persons and does insufficient tain any form of status in society except the lowest. – if anything – for their victims? Should not this Where the trafficked differ, is that historically slaves asymmetry be addressed? could look towards some formal process of manu - thirdly, if the trafficked are indeed recognised mission, albeit in a distant future. the trafficked to be ‘victims of modern slavery’, it must be ac - cannot; they are moveable, removable and dis - knowledged that their victimization can largely be posable people. attributed to national and multi-national demands Even though most forms of ‘forced labour’ and for exploited labour or sexual exploitation. it ‘sex working’ take their toll whilst the trafficked follows that we need to consider the justice of rec - are relatively young, meaning that their cash ompensing the victims of such demand not solely value as commodified objects diminishes quite by ‘compensation in cash’ through confiscation of early, what can they do with their lives if they do the traffickers’ profits, as endorsed in some national break free? Without documents, without rights, plans. Equally, that reaction should be compared without any legitimate social network, and probably with the more generous responses of voluntary as - 3 Human Trafficking: Issues Beyond Criminalization • Preface sociations, seeking to offer much more humane normalize ‘demand’, drawing upon evidence of prospects and projects for Resettlement in the host interventions generating radical changes in nor - country for those who wish to remain. mativity that have been successful in many other all three questions raise major issues of legal fields: drink-driving, smoking, exercising, adopting re-thinking that would doubtless meet with resist - environmentally friendly practices and, more slowly, ance, but confronting them is an ineluctable part the reduction of discrimination against women, of being an effective social movement. ethnic groups and the handicapped. in many of these examples legal penalties and sometimes eco - Human Trafficking as a ‘Crime against Humanity’ nomic incentives have backed-up changes in social to enslave any person – for their labour value, norms and should be assessed as a composite for - abuse of their bodies, harvesting of their organs mula for change. nevertheless, in those cases where and as babies for sale – nullifies their human an established practice has been successfully up- dignity by reducing subjects to objects. it thus tra - rooted – such as smoking – changes in normativity duces the foundational principle upon which all have outstripped penal and fiscal measures in re - catholic Social teaching rests: the dignity of every ducing demand. this challenges us to conceptualise human being, without exception, derived from a parallel process in which the clients of brothels their divine filiation. Since catholic Social Doctrine, and the companies using forced labour also become from Vatican ii, is always addressed to ‘all people socially stigmatized. of goodwill’, collaboration in causes such as the Once again, this will meet with the institution - abolition of Human trafficking is welcomed from alized opposition of those with vested interests in those of other faiths and of none. it follows that sustaining demand – as was the case with the to - the social movement now unfurling is both ecu - bacco industry – but the task of a social movement menical and broadly humanistic in its supporters. is to harness its cultural resources to promote together we can take the next giant step. the public censure that overrides such interests. criminalization of this trade is the start not the end of ‘abolitionism’. Human rights are upheld The ongoing commitment of the Catholic Church by police prosecution and the legal sentencing of as the world’s oldest social movement, our traffickers but they are not restored to, much less church has been prominent in initiating, mobilizing enjoyed by, their victims. international police action and sustaining opposition to Human trafficking; (rightly) condemns those profiting from this illegal witness the series of high level meetings promoted trade and is making strenuous efforts to become during Pope Francis’s short Pontificate. On January more effective, but the traffickers are not the sole 1st 2015, the World Day of Peace will take as its parties responsible for violating the human dignity theme ‘Slaves no more, but brothers and sisters’. of those trafficked. We could say that the crimi - Many agencies of the Holy See have already nalization of trafficking concentrates on reducing been harnessed to this end: the council for Justice and ideally eliminating the ‘Supply’ side of the and Peace, Delegates to the United nations and to equation, but what about the ‘Demand’, which is the EU; a variety of ad hoc meetings, both ecu - the motor sustaining this trade? menical and for young people were held in 2014; it is the demand for cheap labour, for prostitu - and the academies made a signal contribution tion, for organs, where rich people’s wants nullify through their widely diffused Statement of november poor people’s right to work in physical safety, to 2013 and the foundation of the Global Freedom protect their own bodies against abuse and to network, whose website has fostered others, such value their own vital body parts as necessary to as the international ‘Liberanos’. life itself. this demand is growing, not decreasing this small sample of activities shows a social and it fuels ‘internal trafficking’ within countries: movement in statu nascendi . We should not forget the ‘grooming’ of young girls, the sequestration of that our academy was there at the beginning, in the desperate as ‘domestic slaves’, the detention of that brief handwritten note of guidance from Pope ‘captive workers’.