Human Trafficking: A Gender and Racial Issue

Human trafficking is a modern form of slavery that involves tricking, selling, coercion, or otherwise forcing individuals, especially women and children, into situations of exploitation from which they are unable to escape. This paper explores the link between human trafficking and racial discrimination, and how it is a gender issue. It also provides available statistics by race and the need for immediate measures to combat this vice.

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Introduction
A race is a group of people who are believed to belong to the same genetic stock, for
example, the negroid race, the Caucasian race and the mongoloid race. Human trafficking is the
exchange of people for automatic work, sexual subjection or business sexual misuse for the
culprit or others.
It involves tricking, selling, coercion, or otherwise forcing individuals, especially women
and children, into situations of exploitation from which they are unable to escape. (Farrel 2015,
p. 98,). Human trafficking is integrally discriminatory. Women constitute a better portion of
trafficked persons. This makes human smuggling more of a gender issue, mostly in a country
like the U.S.
Authentic figures are trying to get, but an estimate of 46,000 to 50,000 women and
children are smuggled yearly to the United States only. This means the numbers can be
overwhelming globally (Godziak 2015, p.15). Economic difficulties in the developing countries
and the bureaucratic nature of legal migrations are concurrent with the increase in the number of
trafficking cases as well as the spread of the vice to other areas (Finn 2016, p. 510).
The culprits utilize a few strategies among them; through and through snatching,
purchasing from relatives. In many situations, the casualty is now endeavoring to search for an
opportunity to move when they are drawn nearer by the culprit or the go-between. They are
guaranteed of work or marriage to the region of goal. (Farrell 2015, p. 120).
In most cases, the victim's travel documents are confiscated to restrict their movements.
Physical confinement, violence, and intimidation are mostly used to have control of the victim.
The perpetrators are rarely arrested or prosecuted due to the inadequate law enforcement

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response to this vice. Human trafficking cases are rarely reported to the authorities as the victims
are in most cases treated like criminals. (Farrell 2015, p. 126).
Most trafficked persons shy away from seeking justice due to the lack of knowledge on legal
rights and entitlements (Farrell 2014, p.87). Cultural and linguistic constraints are also barriers to
seeking justice by the victims
LITERATURE REVIEW
The Crucial Link between Human Trading and Racial Discrimination
Associations between human trafficking and racial segregation are not right away clear,
but rather the issue's presence is certain. Robinson Mary, the United Nations Human Rights
Commissioner, was once cited remarking on the issue and she noticed that human trafficking is
intrinsically biased. She included that on account of trafficking into the worldwide sex industry,
we ought to discuss cases whereby men from the created countries pay for the sexual services of
women and girls, and in some cases men and boys, from the developing states (Gabbidon 2015
P.123,). Robinson Mary noted that the issue is purely basic human rights issue as it involves such
a huge and perilous form of discrimination. She refuted the argument that the issue might be the
case of labor rights or issue of unequal development (Thomas 2014, p.350).
Trafficking is mostly considered a gender-based issue because the majority of the
trafficked individuals are women. In this research, however, we take a close look at the races of
the victims to base our argument according to the race. The race is not only a risk factor for
trafficking but also has a fair say or instead it determines how the victims will be treated by the
perpetrators. The racist ideology further initiates demand in the destination country, hence

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leading to an escalation in the number of women and girls being trafficked. (Gabbidon 2015,
p.134,).
The link between human trafficking and racial discrimination has been the main topic of
discussion at the world conference against racism and racial discrimination. Thailand's
delegation at this world conference noted that women of a particular race are often subjected to
abuse of greater measures than the others. They also noted that specific forms of abuses namely
women and girls trafficking most of the times involved racist attitudes and perceptions (Thomas
2014, p. 98).
In Bangkok, those who took part at this world conference noted that racist ideology
escalates trafficking cases and that the negative culture of viewing women and girls as sexual
commodities gives rise to abuse of women and girls (Lerum 2016, p. 15). At the conference,
world states were urged to seek ways that could see human trafficking and racial discrimination
come to an end.
Available Statistics by Race
This research found out that a majority of human trafficking, especially in the US; for labor
and sexual exploitation were persons from a common color. Most victims are women and
children. According to the US Bureau of Justice statistics, 70% of the victims originated from the
same color.
A comprehensive analysis is shown in the following tables
Table 1: Race demographics of traffickers between 2014-2016 Table 1: Race demographics of
traffickers between 2014-2016

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Source: US Bureau of Justice Statistics 2017
Table 2: race demographics of trafficking victims between 2014-2016.
Race Labor trafficking Sex trafficking Total
Black 6 161 167
White 1 102 103
Hispanic 34 95 129
Asian 9 17 26
Other 11 23 34
Total 61 398 459
Source: US Bureau of Justice Statistics 2017
Discussion
As can be noted from the above tables, people from black race forms the greater number of
both the victims and the perpetrators of the sex trafficking. Also, it can be deduced that a greater
number of the human trafficking are for the purpose of sex exploitation. Across all the above
data, the racial gap is so evident, confirming that race is clearly a factor in human trafficking. it
is also evident that the majority of sex traffickers are overrepresented by the blacks while the
Hispanics have the greatest number of labor traffickers.

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A great percentage of trafficked individuals in America for the purposes of sexual
exploitation and labor are people from the same race. Statistics from the U.S department of
justice suggests that nearly half of the trafficked persons are children and mostly girls.
Racism is deeply engrafted in human trafficking and this is a worrying issue, which though
unclear, is undeniable. It shows that trafficking of persons have become inherently
discriminatory. There is a need to strengthen the non-governmental organizations. The state
should also be urged to adequately address this menace. In this way we will be able to come up
with proper statistics on the origin of the victims together with their suspected traffickers, their
race and ethnic origins so that we can come up or rather have an explicit comprehension of the
dangers and how the perpetrators are always able to carry out this dirty activity.
The ambiguity that lies on the background of the victims should be done away with so that
a measurable progress can be achieved. Anyone can be a victim of human trafficking but as can
be deduced from the above statistics, most of the individuals are from a common race and such a
finding should be treated with the seriousness that it deserves.
Conclusion
Human trafficking as a vice has become so rampant of late and immediate measures need to
be put in place to combat it. In fact, a quick action is needed. Holistic, interdisciplinary and long
term measures are needed to address it once and for all. Human trafficking is the modern form of
slavery and it is a gross abuse to human dignity. In Europe, an organization by the name OSCE,
organization for security and co-operation in Europe was set up and in the year 2003, it set up an

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office of special representative and coordinator for curbing human trafficking, which will help in
victim protection, persecution of the perpetrators and the prevention of the vice.

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