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Human Trafficking - the 21st Century Slavery

By: Adeolu Adenekan

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The phenomenon of slavery, no doubt, dates back to the ancient times when victorious armies and tribes in Europe and Asia found it more profitable to make use of as slave folks they caught in wars than to murder them just like that. In many Asian nations, likewise in Israel, slaves were bought and used for varied domestic and farm labor. In the 14th century Europe, these unfortunate men and women caught at wars were often called serfs, a title that classified them as members of the lowest order and are "owned", most often, by the lords of the manor. They attended to his mundane needs, work in farms and depended solely on him for their livelihood.
Going by the history, the Portuguese started kidnapping and poaching human beings as far back as 1442 in the west coast of Africa particularly in countries like the Gold Coast (the current Ghana), Togo, Benin and Nigeria whereas in 1517, they encouraged Spain to embrace the "profitable" inhuman market. The English followed in 1553, France in 1624 and soon after the Dutch, the Danes and America. Africa, in 1650, had a population of about one hundred million (20 per cent of the then existing world), 90m million in 1800, ninety five million in 1850 and one hundred twenty million in 1900.

Taking into consideration the excessive profitability of the illicit trade by which human beings were the fiscal wares, many crude strategies were employed for the safety of the diabolical ventures. Instances were reported whereby houses in villages and hamlets were irrationally set ablaze in the middle of the nights simply as a way to catch hapless people including women and kids for sale in open market like common household commodities.

The illicit trade was always a subject of many crude channels. European ships were chartered by the merchants to take manufactured goods to the coast of Africa and on reaching the destination, the commodities were exchanged for slaves who would be later taken to the West Indies and offered for huge profits. In this place, their merchants used their money to buy commodities like sugar, coffee and tobacco which would be later taken back to Europe. Since the ultimate intention of the trade is to make big revenue, the ship captains loaded as much as healthy slaves for the lowest potential price. They usually had a system whereby the captains would bring a fewer number of slaves in their ships in order that the possibility of disease and death would be lowered to the barest minimum.

In the present day, it is quite apparent that lots of of thousands of African men, ladies and children are compelled by ever worsening environmental, economic and social circumstances into conditions of labor and sexual exploitation both inside and outside the continent each year. Trafficking in persons - the modern day slavery is evidently a severe risk to human safety and development.

Right now, awareness of trafficking increases steadily because of the vigilance on vehicles conveying child laborers to markets and plantations in several places. In Nigeria for instance, an International Labor Organization (ILO) report discovered that 40% of the street children and street hawkers were victims of trafficking. In March 2002 for instance, it was said that eight million Nigerian youngsters endure the worst types of child labor serving as home servants, street beggars, hawkers, agricultural laborers and prostitutes.

No less than 60% of foreign prostitutes in Italy are from African countries with the most of them from Nigeria. Nigerian and Italian authorities estimate that there are from 10,000 to fifteen,000 Nigerian prostitutes in Italy alone. Trafficking of foreign girls into South Africa for commercial sexual exploitation from different areas of Africa, Europe and South East Asia is not only rising but appears to be controlled by organized criminal gangs from Bulgaria, Russia, Thailand, China and Nigeria.

It is vitally clear that without serious and sustained political will at the high levels of governments and {civil societies; intervention will remain restricted compared to the scope and magnitude of the problem. Traffickers will continue to victimize African males, women and kids, depriving them of their primary human rights, depriving countries of important human capital to compete in the world financial system and likewise governments of the ability to establish law and order within their own borders.

Article Source: http://depositarticles.com/

I am Ade Adenekan, formerly a Conference Officer with the erstwhile Organization of African Unity (now the African Union) for over half a decade. I have also, all along, been a Communications Consultant. For more articles of this nature and the derivable benefits just visit this site and my blog

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