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Sex slavery disregarded globally
Coercive labor is quite a delicate topic, and governments usually
prefer to ignore its existence within their national borders
May 15, 2005
About 12.3 million people have to work as slaves in the world today. Private
companies use the labor of 9.8 million people from this number; over 12.4
million people are sold to slavery works. About 2.5 million more people are
forced to work as slaves on account of the pressure from the state or from
armed rebel groups, a report from the International Labor Organization said.
The annual global profit from the use of coercive works exceeds $30 billion. As
experience shows, exploiters remain unpunished.
According to statistics data from the above-mentioned report, the state and
armed forces use about 20 percent of work captives. The remaining part works
for a variety of business branches, which can be quite specific business
indeed. About eleven percent of modern slaves are involved in prostitution and
other fields of sex industry. Sixty-four percent of enslaved workers work in
traditional and quite legal industrial branches: construction, commerce,
agriculture, etc. It is almost impossible to formulate the activity of the
remaining five percent of modern slaves.
Slavery or coercive labor is currently used on all continents of the globe, in
almost all countries, regardless of their economic grounds. Specialists
distinguish traditional forms of coercive works, presumably in South Asia,
Latin America and West Africa, where people often become slaves because of
their debts. The state can also use slavery in its political and economic needs
nowadays. Forced labor becomes a part of present-day reality for many
immigrants.
"Traditional" forms of slavery and human exploitation are still used in the
world as a vestige of the past colonial legacy, the above-mentioned report
says. Such traditional forms of slavery are still practiced in certain regions
of Africa, where the human trafficking business exists and prospers.
Globalization and migration also result in the creation of "contemporary" forms
of slavery, which are mainly connected with organized criminal activities.
Debt-enslaving business is registered in industrially developed countries in
such fields as agriculture, construction, sewing and food-processing
industries. Criminal groups do not hesitate to buy and sell children in order
to use them for panhandling.
A lot of people become victims of sex slavery as a result of fraud. Criminals
attract women promising them high-paid jobs in foreign countries. Prostitutes
recruited from migrants are considered laborers on the market of sexual
services, whereas local prostitutes are valued at a higher extent. People, who
use sexual services, say that they would not file a police report even if they
come across a prostitute, who virtually works as a slave. Some people even
confessed that they prefer young and enslaved prostitutes because they are more
submissive.
A considerable economic difference in the Asian region has become a favorable
environment for illegal business in Thailand, where women and children are
trafficked from Burma/Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia. Vietnamese women and children
are illegally trafficked for sexual exploitation to Cambodia and for coercive
marriage and household works to China. Australia, Hong Kong (China), Japan,
South Korea and Taiwan (China) are the centers of human trafficking from
Indonesia and the Philippines.
Japan is also a large country of destination for victims of the criminal
business. The majority of people come to Japan from South-East Asia and Latin
America and even from East Europe. Prostitution in Japan exists within the
framework of restricted commercial activity connected with rendering sexual
services. Powerful organized criminal groups control the sex industry and play
the central role in the trafficking of people.
The issue of slavery is extremely important in Russia too. Researchers revealed
that coercion is strongly connected with the labor experience of a lot of
migrants in Russia. In other words, people often realize, what they are doing,
when they try to leave their republics and settle in Russia. As a rule,
potential victims migrate at their own will. When employers hire such people,
they usually take away their IDs and do not pay any salary. The enslaving
process ends up with restriction of freedom and physical violence.
Corruption and racketeering also plays an important role in maintaining the
vulnerable position for illegal migrants. Criminal groups often blackmail and
intimidate such workers with the purpose of extortion.
Coercive labor is quite a delicate topic, authors of the above-mentioned report
believe. Governments usually prefer to disregard its existence within their
national borders. Experts believe that it is extremely hard to start targeted
investigations in order to trace the facts of coercive labor and put an end to
the illegal practice. Furthermore, victims of modern slavery are not willing to
act as witnesses on such cases, being afraid of their own exploiters,
immigration agencies and other law-enforcement authorities.
The problem of labor slavery in Russia is directly connected with ethnic
migrations from the republics of the former USSR. This migration is not to be
regarded as a source of very cheap labor force only. Migrants oust native
Russians from the labor market and also endanger the fragile ethnic balance
that has been historically formed in Russia.
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