“...low-budget airlines mean that trafficked workers heading to the US, the UK, Canada and Australia arrive most often via airplane...”


organs for transplant are becoming a big commodity. A common recruitment technique is to offer an unemployed man a job in a neighbouring city. The recruiter gives the man a ride and somewhere along the way knocks him out. When the man comes to, he is informed that someone has taken his kidney. Botched surgeries and unsanitary conditions mean a lot of these men die or are put even further in debt from medical bills.


Child Labour – The recruitment of child soldiers happens in all regions of the world. The UN stated in 2008 that there are 57 groups actively recruiting child soldiers – up from 40 in 2006. One of the newest hot spots for child soldiers is the mountains of Pakistan. Afghani parents think they are sending their sons to Muslim school but the truth is they are being trained as extremists.


What kind of labour a child does is largely cultural.


African children are


employed as domestic servants in upper class houses or in the mines while Roma children in Eastern Europe are often rented out as beggars.


Involuntary Domestic Servitude – This happens to adults or children but almost always to women. Often promised a chance to start over in the UK or the United States as nannies, maids, babysitters etc., women who are poor and powerless routinely end up as de facto slaves. We assume that it is wealthy white people abusing their power yet again but, in fact, the recipients of the trafficked girl are often relatives or from the same village. In a culture where girls are not given the opportunity to learn skills that would allow them to earn a living, this sort of arrangement is very common.


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Debt Bondage – Rarely an end in itself, debt bondage is the icing in the trafficking cake so to speak. The standard scenario is that once the trafficked person is sold and delivered to their final destination, they are informed that they must repay the travel expenses they incurred as well as any room, board and clothing they consume while employed. Anyone familiar with the way pimps work knows that this kind of set up never ends well. Uzbeki labourers are charged up to $1200 for a job placement in the United Arab Emirates that pays between $120 and $130 per month. In other situations,


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Parents see it as a way for their child to be provided for before they get married.


Prostitution – For trafficked girls from South East Asia and Eastern Europe, prostitution is the most common destination. What makes the prostitution scenario ethically and legally more complicated is that in many cases, the girls have already worked in the sex industry at home and are migrating abroad to make better wages in order to repay family debt. They already know what it’s like to work in a brothel and through their network of contacts, have a good idea of what sort of situation they will likely encounter. This knowledge does not in any way excuse the inhumane conditions they are subjected to but it certainly does cloud the issue.


trafficked workers are gouged for room, board and clothing expenses in addition to their travel debt, which ensures they never have enough money to leave.


Smuggling vs Trafficking Airports have security measures in place already to prevent human cargo or stowaways from boarding an aircraft but trafficked people are extremely difficult to detect because – in the case of adults at least – they don’t know they’ve been trafficked until arriving at their destination. People who are smuggled arrange the covert transport themselves and pay up front. Smuggled persons are aware that they will be illegal in the new country and are left to their own devices in the new country rather than indentured until the travel expenses are worked off.


Perhaps the biggest difference is that smuggling requires travel across borders while trafficking can occur in the same town or city. In many cases it does result in cross- border travel but it is not a requirement.


How Trafficking Works Cases of kidnapping excluded, the trafficked person usually doesn’t realise what they are going to encounter upon arrival. They are going willingly, so there is no need for secrecy or the forging of documents on the part of the recruiter. In order to keep profit margins


high, recruiters naturally choose the most economical method of transport. Geography and low-budget airlines mean that trafficked workers heading to the US, the UK, Canada and Australia arrive most often via airplane. Labourers, sex workers and domestic workers are the most mobile.


Passports and their accompanying


tourist visas can be real or fake. Because flying from one country to another is not technically illegal, there is no big motivation for forging passports aside from time. One can imagine that it might take some time for someone from a remote village to produce a birth certificate and photo identification. Another consideration is that while the wheels of administration move at an almost imperceptibly slow speed in the West, elsewhere any forward momentum is a miracle.


June 2010 Aviationsecurityinternational


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