On June 1, 2011, 'baby factory' in Nigeria was raided by the police.
32 pregnant girls were rescued.
These teenage girls aged between 15 and 17 were locked up and used as a means of producing babies.
The babies were trafficked and they have been used for rituals or other purposes.
This is only part of the story of human trafficking.
Human trafficking is an act of recruiting, transporting, transfering, harbouring or receiving a person through a use of force, coercion or other means, for the purpose of exploiting them.
Every year, thousands of men, women and children fall into the hands of traffickers, in their own countries and abroad.
The United Nation estimated that 12.3 million people are globally employed in sexual servitude or forced labor. The number of victims is more than at any point in human history according to 'Not For Sale'(NGO).
Every country in the world is affected by trafficking.
As for South Korea, it has been regarded as a source and destination country for human trafficking.
The annual report on Trafficking in Persons(TIP), counducted by the U.S State Department, states that "South Korea is a source, transit, and destination country for men and women subjected totrafficking in persons, specifically forced labor, and women and girls in forced commercial sexual exploitation."
One of the most severe problems in South Korea is sexual exploitation.
Korean women are involved in prostitution in major cities in South Korea such as Seoul and Busan. Korean women are are forced into prositution not only in Korea, but also in foreign countries such as the U.S.,Canada, Japan, Australia.
Also,women and girls from Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, the People's Republic of China (P.R.C.), the Philippines, Thailand, and other Southeast Asian countries, are trafficked to become brides for South Korean men or to work in child sex tourism. Usually, destitute teenage girls and women in other countries came to Korea in order to make a living. Traffickers deceive those women by making promises of better life.
However, some people are trafficked against their will; they are sold by their family members and exchanged for goods or money.
Once traffickers extract victims from their home countries, they typically sell the children to slaveholders who run strip clubs, sex bars, brothels, karaoke clubs, or massage parlors.
Labor trafficking is another problem.
People work like slaves in factories without any payment.The most serious thing is that some employers possess the passports and wages of foreign workers, which means there is no way for victims to escape from their owners.
People are not aware that the products they use in daily life have been produced through labor trafficking. A large number of conglomerates in South Korea have associated with traffickers and used labor trafficking for cheap labor. T-shirts and shoes you wear are made by victims' tears and sweats. Labor trafficking happens anywhere anytime and in you own backyard.
The South Korean Government has put a multitude of efforts to put an end to human trafficking.
In response to increased sex trafficking of South Korean women to the United States, the South Korean police sent a delegation to the United States to improve joint cooperation in investigating trans-Pacific trafficking in 2006. In addition, The 2004 Act on the Punishment of Intermediating in the Sex Trade and Associated Acts criminalizes commercial sexual exploitation.
However, despite the national efforts to alleviate the problem, human trafficking does not seem to be eliminated in our society.
For instance, In April, 2011, four people were arrested for human trafficking and forcing 70 North Korean female defectors into prostitution.
On April 12, the Seoul Metropolitan Police revealed that the group had forced femnale defectors into prostitution after buying them from Chinese brokers.
Like this, human trafficking in South Korea is a huge problem that even the government can not easily rectify. So, people's great concern over this issue is very significant. However, unfortunately, not many teenagers in South Korea are well informed about human trafficking.
In order to know why the youth's participation is crucial, i interviewed David Quimby who is working with Not For Sale (NGO) as Student Abolitionist Movement manager.
(NOT FOR SALE is a non-governmental organization which equips and mobilizes Smart Activists to deploy innovative solutions to re-abolish slavery across the globe.)
1. Could you please introduce yourself?
Ans) My name is David Quimby and I am from Chicago, IL. I just got back from graduation at Olivet Nazarene University where I graduated with a degree in criminal justice and was part of the Criminal Justice Honor’s Society. I have been working with Not For Sale since January. I am taking part in the 6 month fellowship program that they offer. While with Not For Sale, my title has changed quite a bit. The least number of programs that I have juggled at one time are three and these are always changing. Right now, I am currently working as the Student Abolitionist Movement manager, Event planner, Investigator, and Free2work researcher.
My goal in life is to make a difference but I don’t want to be remembered for what I did, I want someone to be able to live their life that might not have had it without my efforts.
2.Do you think the youth’s participation can actually make a difference?
Ans) Students have been the major push behind the effort since it began. That is why we put so much emphasis on the Student Abolitionist Movement. Students have the skills necessary and the contacts needed to further the movement as well as get others in on the movement. One thing we can never have enough of is funding, being an NGO, we are always trying to create more avenues of funding so that we can further our mission. Students have been a major driving force for us with fundraisers, mission drives, and all kinds of other ideas.
Without them, we wouldn’t be where we are at. Lives that we have touched because of their work might have been lost.
3) Is their anything else you would like to say to Korean students?
Ans)
One problem we have is that people believe that human trafficking doesn’t happen in their neighborhood.
Human trafficking is all around us and when people realize that, they instantly want to make a change. One tool we have for this is called Slaverymap.org. If we are speaking with someone and they don’t think it happens in their area, then we can pull up this map that has plotted cases of human trafficking all around the world.
600,000 ~ 800,000 humans are trafficked internationally according to Not For Sale.
70 percent are female. 50 percent are children.
They are killed, abducted ,exploited, beaten, raped, deceived, starved, and threatened.
Human trafficking is modern day slavery. It does not just happen across the world.
It happens around us and victims are everywhere.
