Human Trafficking Policy
Overview
The problem of human trafficking (HT) is being addressed on the global as well as on regional levels. As argued by Cho et al., the global community manifested the effort to diminish human trafficking in the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime as well as its Palermo Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2014). The recommendations of the UN Convention are carried out differently in different countries. As argued by Cho et al., the countries of OECD, as well as some Eastern Europe and Central Asia countries, have the most effective anti-trafficking policies concerning prosecution, protection, and prevention (2014). The global combat with human trafficking initiated the scientific interest to the problem. However, the scientists faced the problem of finding reliable and sustainable sources of information, which could provide the information about the HT in a certain country and could give a possibility to track the dynamics of the problem in various countries (Cho et al., 2014). Cho et al. also argue, that the global policies of the governments tend to be focused predominantly on the criminalization the traffickers and preventing of the crime, rather than on protecting the victims of HT (2014). In spite of the fact that contemporary human trafficking policies remain far from ideal in terms of human rights protection, the overall effort of the countries has brought beneficial results during the recent decade, as argued by Cho et al. (2014).
The collective prosecution, protection and prevention policies have increased in effectiveness by about 20% in the period from the year 2000 to the year 2010. However, there is a selective approach of the global community towards the problem of human trafficking, as argued by Ross-Sheriff and Orme (2015). Political activists as well as popular public media concentrate their effort on the problem of sex trafficking of women and children, while the problem of labor trafficking of men remains with much less attention (Sheriff and Orme, 2015). The problem of labor trafficking is as significant as the problem of sex trafficking, because it also encompasses inhuman treatment of the victims, who are often represented by children. The unfavorable economic conditions cause development of the problem in the low developed societies, which results in more than fourteen million victims of labor trafficking worldwide, according to Sheriff and Orme (2015).
The above-mentioned Palermo Protocol of the United Nations Organization, the most important global initiative in the struggle against HT so far, was ratified by 150 countries. However, the implementation of the suggestions of the global initiative is highly dependent on the policies of every single country. The success in this struggle is a complex objective due to the fact that various solutions can bring unexpected results. Every particular measure needs to be tested in practice, which makes HT struggle a time-consuming effort. For example, the legislation of sex industry in Netherlands and Greece, which was expected to decrease the number or sex trafficking in these …
