There are hundreds if not thousands of organizations around the world dedicated to fighting the scourge of human trafficking and working for the preservation of human rights. Undoubtedly some of those groups are more effective in their goals than others, though all should be recognized for their hard work on the subject and the collective progress that is being made as I type this.
One aspect of this had piqued my interest and made me want to learn more. The idea of corporate involvement in human trafficking is something that I talked about earlier, specifically with Blackwater and the other military contractors who are accused of holding people against their will in Iraq. Other companies, however, mostly transnational corporations that exploit the resources and people of a country, mostly in the Global South, have been accused of this as well. How those companies dealt with it is something I was interested in.
For example, in this article that I found Marriott International was listed as one of the transnational companies that had pledged to work towards eradicating the criminal practices happening at their properties. A Catholic group is working with the international airlines to train workers about the dangers of child sex tourism and what signs to look out for in their passengers. Over 600 companies that are signed on to the Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation in Travel and Tourism. Of those companies only 5 are based in the United States, a fraction of the companies that actually need to sign on if the Code of Conduct will be effective.
That is one of the arguments of this article. That the steps being taken by companies to help stop the practice of human trafficking are largely ineffective, or that the companies are not even trying to take the steps and so progress is not being made. In the age of transnational companies having an effect on some countries international and domestic policy, the fact that some companies still do not see something like human trafficking as something they should be concerned with is very troubling and disconcerting for me. Because really. Of all the social justice issues to not take a stance on, human trafficking? Over 95% of the people who have been freed from this system were either physically or sexually assaulted, and millions are affected every year. If companies to not start taking a role in this, I am not sure what kind of progress state government alone can make.
I think the unfortunate thing here is that state government represents what the people feel is important (or at least they allegedly do this…) which means that people either are completely ignorant of this problem, or they just don’t care enough.
It does seem like there is a lot more information beginning to circulate regarding human trafficking, sex slavery, and the like which gives me hope that people will begin to see it as an issue which needs to be addressed rather than ignored.
I definitely think its ignorance. I was unaware of the problem before taking this course…especially the occurance here in the US. I think the key is to get the word out there because it is a problem that I think people will take seriously. You are exactly right that out of all social justice problems this is one that should really touch people and outrage them. I think if we continue to talk and inform people we could see a bigger movement in the future
I agree that this is a huge problem that many people do not even think about when talking about social justice. However, this problem is serious and needs to be attacked. I agree that companies need to help. State governments can only do so much.
I do not think that companies will start really taking responsibility for this until it is demanded by the public: a public that is pretty naive about issues like this still for the most part. I had no idea human trafficking was such a huge issue until taking this course, and I would consider myself to be pretty globally concious. There are so many more people who just are not even aware of these issue and are making no effort to find out about them. Global education and awareness is the only way that changes will be demanded, and there is really no incentive for companies to change until this happens.