Slavery: The Subcategory Of Human Trafficking

Slavery is broadly defined as a system of forced labor, bonded labor where the people are treated as property, and can be owned, bought and sold accordingly, and cannot withdraw unilaterally from the arrangement. However, as it has been outlawed, modern-day slavery is more elusive since most of the time it happens under the radar and out of sight. There are many horrible stories of abuse, but not all can be considered slavery. According to the CNN Freedom Project, slavery occurs when one person completely controls another person, using violence or the threat of violence to maintain that control, exploits them economically, pays them nothing and they cannot walk away. On the other hand, in regard to human trafficking, it is defined in the U.N.

However, the term itself covers many types of abuse, with a consistent aspect of the abuse of the inherent vulnerability of the victims, especially women and children from developing countries. Trafficking in women for sexual exploitation happens and impacts every region in the world, either as a source, transit or destination country. The second form of trafficking is trafficking for forced labour with victims primarily from developing countries. They are recruited and trafficked using deception and coercion and find themselves held in conditions of slavery in a variety of jobs. The most alarming and most dangerous of all is trafficking in humans for the purpose of using their organs, in particular kidneys, which is in a rapid

For instance, in 2013, the Australian Government passed the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Slavery, Slavery-like Conditions and People Trafficking) Act 2013 (Cth) which amended the Criminal Code and introduced new offences of forced labour, forced marriage and organ trafficking, and changed the offence of sexual servitude to ‘servitude’ which includes sexual, non-sexual, commercial and private settings. NGOs such as the RedCross, UNICEF, churches, Anti-slavery have been investigating and reporting on potential regions. The NGOs also promote and educate the societies about the danger of slavery, and encourage them to not use unclear donated sources. Education for both potential bonded workers, governments and businessmen is also one of their priorities. The populations in developed countries have also been having positive actions in regard to prevention of slavery. For instance, they boycott businesses goods produced by indentured, bonded or child labour and any other form of human rights violations.

Albeit all the positive and vigorous actions taken by most parties involved in such issues, slavery is still alive and well. The offenders always seem to find ways to circumvent the law or escape the supervision of the authorities. However, we are just at the beginning of the fight against human rights violations, things will just get better as the populations will be more