What is slavery and trafficking?

Slavery is when a person’s ownership over themselves is given to another person, for the purposes of exploitation. Even while one person can have some control over other people, such as the case of employers over employees in the work place, it is slavery when the life choices and conditions are made completely by another person¹.

Human trafficking is basically moving people across borders to make them work as slaves. Most slaves are trafficed².

There is also a small amount of data about slavery and it is often spotty. This makes it imposable to write with 100% certainty.

Where does slavery appear in the world?

Everywhere³.

Why does that matter?

Freedom from slavery is a human right. When people in countries violate this or any human right, it is not good for the country. I will, after examining slavery in a few countries, examine how slavery impleads Sustainable Development Goals.

Let’s look at some examples. I have chosen to look at slavery in the United States, Pakistan and Nigeria. I think these are good examples of how slavery appears in the world today and how it differs country to country and region to region. For my data I used UNODC⁴.

The United States.

One of the illegal imports into the United States is slaves. The US is a “very high importer”³ of slaves compared to the world.

What are the kinds of slavery found in the USA?

Sex trafficking/prostitution—Sex trafficking and prostitution is when people are imported, and forced to do work such as provide sex as a prostitute, preform for pornography among other forms of forced sexual work and sexual exploitation. Sex trafficking is huge in the US, and most likely the #1 reason for human trafficking to the US. Adult women are the main gender and age demographic for this category of slavery.

Domestic slavery—People working as domestic slaves usually work in privet homes, cleaning the home, taking care of children or elderly. People trafficked for domestic slavery in the US may be illegal immigrants (though are not always), and fearful of deportation, may not report their slavery to authorities. Promised work, employers, who are likely to be the home owners, keep passports of slaves, who legally came here, so slaves cannot escape the country. This type of slavery is hard to detect because slaves are hidden away in homes, and holders of a slave are less likely to be prosecuted because slaves are often POC. In the United States most domestic slaves are women.

Non-Domestic Labor trafficking—Any labor sectors may have slaves. Usually slaves will be working in relatively low-skill jobs. Farm workers, dish washers, mining, etc. In North America forced labor trafficking accounts for about 39% of slaves, second to 55% of slaves who are sexually exploited.  Also, I think it is important to mention that most laborers are legal workers, and crappy working conditions are not the same as slavery, even if slaves do earn money. Men are the majority of non-domestic labor slaves. Amongst all forced laborers, (that is not sexual slavery) there is a 50/50 women/men ratio.

Pakistan.

Pakistan is both a destination and recipient country. Also prevalent in Pakistan are slaves that are from within the country’s borders.

In, Khalid Koser’s TED^x Why Migrant Smuggling Pays⁵ he explained that the best investment a Pakistani can make is to send a family member abroad. Whether or not that family member is then trafficked, the fact is that trafficking happens where there are migration flows. If a family invests to send a grown child abroad, the child is more vulnerable to human trafficking.

Debt bondage— AKA Bonded Labor. Particularly high in Pakistan and India, debt bondage is when a slave owner claims the slave has a debt to them to be payed and the slave must work for the owner until the debt is payed off. Often there are levels of interest, so high the slave is never debt free. Traffickers/smugglers, may declare the person they are smuggling as in debt upon arriving in a new country, or parents may have borrowed money and therefor sell children to work in order to pay off debts. Whole families may have to work in an attempt to pay-off a never ending pile of debt. Often, this type of slave does not cross a border, and in South Asia 88% of slaves stay within their country of origin. Whatever the reason people end up in debt, making someone work for you without pay till the debt is payed off is illegal.

Nigeria.

In Nigeria, lots of people trafficked to leave. Dew to small amounts of data, slavery and trafficking in Nigeria is better understood with in regional contexts of West Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa.

In west Sub-Saharan Africa, compared to the rest of the world, there is lots of child trafficking. Boys are especially trafficked in the Sub-Saharan African region. In Nigeria the percent of adults in slaved is 42%, whereas the other 58% are children.

In West Africa children are most often trafficked for forced labor. Parents give children to other adults, expecting these adults to provide care and education (education can be hard to obtain in many Sub-Saharan African contries⁹). Instead the child is made to drop out of school and do domestic labor and street trading.

In all of Sub-Saharan Africa, amongst adults, more women are trafficked. In Nigeria and Uganda adult women slavery is particularly high for Sub-Saharan Africa.

Besides forced child labor, forced begging and child marriages are also common in West Africa. Farm work, and fishing are common forms of slavery. In Sub-Saharan Africa sex trafficking happens less than the aforementioned   forms of slavery and is much more prevalent in urban areas. Many people are trafficked out of Nigeria, but there is also migration back in. West African trafficking flows to North Africa, and in Nigeria it also flows to the Middle East. To quote⁴: “In West Africa, for instance, victims from Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Mali and Niger were detected in neighboring Nigeria, where victims from other West African countries, such as Côte d’Ivoire and Togo were also found. At the same time, Nigerian victims were detected or repatriated from the very same countries…” this however provides a small snap shot of slavery and trafficking in Nigeria. Nigeria both reports and prosecutes the most traffickers.

The levels of trafficking are related to violence. Nigeria is a fairly violent country⁶ and also a country that was colonized. Most countries that where colonized struggle to build peaceful nations, that have stability and low crime rates. Instability and violence lead to higher rates of slavery.

Now I will examine the connections between slavery and Sustainable Development Goals. There are many Sustainable Development Goals⁷.

One of these goals rates to gender equity. How can we have gender equality if women are sexual slaves? If middle and upper class working women in the US have to have paid or unpaid workers in their homes⁸, how can there be gender equity?

Another relates to access to education. If education is unaccusable at home, so that parents must entrust strangers who traffic their children, how will education enrollment increase?

A third to peace, justice and stable institutions. If violence and instability make it easier for traffickers to trick people into slavery and are not caught, how can there be justice? If families must work off debts, without pay, how can there be justice? If we know so little about slavery, to the extent that many statistics I would like to have are missing, and I must rely upon regional data, how can we end the slavery?

What can institutions and governments do to end slavery and work toward Sustainable Development Goals?

These questions show just the tip of the iceberg for how violating the human right to be free from slavery impedes progress toward Sustainable Development Goals.

In conversations about globalization the world is often divided into the West and the rest, or the developed vs. the non-developed world, which are meant as the same places in the world. While the West refers to parts of Europe, USA, Canada and sometimes Australia, New Zealand, parts of South America ¹ and the developed world consists of Canada, Japan, United States, and part of Europe ². While Japan is not the West, it is a developed nation. It has high educational achievement ³, industrialized⁴, and wealthy ⁵. And yet it’s not discussed in conversations of the global world as part of the wealthy, developed world. It’s not disused in the same way—or in the same sentence as are other industrialized nations. I find this curious and wonder why.

Let’s pause for a minute. I’m pointing out and exploring a complex system of conversations of globalization. I’m looking at the parts of conversations of globalization that compare us—the developed world and simultaneously the West, vs. them—the developing world. I don’t have space to question this language, that’s a different paper. Because I must limit myself to a small subject, I cannot discuss in depth, what it means to be part of the West, vs., to be part of the developed world, vs. the developing world. I noticed a slight difference in which countries where to be understood as “the West” and “the developed world” in conversations of globalization, along with other areas or world comparison. While these are good issues to discuss, it is not for me to explain in this post. I also recognize that Japan is not the only quark in the different words to describe the West vs. the developed world. I could also discuss South American countries which are not considered developed but are sometimes argued to be Western. In short, I choose to discuss Japan’s place in the language of globalization because I want to, because I find it curious.

To look at speech patterns of language of globalization I will mostly rely on Globalization: The Translation of Social Worlds by D. Stanley Eitzen and Maxine Baca Zinn ⁶. Why this book? It is a collection of essays written by several different people, in many years. I think it is a good representative example of general language usage in the United States.

In the text book there are many variations on how the West and its global domination is described. The Preface disuses the US egotism (pg. ix). Chapter one (pgs. 1-8), which is the introduction on what globalization is, discusses spread of US culture (pg. 7), and West vs Middle East (pg. 7). Chapter 2, Debating Globalization (pg. 16) makes interesting connections to West, industrialized nations, Westernization…, on pg. 19 instead of using the word West, “America or Europe” is written out. These are a few examples of how the West is described. An interesting examination of world power dynamics is in Chapter 6 (pg. 145- 184 reading 20: 151) about Hip-hop in Japan—this article is about cultural globalization—hip-hop moving from the USA to Japan, and the way the spread of hip-hop is talked about is in the format of cultural globalization—from the powerful to the less powerful, from the USA to the rest. Now I will continue with examining several reasons why Japan is in the “rest” category.

One reason Japan may not be discussed along with other developed countries is Geography. When talking about the West, japan is considered to be in the East. The West as a geographical unit is a ridiculous notion for a round planet. There is some geographical closeness to the West, most of it being concentrated in Europe, but a geographical West falls apart because Canada, the USA are in the West and are across the Atlantic Ocean. The concept of the West is geographically global, lading me to further question why a developed nation isn’t part of it.

I would suggest two important reasons are race and religion. Japan is not a white Christian nation, which is sometimes cited as a reason a country would be in the West. I counter this idea by noting there are white, Christian nations that are not part of the West⁸. I think these are important factors to explore, but also complex ones, that I think are worthy of a different paper.

Another reason Japan may be excluded from discussions maybe History, specifically history of colonization. Europe has a history of colonization, and so does the USA. This has led to global domination ⁹, and the world thinking about things as the West, or Euro-America (which includes Canada), or as Eurocentric vs. the rest. Japanese history has been more closed off ¹⁰. Because of Euro-America history being about us, spreading our ideas though colonization, while Japan’s history of closed-offenses, and lack of egotism Japan may be left out of conversations about developed nations in the world stage.

What countries are part of the West is an opinion. Most would agree that it includes the USA and several countries in Europe, all developed nations. But who else is included is up for question. I have chosen to question why the developed nation of Japan is not part of the West. I’ve explored many reasons, all related to globalization, and USA’s ¹¹ understanding of each topic as to why this might be. I think these are interesting points to consider and give insight into my inquiry. I know there are more points to consider, that this is a starting point, and not a conclusion. Hope I got you thinking and wondering.