By Vanessa Cort

IN a recent BBC news programme, human trafficking once again came under scrutiny, along with modern day slavery, as figures revealed that the problem is escalating.
Young women from all over the world are increasingly being lured into exploitative situations under the guise of legitimate employment. Many receive seemingly authentic work permits only to find that, on arrival in the host country, they are forced to work for little or no wages.

They are threatened with physical harm, repatriation and prosecution if they seek to leave or even complain about their working conditions. In the UK thousands work in the care system, where they remain ‘under the radar’ and authorities find it difficult to even track down the people behind these operations.

Yesterday, people across the globe celebrated ‘World Day Against Trafficking in Persons’, which seeks to raise global awareness of a problem, which in recent years has been receiving less attention, while the numbers keep rising.
Under the theme, “Reach every victim of trafficking, leave no one behind”, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has called on governments, other agencies and civil society to increase efforts to prevent, identify and support victims.

However, experts, like those at Texas Health and Human Services, acknowledge that, “In order to reach every survivor of trafficking and leave no one behind, people must be aware of what trafficking looks like and how to identify it when they see it”.
In a bid to make this happen, the Group’s Human Trafficking Resource Center (HTRC) provides training for health care workers on how to identify and assist survivors. This strategy – one which can be adopted worldwide – is based on the knowledge that the majority of human trafficking victims come into contact with the health care system while being trafficked.

The young woman interviewed on the BBC programme, though rescued and placed in government housing, was afraid to show her face. She was still traumatized and living in fear that she would be tracked down and captured by the traffickers.
The Awareness Days Group points out that people trafficking and modern day slavery are a “massive problem with very few countries immune to human trafficking”. They also state that many, like this young woman in England, are tricked and misled by traffickers into believing that they are being taken to do legitimate work which will enable them to help their families.

Some are taken by force or kidnapped, as happens particularly to people in vulnerable groups, like refugees. But even more tragic are the cases of those whose families are so poor that they sell their children just to survive.
Trafficked people, in addition to being forced into hard labour or prostitution, have their documents taken away and live in constant fear of being discovered by the authorities, while suffering the intimidation of their captors.

They are usually in strange countries where the language and terrain are unfamiliar and so have little choice but to remain in ‘captivity’ until rescued by the authorities or helped by concerned citizens.
Against this backdrop the United Nations notes that “responses, particularly in developing states, appear to be deteriorating” and that the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed trafficking “further underground”. The crime is now less likely to come to the attention of the authorities, yet those who do manage to escape reach out to the authorities on their own.

The UN message is clear, emphasising that if persons are not to be left behind then exploitation must end, victims must be supported once they are free of their traffickers and identifiable groups must not be left vulnerable.
The Agency urges citizens to wear blue hearts – representing solidarity with the victims and “the cold-heartedness of those who buy and sell their fellow human beings”. Human trafficking falls just behind drugs and arms as a major profit-making industry.

Perhaps this quote by Edmund Burke, British statesman and philosopher, sums up the responsibility we all have to end such scourges: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”.