HUMANITY remains trapped in the quagmire of knotty challenges. Roots of these issues can be traced back to politics, social constructive norms and values as well as religion. Absence and fair implementation of laws also aggravate the condition of human sufferings divergently. Human trafficking has become one of the most important challenges in the contemporary era not only for developing countries but also for developed countries. Human trafficking refers to the trade of human beings for the purpose of forced labour, sexual slavery or commercial sexual exploitation and much more. It occurs transnationally or within a country. Sex trafficking is a heinous type of human trafficking and a form of modern slavery. Trafficking Victims Protection Act 2000 defines Sex Trafficking as “recruitment, harbouring, transportation, provision, obtaining, patronizing, or soliciting of a person for the purposes of a commercial sex act, in which the commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age”.
Internationally, most of the countries are sweltering in the heat of human and sexual trafficking. Socially constructed phenomena and myths worsen the condition when a gender-centred approach is adopted to perceive the term “victims of sexual trafficking” associated with females by excluding males in most of the culturally rooted societies. Males, females and even LGBTQ could also be victims of sexual trafficking. Global Estimates of Modern Slavery Report 2022 depicts that over 27.6 million cases of human trafficking were reported globally in 2021. 6.3 million out of this number were victims of sexual exploitation which are males, females and LGBTQ. Certain steps have been taken by the United Nations to criminalize human and sexual trafficking to protect the rights of all and sundry irrespective of sexual identity. The legal instruments of UNO such as Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, ensure protection of all human beings. However, these legal instruments are waiting for their worldwide ratification, acceptance and adoption by many countries to free the world from the heinous crimes of human trafficking and sexual trafficking. Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict and Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999,
Usually in developing countries, less people are aware of the terms of human trafficking and sexual trafficking despite the fact that thousands of sexual trafficking cases are reported yearly, and many cases are unreported because of cultural pressure. People think that males cannot be victims of sexual trafficking. Even if males are victims, such cases are discouraged to be reported because of the cultural concept of being shamed, disrespected and boycotted by other members of society under futile societal norms and values.
In America, thousands of sexual trafficking cases are reported yearly despite strict laws. A report of Exodus Road reveals that women and girls form the majority of sexual trafficking victims that is around 71% of the total cases. Remaining 21% victims belong to other sexes such as males and LGBTQ. It is also assumed that a large number of sexual trafficking cases are unreported which is the main hindrance to collecting exact data of sexual trafficking victims.
Unfortunately, a gender centred approach is adopted while defining victims of sexual trafficking. The main focus of human rights organizations, human rights activists and politicians is female victims of sexual trafficking despite the fact that males are also victims of sexual trafficking. However, it is true that a large number of females are victims of the heinous crime as compared to males both in the U.S and the rest of the world.
According to the Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, 27 percent out of all victims of sexual trafficking were children globally. One in three victims was boys. In the US, the National Human Trafficking Resource Centre hotline revealed the fact that more than 24,000 cases of human trafficking were registered from 2012 to September 2016, and 13 percent of the total that is more than 3000 were men. Thus, it has been proved that all sexes, especially male and female are victims of sexual trafficking along with other sexual identities. That is the reason; the federal government of the United States of America has been financing more than 222 institutions and initiated programs for awareness of sexual trafficking since 2010 that is playing a pivotal role to liberate people from the shackles of outdated myths of associating sexual trafficking with a particular sex.
Global community should initiate awareness programs, introduce laws, under legal instruments of UNO regarding human rights and human trafficking. Association of sexual trafficking with a particular sexual identity should be discouraged by liberating people from the shackles of their outdated cultural myths.
—Adv Changezi Sandhu is a Lahore-based lawyer & Nhora Elvira Gomez is a US-based human rights activist, philanthropist & teacher.
