Migrant
women are at an increased risk for becoming targets of human trafficking
perpetrators. It is estimated that 27 million people are trafficked for labor
and sex trafficking globally. Women
comprise 80-98% of those who are sexually exploited across the world. United
Nations reports that of those who are trafficked, 95% experienced physical and/or sexual abuse
while being trafficked. Migrant women who lack support structures in their destination country and come with low
funds, can find themselves coerced into being trafficked. Whether they came
under the guise of a job or continued education, or met a trafficker who
befriended them with one goal in mind, migrant women can find themselves in a
triple bind. They are poor, female, and undocumented while being trafficked in
a foreign country. The Inter Press Agency (IPS)states that “migrant women who get involved in the commercial sex
trade face multiple challenges. These include “insecurity in relation to the
immigration status (such as) the potential breach of immigration law on top of
prostitution-related law; criminalisation by the state; isolation and lack of
friends; disorientation from the constant movements around brothels in
different towns; vulnerability to extortion and blackmail; control by pimps and
advertisers and lack of medical care (apart from certain clinics for sexually
transmitted diseases).”
Not only do these women suffer
the dehumanizing treatment of being victims of trafficking, they also
lack access to health and medical care. As a result, many women attain a
variety of illnesses that go untreated and further erode trafficking victims
lives. Migrant families also face job discrimination whether they enter a new
country through legalized routes, as asylum seekers, or as undocumented
families. Women, who are still globally denied basic human rights, face extreme
barriers to finding work in a new country and can fall into stereotypical
gender roles which pay low and demand long hours (IPS). Thirty-two percent of
trafficking victims are forced into
economic exploitation, over half of this population is female. Global profits
for human trafficking is around 32 billion dollars and climbing. Worldwide,
prostitution is an act which women and girls, due to severely oppressive
factors, can become imprisoned.
Migrant men also face
great circumstances and make up a large number of those found in the forced
labor market. The Solidarity Network writes that migrant is a person who leaves
a country in pursuit of work. In North America, there are 18 million migrant
workers. The migrant worker population, which usually consists of domestic workers, construction
workers, contract laborers, low-skilled service sector workers, agricultural
workers, and export production factory workers. Often, those who possess these
jobs have left countries to find the work in which they are engaging. The need
for work, puts this group in a precarious position and makes them vulnerable to
being exploited through lowered wages, unlawful working hours, and other forms
of abuse. Here too, a lack of proper documentation gives traffickers further
power over the lives of migrant families. To be a migrant family, asylum
seeker, or refugee in a new country is to be presented with unique problems.
Those seeking the ability to provide for family members, those needing an
economic boost, or those fleeing prosecution should not be subjected to further
disempowerment, discrimination, or undue hardship. What can be done to aid
migrant families and keep them from getting lost in human trafficking circles?
Give us your ideas and feedback.
Sherie Shields
Task Force Intern IOFA
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