GUIDELINES FOR THE TREATMENT OF THE INFORMATION IN THE THEME OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING
"STOP trafficking! Another point of view", European project Equal cod. IT-S2-MDL-210
Journalist National Association
Press National Federation
RAI Social Action Department
Rights and Equal Opportunities Department, Presidency of Ministers Council
AICCRE (Italian Association of the Town Hall Council and Regions of Europe)
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1. HUMAN TRAFFICKING
Human trafficking is when a person is moved to a different place from where they live through the use of force or deception in order to exploit the body (or some parts of it) for work and/or sexual aims.
The phenomenon of human trafficking is made of three elements:
- moving a person from a place to another,
- such displacement is made through the use of deception or force,
- after moving, the person will be exploited.
This definition – worldwide spread – belongs to the additional Protocol of the United Nation Convention against the organized criminality, in order to prevent, suppress and punish human trafficking, in particular that of women and children.
This Protocol was issued in December 2000 in Palermo.
What are the causes of the modern phenomenon of human trafficking?
- the globalization process,
- the development of mass media
- the increase of the female component in the migrating flows.
The globalization process
It has been celebrated since the fall of the eastern European socialist regimes.
Until then, the geo-political division of the world in two blocks determined a certain stillness of most of the world population, due to two main factors: the inability of moving of thousands of citizens from the Soviet republics and the countries of Warsaw Pact, and the financial support given by the two world super powers to the developing countries in order to get their alliance.
The collapse of the Soviet block changed the parameters of such geo-political division: the old financial aids given to the developing countries were changed into the possibility to participate to the capitalistic production process.
Nowadays, every citizen of the world is involved into the same production mechanism and in many cases the production of goods is divided into several micro-processes dislocated in different areas of the world.
The responsibility of globalization in human trafficking does not limit to the production, but it evolves into the use of goods.
Living in a globalized world means sharing the same wealth model and then aiming at the same items to use that, as we all know, become identity factors.
The development of mass media
Also in this case, until 90s, those who live in a remote village of the Italian Apennines, or of central Africa, or of far east, had little chance to know the world: only the tale of some traveller could compensate the lack of television. The development of mass media has diffused new social models of consumption along with images of far away places and better life conditions, contributing to the above mentioned changes of identity:
“I am also what I eat, I wear, I drive...”. The western life style has become the model of a better quality of life.
The feminization of migration
Until mid ‘80s emigration was only a male phenomenon: generally speaking, the most able subjects used to leave their original countries to go to the richest ones, trying to improve their life and their family's. In the ‘80s the female percentage into migration increased.
That was due to the emancipation process in the developed countries that, in spite of the increase of woman participation in the social and political life, remains uncompleted: the housework and children care are not re-distributed between the two genders, but they remain women's task.
The request of aid to satisfy these needs has generated a strong factor of attraction for house-keepers, carers, nannies and nurses.
Human trafficking is a complex phenomenon, since moving, the deception and the exploitation of the victims do not occur in a linear process, but they hide behind the illegal immigration processes and in the circuit of irregular labour market.
If only one of the above mentioned elements is missing, then it is not possible to talk about human trafficking.
For this reason the victim's involvement process is carefully analyzed, since the recruitment can occur in the original country or in the arrival country. For example, a person can arrive in our country with a regular visa and then be absorbed after a sudden event – loss of work, work permit rejected, separation from the spouse, etc. - into the illegality circuits and labour exploitation.
The extreme difficulty to recognize the variables of the process that leads a person to be deprived of their freedom is favoured in those sectors where the illegality is diffused and endemic. Here labour exploitation is mostly hidden.
Human trafficking involves different people with a different degree of responsibility.
The trafficker, the exploiter and the victim are the main figures of human trafficking.
Sometimes though it is not easy to perceive their degree of responsibility. A person can become a trafficker without even knowing it, when they help a compatriot to find people wanting to emigrate to a foreign country to find a job; or when they host a compatriot that is going to be a human trafficking victim in a transitional or arrival country.
A victim can also become a trafficker or an exploiter. Finally exploiters can be traffickers without knowing it, like clients of prostitutes being victims of human trafficking, or farmers that receive workforce, enslaved by third parties named “caporals”.
Human trafficking damages not only the person involved, but also the entire community around the person.
For this reason it is a severe violation of the human rights.
Human trafficking is a violation of the human rights because the consequences are not only individual, but they involve the entire human community.
Human trafficking is a phenomenon linked to emigration: behind every migrating phenomenon there is a person that takes the risk and brings expectations and hopes for the individual and the collectiveness – family, community, etc.
Every time a project is interrupted, impeded or blocked, the impact on other people of the same family or community will be severe. Since the best and most physically and psychologically prepared subjects lead the migrating flow, the impact on the most vulnerable ones will be huge, and the failure of the project more probable.
Human trafficking is a hideous phenomenon because it stops and impedes the realization of the migration project of a person.
When migration is not well-balanced, that is when there is no attention to the migrant's rights – in terms of journey, hospitality and labour – the consequence is the impoverishment of the original country.
Brain drain, the escape of intelligence, and arm drain, the escape of workforce, are then joined by care drain, since every nanny, housekeeper and carer means there will be a family or a child left alone.
The consequence of this in the poor countries is still on debate, but there are already important individual and social pathologies (learning disorders, stress and anxiety for children, increase of children in the street, increase of violence in adolescent relationships, increase of drugs and alcohol) in the countries with the highest female migration, like Philippines and Moldova.
The protection of the human rights is not an abstract action.
Human trafficking must be combated because it curses people's relationships:
- it favours new migrating waves
- it modifies the relationships between genders
- it normalizes, and therefore promotes, the exploitation of workforce
- it changes the rules of competitiveness in the production sector
Confusing human trafficking with other phenomena – prostitution, irregular work, abuses and prevarication – generates stereotypes and discriminations.
2. THE VICTIM OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING
Human trafficking is either a crime or a violation made against a person, whereas the facilitation of clandestine or irregular immigration, better known as “human smuggling”, is a crime against the State.
The definition of human trafficking highlights the difference of this crime, but it does not defines clearly the victim: the conditions that determine this status must be derived from the definition itself of the crime.
There is confusion around it, but above all the crime has been defined on the basis of the different modes of exploitation: sexual, working, begging, organ trafficking, etc.
In order to identify clearly the victim, it is necessary to start from the “Declaration of the United Nations of the fundamental principles of justice for the victims of crimes and power abuses” of 1986:
“The victim is defined as a person that has suffered from:
a. a mental or physical damage
- an emotional suffering
- an economic loss
- a substantial violation of the fundamental rights of the person.
Is it possible to apply this definition of the victim to human trafficking?
- Regarding the physical or mental damage, this is immediate for the human trafficking victims of sexual or organ trafficking type.
- It is immediate to feel the suffering of those who, starting from a migrating project aimed at improving their life conditions, are enslaved or unable to satisfy their family's needs and expectations.
- The victims suffer from an economic loss that can be defined both in terms of debt with the traffickers on the moment of the departure – in many cases the future victims sell their own properties – and of the arrival, under little money or even for free, as a payment for the work done.
- Finally the victims are violated in their freedom and fundamental rights, as indicated in the following list, part of the Universal Declaration of the human rights:
- right to Life, Freedom and Safety (Art.3)
- no one can be kept under slavery or servility (Art.4)
- prohibition of torture or inhuman or degraded and cruel punishments (Art. 4)
- prohibition of criminal retroactive legislation (Art. 11)
- right to leave any country and return to the original country (Art. 13)
- right to the family (Art. 16)
- right to freedom of thoughts, consciousness and religion (Art. 18)
- right to freedom of opinion and expression (Art. 19)
In addition to the above mentioned, the condition of victim of human trafficking implies the following three elements:
- moving the person from a place to another
- such moving is made through deception and force
- after been moved, the person is exploited
- Human trafficking is not prostitution, but sexual exploitation when the person's body is used against their will.
- Human trafficking is not irregular work, but labour exploitation when the person is in conditions of slavery, deprived of their documents and therefore kept in a state of vulnerability and blackmail.
- Human trafficking is not begging, but exploitation of minors when children are subtracted to a family in order to take them to another country and force them to beg and use their image for pornographic aims.
- Human trafficking is not paedophilia, but sexual exploitation of minors when children are subtracted to a family through false promises and forced to use their body for sexual and pornographic aims.
- correct and documented information, not sensational;
- a correct diffusion of the definition of the phenomenon (see point 1);
- recognition and protection of the victim as such – woman, man, minor – and their family and social environment;
- eradication of the term “prostitute” when referring to the victims of human trafficking for sexual exploitation;
- the extension of the concept of victim to all the subjects involved in all types of exploitation (labour, begging, organs, etc.)
- agenda approved by the National Journalist Association (att. a)
- list of the official documents (att. b)
- report from the US State Department on Human Trafficking of June 2005 “Fight against human trafficking: the invaluable role of the media” (att. c)
3. HOW TO INFORM
3.1. RECOGNIZING HUMAN TRAFFICKING
Based on the above mentioned elements, it is possible to highlight the different interpretations of human trafficking. Within the information, human trafficking is often called with synonyms that indicate different phenomena instead, creating then stereotypes, disbeliefs, social distance, loss of effectiveness in the prevention and contrast interventions. Here the most frequent examples of interpretation are listed:
Sexual, labour, begging and organ exploitations are the main forms for which the human trafficking victims' bodies are used.
Human trafficking for sexual exploitation must not be confused with prostitution, since the latter is a choice, whereas human trafficking is exploitation against the will.
Labour exploitation must not be confused with irregular labour, since the latter results from a scarce negotiation ability, whereas labour exploitation is against the will.
Human trafficking is often confused with paedophilia, but the former always refers to subjects that act against their will.
The law, initially based on a comprehensive principle, has been gradually adapted to the typology of sexual exploitation. That occurred because the rules and regulations of other norms prevail in their application. The law 75/1958 and the article 12 of T.U. on immigration 286/98 are examples along with the law 228/2003.
3.2. STEREOTYPES AND DISBELIEFS
Once defined the borders of the human trafficking phenomenon, it is necessary to analyze the stereotypes and disbeliefs on the matter. The social distance that results from it causes a difficult social rehabilitation of the victims, commonly seen as either ex-prostitutes or ex-criminals, even when they managed to escape a criminal project. Here the most frequent cases on the matter are listed.
It is said that human trafficking involves only women that prostitute themselves.
It is true instead that the association human trafficking-prostitution causes that all the emigrated women are considered as prostitutes, and therefore marked both in the arrival and original country. The same discrimination is applied to the male victims. Although they are not marked as male prostitutes, there are a lot of men, especially children, involved into this type of exploitation.
It is said that human trafficking only refers to sexual exploitation.
It is true though that the rich countries, the so-called “donors”, make their point of view prevail on the phenomena they want to contrast. Sexual exploitation is only a part of the human trafficking phenomenon though. In many regions of the world human trafficking is made through labour exploitation. According to the International Work Organization, at least one third of the 2,500 million individuals that are trafficked every year in the world are victims of labour exploitation.
It is said that the victims know what to expect, but they do not know the real labour conditions.
It is true instead that this statement, typical of those involved in the matter, shows disgust for the victims and, once again, associates the theme of the human trafficking to that of prostitution. Most of sexual exploitations occur indoor, where the victims cannot ask for help. It is not easy to ask for help for those who are forced to work on the street for three key elements: the fear of retaliation, the will to realize the emancipation dream and the need to send home the money.
It is said that the female immigrants go to west in order to prostitute themselves.
It is true instead that the access of the female component into the western labour market has caused a change in the family and social balance: traditionally involved into housework and the most vulnerable individual care – children, the old and the sick – women decrease the working time dedicated to the running of family, that is not redistributed between the two genders.
Consequently, the demand of workforce has risen to replace the western women in the housekeeping and person care. This is a new sector that attracts more and more women from the third world. They are often forced to leave their families and children in order to dedicate to the care of other families and friends, emigrating to find a job, not to prostitute themselves.
It is said that the victims do not want to be helped.
It is true instead that this stereotype, widespread among those involved in the sector, does not consider the deep trauma deriving from being made “objects” also in going out, where the unconsidered subjectivity of the victim has created serious problems.
The victims enter into a relationship of help based on charity, where it is not possible to “say something”, but only to thank.
The person passes from a path of coercive exploitation to a coercive help, that ignores cultural differences and costumes. For example, only after many years it has been understood that the victims can refuse to witness against their exploiters since the psychological mechanism of removal prevents them from doing it. For this reason they are actually accused of not wanting to get free. In doing so, the person is twice victim of stereotyping.
It is true that identifying human trafficking with prostitution helps the traffickers.
That has caused serious damages also in the original countries. In a logic in which the winning point of view comes from those who help – the state, the organization, the single operator – the association human trafficking-prostitution has been used in the informative campaigns promoted by the international agencies. The result has been that such campaigns, that encouraged women not to prostitute themselves, turned into an unexpected aid for the traffickers: the women in the original countries, not wanting to prostitute themselves, did not feel involved. They fell into the traffickers' net and were proposed sustainable and “clean” jobs.
3.3 RECOMMENDATIONS
In order to promote correct information about the human trafficking phenomenon, some recommendations are here mentioned, risen from the analysis of human trafficking treated by the media promoted by the Equal project STOP trafficking!, and joined by the Journalist Association, the National Press Federation, RAI Social Action Department, Rights and Equal Opportunities Department of the Presidency of the Ministers Council, AICCRE.
For a correct interpretation of human trafficking, it is recommended:
Eradication of ambiguity and confusion between human trafficking and side phenomena, such as:
clandestine immigration, prostitution, irregular labour, crimes like begging, theft, drug dealing. It is recommended not to confuse prostitution with sexual exploitation, irregular labour with labour exploitation, paedophilia with children sexual exploitation.
4. ATTACHMENTS and official documents
For a further analysis and correct information about the matter of human trafficking, refer to: