2007 Trafficking in Persons Report - Center for Women Policy Studies

I N T R O D U C T I O N
Nigerian authorities raided vodoo magician Gooday Akhimiona’s shrine and found a register containing the
names of young girls sold into prostitution using juju/black magic.
The Egyptian boy forced to beg on the streets
of Cairo or New York is as much a victim of trafficking
in persons as the Central American worker
brought to the United States on a legal seasonal
farm work visa and then forced to work in
conditions not described in the original contract,
with the threat of being deported without pay
if he fails to comply with the “new rules.” The
Estonian woman who is lured to London through
the fraudulent offer of a modeling job and then
prostituted is as much a victim of trafficking in
persons as the teenage Kenyan girl who is pushed
into prostitution in a seaside resort town by her
family. The forms of involutary servitude and faces
of those victimized are myriad.
Health Impacts of
Trafficking in Persons
Trafficking in persons has serious public health
implications in addition to being a human rights
and national security issue. By definition, human
trafficking entails “force, fraud, or coercion”
which typically includes confinement and, often,
physical and psychological abuse.
Research demonstrates that violence and abuse
are at the core of trafficking for prostitution. A
2006 study of women trafficked for prostitution
into the European Union found that 95 percent
of victims had been violently assaulted or coerced
into a sexual act, and over 60 percent of victims
reported fatigue, neurological symptoms, gastrointestinal
problems, back pain, and/or gynecological
infections. Additional psychological consequences
common among prostituted women include
dissociative and personality disorders, anxiety, and
depression. A 2001 study revealed that 86 percent
of women trafficked within their countries and 85
percent of women trafficked across international
borders suffer from depression.
As with sex trafficking, those who are trafficked
for labor suffer physical and mental health problems,
such as post-traumatic stress disorder due to
physical assaults and beatings, and depression that
elevates the risk of suicide. Victims of forced labor
have limited ability to determine the conditions in
which they work or to leave the workplace, which
may increase their risk of physical and mental
health damage.
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