An Introduction to Human Trafficking - United Nations Office on ...

PART TWO.—IMPACT
Official remittances, money sent home by migrants, made up of millions of individual, private,
non-market income transfers, have grown steadily and represent a significant international
flow of capital. Formal remittance flows from foreign workers now <strong>to</strong>tal over $232
billion, with developing countries receiving $160 billion, while informal flows and national
or domestic remittances add 50 per cent more. 43 Women, children and the elderly are
said <strong>to</strong> be the majority of beneficiaries of these remittances. While the issue of foreign
remittances themselves is controversial, any discussion on this <strong>to</strong>pic must acknowledge
that, in the short term, they provide and make possible a number of benefits <strong>to</strong> those <strong>to</strong>
whom they are sent. A direct impact of trafficking in persons is <strong>to</strong> deny a victim those
benefits.
Sending members abroad may represent many families’ main survival project and source
of income, with a much higher return than opportunities at home. Funds provided for
household needs enable receivers <strong>to</strong> maintain or increase expenditure on basic consumption
and, in cases of extreme poverty, these funds will provide welfare assistance. 44
Remittances may also reduce the vulnerability of recipients <strong>to</strong> crises and be critical <strong>to</strong> how
they survive and recover from disasters. 45 Sending remittances home also improves the
status and negotiating power of women in their families and communities, and may create
better conditions for other females in the family. 46 This may create an effective development
<strong>to</strong>ol, contributing <strong>to</strong> the improvement of women’s economic status in countries
of both origin and destination. 47
For many developing economies, remittances are the single largest source of foreign
exchange and are stable and resilient in the face of economic downturns. Increasingly, it
is argued that remittances are a positive force for development. They have been described
as the most stable, abundant and safe source of foreign aid for developing countries, 48
with greater efforts expended on how they can be used <strong>to</strong> assist development in recipient
countries, including their use in collective local development projects such as those
set up in Mexico. 49 According <strong>to</strong> the World Bank, a 10 per cent increase in the percentage
of remittances as a proportion of a country’s GDP would result in a 1.6 per cent
reduction of the number of people living in poverty in that country. 50
43
Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems and World Bank, General Principles for International Remittance
Services (Basel, Switzerland, Bank for International Settlements, 2007), p. 1
(see www.bis.org/publ/cpss76.pdf).
44
Manuel Orozco, “Remittances compete with the dream of an enterprise”, presentation at the Third International
Policy and Expert Meeting “Entrepreneurial decisions across borders: savings, remittances and investments and migrant
household decisions”, The Hague, 22 November 2006, slide 7
(see http://www.remittances.eu/dmdocuments/Gender%20and%20remittances.ppt#270,19,Leveraging remittances for
financial access).
45
Kevin Savage and Paul Harvey, “Remittances during crises: implications for humanitarian response”,
<strong>Human</strong>itarian Policy Group, Briefing paper No. 26 (London, Overseas Development Institute, May 2007)
(see www.odi.org.uk/hpg/papers/hpgbrief26.pdf).
46
Sarah J. Mahler, “Gender matters”, id21 Research Highlight, 16 January 2006
(see www.id21.org/id21ext/insights60art7.html).
47
Carlota Ramírez, Mar García Domínguez and Julia Míguez Morais, Crossing Borders: Remittances, Gender and
Development, working paper (San<strong>to</strong> Domingo, International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of
Women, June 2005), pp. 23- 47 (see http://www.un-instraw.org/en/images/s<strong>to</strong>ries/remmitances/documents/crossing_borders.pdf).
48
Ramírez and others, op. cit., p. 19.
49
“Workers' remittances <strong>to</strong> Mexico”, Business Frontier, vol. 1, 2004
(see www.dallasfed.org/research/busfront/bus0401.html).
50
Ramírez and others, op. cit., p. 47.
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