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

AN INTRODUCTION TO HUMAN TRAFFICKING: VULNERABILITY, IMPACT AND ACTION
or take adequate precautions <strong>to</strong> avoid traffickers. Materials that stress the dangers
awaiting potential migrants and warn people against leaving home are reportedly perceived
by some audiences <strong>to</strong> be untrustworthy anti-migration propaganda. 28 Some have been
produced without adequate research beforehand <strong>to</strong> find out how and why people make
decisions <strong>to</strong> migrate and <strong>to</strong> check whether they are indeed under-informed or choose <strong>to</strong>
take risks because of the challenges they face and a lack of alternatives.
The formats for awareness-raising materials and the message they convey vary. They
include films telling semi-fictional s<strong>to</strong>ries about adolescent girls or young women who have
been trafficked in<strong>to</strong> commercial sexual exploitation. Despite the expense involved in producing
these and countless posters, leaflets and car<strong>to</strong>ons, there have been relatively few
evaluations of their impact or efforts <strong>to</strong> learn systematically from experience and improve
their effectiveness next time around. 29 Indeed, <strong>to</strong>o many have been “off-the-peg” campaigns,
based on similar initiatives in other countries, without being tailored <strong>to</strong> the needs and circumstances
of the audience they are trying <strong>to</strong> influence.
Increasingly, anti-trafficking information materials are advising potential migrants instead
how they can minimize risks by taking precautions. For example, in Latvia, NGOs gave
adolescents a checklist of actions <strong>to</strong> protect themselves against false job promises abroad,
included checking whether a job agency or opportunity was legitimate, seeking an employment
contract and leaving a copy with relatives or friends. 30
B.—Interceptions of those in transit
In addition <strong>to</strong> interceptions of persons by immigration officials at border points, when
there is evidence that they are being trafficked, the technique of intercepting people has
been used in a variety of other circumstances <strong>to</strong> try and prevent people from being trafficked.
The disadvantage of this technique is that the criteria used for identifying possible
trafficking victims have generally been far <strong>to</strong>o general and the interceptions have ended
up becoming a form of abuse. Interceptions have been widely criticized in West Africa,
where concern about children being trafficked in<strong>to</strong> forced labour at the end of the 1990s
prompted several Governments <strong>to</strong> establish village-level “vigilance” committees, ostensibly
<strong>to</strong> prevent children from being trafficked. As the distinction between trafficking and other
forms of migration was not well unders<strong>to</strong>od by committee members or law enforcement
officials, they are reported <strong>to</strong> have intercepted adolescents who wanted <strong>to</strong> leave home <strong>to</strong>
seek work elsewhere and obliged them <strong>to</strong> return home, including older adolescents who
were entitled by both national law and international standards <strong>to</strong> seek employment. 31
28
Barbara Limanowska, <strong>Trafficking</strong> in <strong>Human</strong> Beings in South Eastern Europe: 2004 - Focus on Prevention in Albania,
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Moldova, Romania, Serbia and
Montenegro and the UN Administered Province of Kosovo, joint report by the <strong>United</strong> <strong>Nations</strong> Children’s Fund, the <strong>Office</strong>
of the <strong>United</strong> <strong>Nations</strong> High Commissioner for <strong>Human</strong> Rights and the <strong>Office</strong> for Democratic Institutions and <strong>Human</strong>
Rights of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (New York, <strong>United</strong> <strong>Nations</strong> Development
Programme, 2005), p. 31.
29
Ruth Rosenberg and others, Best Practices for Programming <strong>to</strong> Prevent <strong>Trafficking</strong> in <strong>Human</strong> Beings in Europe
and Eurasia (Bethesda, Maryland, Development Alternatives Inc., 2004)(see http://www.vitalvoices.org/files/docs/
Prevention%20assessment%20Report-formatted%20CAS1.pdf).
30
Alison Boak and others, eds., Smooth Flight: a Guide <strong>to</strong> Preventing Youth <strong>Trafficking</strong> (International Organization
for Adolescents, 2003), p. 95 (see http://www.seerights.org).
31
S. Castle and A. Diarra, The International Migration of Young Malians: Tradition, Necessity or Rite of Passage?
(London, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, 2003).
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