This essay is going to critically analyze the serious crime of Human Trafficking which is the illegal trade of people for their exploitation (Atkinson). This will be done through a social harm lens which will consider the social, political, and economic context. Additionally, it is going to analyze the serious crime of human trafficking within a capitalist economic system that is dominant across the globe, and by adopting this approach it will clarify the context, the root causes, and alternative approaches to relieve serious harm.
There are many forms of human trafficking, one being organ transplants. Geis and Brown state this to be a category of a thriving black market where people in low-income countries and poverty voluntarily donate their organs for money to be able to provide for their families. The locations where these transplants are taking place are notorious. Additionally in subservient poverty kidneys are precious belongings, they sell their kidneys for medicine or to pay off debt, these are not done on humanitarian grounds, and people wanting to purchase the organs come from around the globe. It is projected that legal organ donations cover less than 10% of the world's needs (UNODC 2015). The flow of kidneys adheres to routes of the capital from south to north, while also from poorer humans to more prosperous humans.
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The case study Moldova shows the social harm and the impact human trafficking regarding organs has. The Moldovans sold hundreds of their kidneys to countries globally, in doing this it affected their work as they could not perform to the normal standard with their role, which is agriculture or construction labor, there was no other work for them (Scheper Hughes, 2004). Also, kidney sellers and female sex workers from Moldova are categorized as shameless prostitutes, they are labeled for selling their bodies as a means of providing for themselves and their families. Once the operations are performed for removing the organs there are no follow-ups to make sure they recover fully as they have no access to doctors or hospitals afterward (Scheper Hughes, 2004).
Another example is organ harvesting in China, where there are 10,000 organs transplanted yearly when there is only a small percentage of the population on the human donor register. It is said that these are made up of kidneys, livers, hearts, lungs, cornea, and skin, also there are some queries into whether these organs may come from political prisoners which have been proven, it is known to be a crime against humanity and also genocide (Adam Withnall, 2019). It is also a routine in China to take the organs of the people after execution which makes up 4,500 individuals yearly and is known as part of the redemption to society. However evidence shows that most of the organs go to state officials and that the donor had no choice, they could not opt out or were in no position to resist (Geis and Brown, 2008). It was said in 2014 that China would stop this but in 2019 the UN is still demanding that China cease organ harvesting, the Human Rights Council for the UN states that there is an obligation of members of the UN to stop this (Bowcott, 2019).
There is a division when it comes to organ trafficking, this is the organ donor, globally there are many cities to provide body parts such as Moscow and then there is the organ recipient, these involve global cities such as New York City and Tokyo. This trade for Kidneys is powered by a market calculus of supply and demand (Scheper Hughes, 2004). It is such that the medical consumers want the freshest produce to work with, this is just like any other global business, they treat the organs as the product and do not care where it comes from as long as it is quality, they do not consider it coming from another human being like themselves. Eventually, the UN created a protocol in 2000 against human trafficking which is to prevent, suppress, and punish anyone that contributes to the trafficking of persons, this later was ratified by hundreds of countries which signifies global politics to address the international problem.
The problem with human trafficking is that it should not be focused upon as just a crime but also focus on one's fundamental human rights. This human trafficking is also classified as human rights abuse, and it is not just caused by criminal acts but also because of one's social status, this being that the person is from a poor country and is looking for an alternative way to survive and get involved either voluntary or coerced in being part of human trafficking. Such as the case of child tracking, where there were 330 cases reported and 183 went missing from local authority care (Bohhari 2008). Additionally, 77 Chinese children went missing in Heathrow and only 4 were found in 3 years, 2 were found in a brothel in Birmingham in 2009. Situations like this are hard to prevent but things can be put in place to help the victims and the perpetrators need to be punished, there are laws in place for this such as the modern slavery Act 2015 that aims to prosecute traffickers for up to 14 years to life, also to report suspected cases of human trafficking, prevention orders for people that pose a risk of committing human trafficking, recovery support for victims, and finances to support them, also a duty for suppliers to check supply chains and oversees ensuring transparency. It can be said that the child sex trade is a multi-billion industry (Hillyard, 2004) and that it is powered by people of greed that feed off the unpowerful and most vulnerable, the effect on the children involved can lead to them getting diseases, pregnant, substant abuse, suicide, and numerous other health problems (Willis and Levy, 2002). Hillyard also expresses that the profits from child trade are sustained by poverty, gender discrimination, poor education, war, and conflict.
Overall, the capitalist global economy provides the demand and supply for human trafficking, this is based on an inequality across the globe where the powerful take charge and use the vulnerable for their own needs, such as Hillyard explains that child trafficking alone is a multi-billion industry. There is also a worldwide demand for cheap labor in numerous industries, so they get people from low economic backgrounds that would do the labor for cheaper. Additionally, there is corruption in government and law enforcement across the globe, an example of this is that someone with power who does not have a moral conscious will still want to undertake human trafficking for their greed. So, although countries set regulations and laws on human trafficking it is still not possible to completely abolish human trafficking until the core reasons of the issues in source countries are permanently corrected. By finding all the causes and rectifying them only then a permanent solution to the problem be solved (Aronowitz, 2001). Therefore, if the crime is the focal point the reasons behind why human trafficking exists can get lost and the solutions would not be able to prevent or abolish human trafficking. Looking through the issues from a social harm approach can produce solutions. From the view of Hillyard and Tombs much of the harm globally by placing the cause strongly at the base of the interest of a neo-liberal economic concept, this could be said that the government can prevent development this point is if a body is too powerful, and they do not agree that human trafficking is wrong then countries not under the UN could still have legalized human trafficking. While Bibbings and Pantazis identify social harm as being part of a culture's customs, traditions, and dominant ideologies, it is not always on a political economy basis. Another is Schwendingers' (1975) approach which utilized an innovative social harm approach to identify state crime as the interference of human rights, such as racism, sexism, and economic exploitation as being some categories of the approach. This shows that there are numerous issues behind human trafficking, and some can be hard to distinguish, and the solutions can be hard to find.
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