When faced with a choice between two options, one of which is either ethical or unethical, a human must make an ethical decision. Its main goal is to make it possible for people to have fulfilling lives. These challenges are related to ethical issues or moral conundrums that cause conflict or choice between desirable and unattractive options or option balance. In this article, we’ll talk about ethical concerns with human trafficking, which primarily comprises enlisting, coercing, and harboring people through threats, physical violence, or other forms of kidnapping. It is a desecration of human rights since individuals who fall into the hands of these traffickers are exposed to many forms of exploitation for example forced labor, prostitution, slavery, servitude among many others.
Types of human trafficking
Types of human trafficking include sex trafficking, labor trafficking and trafficking people for organ removal (Lee, 2013). In the US, human trafficking mainly occurs around global travel hubs where there is a large population of immigrants, notably Texas and California. The United States justice department gave an estimation of 14,000-17,000 people being trafficked into the nation every year. They include children, men, women, and teenagers. Some are private citizens while others are from foreign countries. Around 240000 American teenagers are at risk of being subjected to sex trafficking every year, (Department of States statistics).According to the federal law (18 USC 1589), it is a criminal offense to make people work by force, fear or coercion.
The biggest problem about human trafficking
The biggest problem about human trafficking is that the victims involved are silenced,” says Villa. For example in sex trafficking, traffickers play a great role in threatening victims by telling them that they are also offenders and threaten to call the authorities (Weitzer, 2014). The threats tend to make the victims afraid of facing the law for they too will be charged with prostitution, making them vulnerable when subjected to such acts.
Organ trafficking
Organ trafficking has also become a booming business, especially in the 21st century. When people get tired of being on the waiting list, they opt to get organs from the black market where harvesting and sale of the body parts occur for top dollar for someone to get a hip, kidney or lungs. In America, around 11,000 people need various body organs (American Transplant Foundation). A new name is added to the list every 21 minutes, and an average of 20 people die daily due to unavailability of organs. Hence, people opt for black market organs to save their lives.
Breaching of the Ethical behavior
Breaching of ethical behavior is mainly practiced in various institutions including colleges, different organizations, and workplaces amongst many other places. People take advantages of the people around them and subject them to human trafficking, with or without their knowledge. Such behaviors have adverse effects on individuals and the society. First, recruitment of young people leads to lack of self-esteem. Their subjection to forced labor, sex trade amongst other forms of violation makes them suffer from depression, emotional disturbance and makes them disoriented (Corradi, 2016). The psychological disorders that emerge from this torture make them vulnerable, and they will have to struggle with it forever, even if they get the necessary rescue. Secondly, these tortures torment them; hence they tend to become withdrawn and may become suicidal.
Children who are born out of prostitution
Children who are born out of prostitution are taken away when they are born, and this causes deep agony to their mothers, hence increasing their traumatic experience. In addition to that, their health is affected. For example in prostitution, victims may be subjected to cater for 7-13 clients a day. Since the use of protection during sexual activities is negligible in sex trafficking, victims are likely to contract sexually transmitted infections and diseases, and HIV/AIDS, which they eventually pass to men and their spouses (Greenbaum, 2017).
Furthermore, such individuals are also subjected to drug abuse
Furthermore, such individuals are also subjected to drug abuse hence they will have to battle with drug addiction. Inadequate supply of diet and absence of nutritious meals makes the victims malnourished. Besides, their subjection to deprived living conditions exposes these victims to vulnerable ailments, which may develop in later years, due to the lack of medical attention to cure these diseases. Those working in chemical factories are treated poorly, and when they succumb to these ailments, other victims replace them. Moreover, these victims are deprived of their human rights including education amongst others. They, therefore, struggle to gain acceptance from people after their rescue.
The economic effects of human trafficking
The economic effects of human trafficking include reduction per capita income of a country. The decrease is attributable to the victims receiving a trivial amount of wages after offering their services. Sometimes, they are paid nothing on the excuse of paying for the expenses like lodging, clothing, and food, and also doing away with debts. Therefore, the meager incomes to cover up for the physical labor and this avert them from fleeing. The availability of cheap labor tends to hinder employment hence reducing a country’s per capita income. Since such financial repercussions can never be disregarded, the human traffickers tend to develop the immense strength to continue with their illegal activities without fearing the law.
In addition to that, illegal activities lead to social insecurities since other ills like terrorism, poverty, high crime rates, and poor living standards amongst other crimes thrive from such activities. Along with it, human trafficking creates pointless competition for individual professionals, but besides that, the most unfortunate thing is the loss of human resources since it leads to wastage of productivity and development. This becomes a disgrace to humanity at large. The fundamental ethical theories include absolutism, eudaimonism, natural law, deontology, utilitarianism, contractarianism and lastly rights theory, which is a bonus approach. In this article, deontology and utilitarianism to human trafficking will be discussed. Deontology theory, regarding human trafficking, has been applied to help determine if an issue is morally right or wrong.
The Deontology Theory
According to the deontology theory, matter is right if it is universally accepted. Human trafficking is a very unacceptable business, and hence a line is drawn since many, hence considered immoral, criticize this act. In this world, if we were to allow people to buy other people for financial gain, then everybody would buy slaves for their personal gain. Slaves too would be buying slaves, and the cycle would continue. Deontology says no to human trafficking and helps people realize that human trafficking is an evil that can be stopped (Weitzer, 2015). Whether by legislations, campaigns to create awareness or petitions, difference, no matter how small it may seem, can be made. Since there is slavery, there are abolitions, and this means that we can act as new age abolitionists to end slavery finally.
The Utilitarianism Theory
Utilitarianism, on the other hand, asserts the abundant amount of delight for a large number of people. It directly implies that we should not only seek for happiness for ourselves, but also for the people surrounding us. Taking people from their countries and homes, lying to them, subjecting them to forced labor, prostitution and slavery do not create happiness for the victims. For people gaining from such acts, the satisfaction gained is merely bodily and monetary, and this becomes controversial of whether this action is morally acceptable or not. The concepts that come up, in this case, are selfishness egoism, where these people only care about themselves. The happiness from those buying them is far less than the unhappiness portrayed by the victims of slavery. Therefore, this theory does not support human trafficking at any cost.
Ethical Perspectives
Ethical aspects are crucial in the fight against human trafficking. They call upon every person to fight against human trafficking by introducing codes of conduct in organizations, empowerment of workers, ensuring enactment of the administration and procurement regulations, tolerating zero policies within global organizations, treating each other with utmost dignity and ensuring that everyone is on their best behavior. Using the Coalition of Immokalee workers as our case study, it is evident that the empowerment of employees in an organization will help fight against human trafficking. This community-based organization for human rights confronted and changed cooperate practices in cases whereby workers in Florida and other regions were being trafficked and subjected to labor exploitation.
In my opinion, human trafficking is inhuman
In my opinion, human trafficking is inhuman, and there is the need for it to be stopped immediately. No one’s life is wrong or good, and no one has the right to set a value on it. All citizens working and living in the United States should join hands in stopping human trafficking and awareness should be brought to the public through the internet, by visiting websites on the web like www.humantrafficking.org where people can acquire information on how one can be involved in the issue. Rallies can be held in schools, business places, and colleges to make the community aware of the dangers of human trafficking.
References
Corradi, L. (2016, July). Human Trafficking: The Labour and Sexual Exploitation of Women and Children. In Third ISA Forum of Sociology (July 10-14, 2016). Isaconf.
Greenbaum, J. (2017). Introduction to Human Trafficking: Who Is Affected?. In Human Trafficking Is a Public Health Issue (pp. 1-14). Springer International Publishing.
Lee, M. (Ed.). (2013). Human trafficking. Routledge.
Weitzer, R. (2014). New directions in research on human trafficking. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 653(1), 6-24.
Weitzer, R. (2015). Human trafficking and contemporary slavery. Annual review of sociology, 41, 223-242.
