Human Trafficking

This page is not regularly updated so links and data may be out of date.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates annual profits from trafficking in human beings amount to 32 billion USD, while the US government claims trafficking is the fastest growing, and second most lucrative criminal operation in the world, on a par with the arms trade, and second only to the illegal drugs industry.

Elizabeth has worked on the subject of human trafficking for exploitation since 2001, with much of her work in the area of trafficking of children for intercountry adoption.

Elizabeth has researched asylum and immigration issues concerning victims of human trafficking for exploitation in the UK, and has worked on Jubilee Action’s Children Affected by Human Trafficking for Exploitation Programme in Nepal, for which Elizabeth undertook a field visit and evaluation, with recommendations for future policy and programming.

Please see Elizabeth’s articles on human trafficking below, to read more:

• July 2015 Trafficking in the UK: UK Modern Slavery Act 2015: A Summary for Business
• January 2014 Child Sexual Exploitation: The Light Behind My Eyes Has Died: Poem about the trafficking of children for sexual exploitation
• October 2013 Trafficking in the UK: Elizabeth wrote the Return on Investment Section for the Greater London Authority report Shadow City: Exposing Human Trafficking in Everyday London (right).
• September 2013 Sex Trafficking: Institutionalisation and the Children of Sex Trafficking Victims in Nepal. A background article on sex trafficking from Nepal to India, and the institutionalisation of children in Nepal. Repatriated children of sex trafficking victims often face institutionalisation, both as part of life in India’s brothels and then again when returned home to Nepal.
• May 2013 International Law: Human trafficking and international law. Trafficking in persons was codified as long ago as 1910 by the “International Agreement for the suppression of the White Slave Traffic.
  
• September 2012 Witchcraft and Trafficking: Ties that bind: African witchcraft and contemporary slavery.  In Africa, witchcraft has become inextricably linked to the trafficking in persons for exploitation. However this is not an African problem, but a problem of abuse which extends across the globe. The common factor linking witchcraft and human trafficking is the modern perversion of traditional belief systems for financial gain, at the expense of the grossest violations of human rights.
• July 2012 Intercountry Adoption: Child trafficking and intercountry adoption in Romania’s post-communist years. Book Review: Romania For Export Only, The untold story of the Romanian “orphans” by Roelie Post.
• July 2012 Intercountry Adoption: Adoption trade sets up shop in Africa. More than ten years on from Romania’s moratorium on intercountry adoptions, imposed after tales of trafficking networks and a black market in stolen babies, Africa is dubbed the new frontier for intercountry adoption, with a threefold rise in intercountry adoption cases in eight years, despite a global 15 year low.
• May 2012 Intercountry Adoption: Production of media pack for The African Child Policy Forum’s 5th International Policy Conference Intercountry Adoption: Alternatives and Controversies including series of fact sheets.
• February 2003 Sex Trafficking: Pile Them High, Sell Them Cheap: Women and Sex for Sale. Review of Trading Women documentary (right) which profiles the hill peoples of Thailand, noting that lack of citizenship, with its associated landlessness, poverty and vulnerability to police corruption, is an overriding factor in the women becoming easy prey to traffickers into the Thai sex industry.
• November 2002 Intercountry Adoption: A fresh start for Europe’s lost children. Hundreds of orphanages were constructed in Romania as a result of former President Nicolae Ceausescu, who declared all forms of contraception and abortion illegal and instructed all women under the age of 45 to have at least five children. The inability of parents to care for their children meant that by 1990 over 100,000 children were living in these institutions. Hope and Homes for Children believes that enjoying a loving family life is as fundamental a need for children as food, shelter and safety and is committed to providing this for every child in Romania’s institutions.