Final Thoughts on Trafficking
Human trafficking is a practice as old as human civilization, but it represents an emerging topic because awareness around it and efforts to abolish it have increased. Although groups and agencies are working toward the abolishment of human trafficking, this practice still occurs throughout the world. Global instability and economic marginalization in certain areas of the world increase the potential population for trafficking. As long as there is a demand for cheap or free labor, whether in agriculture, as soldiers, or as sex workers, traffickers will be tempted to enslave others for profit. In 2017, Europe and America were shocked by videos of open-air slave-trading markets in Libya where refugees from places like Etruria and Sudan were being sold for labor throughout the Middle East. Yet, the scenes played out in Libya were once common during the Transatlantic slave trade and took place on Wall Street in New York City and in Charleston, South Carolina, and New Orleans, Louisiana. Ensuring local, national, and international protections and enforcement of those protections for trafficked individuals are important steps to getting rid of this problem.
While it is difficult, changing the cultural and social norms around the value of marginalized groups could greatly reduce the opportunities for trafficking. When these groups, especially women, are given opportunities for education and economic independence, the temptation to sell children into slavery is reduced significantly. If cultural narratives around the value of women were improved, the potential to see girls just as commodities would be greatly reduced.