SOUTH ASIA

TRANSBORDER TRAFFICKING AND POVERTY PORTFOLIO

Dr. Gopal Krishna Siwakoti
Executive Director, Inhured International/HimRights
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Understanding and Rationale

Human trafficking is increasingly recognized as a complex process, involving a series of episodes for the person trafficked requiring markedly different responses from governments or communities.  These episodes might start with a need or desire to migrate, followed by an encounter of coercion and deception leading to highly harmful and exploitative working situations.  The trafficked person after some time might prefer to remain away from their original community, despite the exploitation and harm they have suffered.  The options for returning home may involve further stigmatization, lack of control over their lives or no opportunities for economic survival. 

For traffickers, the process is a systematic, well-organized economic phenomenon, involving the displacement and movement of persons solely for the exploitation of their labor. It offers opportunities to make quick profits for many, and for some it garners extremely high profits. Human trafficking is identified by many as the third largest source of profit for organized crime generating billions of dollars annually despite increasing funding for intervention efforts. The other two sources are weapons/arms and drug trafficking. Some forms for human trafficking have existed for thousands of years, while others take advantage of opportunities emerging economic niches present. 

For hundreds of years patterns of movement of kidnapped or bonded labor have taken place, and in some communities has been the sole source of income beyond subsistence agriculture. While human trafficking may have been an integral part of the traditional economy, and the cycle of movement of people within South Asia, it has only recently become part of the global process with victims being found in other countries in Asia and the Gulf. 

Key Economic Characteristics
The existence of demand for exploitable labor for certain types of work (e.g. CSW, bonded labor in some industrial and agricultural sectors; domestic work, entertainment sector – circuses, begging, camel jockeying)facilitate maintaining highly exploitative working conditions that are gross violations of human rights and labor standards in locations and conditions that are difficult to monitor or address through regular means.

Experiences for trafficked persons in their homes or previous community may mean they actually choose to remain in a highly coercive and exploitative situation, as the alternatives are perhaps worse.  There is a continuing debate among stakeholders and activists regarding the extent to which trafficked persons must retain the right to choose to remain in exploitative conditions, even if they are continuing to be harmed.  The threads of this debate reach into many facets of trafficking.

Third party or parties benefit the most since the victims pass through the hands of a chain reaching from the point of recruitment to the point of use or consumption of their labor.  All are direct perpetrators of the crime of human trafficking.  Less attention has been paid to those exploiting trafficking labor (factory owners, heads of householders using domestic workers), and especially consumers such as clients in brothels who do not question the conditions under which CSW is carried out.

While a demand for male labor exists in the sectors most associated with using trafficked workers, control can be exerted more effectively over those most powerless in society – women and children.  The face of human trafficking in the region is primarily that of women and girls and increasingly boys.  However, this does not mean that men are never trafficked.  Studies have tended to assume that men “migrate” while women and children are “trafficked”. 

Catapult Condition

The most commonly identified push factor to the trafficking process is poverty.   The necessity to meet basic needs, in combination with other factors is the most commonly identified motivation to migrate or to encourage a family member to leave.   Those most vulnerable to trafficking do generally come from the poorest and marginalized segments of communities.  However, a simplistic view of poverty based on low-income levels or livelihood options do not assist in understanding why it is that women and children appear to be the most vulnerable to negative outcomes from migration, such as trafficking.

An understanding of the social elements of poverty – lack of human and social capital, gender discrimination and the need for special protection for certain members of a community – also helps identify the most vulnerable.  Governance issues also play a role in allocating resources and services in a community and those living in poverty tend to have limited access to these development opportunities – perpetuating their poverty and vulnerability to trafficking.  A range of policies and environmental circumstances also influence the incidence of poverty and vulnerability to risks for migrants to being trafficked.   Competition between countries in South Asia has further driven the cost of labor down encouraging some employers to use illegal practices such as bonded labor to access cheaper and cheaper labor sources.

Conflicts and disasters force communities to move, often en masse to meet their basic needs.  When individuals within that community have no skills or education, and are exposed to health risks, their capacity to secure sustainable livelihoods is limited, and their risk to trafficking heightened. 

Human trafficking involves movement and is part of a migration experience . Migration policies that exclude many unskilled people, particularly women, from legal migration and are therefore forced to seek alternative livelihood options through illegal means.  Human smugglers offer forged documents or transportation to other countries where they promise to link migrants with job opportunities.  These are often the same smugglers who traffic labor (i.e. coerce migrants into certain types of work, create debt bondage conditions or refuse migrants freedom to return home).  Those working in illegal situations are more susceptible to coercion by traffickers.  It is anticipated that migration policies will continue to discourage migration of unskilled labor, or that labor movements will be confined within South Asia and to certain South East Asian countries and that this situation will continue.  These countries have poor records of protecting rights of these irregular and illegal migrants or trafficked victims, which perpetuate conditions that offer profits to opportunistic traffickers.

Feminization of Poverty 

In  South Asia, the feminization of poverty is accompanied by the feminization of survival strategies. Women are also disproportionately excluded from development opportunities through deeply rooted discrimination and low status.  This results in limited access to education with exceptionally low adult female literacy rates, little access to health care and almost no recognition of the contribution they make to family incomes and livelihood. Women compared to men have a higher incidence of poverty, especially among female headed households; women’s poverty is more severe than men’s poverty in the absence of access to resources and very low rates of human capital among women (education, health etc.); overtime, the incidence of poverty among women in increasing compared to men, based on much fewer employment opportunities for women and inability to migrate to fill emerging job sectors either overseas or in Nepal.

Women’s Contribution to Economy

In the absence of adequate efforts to recognize and increase women's contribution to economic growth, including, in varying degrees, policies and programs to increase women's access to economic resources, paid employment, training and promotion, as well as laws guaranteeing healthy and safe working conditions, women are economically challenged.  Women are simultaneously engaged in reproduction, household work, as well as income generation. The work burden of women is extremely high. However, women are still primarily engaged in the low-productivity, low wage, and high underemployment agricultural sector.

In hard times, women are more likely than men to exploit every possibility for work or income, including precarious activities and poorly paid work at home or in the unstructured sector, and including that which requires a change of residence or migration to the city or to a foreign country (illegal in most circumstances for unskilled labor).  Women are more vulnerable to the negative social effects of economic restructuring and recession as they are generally unskilled.   Programs and services developed by most of  the South Asian governments to address unemployment are less accessible to women and the potential that investments in women’s skills and opportunities has to increase overall family status are rarely taken up.

Economically-Based Vulnerabilities 

Conditions of poverty is a great force that drives an individual to think the unthinkable and do the undoable. There are many cases of families of young girls being trafficked to brothels openly acknowledging that their daughters are living under difficult and harmful circumstances, but see no other option for their survival Poor households also often fall into debt and may be compelled to hand over a child into debt-bondage, a practice still prevalent in many South Asian societies. Natural disasters, climatic fluctuations and other shocks to insecure livelihoods can also force families into handing over children or to migrate themselves.  

Conclusion

Measures to fight poverty prove ineffective when poor women are perceived as the passive beneficiaries of social welfare. Similarly, it is necessary to increase women's productivity in home-based, informal and agricultural work while expanding their opportunities of employment and the income they receive from their work. The transformation of women's economic activities requires profound reforms, for example: policies giving women access to land and assets, credit and technology; measures favoring independent work by women; and programs of training which make them competitive on the job market. A more gender sensitive approach is required in the formulation of economic and social development policies and programs. At the same time it is vital to recognize that many of these poverty reduction programs for women will involve greater mobility and migration of women.  Even as poverty is reduced, exposure to the risk of trafficking will increase for these women, unless there are accompanying programs to provide safe and secure transportation, access to food and shelter and services such as help lines, protection from law enforcers etc.