Trafficking in human beings as a phenomenon

The problem of trafficking in human beings, one of the negative phenomena of the modern society, and it was first raised by the fighters for human rights in the beginning of the twentieth century. At that time much attention was paid to the British women, who were forced to prostitution in the countries of the Continental Europe. So the term “white slavery” appeared. This term then spread on the general concept of trafficking in human beings.

Since then the phenomenon of the trafficking in human beings has been constantly analyzed and now it is the subject of the arguments and discussions. However if we look through the majority of documents, publications and statements dealing with this problem, we can see that “trafficking in human beings” is frequently used as “trafficking in women”.  In most cases trafficking in women is associated with trafficking aiming at the use in prostitution, porno business, sexual sphere etc.

Of course, trafficking in women is a component part of the crime “trafficking in human beings”. But the concept “trafficking in human beings” is wider: every person can be the object of this crime, irrespective of   sex and age.

Forced marriage, forced labour, usage in housekeeping, agricultural or industrial sectors, forced or ordered baby birth, usage in sex business can be the purpose of trafficking in women. Men are mostly used in the building sphere, industry, agriculture. Children are used as beggars. Persons of any sex and age are used for organ transplantation.

Nowadays the most complete concept of trafficking in human beings is given by the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, that supplements UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime. This Protocol is the main modern document that is directed on combating this crime. This document states trafficking in human beings as:

the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments of benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.

Article 149 of the Ukrainian Criminal Code contains another term for trafficking in human beings:

The sale or another paid transfer of a person, as well as any other illegal transaction with respect to a person, concerning the legal or illegal transfer of that person via the state border of Ukraine, with or without that person’s consent, with the aim of further sale or paid transfer of that person to another person(s) for sexual exploitation, use in porno business, engagement in criminal activities, debt bondage, adoption for commercial purposes, use in armed conflict, or the exploitation of the labour of that person.                                             

According to the above mentioned terms, we can conclude that trafficking in human beings is the totality of the following signs: recruitment, transportation, transfer, adoption with  the aim  of commerce, usage in porno business, usage in war conflicts, involving into criminal activity, transplantation or forced donorment, forced prostitution, slavery or situations similar to slavery, forced labour, involving into dept bondage, usage of  blackmail, threats, violence.