Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003 - Background

Background

The elimination of slavery throughout the world was campaigned by early abolitionists, but it was not the objective of the earliest organised British movements. The Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, which established the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade in Britain in 1787, campaigned for an end to the Transatlantic slave trade from Western Africa to the New World, which Britain dominated. Much later, the Anti-Slavery Society became the everyday name of 2 different British organizations.

The first was the 1823 Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery Throughout the British Dominions (Slavery Abolition Act 1833), and the second, the 1839 The British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society - which is presently known as Anti-Slavery International.

In America, the United States federal government severely punishes human trafficking both within its borders and beyond, making it, a federal crime under Title 18 of the United States Code. Section 1584 makes it a crime to force a person to work against his will, whether the compulsion is effected by use of force, threat of force, threat of legal coercion or by "a climate of fear" (an environment wherein individuals believe they may be harmed by leaving or refusing to work); Section 1581 similarly makes it illegal to force a person to work through "debt servitude." Human trafficking as it relates to involuntary servitude and slavery is prohibited by the 13th Amendment. Federal laws on human trafficking are enforced by the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, Criminal Section.

Human trafficking or trafficking in persons is a modern and new type of global slavery which deprives people of their rights and freedom. Southeast Asia is a source, transit and destination for men, women, and children trafficked internally and internationally for the purposes of sexual exploitation and forced labor.

The Vatican "Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People "People on the Move" (N° 96 Suppl., December 2004) reported that: "Poverty, unemployment, underemployment, landless poor and armed conflict combine to deny many children and their families in rural areas in the Philippines a secure future. These areas include the Samar-Leyte region, Negros, Bicol, Cebu Province, and Mindanao, where unscrupulous recruitment agencies operate by using a combination of deception, false promises and cash incentives to win over the parents or the children directly. Groups are "subverting" the Internet to traffic women and children, and ease of travel has enabled pedophiles to move from one country to another. Mostly foreigners are the big investors in the Philippine sex industry. Child pornography brought in by tourists teach local children about the sex acts that can be done to the tourists. The children are used to sell souvenirs and trinkets along the beaches to the tourists, who then invite them to show them child porn videos and give them money to repeat the acts on them.