Slavery
Various forms of slavery are still present throughout the world. Some put individuals into local service for labor, sex, or the related issues of child soldiers. There is also a form that ships individuals from less developed to more developed countries. Others are based on debt bondage. The US has a Special Advisor to the Secretary of State, at an Ambassadorial level, to deal with the problem in the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.
A CIA analyst in an independent research program characterized the agency's understanding of the problem.
Trafficking of women and children for the sex industry and for labor is prevalent in all regions of the United States. An estimated 45,000 to 50,000 women and children are trafficked annually to the United States, primarily by small crime rings and loosely connected criminal networks. The trafficked victims have traditionally come from Southeast Asia and Latin America; however, increasingly they are coming from the New Independent States and Central and Eastern Europe. Trafficking to the US is likely to increase given weak economies and few job opportunities in the countries of origin; low risk of prosecution and enormous profit potential for the traffickers; and improved international transportation infrastructures. Though it may be impossible to eradicate trafficking to the US, it is possible to diminish the problem significantly by targeted prevention and microcredit strategies in the source countries; strengthening the penalties and laws against traffickers in this country; and enhancing assistance and protections for the victims.
CIA provided analytic support to the Department of State on human smuggling and trafficking, with an expert who oversaw the assessment, drafting, and coordination of the 2002 Trafficking in Persons report. As part of intergovernmental work, it collected and reported intelligence to US law enforcement agencies conducting operations against members of Latin American and Middle Eastern terrorist groups and against smugglers of aliens into the United States.
Read more about this topic: CIA Transnational Anti-crime And Anti-drug Activities
Famous quotes containing the word slavery:
“We say that slavery has vanished from European civilization, but this is not true. Slavery still exists, but now it applies only to women and its name is prostitution.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“I remember the almost daily talks of my mother on the cruelty of slavery. I would say nothing to her, but I was thinking all the time that slavery did not seem so cruel. Master and Mistress Jennings were not mean to my mother. It was she who was mean to them.”
—Cornelia (1844–?)
“It would be idle to say that we were not, from time to time, aware that a volcano slumbered fitfully beneath us. There were dark sides to the Slavery Question, for master, as for slave.”
—Marion Harland (1830–1922)