Committee: Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee
Topic: Human Trafficking
Country: Peru
Despite being an illegal and deplorable act, human trafficking is still a common occurrence around the world. The trafficking of men, women, and children is done throughout the world for forced labor, sexual slavery, and organ extraction. The targeted people often live in impoverished areas, are made false promises, and forced to comply. The International Labor Organization estimates that there are as many as 40.3 million victims to human trafficking globally and over three-quarters of that being women and children. The United Nations has made a committee specifically for human trafficking and views it as a modern form of enslavement, but many countries have yet to take proactive measures to protect the people of their country from this heinous crime.
The Republic of Peru is a source, transit, and destination country for human trafficking. Men, women, and children are all trafficked into logging, mining, agriculture, brick making, and domestic servitude, as well as sexual slavery. The impoverished, rural areas of the Amazon are hotspots for the traffickers as there is little to no government and they are able to make false promises of education to women and children. Indigenous Incan women are extremely vulnerable targets to debt bondage and often do not realize when they are able to leave. The terrorist group Sendero Luminoso, Shining Path, has been reported to be recruiting children as soldiers and drug mules. Peruvians are trafficked and then forced into prostitution in countries such as Japan, Italy, Spain, the United States, and Ecuador. Peruvians are not only to be portrayed as victims, however, as Bolivians and Ecuadorian citizens are also often forced prostitution in Peru.
The Government of Peru does not completely comply with the minimum standards for eliminating trafficking, they are, however, making significant efforts to do so. In just the past year the government has increased its law enforcement efforts against trafficking crimes and they have created many public initiatives. Despite their efforts they fail to address the high incidence of labor trafficking and do not provide adequate victim services. The Republic of Peru would like to see an increase in education in schools and throughout towns in the country as well as more measures taken in countries where other countries’ citizens are trafficked.
- Margaret Murphy
