Human Trafficking is the use of force, fraud, or, coercion to obtain a form of labor or commercial sex act. Victims of human trafficking can be of any age, gender, race, or nationality. No matter where you go in the world there will be human trafficking as it doesn’t discriminate which makes it even more dangerous and/or lethal. More than 80% of people being exploited are being used for forced labor, and another 10% are being exploited for sexual acts. In 2018, 40.3 million peoples worldwide have been victims of human trafficking, 75% of these people are female. The human trafficking industry makes a reported 150 billion USD worldwide. Human Trafficking affects the entire world and is a scourge that needs to be dealt with as it doesn’t discriminate and will continue to feed off of people’s bodies and labor. These people are being stripped of their rights and we need to address and banish this scourge.
The U.N has discussed human trafficking several times and they have pledged to “stamp out human trafficking” but no significant change has been done. The UN has the means and the knowledge to fight human trafficking but they need political will and financial resources. Here in Equatorial Guinea, we do have a problem with human trafficking as we are a source country for it. Here these peoples come from Nigeria, Benin, Cameroon, and Gabon and they are forced to work. We will have to thank France as they have helped us through it by trying to increase border security. France has also helped surrounding countries such as Nigeria, Ghana, and Togo. Once again The U.S has also been assisting by suggesting ideas by collecting data from previous human trafficking reports. We do have a plan that was suggested by the U.S and we are using it currently. This plan is to raise awareness, provide shelter and services for victims of human trafficking, and start more investigation. We are trying to improve our country and decrease human trafficking and would like any help we can get.
Now we need to seriously address Human Trafficking and start coming up with possible solutions and implement those. One big thing we need to do is toughen up borders and border security, by doing this it would be harder for traffickers to get through. We also need to implement programs helping victims of human trafficking as we have done here in Equatorial Guinea. If we band together and come up with ideas and plans to implement we have the chance to overcome the scourge that is human trafficking.
- Aurelio Delgado
