World Day of Prayer and Reflection against Human Trafficking – February 8, 2021:
Economy without human trafficking
The World Day of Prayer and Reflection against Human Trafficking 2021 highlights one of the main causes of human trafficking: the dominant economic model, whose limits and contradictions are aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Human trafficking is an integral part of “this economy”: people who are trafficked as “commodities” are inserted into the gears of a globalization governed by financial speculation and “below cost” competition. Therefore, a “structural and global” vision of trafficking is needed to dismantle all those perverse mechanisms that feed the supply and demand of “people to be exploited”, because it is the heart of the whole economy that is sick.
An aphorism attributed to Oscar Wilde states that the cynic is the one who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing, for this economy seems to be dominated by cynicism: with reference to goods, services and people, not only does the market make the price, but even more dramatically, it is the price that determines the value. The company itself is a victim of this logic, increasingly valued by the price of its shares on the financial markets and not by the added value generated by its human capital.
Trafficking is therefore the tip of the iceberg, the magnifying mirror of a malaise due to a prevailing neoliberalism based on a (false) idea of economic freedom in which every ethical, social and political instance is alien and an obstacle.
On the contrary, a non-trafficking economy is an economy that values and cares for people and nature, that includes and does not exploit the most vulnerable.
In this perspective, the International Committee of the World Day of Prayer and Reflection against Human Trafficking participates in “The Economy of Francis”: the great movement of young economists, entrepreneurs and agents of change from all over the world convened by Pope Francis to share ideas and plan initiatives for the promotion of integral and sustainable human development, in the spirit of Francis.
Some economic data
● $150.2 billion are the annual profits derived from trafficking in the
1 world, two-thirds of which come from sexual exploitation.
● 21. 800 are the annual earnings per victim of trafficking for sexual exploitation, $4,800 in the construction, manufacturing, mining and mining sectors, and $4,800 in the construction, manufacturing and mining sectors.
2 public services, 2,500 in agriculture, 2,300 in domestic work.
● $34,800 is the annual earnings per trafficking victim in advanced economies, $15,000 in the Middle East, $7,500 in Latin America and the Caribbean,
3 5,000 in Asia Pacific, 3,900 in Africa.
● 50% of the exploited workers perform forced labor to compensate for a
4 debt (toll).
● 337,462 euros is the economic, social and human cost of each victim of trafficking in
5 Europe (EU27) in 2016 (latest available data).
● US$200,000 is the economic return of an organ transplant in Europe.
Occidental against a payment of $10,000 to a “donor” who lives in extreme 6
poverty in Central America.
1 Profits and Poverty: The Economicsof Forced Labour, International Labour Organization, 2014.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Global Estimates of Modern Slavery, International Labour Organization and Walk Free Foundation, 2017.
5 Study on the economic, social and human costs of trafficking in human beings within the EU, European Commission, 2020. According to the European Commission, considering the 8,027 victims in the European Union in 2016, the costs for each victim are estimated at €2,949 for coordination and prevention activities, €105,827 for police activities, €11,355 for services related to registration, initial material support and counseling, €21,785 for health and social services, €59,795 for the victim’s potential lack of contribution to the legal economy and finally €135,751 for loss of quality of life.
6 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2018.