"HUMAN TRAFFICKING: Western World's Promotion of Trade and Enshrined Poverty Enrichment to Developing Countries" By TAIWO OSENI. HUMAN TRAFFICKING is a facet of poverty problem that touches the rich and the poor. Ours is a world of deeply-enriched global inequalities where developing countries invest $600billion a year on defence, and $300billion in agricultural subsidies, but provide just $56 billion in a year in aid to developing countries.
Within a quarter century, the population of rich countries will grow by 50million people and the population of poor countries will swell by a staggering one and a half billion! Many people will experience poverty and unemployment. Some will leave their families to depart on harzadous journey to rich countries in search of work. This again, is another angle of human trafficking.
Human Trafficking is promotion of trade and enshrined poverty enrichment by the Western World (Developed Countries - G7s) to developing countries.
Trade means food on the table, clothes for the children and roof over your head. So, decisions about how we trade or buy are not only decisions about how we want to live our lives but how other people live their lives too! Trade can make a lot of people a lot of money. It can be the difference between a life of poverty and one of opportunity. It doesn't need to be simply a way for those who are rich to become even richer, it takes place within a just global system,trade has the potential to end human trafficking. Did I hear you ask how?
If Africa could increase its share of world trade by just one percent, it would generate five times more income than the continent currently receives in aid and debt relief.
We see that ending human trafficking, as market opens up, new opportunities emerge for the poor as well as the rich. If fair international trade rules are in place to manage this trade, then prosperity for developing countries can follow. Unfortunately, contemporary worldwide trade, at the heart of globalization, cuts both ways. See how human trafficking is Poverty enrichment for Developing countries.
But it is high time we ended human trafficking via good measures - World trade has the potential to enable governments of developing countries to improve living standards, health care and education. The World Bank estimates that eliminating all barriers of trade in goods will generate between $250billion and $620billion extra global income, up to half of which would go to developing countries in terms of poverty reduction - a facet of human trafficking. This could lift 300million people out of poverty by 2015 thus bringing an end to human trafficking of which poverty is its main cause.
But while the rules that govern International trade favour the strongest and most vociferous countries, the current unfair global trade environment deepens poverty and human trafficking so that it does not simply lead to the survival of the biggest and most powerful.
Also, in ending human trafficking, as far as trading is concerned, Fair trade as well as Ethical Trade is it, globally. Fair Trade is generally about making sure poor producers get adequate returns for what they produce. Ethical trade is more about making sure Labour Standards are respected throughout big global supply chain. Ethical sourcing, for instance, involves a Company taking responsibility for the Labour and Human Rights practices back down for the supply chain to the original producers.
But with Human trafficking, it is an unfair trade. Unfair trade rule means that families don't have enough to eat, can't afford to send their children to school and don't enjoy basic employment rights.
In the globalized world of the 21st century,trade is one of the strongest ties that bind us. If we don't make trade fair, human trafficking and poverty will lead to building of resentment that affect us all.
In ending Human Trafficking, the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) by 2015, the United Nation, (U.N.) Member States have pledged amongst to:
(1) ERADICATE EXTREME POVERTY AND HUNGER - Reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar ($) a day and those who suffer hunger.
(2)DEVELOP A GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP FOR DEVELOPMENT - Includes developing an open and fair trading system, boosting freedom justice and democracy, helping countries improve their exports, providing more debt relief aid and making vital drugs more easily available, etc.
We see that achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 is a tremendous challenge facing the International Community and there is a widespread agreement that additional external aid is required to meet it.
New money should go to new performers not just those who are experiencing debt distress.
Financing proposal to achieve the MDGs should be discussed from Central Bankers' perspective. The best solution include sufficient increase in rich countries' foreign aid allocations and more ambitious trade liberalisation.
But such policies seem politically untenable in the short term, even though - according to World Bank estimation, an appropriate conclusion of the current trade round under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation, (WTO), could contribute $350billion a year to developing countries by 2015! Is this not enough to ending human trafficking in developing countries rather than the G7s of this world enriching poverty via human trfficking?
Three ways to secure additional financing for development aid or debt relief: (a) higher taxes; (b) increased indebtedness (that is, higher taxes for future generations); and (c) and/or monetary expansion.
One proposal calls for taxing national and international financial transactions, others call for allocating Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), or for usingt the IMF's gold resources. But none appears desirable
To be effective,any tax on financial transactions would have to be implemented on a global scale, which currently does not seem realistic! Moreover, taxation would increase cost (passed on to the borrowers) and reduce the volum of transactions, thereby fuelling market volatility amid decreasing liquidity.
Allocating new SDRs also is inappropriate. SDRs represents liquidity and can be allocated only if and when there is a "global need", which would currently be difficult to prove given high liquid and "easy" international capital-market conditions.
In any case, new SDR allocation require the support of 85 percent of votes within the IMF's Board, which appears unachievable in the foreseeable future, as major shareholders are opposed! See what I mean, human trafficking will persist because of the imperialists - IMF, World Bank and Western Countries (G7s)
So how can we put an end to human trafficking?
ADVOCACY.
Advocacy is central to the process of international development - it is about trying to become a voice for the people whose voice is not heard, which usually means poor people.
Advocacy is priceless - it is about refusing to forget that so many people in our world live lives that should be so much better. And that we have a responsibility to bring that change about. It is more about raising awareness than raising funds - an awareness that can change ttitudes and in due course, the structures that reinforce poverty enrichment in human trafficking.
Political advocacy is it in ending human trafficking via political engagement - engaging the political process - even going eyeball-to- eyeball with the politicians, decision-makers to represent the views of people who will never get to meet them. It might be:
(i) Signing an e-mail petition : Organised by an aid agency or an individual, lobbyists, etc.
(ii) Campaigning for the rights of poor people: Agreeing to send regular cards to politicians, writing letters to business leaders, calling for improved working conditions for their staff in developing countries, all these go a long way at ending human trafficking.
Let's put a smile on poor people whom the Western World use as unfair trade in promoting trade and enshrining poverty enrichment in developing countries. We all have a right to fair trade in this era of globalization and trade liberalization. A market economy that is not a one-size-fits-all solution ends poverty, the enrichment of its cadet in developing country.
The challenge that has to be put to a naive confidence in free trade to deliver a flourishing environment is a challenge to play the part it wants and needs to play in the global economy.
Free trade doctrine upheld by Western governments as leading to greater over all prosperity, can not serve as a "universal" cure-all for diverse countries.
Let us put an end to human trafficking NOW!
MISS. TAIWO OSENI
6, ALAFIA STREET, OPEYEMI AREA, OPPOSITE NEW GBAGI MARKET, IBADAN,
OYO STATE, NIGERIA, WEST AFRICA,
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