Understanding Human Trafficking
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When facing complex problems like human trafficking, we must keep in mind the fact that the solutions to these problems can be equally complex. We must take into account the fact that these problems tend to contain several elements, which we must come to understand. In the case of human trafficking, when we look at it in terms of economics, the elements can be reduced to the component parts of a market. There is a supply and demand side. There is also what can be thought of as a physical “market space” in which the transaction of buying and selling human beings takes place.
In terms of the demand side, the solutions tend to deal with punishment of those benefiting from the transaction. In terms of the actual market space, which could be a brothel, a slave market, or a rural village where a family is faced with the choice of starvation or selling a child, the solutions center on security and law enforcement to prevent the transaction from taking place.
In terms of the supply side, the solution is to reduce the number of people forced into slavery by reducing the factors that push them into it in the first place. These tend to be mostly economic. Sometimes they are also cultural, as the practice of selling another human being is not always viewed as wrong.
In theory, to change these factors is to solve the problem. But how does it play out in real life? What does it look like in the world around us today? Stay tuned for my next post to find out.