Summary: The Powerhouse Driving The Global Human Trafficking Epidemic

Greed: The Powerhouse Driving the Global Human Trafficking Epidemic The hearts of all people have only dipped into the pool of greed while others have drowned and come out of this pool drenched with a selfish desire. It is this desire for personal gain and profit that drives the human trafficking business. Greed can be defined as a compulsive desire to possess excessive wealth, status and power with the intention to keep it for one’s self, far beyond the basic needs or comfort of the individual. This concept of greed has been around since the civilization of ancient Greece, as represented within the epic poems of Homer, and probably existed within the earliest minds of the human race. The ancient Greeks also have records that they had an
Human trafficking provides the opportunity to easily obtain this satisfaction. The modern slaves of today are more valuable of an investment than they were a few centuries ago. Kara makes this comparison illustrating that slaves in 1850 could be purchased for about US$10,000 (adjusted for inflation) and generated 15 to 20 percent in annual return on investment while today’s slaves sell for US$420 and generate 300 to 500 percent in annual return on investment (406). This business is immensely more profitable now than it ever has been in the past. Thus, the pursuit of greed is that much easier to obtain making it more desirable as well. Kara also explains how transportation plays a role in the amount of profit to be made stating “Today’s victims of human trafficking can be transported from one side of the planet to the other in a few days or less , at a nominal cost of doing business even when airfare is involved,” (405). The movement of slaves to wherever they are needed is cheap and fast. For the greedy traffickers this is great because they can move their laborers to needed locations with their goals of excessive wealth being affected very
The trend that this gathered evidence shows is that maximizing profit is the primary goal of human traffickers. As I came to a conclusion about human trafficking I deemed this trend to be the key to stopping the modern slave trade. Kara gives a solution with a very similar perspective to my own and explains why this solution will work, “Attack the profitability human traffickers enjoy. An attack on profitability will reduce aggregate demand for slave labor because slave owners will be forced to accept a lower-profit (hence less desirable) business, or they will pass the increased costs to the consumer by elevating retail price, which will in turn reduce consumer demand” (408). Lowering the potential of profit to be made decreases desirability while trying to maintain current gains with the new costs put in place will decrease demand. Greed works against the human trafficker in this case because lower profits makes gaining a satisfying amount of excess wealth more difficult which will in turn cause traffickers to fulfill their greed in other business pursuits. Also, if they remain greedy with the increased cost of business then their consumers will become fewer in number thus backfiring on the human traffickers