Human Trafficking and the Tvpa
Falling in a Gray Area: Human Trafficking Victims and When to Treat Them as Human Beings
Though slavery has continuously existed in some form throughout history, it has only been in the past century and a half or so that humanity has legally acknowledged that the idea of owning another person is unjust. This relatively new legal conscience has become apparent in the various laws banning the validity that a person can be property, an object. However, these laws have not eradicated slavery, as is seen by the scores of young men and women rescued from this particular brand of evil each year. In 2000, Congress attempted to address a modernized version of slavery, human trafficking, by creating a new act, called the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, also known as the TVPA. “Unfortunately, there is almost universal consensus that the Trafficking Act, while well-intentioned, has thus far failed to make sufficient strides in addressing the problem of human trafficking, either internationally or domestically” (Chacon: 2006, 2978). Though catching the perpetrators responsible for creating completely broken trafficking victims is of the highest importance, that justice should not come at the cost of further punishing those victims, as happens sometimes as a result of the TVPA. This paper examines the TVPA, highlighting which groups are left unacknowledged, how victims are left unprotected, and offers possible solutions for changes so these young men and women have a chance to make a better life than that which has been given them. In this realm of international organized crime, perception is everything, and that is emphasized throughout these explanations. Before delving into laws dealing with human trafficking, effective or ineffective, and the issues surrounding it, one must first get an overview of sex trafficking, and how this is related to immigration. Human trafficking is the “recruitment and transportation of a person for the purpose of exploitation”
Though slavery has continuously existed in some form throughout history, it has only been in the past century and a half or so that humanity has legally acknowledged that the idea of owning another person is unjust. This relatively new legal conscience has become apparent in the various laws banning the validity that a person can be property, an object. However, these laws have not eradicated slavery, as is seen by the scores of young men and women rescued from this particular brand of evil each year. In 2000, Congress attempted to address a modernized version of slavery, human trafficking, by creating a new act, called the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, also known as the TVPA. “Unfortunately, there is almost universal consensus that the Trafficking Act, while well-intentioned, has thus far failed to make sufficient strides in addressing the problem of human trafficking, either internationally or domestically” (Chacon: 2006, 2978). Though catching the perpetrators responsible for creating completely broken trafficking victims is of the highest importance, that justice should not come at the cost of further punishing those victims, as happens sometimes as a result of the TVPA. This paper examines the TVPA, highlighting which groups are left unacknowledged, how victims are left unprotected, and offers possible solutions for changes so these young men and women have a chance to make a better life than that which has been given them. In this realm of international organized crime, perception is everything, and that is emphasized throughout these explanations. Before delving into laws dealing with human trafficking, effective or ineffective, and the issues surrounding it, one must first get an overview of sex trafficking, and how this is related to immigration. Human trafficking is the “recruitment and transportation of a person for the purpose of exploitation”
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