The Effects of COVID-19 on Human Trafficking
- unwillingcargo
- Nov 30, 2021
- 9 min read
By Guillermo Ramirez
11/30/2021
Photo by Martin Sanchez on Unsplash
NOTE: I first started writing this article trying to find some significant data correlating COVID-19 and human trafficking. After reading through countless articles, I was only able to find information that related exposure to COVID-19 with greater vulnerability risk (though most articles agreed that the pandemic increased the vulnerable population, I was not able to find any concrete evidence that the two are connected: there were no significant facts or percentages or specific case studies that could verify how the virus and not the consequences of the pandemic increase vulnerability). Instead of giving up on the article, I decided to shift my focus into how the recent pandemic, mainly focused on health aspects, increased the vulnerability one might experience. With that being said, I hope you enjoy the article as well as read the references I used. The topic of vulnerability is extensive and difficult to narrow down, so I hope you do your own research if you are looking to write about the topic (I am no expert on the field but I did dedicate sufficient time to get familiarized with what I was writing).
As we are well aware of, the COVID-19 pandemic has been one of the greatest obstacles in modern human history. This pandemic has not only showed us our most vulnerable population, but it has also exacerbated the rate at which populations become vulnerable. I started writing this article with the purpose of identifying clear connections between the COVID-19 pandemic and human trafficking. After searching for scientific literature related to these two, I found out that there is really no clear study connecting the two topics (even before the pandemic, the identification of victims was challenging so trying to relate a specific event/disease to human trafficking looks to be a challenge for researchers). Although for the common man it seems extremely evident that these two must have a significant correlation, after a thorough search, I was unable to locate/identify any significant data that can prove beyond a doubt that instances of human trafficking increased during this period (I did find numerous articles assuming that this was the case but none of them showed any evidence of it, at least none that came across) . Being so, I decided to look into the issue to formulate my own conclusions and come up with a better understanding as to how these two might be related and to what extent. Because I had to narrow down the range of this article, I decided to mainly focus on the relation between human trafficking, risk, and the physical and medical consequences caused within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Here is what I was able to conclude from my research (all links to the articles I used can be found below):
If one thing is clear from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the general population, that would be the indiscriminate increase in vulnerability for all groups of individuals. The dramatic increase in unemployment and the reductions of income, alongside the health ramifications of contracting the disease, have made it so that an increased number of individuals find themselves closer to becoming victims. For example, I was reading an article sponsored by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime where it mentioned the following: “NGOs working with UNODC speak of a significant percentage of their beneficiaries losing their sources of income and access to food staples due to pandemic-related measures. They report of loan sharks promising low interest loans to these people, increasing the possibility of debt-bondage.” If you are looking to find more examples of similar instances, I strongly recommend reading the UN’s “The Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Trafficking in Persons and Responses to the Challenges” , as it details thoroughly and exactly how specific sections of the populations are at greater risks. And if you want a better conclusion of what these reports have found out, there is no better way to put it other than this:
At its most fundamental, the COVID-19 pandemic has limited the capacity of state authorities and non-governmental organizations to provide essential services to the victims of this crime. At the baseline of the issue, we can find that human trafficking has been put on peripherals of the health care and social care systems’ major concerns (although there is no explicit evidence that supports this statement, I believe this is a good argument to make as to why these two issues have had little significant research). From the same UN article, we can point out who might be the most vulnerable to the effects of the pandemic: women, children, and migrants. Putting forward some numbers, for example, it was reported that “women’s employment [were] 19 per cent more at risk during the COVID-19 pandemic than men’s employment.” From this other figures, we can draw the conclusion that the pandemic has not only affected health vulnerability but it has also had great effect in other indirect pathways that lead to greater risk exposure. In this manner, the pandemic has exacerbated risk for the general population but it has specifically worsened those who are already the most vulnerable. Again, if you want to know more about these specific populations and how they might have been affected, you can further read the UN’s report.
But what are the effects of the pandemic on the vulnerable populations? First, I’ll be listing and summarizing the major effects listed on the UN report:
Heightened risk of exposure to the virus: in countries with exploitative practices such as forced labor and sex work, the risk of contracting COVID-19 or any of its variants increases as precautions such as social distancing are abandoned.
Stigma: From a direct quote from the report: “Study participants reported that in some regions and countries, trafficking victims, especially those who were exploited for sexual purposes, have been blamed for spreading COVID-19. The media has reported that in India victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation have been blamed for spreading COVID-19.”
Tighter control: with social distancing and isolation, it is probable that some traffickers have gained control.
Abandonment by traffickers: a decreased demand for work during lockdowns caused for trafficker abandonment.
Reduced access to services: such as shelter, health and psychosocial services, legal aid and justice, and basic needs due to economic shutdowns.
Loss of livelihoods: perhaps the most significant consequence due to lockdown measures.
Repatriation and visa renewal challenges: border closing has disallowed survivors from returning to their home countries.
If you want to know how each of these effects were obtained or want more information of where the information was obtained, I recommend reading the original source (reference 1). One other key point to note is that, among the articles I read, cyber trafficking has been noted to become one of the main alternative methods which trafficker use.
Figure 1. The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on trafficking in persons victims.
Among other effects caused by the pandemic, as noted by Tech Against Trafficking[5], economic stress on families is leading to increased vulnerability, there is a rise in online sexual exploitation of children, there is a spike in violence towards victims of trafficking, there are jobs and in-person services (like childcare) for survivors that are no longer available, and there is interrupted financial support to anti-trafficking organizations. Among the articles I looked through,
Now that the broader effects of the pandemic on victims has been touched upon, I want to change the focus into how specifically the pandemic has affected vulnerability. If it is so that victims are already at greater risks of contracting diseases, such as is for example sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV and STIs as well as other diseases such as tuberculosis, it most certainly is the case that vulnerable populations are at a greater risk of contracting COVID-19 and having further medical complications. And what is the underlying cause for this greater risk? As mentioned previously, with a decrease of social services comes the decrease in access to health care, which is already low for victims of trafficking. For example, in one study, among 21 participants, six victims reported coming in contact with a health care provider prior to rescue (Family Violence Prevention Fund, 2005), meaning that only 30% of these victims had any contact with health care providers. If translated to the general population, these statistics could be significant enough to cause concern (putting it in other words, this statistic shows that only around 1 out of 3 victims ever have frequent access to health care providers). I tried searching for scientific literature related specifically to the statistical rates between COVID-19 and human trafficking, but it seems no concrete reporting exists. The only conclusion that we can draw from the articles I looked over is that victims of human trafficking are at greater risk of exposure to many types of medical concerns and these concerns are have a tendency to not be treated. With statistics like this we can be certain that the health of victims is lower than that of the general population.
Despite the certainty that victims tend to be a greater health risk, the extent to which COVID-19 has affected victims is unknown. Among one of the studies I looked through (unrelated to the pandemic), it was stated that “With no sign that human trafficking is abating, health and other policy-makers will imminently have to pose such questions as: “what is the range of health risks associated with trafficking” and “where and how can agencies intervene to protect the health of trafficked persons”. Yet, despite this uncertainty, it seems researchers have looked to model the stages of trafficking to better understand the ranges of vulnerability as well as the causes and effects in each stage. With this type of research, it will become easier to pinpoint at what stages and who and to what extent were most vulnerable during the pandemic.
Figure 2. Conceptual model: stages of the human trafficking process.
Looking at figure 2, one can see that the various stages of human trafficking possess their own unique challenges and risks to those trafficked. At each stage, exposure to traumatic or life-changing physical events can and will increase the rate of likelihood which one reaches the next stage; this is especially true with physical-risk related traumatic events. For example, during the recruitment stage, many exposures or events that influence health are often the same factors that contribute to an individual’s vulnerability to being recruited. Putting the scenario of sexual abuse, exposure to traumatic events has been recorded to often have negative impacts on health even after the disturbing episodes ceases, these long-term health impacts include sexual and reproductive health problems, psychological disorders and self-harm, including suicide (Paolucci, Genuis, & Violato, 2001). In other words, traumatic events, short or long term physical and/or mental harm, lead to higher vulnerable stages (either direct or indirect harm, such as physical abuse or health conditions). If you look at the model, the pandemic has affected every stage of the process, allowing it so that re-integration and integration becomes harder to achieve as well as allowing for abuse and exploitation to thrive even more.
To understand a bit better how abuse directly impacts health, below you can find a detailed table with abuse type, health risks, and potential health consequences associated with human trafficking. I decided to add this table to detail some of the physical associated risks of human trafficking (I limited the scope to purely physical conditions as the purpose of this article was to explore health concerns that could be worsened by the COVID-19 virus):
Type of Abuse | Examples of forms of abuse or risk | Examples of potential health consequences |
Physical abuses | Murder, torture (cigarette burns, suspension), physical attacks with or without weapon Deprivation (sleep, food, light, basic necessities) Confinement, physical restraint (rope, chain) Withholding medical or other essential care | Murder, torture (cigarette burns, suspension), physical attacks with or without weapon Deprivation (sleep, food, light, basic necessities) Confinement, physical restraint (rope, chain) Withholding medical or other essential care |
Forced and coerced substance use | Non-consensual administering and coercive use of alcohol, drugs or other substance in order to: Abduct, rape, prostitute individuals Control activities, coerce compliance, decrease self-protection, prevent escape Impose long work hours or greater productivity | Drug or alcohol addiction, overdose, self-harm, Participation in high-risk activities (unprotected sex, dangerous labour crime) Needle-introduced infection (HIV, hepatitis B/C), brain or liver damage Sleep problems (insomnia, lethargy), negative coping behaviours, smoking, risk-taking, isolation |
Sexual abuses | Forced and coerced sex (vaginal, anal and gang rape) Forced prostitution or sexual exploitation (no control of number, type of clients) Limited access to sexual or reproductive health products and care (condoms, family planning) Sexual humiliation, forced nakedness, forced pornography Coerced misuse of oral contraceptives or other contraceptive methods | Sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS, and related complications Reproductive or sexual health complications (urinary tract or kidney infections) Acute or chronic pain during sex, tearing and other damage to vaginal tract or anus Unwanted pregnancy, forced or unsafe termination of pregnancy, complications from unsafe terminations |
Table 1: types of abuse and examples of health consequences
With these types of abuses happening in many trafficking instances one can assume that serious injury becomes more prominent if one were to contract and become seriously ill with the virus. With some of the abuses even causing death, it can be said that the overall physical and mental effects of the pandemic on those trafficked worsened across all victim populations. With health care access decreased even further, the following cases will most likely become more recurrent:
One participant, who was trafficked at age 12, explained how, into her sixth month of pregnancy, she was brought for a termination:
The abortion was done illegally in terrible, unsanitary conditions. The operation was very difficult, so I was nearly dead. There was no anaesthetic. The doctor said he would inject soap water into the uterus and the fetus would go out. Then I was sent to the toilet and was told to wait … After the abortion I felt very bad, like I would die and I was taken to the [name] hospital.[6]”
So what can we draw from all this data? Firstly, I wanted to showcase a terrifying statistic: The number of individuals enslaved around the world today is twice the total number enslaved during 350 years of African slave trade.[7] With these numbers, alongside what we have discussed earlier in this essay, we must be certain that this is a serious issue which has been intensified by COVID-19. The following points are just some of the natural characteristics that allows for trafficking to thrive:
Illegal, informal or unregulated sector
Organized crime having the capacity to hide its operations in plain sight
The lack of willingness by the victims themselves to report their victimization or their inability to do so
Limited law enforcement capacities to detect this crime.
If we look at these characteristics, the pandemic has given traffickers the ability to succeed undisturbed. And it is for this reason that more attention should be brought into the issue. Personally speaking, when looking over the literature and articles talking about human trafficking, the issue is most times seen as a social consequence of the inability to detect and deter traffickers. And although this is the case, looking it from a health perspective, human trafficking should be seen as public health concern. I think it says much about a population when certain groups are at greater risks of becoming ill and of being injured.
And well, this is pretty much what I wanted to write about. If you’re looking for further steps or actions that have been suggested, I recommend reading the following articles:
Article references:
[1] https://www.unodc.org/documents/Advocacy-Section/HTMSS_Thematic_Brief_on_COVID-19.pdf
[2] https://www.unodc.org/documents/human-trafficking/2021/The_effects_of_the_COVID-19_pandemic_on_trafficking_in_persons.pdf
[3] https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/2021/July/covid-19-and-crime_-the-impact-of-the-pandemic-on-human-trafficking.html
[4] 9 UN Women (2020) Op-ed: Women working on the front line: https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2020/12/op-ed-ed-phumzile-women-workingon-the-front-line
[5] https://techagainsttrafficking.org/the-effect-of-covid-19-five-impacts-on-human-trafficking/
[6] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953611003169#bib72
Additional references that were not used:
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