In 2018, nearly eight out of ten detected victims of trafficking in Central America and the Caribbean were girls and women, while in South America, seven out of ten victims were women, according to data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Human trafficking, in addition to the crime defined by each State, refers to a form of exploitation of people, regardless of the exploratory purpose, be it sexual, work, begging, organ removal, forced marriage or surrogate motherhood, among others. This is a dramatic reality in our region that particularly affects migrant women.
Territorial displacement is an alternative to improve the living conditions of people and their families, particularly women in vulnerable situations. The main factors that lead these people to leave their countries are economic difficulties and social exclusion, family problems and gender inequality.
Faced with this phenomenon, trafficking networks in Latin America take advantage of women’s vulnerability to deceive and exploit them, even for long periods of time. The networks use virtual tools to lure their victims and generally do not use physical coercion to capture them and take them abroad. However, upon arrival at their final destination, many have their documents seized and are held until their debts are paid.
Despite this, many women do not have the perception that they are being exploited, let alone that they are being trafficked. It seems that only forced prostitution (by coercion and threat) is associated with trafficking. Furthermore, trafficking resulting from deception about the conditions of prostitution is not understood as trafficking by the women themselves, which constitutes a major challenge in responding to the violation of their rights.
However, when women are aware of their situation of exploitation, networks act by threatening them and their families, forcing them to remain in detention.
Despite the prevalence of men as recruiters of trafficked women, there are also a large number of female recruiters who manage to convince other women of the advantages of being part of sexual networks through their “successful” experiences of prostitution abroad.
Although most women are recruited at their place of origin, there are also many who migrate autonomously and, once at destination, end up in vulnerable situations and are recruited by exploitation networks. However, these cases generally do not fit the official “profile” of a trafficking victim.
gender-based violence
When we talk about trafficking in women, it is important to understand that the precariousness of relationships leads to contexts of vulnerability. The unequal relationships in which women live do not allow them to fully enjoy their rights, facilitate their treatment as objects and place them in conditions of submission and oppression, as subjects without skills and knowledge.
Poverty affects women more than men, and the pandemic has exacerbated this situation, with 118 million Latin American women currently living in poverty, according to ECLAC. In addition, women have a disproportionate burden of care within their families. This reduces their chances of accessing formal and decent employment, as well as the economic resources for their subsistence and that of their families.
Furthermore, inequality is reflected in the disparity in labor market participation between men and women worldwide, according to recent data from the International Labor Organization (ILO). While 76.1 percent of men are in the workforce, only 45.6 percent of women have a job. And women and girls are more likely to have precarious jobs. This shows that economic inequality is also based on gender inequality.
The relationship of subordination and domination between men and women influences how people can develop their personal, professional and social skills, but it also helps us to understand how these roles contribute to gender violence and, consequently, in some cases, to trafficking. of women. Therefore, violence against women dialogues with inequalities of class, race and sexuality in an intersectional way, that is, they are inequalities that combine and reinforce each other.
For this reason, understanding the trafficking of women as an expression of gender violence is fundamental for the construction of public policies in the States of origin and destination. Such policies must be able to promote rights and reduce gender inequalities between men and women.
