Human trafficking has been in practice for too long. The underground nature of this heinous practice makes it hard to track as well as find the culprits. The questions I will be attempting to answer in my paper are as follows:
-Is human trafficking (and more specifically for my paper, sex trafficking) a human rights violation? This is obviously a yes, but due to its violation of multiple writes in the doctrine, I want to explore which rights it violates and how.
-According to Kant (and maybe Mill), why is human trafficking unjust? Is there any way it could be seen as just? Could the trafficking possibly be better for a specific country etc. Would Kant and Mill have opposing views if the trafficking is overall good for an area? I'm not sure how sex trafficking could be seen as good, but I could see a possibility for a utilitarian view there.
If I have time and resources, I want to examine why 87% of human trafficking is sex trafficking specific to women. Though this number could be skewed due to inadequate reports of this world, the very nature of sex trafficking violates multiple human rights in a gender biased way. Are the girls justified when becoming the leaders of other sex slaves in order to break their own bondage? Could it possibly be a cultural thing? Where is trafficking most prominent? Why is that?
My current decisions are whether to focus on sex trafficking in the United States or a more global perspective and if to (or possibly how to) include a gender biased aspect to my paper.
I think there is very much a global issue, and you would be hard pressed to find sources regarding sex trafficking in America.
ReplyDeleteI definitely think you should tackle the aspect of gender bias. It wouldn't be difficult to add in there, and I think it would fit in very naturally. But it needs to be in there, I think. The fact that women are involved in sex trafficking at such a greater scale than men is significant.
I have the same fears about this topic as I did for the child soldier topic. Simplifying the issue of human trafficking, specifically sex trafficking, is very dangerous. This is a global issue that exists in every country (including the United States...and there are plenty of sources/evidence that you can easily find). This is also undoubtedly a gendered issue, so I would encourage you to DEFINITELY discuss gender. The global gender system in which women are oppressed (worldwide) goes hand in hand with the global trafficking system. This is a widely researched and complex issue, and it is very very tied to the globalization of capitalism over recent decades. If you're going into sex trafficking in your paper, I would strongly encourage you to analyze how women's bodies are bought and sold as a commodity for profit. And who profits from those transactions? The obvious answer is men, but you could analyze that from various angles. I look forward to seeing what you come up with!
ReplyDeleteI have always found this topic very interesting (in a very disturbing way...not the fun way obviously). Since human trafficking is largely sex trafficking, it would make sense to mainly focus on this but I would consider addressing it as a whole as well, down to the idea of illegal immigrants being trafficked into countries and used as forced labor. I would also discuss why "human trafficking" is the term that is used rather than the simple word for it, "slavery". You might want to be wary of and discuss the biases of any statistics you find because of the difficult nature of measuring it. It is similar to trying to figure out how many people in the United States have used drugs. You cannot really just walk up to someone and ask and expect to get a straight answer. However, I would definitely focus on the world at large and maybe devote a section to trafficking in the United States. It is, after all, a 12ish page paper. This sounds like it will be an interesting, albeit extremely depressing, paper.
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