The toll of human trafficking

Date published: 6/26/2007

FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD ADNITA worked in a Rwandan market. One day, her boss told her to go with two men, who, he said, would take her to live abroad where she would be safe and go to school. Adnita did as she was told, but when she reached her destination, Great Britain, she was taken to a house, raped, and forced to live in a locked kitchen as a sex slave for two years. Finally, she escaped.

Adnita's story finds an echo in many other sad tales: Aakesh was only five when he was kidnapped from his Indian village, transported 200 miles away, and forced to weave carpets until he escaped nine years later; Cambodian sisters Naren and Sitthy were 10 and 12 when their parents sold them to a German to be used for sex.

The toll of suffering from human trafficking is practically immeasurable. A State Department report just released states that every year 800,000 people--80 percent are women, more than half, children--enter the stream of sexual servitude or forced labor, often in a country far from their own. Last year, Zambian girls were trafficked to Ireland for prostitution, Vietnamese children were shipped to the United Kingdom and forced to participate in drug smuggling, Chinese women were carried off to Afghanistan and sexually exploited, and Russian students were brought to the United States and forced to sell ice cream. It's the dark side of globalization.

To its credit, the Bush administration has been a leader in exposing and fighting this scourge. This month, it took the bold step of adding several U.S. allies--Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar--to the most serious Tier 3 watch list, making them vulnerable to economic sanctions. These nations join perennial violators such as Cuba, North Korea and Syria.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says, "[M]ore and more countries are coming to see human trafficking for what it is--a modern form of slavery that devastates families and communities around the world."

Date published: 6/26/2007