Example Of Research Paper On People As Commodities: The Global Market For People

INTERNATIONAL TRADE IN PEOPLE: Effects of globalization

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Criminal smuggling of people and trafficking generates billions of illicit revenues yearly, making global human smuggling activities one of the primary businesses for transcontinental criminal syndicates along with illegal drugs, money laundering, weapons smuggling, and “document fraud.” People couriers as well as hustlers, like other multinational criminal elements, do not respect national borders. These do not respect state sovereignty or global accords, and prey on the misery and hardships of people; as such, these individuals have become serious political and security issues for members of the global community (United Nations, 2015, p. 1).
However, there must be a difference stated between “human smuggling” and “human trafficking.” People that are smuggled have to pay the “agent” to get them to a particular destination; those that are “trafficked” are often forced or deceived into schemes that will actually land them in unwanted servitude or even the commercial sex trade. In theory, the “transaction” between the smuggled and the smuggler is terminated once the person arrives at the destination. However, there are reports that smugglers continue to hold sway on the émigré either by harassment, intimidation, or by exacting additional payment from the person (Interpol 2015, p. 1).
In the context of the United States and other developed countries, majority of the individuals that are illegally facilitated into the country are smuggled rather than sold; global people smuggling syndicates are connected to multinational criminal activities inclusive of narcotics trafficking and government corruption. These crimes weaken the autonomy and independence of nations and will generally place the lives of those being smuggled at grave risk (United States National Security Council, n. page, p. 1).
Globalization has seen the development of a swiftly amalgamating international economy defined by liberalized trading, unbridled capital streams, and the harnessing of more inexpensive sources of labor in foreign markets that eclipses national boundaries. It can be stated that forced servitude and human smuggling and bootlegging are not just “fruits” of globalization; these heinous practices are part and parcel of globalization itself that engages an operational combination of various economic functions. Globalization is embedded in the global economy.
The liberalized conduct of the global economy allows human smuggling and trafficking not only to be conducted, but advanced. Modern day human trafficking is an extremely profitable enterprise that has thrived in the era of globalization. Globalization, according to Polakoff, has created a type of “global apartheid,” with the attendant rise of a rising “fourth world” filled by the millions of itinerants, imprisoned, destitute, and socially ostracized fringe groups (Brewer, n. date, p. 46).
The evolving part of the “nation state” is a core factor in modern day debates regarding globalization. Globalization, according to a number of observers, is heavily contributing to the waning of the “nation state” and the independence of the states was being irretrievably contested by the dominating global economy sector. Still a number of observers believe that globalization has ushered in a “new world disorder;” others, such as Hardt and Negri (2000), believe that the “nation state” concept being displaced in favor of a “global empire.”
The challenges to the “nation state” concept not only come from the rapid interconnectivity of the new international marketplace, but also from the growing international criminal economy. The rise of illegal and lawless has been an integral factor of globalization and liberalization of state economies. The victory of “neoliberalism” has produced a prodigious privatization effort involving state owned business entities across the world.
The steady debilitation of government controls has fostered an era where government properties were “up for grabs,” and many of these were cornered by criminal elements. Here, the borders of government malfeasance and syndicated crime became dominant characters of social structures. The invasion of the “nation state” mechanism by criminal elements has been pointed to as a primary reason for the development of the “failed state (Aas, 2007, p. 11).
The incapacity of governments to enforce the law exacerbates the human smuggling and trafficking dilemma across the world. Organized crime groups will often use the tenets of the law for these elements to pursue their business activities. Furthermore, the undermining of the states as well as political events such as the demise of the USSR resulted in a recession in Eastern Europe.
In the report of the US State Department, the countries that were founded in the aftermath of the USSR’s collapse have been regarded as among the largest “source” for human trafficking and smuggling syndicates to Western European markets. With economic stagnation wreaking havoc on many countries, unemployment was rampant. Human smugglers pounced on the economic hardships in these countries (Rahman, 2011, p. 64). Globalization was designed to facilitate trade, legal trade, and not in the commerce of human beings as commodities in the global arena. Hence, all measures must be drawn up and implemented to ensure that this abhorrent practice is snuffed out.

Bibliography

Aas, K., 2007, Globalization and crime key approaches to criminology. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications
Brewer, D., Globalization and Human Trafficking, Topical Research Digest: Human Rights and Human Trafficking, Available through University of Denver website <https://www.du.edu/korbel/hrhw/researchdigest/trafficking/Globalization.pdf
Interpol, 2015., People smuggling [on line] Available at <http://www.interpol.int/Crime-areas/Trafficking-in-human-beings/People-smuggling [Accessed 7 April 2015]
National Security Council, n.d. Transnational organized crime: a growing threat to national and international security [on line] Available at <https://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/nsc/transnational-crime/threat [Accessed 7 April 2015]
Rahman, M.A., 2011, Human Trafficking in the era of globalization: the case of trafficking in the global market economy. Transcience Journal 2(1)
United Nations, 2003. People smuggling, trafficking generate nearly $10 billion annually as core businesses of international criminal networks, Third Committee told [on line] Available at <http://www.un.org/press/en/2003/gashc3742.doc.htm [Accessed 7 April 2015]