While the Democratic Presidential candidates were battling it out in Indiana and North Carolina, Sen. John McCain had the luxury to take a step back and reflect on long-term goals, like what kind of federal judges he would appoint and what Cinco de Mayo means to him. 

Yesterday, Sen. McCain delivered a speech on “His Vision for Defending the Freedom and Dignity of the World’s Vulnerable” at Oakland University in Rochester, MI.  The crux of his speech was about combating human trafficking around the world that leads to modern-day slavery. 

Human trafficking is a very serious problem. The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates 12.3 million people can be found in forced labor, bonded labor, forced child labor, and sexual servitude at any given time; other estimates range from 4 million to 27 million.

But apart from saying what interagency changes he’d make when he is President to more effectively fight the problem
of human-trafficking, McCain did not mention why people become victims of this despicable crime in the first place.  The U.S. State Department’s 2007 Trafficking in Persons Report says that the supply of victims is encouraged by “poverty, the attraction of perceived higher standards of living elsewhere, lack of employment opportunities, public and private corruption, organized crime, violence against women and children, discrimination against women, political instability, and armed conflict.”  The same report states that a “significant share of the exploitation in modern-day slavery is linked to the production of products for export.”

The State Department designates China to be on a Tier 2-Watch List as a “source, transit, and destination country for men and women trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation and forced labor.” The State Department indicates that in 2007, “China’s efforts to combat trafficking for forced labor remained inadequate.”  Countries like China that rely on cheap labor to produce vast quantities of cheap goods for export take part in the vicious cycle.  We in the U.S. become complacent in the problem when more and more of the products that we consume are made in the nations that lack adequate labor protections.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 8th, 2008 at 11:14 pm and is filed under Enforcing Trade Laws. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.