Torture and Human Trafficking Reading Quiz

Use of physical and brutal punishments were normalized (use of physical and brutal punishments were normalized, little to no consideration about the treatment of slaves or other marginalized groups, prevent rebellion, coerce witness statements and seen as truthful if the result of brutal treatment), used physical tests called ‘ordeals’ to determine criminal guilt (often believed that God would protect those who were innocent from physical harm in western societies)

Long history in societies all over the globe

Confessions were considered the most reliable form of evidence in a criminal case, referred to as ‘Queen of Proofs’

Use of torture as part of the criminal justice process to elicit a confession

Two witnesses to a crime was considered sufficient evidence which made a confession and therefore torture unnecessary, needed sufficient evidence before torture could be utilized (one witness or profound circumstantial evidence of guilt

Included ‘safeguards’ to the use of torture

Hearsay and witchcraft crimes were heavily pursued by the Church and often utilized torture to elicit confessions due to a lack of evidence

Many innocent people were still tortured for confessions

Other countries followed

The first country to abolish virtually all forms of torture was Sweden in 1734

Continued to allow torture for slaves and in their colonies

Many of these countries only abolished torture as part of their criminal justice system

Then Enlightenment Period (1685-1815) included a rejection of superstition along with greater emphasis on individuals and rationality (many of the popular scholars a the time were writing against torture), legal historian, John Langbein focuses on how courts were evaluating evidence (judges were increasingly accepting of other forms of evidence)

Reasons for the abolishing torture varies among researchers

The first Geneva Conventions were adopted by 16 European countries in 1864 (mandated humane treatment of battlefield casualties, included protections for civilians who offered aid), The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 (aimed to make warfare more humane by banning certain weapons, banned nerve gas and hollow point bullets)

Torture has a long history of being addressed in international treaties

Scale and intensity of the human rights violation, considered a ‘total war’ (civilians and their property were indiscriminately targeted), massive human rights violations were committed by a country that was deemed ‘cultured’

Following the Holocaust, there was a heightened concern about human rights violations including torture

Declared that ‘No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment’

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) Article 5 addressed issues of torture

Entered into force in 1987, ratified by more than 140 countries

The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT)

Considered a customary international law (fundamental and universal law, applicable to all governments and all humankind)

Dozens of other treaties, conventions, codes of conduct, and other international legal instruments prohibit torture

Amnesty International, one of the largest non-governmental organizations that monitors human rights violations (found documented reports of torture in more than 150 countries, widespread issues of torture in 70 countries , deaths due to torture in at least 80 countries)

Despite the many laws and widespread agreement about torture, it remains one of the most common human rights violation

Continued component of imprisonment in cruel conditions with physical harm, also includes psychological torture

While widespread, torture is often hidden by governments and authority figures

Government-sanctioned torture and cruel treatment, Guantanamo Bay established by the U.S. in 2002

Despite the many conventions prohibiting torture, many cases go unpunished or minimally punished

Isolate or have the person in restricted environments such as a military training camp, have a strict hierarchy with clear figures of authority, most effective, but not necessary, to target young and impressionable people, subject that person to intense stress (Greek military police had renowned torture squads from 1967 to 1974 would deny their members food for weeks and beat them

Defying expectations, it is often normal people who are willing to torture when ordered by a sufficient authority figure through conditions that are utilized by governments and authority figures to convince people to torture others

Often members of the majority or more powerful group in society who are convinced their way of life is at risk, those who are threatening their way of life are not fully human or are for some reason undeserving of the same respect as others

Other important aspects of who becomes a torturer

The Milgram experiment showed that people were willing to inflict progressively worse shocks to people even hearing sounds of distress when instructed, The Stanford Prison experiment included such cruel behavior that it was ended early

The Milgram and Stanford Prison experiments are often used to highlight that ‘average citizens’ are willing to inflict pain and be cruel to other people under the correct circumstances

Studied the Armenian Genocide (1914-1918), Nazi Germany (1933-1945), Pol Pot’s Cambodia (1967-1969), and Argentina during the ‘Dirty War’ (1976-1983), Important factor that leads to torture is the scapegoating of a subgroup which include dehumanizing rhetoric, other factors include (strong respect for authority with little to no questioning of leadership, monolithic culture that is willing to use military force against conflicting viewpoints, widespread concepts of cultural superiority, ideology that rationalizes the mistreatment of a minority or out-group)

Erwin Staub studied the social indicators of genocide and torture

The ‘war on terror’ that was declared by the US included significant torture and cruel treatment, like Staub, he notes the dehumanization of an out-group, notes some additional conditions that lead to torture (a national emergency or perceived threat to security, the need to process a large number of suspects, authorization to violate standard social norms, the presence of a ‘sacred mission’

Ronald Crelinsten, a criminologist, has looked at torture after the terrorist attacks on 9/11 within the US and by the US government

Authorities have an individual in custody with information about a bomb that will soon go off and kill thousands of people (justified and even morally obligated to use whatever means even torture to get that information quickly, the utilitarian philosophy argues that torture is needed because it will result in the least amount of suffering, cost-benefit analysis, ends justify the means)

To justify torture, the hypothetical of the ticking bomb is often used

Most torture victims are people with opposing political views or part of a marginalized community, when people who are tortured are suspected of criminal activity, the government is often trying to get long-term information (patterns of behavior, names of other people in the organization, the structure of the organization, not information about a known immediate threat

The reality of torture by the government rarely fits the hypothetical scenario

Philosopher Michael Levin argues that torture can only occur if the person is ‘obviously guilty’, that can be difficult to define, what level of certainty is needed before someone can be tortured (utilitarian and other justifications of torture struggle when determining this line because it is worth wrongfully torturing ten innocent people to save a hundred

Certainty that the person being tortured has relevant information in the hypothetical is often more complicated in reality

By allowing torture in limited circumstances, there is a temptation to use it against more people under a wider range of circumstances

Another complication is the slippery slope

Research shows that torturing loved ones of the person with the desired knowledge is often more effective (under the ticking bomb hypothetical, this may be a justifiable course of action, especially using a pure utilitarian philosophy), information provided by people who have been tortured is often inaccurate (people will often provide whatever information they think will end the torture the fastest and not necessarily truthful or accurate information)

Effectiveness of torture is another complication

Retaliatory killings, often people who are tortured by the government are part of a larger organization who may escalate violence in response to torture, reluctance of enemies to surrender if it’s known that country engages in torture (in 1991 during the Persian Gulf war, the Iraqi army surrendered because they believed that the US military would not torture them which saved countless lives)

While the narrative of the ticking bomb hypothetical is common to justify torture, it is important to note some potential consequences

“Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining for him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity”

The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) defines torture as…

Areas of pushback on the CAT definition (many want to expand the definition to include non-state actors to cover situations of torture by armed oppositions, terrorist groups, or groups working informally with the government, many want to include severe forms of violence by individuals such as severe domestic violence and child abuse as part of the CAT definition of torture

Different treaties may contain different definitions of torture and include more clarity of what is considered ‘severe pain or suffering’

In Ireland v. United Kingdom (1978), the ECHR decided that five common techniques used by the British were inhuman and degrading (wall-standing, hooding, subjection to loud noise, deprivation of sleep, and deprivation of food and drink), in Aydin v. Turkey (1997), the ECHR ruled that rape occurred to people while they were in state custody constituted torture which expanded the definition of torture to include gratuitous violence

Cases decided by the European Court of Human Rights help establish definitions of what behaviors should be considered as torture or inhuman and degrading treatment

Continue to ensure that torture and similar behavior are no longer normalized allow for both social shaming and political pressure to be applied, public awareness of the actions taken by the government including detailed information (The American public is now aware that many of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation strategies that were used during the ‘war on terror’ meet international definitions of torture)

Continued definitions of behaviors that are considered torture and laws created

Alan Dershowitz suggests that authorities should be required to obtain a torture warrant (a judge would hear the details of the case and decide if it necessary and include information about who can be tortured, what information is being sought, along with the intensity and duration of the torture), Oren Gross suggests that torture should always be banned with no exceptions (after is is used the person who made the decision and those who were involved go to court and defend their use of torture, people would face uncertainty if they would be punished for the torture or if the court would decide it was necessary or justified

Researchers have offered changes to the laws around torture and how it is utilized by governments

Universal jurisdiction is the idea that some crimes are serious enough that any country can prosecute individuals for those crimes regardless of where they were committed (states that ratified CAT are obligated to prosecute individuals credibly accused of torture who are in their territory regardless of where the crime occurred or extradite them to a country that will, countries have tried people in their national courts for crimes committed in other countries

The growing idea and use of universal jurisdiction has been a useful tool in prosecuting people who are credibly suspected of torturing people

These cases are often well-hidden by the government from the public and international community, torture may be portrayed as security measures against an external or internal threat, for some countries, it is a routine part of how they treat prisoners, varied definitions of what is actually considered torture

Many of the documented cases of torture examined by Amnesty International are facilitated or condoned by the government

Main types include labor exploitation, sexual exploitation, debt bondage, organ removal

Trafficking describes a range of behaviors and outcomes

Recruitment or transport of people using some form of force, fraud, or coercion to exploit them

Definitions of human trafficking focus on broadly outlining the process

Tend to focus on sex trafficking of women and girls, emphasize the transportation of people, especially from one country to another, often only consider cases with clear use of force or coercion, especially physical force, international law requires forced or coerced movement to consider something as human trafficking

Many people, including politicians and policy-makers and NGOs are knowledge about only particular type of human trafficking

There were multiple conventions in the following years, the International Agreement for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic was created in 1904 and included 16 countries

While human trafficking has a long political history, it has an even longer history of practice with the first international convention on human trafficking occurring in 1895

Young white women and girls who were being trafficked unwilling across international borders and were being physically threatened and forced into prostitution, media, politicians, and activists in the international community formed the anti-white slavery movement

Important to note that early laws on human trafficking only covered a particular type of human trafficking

Ignored the history and consequences of human trafficking through the slave trade, overlooked the exploitative labor practices that were occurring in colonized countries at the time

Despite the international attention on sex trafficking of young white women and girls, there was not evidence to support this type of trafficking

The late 1800s and early 1900s were a time with a lot of change, European countries along with the United States were in the Second Industrial Revolution (Cities were growing rapidly, industries were quickly shifting and changing, wealth inequalities were growing drastically, even as these countries became wealthier and more powerful, immigration was increasing and long-distance traveling was becoming more and more accessible)

Global conditions at the time to understand the causes of the fear of sex trafficking and the motivations of the definition not matching the reality

“With all of the changes in society, people felt moral standards were declining” (wanted to discourage extra-marital sex, interracial relations, and travel by single women, solidify in policy and in public perspective that white women are being sexually exploited by minority men)

Some scholars argue that the attention on sex trafficking and its mischaracterization was purposeful

Debate about how to treat prostitution and human trafficking, the first convention in 1904 (distinguished voluntary prostitution from sex trafficking but only discussed international recruitment and transportation), the International Convention for the Suppression of White Slave Traffic in 1910 (expanded to include recruitment within the national boundaries), the International Convention for the Suppression of Traffic in Women and Children in 1921 (expanded the definition of trafficking to include children, particularly boys who previously ignored in the definitions of human trafficking)

An important area of controversy about the definition was seen in the changes made by the different early conventions

Changed the definition to include voluntary prostitution, required states to punish anyone who recruited women into prostitutions, even if the woman voluntarily engaged in prostitution

In 1933, there was an important change in the definition at the International Convention on the Suppression of Traffic in Women of Full Age

Solidified the connection between trafficking and sex work, moved away from gender-and-race-specific language, declared trafficking and prostitution as ‘incompatible with the dignity and worth of the human person and (to) endanger the welfare of the individual, family, and the community

In 1949, the Convention for the Suppression of Traffic in Persons and the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others

One exception was the 1956 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery which addressed ‘selling women’ and ‘turning children' over for exploitation and debt bondage schemes, largely silent on the issues until the UN’s International Decade for Women began in 1976 (the discussion of issues of trafficking was renewed, the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) included directions for all states to take measures to prevent all forms of traffic in women and prostitution of women, the major contemporary international legislation on trafficking was not codified until 2000)

The 1949 convention was the last major international political activity on the issue of trafficking for a few decades

However, the international community fell back into some of the same debates and mischaracterizations seen in the early conventions (the abolitionist feminists and conservative groups wanted to include all forms of sex work into trafficking laws, feel that all sex work is exploitative, human rights feminists wanted to separate consensual sex work from coerced or forced sex work, ensure that resources are being used to help those who are being forced or coerced instead of broadly intervening in all cases)

In the 1970s and 1980s, there were many feminist movements globally which helped bring attention to issues of trafficking

Claimed that high-level government officials in several countries were involved in trafficking women from developing countries for commercial sex exploitation (discusses INTERPOL’s refusal to release full reports on the issues of trafficking, argues that there was a concentrated effort to suppress evidence of trafficking, the UN was involved because they did not want to implicate or embarrass other countries

Despite the lack of international action, human trafficking continued to be an issue in the decades of silence which may have been intentional which was highlighted in Kathleen Barry’s book called Female Sexual Battery in 1979

Expanded issues from just ensuring that women had equal political rights but also issues that women faced were being addressed, important component was including issues of violence against women as human rights violations (helped bridge some of the divide between western women and non-western women because CEDAW focused on political rights and largely overlooked violence against women

The 1993 Vienna World Conference solidified the idea that women’s rights are human rights

Also expanded definitions of trafficking to include forced marriage and forced labor

The 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing included the movement to fight violence against women

First contemporary comprehensive definition of human trafficking, the meeting occurred in 1993, but it was not codified until 2000, included trafficking for reasons other than sexual exploitation, included men and boys as part of the definition in addition to women and girls

The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (Palermo Protocol) was developed during the Vienna Process

The Palermo Protocol makes the distinction between prostitution and trafficking, requiring coercion and force for trafficking, there is no international agreement of what exactly qualifies as exploitation along with confusion of coercion and vulnerable people, The US who has taken over the rhetoric of human trafficking, even internationally, does include voluntary sex work (they separate trafficking and severe trafficking which includes force, coercion, or fraud)

Continued debate on how to handle the issue of voluntary sex work and trafficking

They leave it up to each country to address the issue of trafficking, does not include many concrete human rights protections for trafficking victims (the Palermo Protocol is not technically a human rights document, its purpose is to provide a mechanism for states to criminalize trafficking so that they can prosecute traffickers)

Another complication with the Palermo Protocol is the fact that it includes little to no enforcement mechanisms

One potential explanation for the silent decades on the issue of human trafficking was due to international tensions from the Cold War, international interest in human trafficking led to conventions and policies in the 1990s when there was a lot of migration of women out of Eastern Europe into other countries (the rhetoric was similar to the anti-white slavery movement in the late 1800s and early 1900s, discussions about these young women and girls who were migrating and being forced into sexual slavery and they were largely white women and girls)

In addition to feminist movements bringing up women’s issues and trafficking, it is important to note an alternative reason that issues of trafficking were reignited in the 1990s

The chairperson of the President’s Inter-Agency Council on Women (PICW) was First Lady Hillary Clinton who spoke at the Beijing women’s conference, the Clinton administration was also active in the process of establishing the Palermo Protocol, they passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act into law in 2000 which is still one of the most progressive and aggressive legislation on human trafficking globally (it allows the US to intervene with foreign nations on the issue of trafficking and helped place the US as the ‘global sheriff’ on human trafficking)

The US, particularly the Clinton administration was very active on the discussion of human trafficking

The Trafficking Victims Protection Act, applies a three-pronged approach that includes prevention, protection, and prosecution, in 2009 added a fourth area of partnership, focused on severe forms of trafficking (Sex trafficking: recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, obtaining, patronizing, or soliciting of a person for the purposes of commercial sex when it is induced by force, fraud, or coercion or the person is under 18 years of age, labor trafficking: recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining a person for labor or services through the use of fraud, or coercion for involuntary servitude

The first comprehensive federal law to combat human trafficking was passed in 2000

Two large labor trafficking cases were discovered in 1995 (approximately 100 deaf individuals from Mexico were forced to sell trinkets in New York City, around 70 individuals from Thailand were found locked in a sweatshop in California), prosecutors at the time struggled because these cases largely involved psychological coercion and not traditional uses of physical force

Examining human trafficking in the United States

They highlighted that there was a steady stream of girls and women from the former Soviet Union who were trafficked into prostitution in the US and Western Europe

The Global Survival Network, a large NGO at the time, spoke to Congress in the late 1990s

Fell into the same issues of focusing on white women and girls in cases of international sex trafficking with clear uses of physical threats

Congress was active in passing legislation and not long after this presentation the Trafficking Victims Protection Act was passed

Illegal and hidden nature of the act, contradictory definitions among different countries and even different states, difficulty in identifying and defining cases because most definitions are vague, political motivations behind estimates, reliance on a particular source of data, what numbers are being reported and source of the statistics

Incredibly difficult to find accurate measures of the number of victims of human trafficking and the reasons for complexity in estimates are…

About 20.1 million are estimated to be victims of labor trafficking (around 9.2 million victims were men, 10.9 million women, 3.3 million children), approximately 4.8 million people are estimated to be victims of sex trafficking (3.8 million adults, 1 million children, 99% of these victims are estimated to be women and girls)

According to the International Labor Organization, there are 24.9 million victims of human trafficking

68% of cases are forced labor and only 22% are for sexual exploitation and 10% for other reasons, 20.9 million people are trafficked, 117 billion euros a year are profited from trafficking

Estimates of human trafficking from Europe indicate that..

8,805 people were prosecuted for human trafficking with 3,855 people were convicted of human trafficking

In Europe, there was nearly 11,000 registered and estimated victims in 2012

In 2005, the United States Department of State states that approximately 80% of victims of human trafficking are sexually exploited, in 2010 the US Department of State indicated sex trafficking was the smaller percentage of cases and labor trafficking was the majority of trafficking cases, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, sex trafficking is the most commonly identified form of trafficking (does include the fact that statistical bias and national legislation plays a role in that number

The United States is a leader in creating laws around human trafficking and providing estimates

However, only about 10,000 situations of human trafficking was reported to the US National Human Trafficking Hotline with around 16,000 individual victims, prosecution and convictions are even lower with only 3,169 convictions since 2,000

The United States is estimated to have over 1 million victims of human trafficking residing in the US

In the US 44% of the victims were women and 50% of the victims were girls

The majority of prosecutions for human trafficking in the US have been for sex trafficking cases

Focus on girls and women for sex trafficking, it has only been in recent years that people are accepting that victims are taken while residing in the US, the idea that the victim has to be moved over state lines or out of the country, large organizations and strangers are responsible for all of the trafficking, always involve kidnapping and captivity

Misperceptions of human trafficking present additional issues

Wide-range of victims, human trafficking may occur in a lot of different situations, even in jobs that occur in public, more common in the US than previously believed, while some victims are transported across state lines and even globally, many victims are not, people are often trafficked by people they know (only 5% of the active sex trafficking cases involved formal organized crime groups), it can involve subtle coercion and manipulation that does not resemble kidnapping at all

Realities of Human Trafficking

Victims may not consider themselves trafficking victims when their experience doesn’t match their expectations (most of the reports to law enforcement were victims calling law enforcement or the hotline), there can be a range of how victims view themselves and their responsibility in their victimization

Misperceptions could have an impact

Highlights the overlap of victims of sex trafficking and the prosecution of women and girls for sex work and prostitution (in 2008, Epstein pled guilty for soliciting minors for prostitution and soliciting a prostitute, in 2019 Epstein was arrested for sex trafficking), describes a case without the traditional kidnapping aspect (many of the girls and women involved traveled voluntarily to his residence and returned home after their victimization, never going missing or kidnapped)

Jeffery Epstein is one of the most famous cases of sex trafficking

Voluntarily immigrated to another country for work with no complications, voluntarily immigrated, satisfied with their working conditions despite being lied to about their pay, the work conditions, their immigration status and so, voluntarily immigrated and threatened by their employer that they will face deportation if they don’t do exactly what they say (may include having their passports and identification stolen and/or physical threats), traditional and stereotypical involuntarily trafficked through kidnapping

Labor trafficking faces its own complexities due to a range of potential outcomes

The US includes commercial sex if the person is under the age of 18 in its legal definition of sex trafficking (there are girls in juvenile detention centers due to adjudications of sex work, many adult women who engage in sex work report beginning when they were children, often their experiences include coercion, threats, manipulation, and being drugged by adult men or boyfriends, friends, and family), many victims of labor trafficking are likely deported and perceived as offenders, especially in cases without clear use of physical violence to control the workers

Conflicting laws when identifying people as victims or offenders in some cases

Young girls and women, minority individuals, individuals who have immigrated, people with substance abuse issues, people with low socioeconomic status, victims are typically vulnerable in some way

Due to the large amount of variation in the types of human trafficking, there is also a large range of victims but there are factors that put people at a greater risk of being trafficked

High demand for cheap labor, countries with low numbers of workers in high demand industries, countries with high levels of poverty and wealth inequality, social and cultural practices that devalue certain groups of people, armed conflict

Trafficked in or into countries

Leaving their home country for better work opportunities, especially if the country they are going to has strict immigration laws, natural disasters or other situations that lead people to be homeless or to travel, armed conflict creates large vulnerable populations for trafficking, political conditions

When people are fleeing bad conditions, they may be at greater risk of being trafficked