Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Human Trafficking and the International Justice Mission

This semester I am going to focus my blog on human trafficking. Since I am pursuing a degree in anthropology, I chose an issue that is cross-cultural.Over this semester, I hope to find out why human trafficking occurs in so many different countries which have different cultures, as well as find out what is being to prevent human trafficking and help its victims.This topic connects with themes of the UH 370 class, because structural violence helps human trafficking to continue.
I am going to use this first blog to look at how the International Justice Mission(IJM) works against human trafficking and other human rights abuses.I chose IJM as the first organization to talk about, because joining the IJM club at my university directed my interest to the issue of human trafficking in the first place.
The International Justice Mission is a human rights agency made up of lawyers,investigators, and social workers.The organization works in and with 12 countries.The case IJM takes deal with:sexual violence,slavery,illegal arrest,police brutality,sex trafficking,and illegal removal of property.The organization works against these human rights abuses from many different angles. The victims are rescued and receive help from social workers to rebuild their lives. The Lawyers and investigators make sure that the human rights abusers are held legally accountable. the organization also tries to prevent these human rights abuses, by strengthening weaknesses in the local judicial systems and in the communities.
I think the approach IJM uses in handling its cases is particularly effective,because its helps the victims create a stable life after they are rescued.Otherwise, the victims might be forced to return to their abusive situation.For example, a 14 year old girl who had run away from an abusive home, was tricked by a brothel owner who had promised the girl a well paying job.When the girl was rescued from the brothel, she left the only job and home she had had.If she could not find a job, she might have had to resort to prostitution or could have been vulnerable to being tricked again.I will try to find out that ways in which the members if IJM help the victims recreate their lives.
While searching through information about human traffficking, I have noticed that females are particularly at risk. According to the US Department of State, 80% of human trafficking victims are fem,ale and around 50% of all the victims are underage girls. I would like to try to find out why females are more at risk than males for hum,an trafficking. I also want to find out where human trafficking happens most often and what cultural influences have lead to increase or decrease in human trafficking.

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