RISK OF CHILDREN BEING TRAFFICKED IN HAITI
by Erin Stewart (Brantford, Ontario)
While the Haitian earthquake is a heart wrenching devastation, what I find even more heart wrenching is the fact that the thousands of children that are already traumatized, orphaned and homeless are now extremely vulnerable to becoming victims of human trafficking.
After the 2004 tsunami, baby smuggling and the buying/selling the thousands of children left parentless by the disaster was prevalent. There was also an increase of human trafficking in India after the floods in 2008 when an estimated 1.5 million people had to leave their homes. In times of chaos, children are left at risk.
The human trafficking industry earns more than double the Hollywood industry per year. It is one of the fastest growing illegal markets in the world. That being said, you can bet that there are traffickers already in Haiti scooping up children, perhaps after offering them aid or false hope, and selling them into the sex trade or smuggling them elsewhere so they can be forced to sew our clothes, grow our coffee or make our chocolate.
My hope is that someday soon, we can stop the slave trade. This will only happen when we begin to seek justice for trafficking perpetrators and cease to demand that which slaves provide for us daily. We need to consciously decide to buy other people’s freedom, not their bondage. How else can ever expect to see change in this world?
