Impact of COVID-19 on Human Trafficking: A Detailed Analysis

The covid-19 pandemic is introducing different difficulties in everyone’s life. Researchers are taking different initiatives to flatten the curve of the infection through enforced curfews and quarantine phase, travel restriction, lockdowns, and restrictions in public and economic activities. Increased police surveillance at the border as well as the streets are dissuading crime. Criminals are also altering their business models especially in the crimes of human trafficking. The criminal activities are also including new normal regulations in their business model. Along with this, the covid-19 situation also impacting on the authorities as well as non-governmental services to monitor the crime.

The covid-19 has impacted on the employment and income of every human being. Ullah, Nawaz & Chattoraj, (2021) mentioned, people are observed with loss of income, and different means of livelihood are hampered by the covid-19 outbreak. The restrictions as well as control at country borders are strengthened that has cased disruption within the regular and irregular routes. It has created difficult procedure of human movement. Apart from this, alterations in the family dynamics as well as greater pressure over the family unit created negative mechanism including forced marriage and child labor. The paper will demonstrate how the covid-19 impacted on different activities of human trafficking in detail.

According to United Nations, global exploitation of men, children and women has increased during the pandemic situation. The United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking (UN.GIFT) initiated a leading approach against the human trafficking. According to Jegede (2020), the notion of human trafficking can be acknowledged as the modern procedure of slavery. It includes different means of human exploitation through implementation of coercion threats, deception and threats. Trafficking can also be a purpose of labor and sexual exploitation. Researchers have mentioned that sexual exploitation involves forcing a person in the commercial sex engagement for example prostitution or supporting the production of pornography. Different types of labor exploitation include servitude in domestic fields, restaurants, sweatshop factory environment, janitorial work and the migrant work in agriculture. Both the adults and minors can be the target of human trafficking both in developing and developed countries.

Knight et al., (2020) mentioned, the Federal Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act demonstrates the notion of human trafficking as the procedure of involuntary servitude. An individual may or may not be induced in different types of servitude by the threatened abuse of legal procedures. Countries including Singapore, Australia and United States are victimizing the impact of human trafficking from centuries. Trafficking is a crime that widely controlling different individuals through fraud, force, physical or psychological coercion and different modes of exploitation. Hence, the legislation of anti-trafficking considering both the legal and illegal context can be observed. The term human trafficking introduced different types of anti-trafficking movement in countries like United States. Ibeh et al., (2020) mentioned, in recent years, Singapore is also victimizing the criminology of trafficking. The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (Co-EDAW), as well as the State and national stakeholders of Us department observed the increased rate of human trafficking in Singapore.

Types of Human Trafficking

International law also include different guidance to define the term human trafficking and different initiatives should be taken to combat its manifestations. The human rights recorded in United nations applicable to Singapore took different initiatives to reduce the impact of human trafficking. Workie et al., (2020) mentioned, the United Nations protocols against human trafficking defines the term as – trafficking at individual level refers transportation, recruitment, harboring, transferring through force, abduction, fraud, deception or any other means of coercion. Article 3 of United Nation protocol provides useful definition and explanation of human trafficking. In this article, the purpose of exploitation as the desire to be recognized by the transnational criminology.

Considering the characteristic features of human trafficking, Trautrims et al., (2020) mentioned 83% of the victims of domestic human exploitation are women. The author also mentioned that the Asian women and their contribution towards domestic work is acknowledged as the most important source of employment across the borders. This activity introduces the genderisation of the entire migration flows. It is one of the reason behind the domestic servitude associated with the complex identify of the women observed in Singapore also. The United Nations special rapporteur on the human trafficking identifies different conditions of exploitation including withholding salary, confiscating passport, isolation of the freedom movement, communicating the psychological and physical criminology. Along with this, the rapporteur also include different working conditions such as – a wide variety of non-identified responsibilities that create workers being at the disposal of the employers, tenured working hours, infusing work management procedure including the use of verbal restrictions and violence especially on the movement of freedom. It also include the low-payment or non-payment of people holding different means of wages. Hasanli & Safarova (2020) mentioned the human trafficking also include different living conditions including – accommodation that lacks both privacy and comfort, insufficient food, restricted access to health care, restrictions within the cultural and social life of an individual.

Lainez (2020) mentioned, the domestic field of Singapore include useful example to demonstrate the domestic servitude as a form of human trafficking. Researchers have mentioned that domestic servitude in Singapore impacts especially on the non-Singaporean travelled from one state willingly or forcefully. Singapore is a place where one can observe the trafficking of foreign domestic workers that increases the rate of domestic servitude. Majority of the foreign domestic workers in Singapore are female and unlike all the migrant workers, the foreign domestic workers are not included within the Employment act o Singapore. They are also excluded from providing protection from the employment act and they are only protected through the rigorous necessities of the Foreign Manpower Employment act within the secondary legislation (Rakshit & Paul, 2020). Recent covid-19 pandemic has increased the rate of human trafficking in Singapore and other developing countries as observed by different researchers. The following section will define the impact of covid-19 on human trafficking especially in Singapore.

Legislative and Policy Measures

Both the developed and the developing countries are adopting the new normal situation developed by the covid-19 outbreak. Covid-19 enhanced the use of online platforms and the social media platforms. Kosandi et al., (2017) mentioned almost 37% of the stakeholders received the response that majority of the recruited victims moved online during this pandemic situation. Traffickers have taken initiatives against the closing of clubs, bars and the massage parlors ad the outcome of curfews, lockdowns and other initiatives to control the spread of covid-19. Some of the countries are observed with traffickers capitalizing through the social distancing initiatives in transporting the victims interstate or across the international or national borders. They are well aware about the new enforcement laws which are incapable of careful inspection of all the vehicles. Le Roux (2015) mentioned the victims are more exposed to the covid-19 situation and social stigma. Victims of trafficking faced extreme exposure to covid-19 due to their living and working conditions. The victims also exploited different industries including construction, sex industry and manufacturing remaining distant from other exploiters and victims. Some victims also remaining incapable to access individual personal protective equipment (PPE) including hand sanitizers and masks.

The victims are also abandoned without the means of basic survival and facing more challenges and violence. Caparini (2014) mentioned, traffickers have lost profits due to closing of factories, brothels, farms and the street victims. Contrarily, few victims are suffered from long time confinement within the destined countries, cities, factories, constructions sites, and private homes. Major portion of the trafficking victims suffered from long time confinement in shelters near of the national borders. In few regions victims are confined more than months without any idea of their whereabouts. Similar to a huge portion of the world, the trafficking victims also lost their livelihood during the pandemic situation. Victims are also remaining at increased risk due to the covid-19 pandemic for certain reasons. Firstly, the barriers of proper access to services and healthcare facilities due to lack of documents of their identity or the freedom movement. Secondly, lack of access to preventive measures of covid-19 including the data as well as personal protective equipment. Third reason is remaining more likely to gain the pre-existing health requirements hence remaining under the threat of different illness. Widespread closure and lockdowns are enhancing the intensity of exploitation for the confined people.

Andrevski & Lyneham (2014) mentioned, covid-19 affected different people in different ways. It is depended on the pre-existing psychological or physiological difference, socio-economic inequalities, socio-economic condition, cultural norms and gender identities. The following factors are closely linked with increased threat of trafficking during the covid-19 situation including – people existing in the setting of humanitarian emergency, people living with poor employment chances or economic condition, children with limited access to education, disabled people, people with learning difficulties, people with mental health problems, people with alcohol addiction, separated children, migrants, refugees, stateless or asylum seekers, migrant employees, gender and sexual minorities, religious and ethnic minority group, children and women (Jorge et al., 2021). Covid-19 increased the challenges for the frontline organizations in different ways. Stakeholders mentioned that limited financial sources for the NGOs increased challenges to provide protection to the vulnerable community and avoid the issue of trafficking during the pandemic situation. NGOs are also facing the impact of increased costs to support the vulnerable persons and arranging quarantine accommodation, PPE kit, tests for Covid-19, purchasing internet or tables to provide different services to the population.

Impact of COVID-19 on Human Trafficking

Different frontline organisation containing plans to continue taking initiatives of anti-trafficking activities during the pandemic situation. lack of proper Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) leading to the State agency for coordinating different responses of pandemic. In different countries and regions the law enforcement staffs arranged for different support in response to the covid-19 situation. Police department and the investigation department arranged for different anti-trafficking responses assigned from the national-level effort. It is mainly focused to address the covid-19 breaches including non-compliant business and evaluating the physical movement breaking the rules of lockdown and curfews. Few regions as well as countries also experienced anti-trafficking enforcement activities during this pandemic situation. Apart from the law enforcement, judiciary, prosecution and NGO services, the victims and staffs have experienced enhanced workloads. It also increased the demand for reducing and assisting the capacity of the staffs to mitigate the demands of assistance (Chandra, Gupta & Agarwal, 2020). Due to the emergency period, the government has altered the procedure of the court and unwanted delays in administrative and civil cases. Particularly these delays developed crucial backlogs among persons and negatively increased the rate of trafficking and sufferings of the victims during the pandemic situation.

Goździak et al., (2015) mentioned, the main impact on the judiciary receiving the orders of suspensions during the pandemic situation. Despite the functionality of the courts there are certain challenges observed in the judiciary system including witnessing as well as defendants for not being able for travelling to the court due to different restrictions on movement. Hearings and remote trails are not possible in different regions and technology is still trying to mitigate these issues in the rural regions where the rate of trafficking is comparatively high. The reason behind considering the rural areas comparatively high as the training and preventive activities altered into online procedure. However, the covid-19 situation is increasing the mechanism of e-justice mechanism within the judiciary system.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it can be said that, the covid-19 pandemic situation is hovering over the head of every individual entity living in this world. Human trafficking is remaining a significant domain in criminal activities in both the developing and developed countries. The pandemic situation introduced new normal regulations on human activities including basic movement and professional activities. The traffickers are also implementing new business model to support the new normal situation. Due to the restrictions on human movement, the important vehicles are not inspected thoroughly. Victims are remaining confined in both the national and international borders for months. The victims are also not getting covid reducing accessibilities and other services in the society. Moreover, the covid-19 pandemic has intensified the impact of human trafficking both in developing and developed countries.

Adaptation of Traffickers and Victims to the New Normal

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