What Causes Trafficking?

In a nutshell, there is a demand for it. Men around the world profit in pleasure and in price from the exploitation of women and children. Poverty and global disparities in the rule of law are conditions in which human trafficking, like HIV/AIDS and other killers of the poor, thrives. In poorer regions of the world where education and employment opportunities are limited the most vulnerable in society -- runaways, refugees, or other displaced persons-- are the most common victims of human trafficking. People who are seeking opportunity and entry to other countries may be picked up by traffickers and misled into thinking that they will be free after being smuggled across the border. In other cases, such as armed conflict, and some trafficked humans are captured through slave raiding.

Trafficking of children often involves exploitation of the parents' extreme poverty. The latter may sell children to traffickers in order to pay off debts or gain income or they may be deceived concerning the prospects of training and a better life for their children. In West Africa, trafficked children have often lost one or both parents to the African AIDS crisis.Reporters have witnessed a rapid increase in prostitution in Cambodia, Bosnia, and Kosovo after UN and, in the case of the latter two, NATO peacekeeping forces moved in. Peacekeeping forces have been linked to trafficking and forced prostitution. Proponents of peacekeeping argue that the actions of a few should not incriminate the many participants in the mission, yet NATO and the UN have come under criticism for not taking the issue of forced prostitution linked to peacekeeping missions seriously enough.