Abstract: The article focuses on the analysis of recent episodes concerning slavery-like practices and human trafficking reports throughout the world. The problem seems particularly crucial in North America and in Western Europe where the flow of illegal migrants is directed and where these inhumane practices are starting to spread. After a brief summary of the international covenants concerning the abolition of slavery and its ethical aspects, a sociological explanation of the growth of this phenomenon will be proposed. Besides the obvious economical benefits of disposing of low-wage workers in a highly competitive environment, it is also important to understand the “social functions” of slavery today. The structuring of modern society, with highly educated and motivated individuals, well aware of their rights and expectations, is the result of a long and tormented historical evolution. Yet, modern society is also fragile and full of contradictions. Social stability and cohesion are based upon a hierarchical organization in which some individuals or groups occupy the lowest levels of the social scale. Today, this position is covered by the “new slaves”. Seen in this perspective, their role appears to be both “necessary” and “compulsory” in stimulating cultural and social unity and in developing personal and group identities.

• Curriculum Vitae: Born in Tokyo (Japan) in April 1966, the Author is Graduated at the University of Rome “La Sapienza” (Italy) in Law, Political Science and Sociology, and holds an MBA degree from the Newport University of California (U.S.A.) and a M.Phil. in “International Criminal Law and Economics” by the St. George University of Oxford, England. Currently a junior manager at the Bank of Italy in Rome (Via Nazionale, 91 – 00187 Rome, e-mail: tiziana.luise@bancaditalia.it).

The views expressed herein are personal and do not reflect, neither directly nor indirectly, those of the Bank of Italy

“Are Human Rights Becoming Burdensome For Our Economies?”

The role of slavery-like practices in the development of world economics and in the context of modern society

by Tiziana Luise

“It is profoundly troubling that the problem of slavery continues into the new millenium. While we discuss this problem using such terms as trafficking and worker exploitation, we should make no mistake about it – we are talking about slavery in its modern manifestations. While some of the schemes and practices employed by traffickers reflect the sophistication of modern world, others are basic and barbarian. Regardless of how sophisticated or simple trafficking enterprises may be, at the bottom they all deny the essential humanity of the victims and turn them into objects for profit” ¹.

With these staggering words the U.S. Department of Justice has addressed the issue of the new forms of slavery that can be witnessed today in some not-so-far country or even in some neighborhoods of our cities.

1. The abolition of slavery: moral stands and international covenants.

The stereotypical forms of slavery that characterized the past centuries are no more visible. There is no such law that clearly states that slavery is legal.

This, however, doesn’t mean that slavery has been confined to history books. In many places there are still persons who are considered property of others. Moreover, there are thousands of human beings that still think of themselves as slaves.

Slavery has existed in human history since the beginning of time. It was common practice in Ancient Greece and in the Roman Empire and it was an integral part of many societies worldwide. Moral concerns however started to emerge with the rise of Christianity². Maybe the first denunciation of slavery is found in Pope John VIII’s exhortation (873 A.D) to free the slaves bought from the Greeks in order to “receive gain not from men, but from the Lord Jesus Christ Himself”. More than fifty years before the “discovery” of the New World, Pope Eugene IV censured the enslavement of the inhabitants of the Canary Islands in the bull Sicut Dudum (1435), which followed, after the encounter with the people of the West and South Indies, by Pope Paul III’s writing Sublimis Deus (1537). While the Europeans began enslaving Africans as a cheap source of labor, the Holy Office of the Inquisition pronounced itself against the practice of enslavement and endorsed slaveholders to emancipate and compensate them for the unjust treatment (1686). Papal condemnation of slavery continued throughout the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries³. Pope Gregory XVI, in the bull In Supremo (1839) wrote “We, by apostolic authority, warn and strongly exhort…that no one in the future dare to bother unjustly, despoil of their possessions, or reduce to slavery Indians, Blacks or other such peoples”. Later on, slavery was harshly censured in Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891) in which any legitimate excuse for slavery was denied, while the Second Vatican Council (1965) clearly and definitely stated that “Whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery… the selling of women and children as well as disgraceful working conditions, where men are treated as mere tools for profit..; all these things and others of their like…are a supreme dishonor to the Creator. Human institutions…should be bulwarks against any kind of political or social slavery and guardians of basic rights under any kind of government”.

The Catholic Church was yet not alone in this battle. Starting from 1683 many Protestant congregations in the United States began to objected fiercely to slavery. The first stance against the buying and selling of human beings was carried out by the Mennonites and Quakers, soon followed by the Methodists and Baptists.

The moral standing against slavery was enhanced, in the international arena, by a consistent number of provisions, declarations, covenants, mutual understandings subscribed by the States in over two centuries.

The first international instrument to condemn slavery was the “Declaration Relative to the Universal Abolition of the Slave Trade” dated 1815. It provided the foundation in international law for condemning slavery and the framework for future anti-slavery treaties. In roughly 200 years the number of agreements, both bilateral and multilateral, containing provisions prohibiting slavery and similar practices has risen to 300 documents. None of them though has fully reached its stated purpose.

In modern times, the League of Nations has attempted to draw back the phenomenon by defining exactly what was meant by slavery: “the status or condition of a person over whom any or all the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised” (art. 1 of the Slavery Convention of 1926). Art. 5 of the same document also gave a definition of forced labor and invited the States parties to “prevent compulsory of forced labor from developing into conditions analogous to slavery”. The Convention declared slavery a “crime against humanity” and the slave trader hostis humani generis, an enemy of all humankind, over whom any State could hold criminal jurisdiction. Yet, since the beginning of the abolition process, the definition of slavery has in no way been a simple matter. There is a twofold explanation for this: first, there are different opinions on what practices must be categorized as slavery and thus condemned, secondly, there has been no agreement on the practical measures that the States should adopt in order to eliminate this practice. After several international agreements these difficulties have only partially been solved. But they have not been completely eliminated.

Following the Second World War, the United Nations continued working towards the abolition of slavery and as a result it is a well-established principle of international law that the “prohibition against slavery and slavery-related practices have achieved the level of customary international law and have attained ‘jus cogens’ status”.⁴

Thirty years after the first intervention of the League of Nations on slavery, in 1956 the U.N. adopted the “Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery”, which extended the number of cases and introduced the more extensive and flexible concept of “servile status” : debt bondage, serfdom, forcing or sale of a woman into marriage, sale of children into labor etc.

The legal condemnation contained in the 1926 and 1956 official documents was latter followed by other multilateral agreements: the International Bill of Human Rights⁵, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998) and, more recently, the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (2000). The latter document contains the broadest definition of trafficking in persons “for the purpose of exploitation” and includes “the prostitution of others, or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs” and is set to be the leading document for targeting modern forms of human trafficking.

None of the oldest international agreements though contain a specific implementation mechanism that compel member States to account for measures adopted (and therefore progresses made) in the process of abolition of slavery. Nor is there a treaty body to which they have to report to on a regular basis.

In order to overcome the lack of a monitoring system, the ILO (International Labor Organization) has since its foundation sought to enhance the reporting mechanism arranged for its conventions by indicating standard procedures that can also be functional to other international agreements. Thus, in 1998, the ILO adopted the Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work and Follow-Up which imposes on “all Members…an obligation, arising from the very fact of membership in the Organization, to respect, to promote and to realize…the principles concerning the fundamental rights which are the subject of those Conventions”, namely: freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining; elimination of all forms of forced or compulsory labor; abolition of child labor; elimination of all kind of discriminations in respect of employment and occupation. The exchange of information between the UN human rights bodies, Governments and non-governmental organizations has increased considerably in recent years. It is now part of the procedures adopted by the Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery⁶, the Suppression of Traffic Convention, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women., to the Court of International Justice has been granted jurisdiction over the interpretation and the application of the Slavery Convention (art. 8) ⁷.

The work towards the end of slavery is nonetheless far from being over. According to Anti-Slavery International, there are roughly over 200 million human beings reduced to slavery. If we consider that, according to historians, the number of Africans brought as slaves in the United States was barely over 12 million in the course of four centuries, we can get an idea of how widespread this practice is. Besides, it is indeed shocking to know that slavery remains among the largest single source of labor in the world. There are more slaves than the entire workforce of North America and Western Europe put together.

Today, however, no one of these slaves are legally classified as such. Their condition is that of free individuals, hired on the basis of a working contract and, supposedly, free of coming and going as they wish. Officially, the master can seek no help from the courts or from the police if a slave runs away, but this doesn’t mean that the conditions of the slaves today are better than those in the past.

2. Economic Slavery.

The victims of these modern forms of slavery have lost their freedom and are forced to work in a very harsh environment. They live in extremely poor conditions and have few, if not any, way of protecting themselves, both psychologically and physically, against all forms of abuse. The stories of the women who have run off from such experiences of domestic slavery are self-explanatory. Many tell of physical and psychological abuses, lack of sleep, humiliations, loss of personal dignity and other forms of harassment. Such testimonies are common among the 1,200,000 migrants who work for the rich families of the Persian Gulf.

The Commission for Filipino Migrant Workers, an organization based in London, has conducted a survey in 1992 interviewing 247 persons (mostly female) that have worked as domestic collaborators. All of them, after quitting work, asked for the help of the Commission to obtain psychological, financial and legal aid. About 89% declared they had been victims of psychological abuses (ex. threats, insults, verbal offenses etc), while 31% underwent physical abuses (ex. beating, kicking etc). Another 8,6% had been raped or was victim of sexual assaults. Their living conditions were not any better: about 61% of them did not receive food regularly or was forced to eat leftovers; 50% did not have a bed or a room of their own and were forced to sleep in corridors or in kitchens; 26% was not free of leaving the house or to go outside alone, while 85% had been deprived of their passport and 74% did not receive their pay regularly or wasn’t paid at all.

The abuses reserved to children and youths in many parts of the world, by their families or by other adults, are also very common. According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), of the 250 million youngsters who are “economically active”, about half of them work full time and at least one third of them work in dangerous or unhealthy conditions. Most of these working children, if they live enough to became adults, will suffer, for the rest of their lives, of different sicknesses, fractures, injuries, amputations and psychological traumas. Most part of these children are employed in conditions that cannot be defined of voluntary activity: they receive very low wages or nothing at all and they have no freedom in scheduling their daily tasks. Many are forced to work hard, well over their physical capacity, even 18 hours a day, without ever seeing the daylight and without the freedom of movement or of expression.

It is the children that are employed in factories and services that run the worst dangers, and live in slave-like conditions. Many hundreds of thousands of youngsters work, for example, in the production of glass around the city of Ferouzabad in India. In these overheated laboratories, children carry the incandescent glasses using iron sticks and walking, barefoot, on floors scattered with hot glass-shrapnels.

Another two to three million youngsters work for the brick factories in India and Pakistan. They have no shelter from the burning sun and from the sharp winters, while the air they breath is dense with quartz dust which makes them sick with silicosis or determines eye problems and even blindness.

Herds of other little slaves can be found in factories in the Philippines, for example in the sardine manufacturing firms, where they work surrounded by barbed wire and under the supervision of armed guards.

A good proportion of laborers in the clandestine textile factories in Thailand, in the carpet industries in the Indian sub-continent and in the charcoal extraction mines in Brazil is constituted by youngsters.

In remote regions of the Amazon jungle, children and adults are engaged for cleaning up the residues of mining industries and for cooling the furnaces. They live far from cities, schools, hospitals and are continuously controlled by armed forces. Hundreds of others participate in the extraction of gold from the sands in Peru. Again many of them suffer from malaria, caused by the insect bites and from the poor hygienic conditions.

The full employment of the adult labor force is not a reason for the use of children. In most cases, while the younger ones are being exploited, the adults remain unemployed. The preference for children has therefore to be found elsewhere. According to the International Labor Organization the higher agility of a child’s fingers, particularly important in the manufacturing of carpets and of electronic equipment is not sufficient to explain such a choice. The ILO has carried out a research work among 2,000 firms for the production of carpets and has found out that children are, on average, not quicker than adults and that, in most cases, for the weaving of the more valuable carpets adults are preferred. The true reason for choosing children, is that children can be paid less than adults and are much more submissive. Children are easier to manage, because they are less aware of their rights, they create fewer problems, are more obedient and trustworthy and, especially, there are fewer probabilities for them to decide to skip work. In fact, few persons know that the increase in the employment of children in the growing Indian carpet industry is due to another reason: the prohibition of child labor established by the Shah of Persia in the early ‘70s. This decision caused the heightening of the price of Persian carpets which are now produced by adult laborers whose wages are higher than those of children. The Western importers, faced with the dilemma to continue to import Persian rugs and increase their market prices (consequently determining a reduction of the profits and of the market dimension) or to produce elsewhere the “Persian” carpets have opted for the second solution. Therefore the production of carpets was transferred in countries, such as India and Pakistan, where it was possible to find cheap laborers, especially children and slaves.

Frequently, the new-slaves are eradicated from their original environment and from their families in order to give their masters the opportunity of forging them more easily and to subjugate them completely. This is particularly true for domestic servants, in most cases girls, who are not allowed to keep their name and who lack even limited amount of intimacy and free movement.

About 10% of the 900,000 children engaged in the manufacturing industry in India, Pakistan and Nepal is estimated to have been kidnapped by specialized groups and sold to unscrupulous entrepreneurs. More than half of these children are sold by their parents to intermediaries that travel through the remotest and poorest regions of those countries with the false promise of an education and well-being for the youngsters. The others are put to work by their parents to repay a loan granted to the family or one that has been inherited from the ancestors.

Once a person falls victim of debt-slavery, he or she looses completely the control over his or her life and has to work for the master, even if the tasks are different from the ones that have been contractually agreed upon.

The mechanism which results in debt-slavery is always the same and its pattern is extraordinarily similar throughout the world: a wage or a loan is anticipated and the debtor has to work for his or her creditor until the sum is entirely repaid. At this point, the trap is activated: the working pattern is organized in such a way that the full repayment of the lone is impossible. The remuneration is very low and the initial sum gets bigger and bigger because of the expenses the lender says to support in order to maintain the worker and provide him with the working tools. The debt tends also to rise because there are “fines” that are charged for every mistake or violation committed by the debtor. The interest rates, in some cases, can reach an annual basis of 400%.

The debt-system is clearly a scam. What the creditor is really interested in is not to be repaid of the money that he has lended, but to gain the possibility of exploiting a person and his or her family for an indefinite period of time.

Debt-slavery has been, for many years, hidden from the eyes of most. Its monetary character has concealed its true nature and has given it a false legitimacy. Even the victims have failed to understand that these agreements were traps meant to enslave them. In no way can they be considered as freely and voluntarily subscribed.

It is this ambiguity that makes it all the more difficult to eradicate the contemporary forms of slavery. Ambiguity becomes the mask under which trickery and violence are hidden.

In the absence of laws stating the legitimacy of slavery, more subtle forms of constraints are adopted.

The general condemnation of slavery and, therefore, the lack of legislative rules to discipline it are in fact worsening the conditions of the new-slaves. While in the past their social position was clear and they were granted, although indirectly, some form of protection, nowadays the slaves are completely abandoned to themselves. The lack of legal discipline, however, has not abolished slavery itself.

In many contexts, in the past, slaves were regarded as very valuable possessions and, therefore, were treated comparatively better than the way they are today. At the present time, for instance, the rights of property over slaves are much less binding and clear. Slaves can be purchased with a minimum cost when they are needed or are physically apt for work. In case of sickness, accident or old age they receive no protection whatsoever. In fact, because they cannot be regarded as “productive means”, they are not seen as a long term investment. Slaves are acquirable when needed, and their offer is always high. They are exchangeable, dischargeable, free from other costs such as food, education or professional training.

In other circumstances, it is the labor of these slave-like workers that is brought to the West.

The demand for slaves is particularly high in those economies in which capitalism is expanding without burdens or controls and where it is possible to pay laborers the lowest possible wages.

The growth of slavery is parallel to the expansion of market economy.

The poor life conditions in which millions of individuals live in Asia, Africa and South America influence directly our economies more than we usually think. The global market does not allow profit-producing business to be left unattended.

Stricter regulations concerning the entrance of immigrant workers in the industrialized countries have given new life to a long-forgotten agreement: the indentured labor. This is true for both the regular and the illegal migrants.

A few years as indentured worker is in most cases the price that one has to pay in order to enter clandestinely North America or Western Europe. The debt-mechanism is enacted to make thousands of migrants work hard in sweatshops to repay the money they have borrowed for the trip.

Most of the victims of this system are Chinese that, because of geographical reasons, are forced to travel thousands of miles and have to cross numerous borders. The total expenditure for their journey is around $30,000 – $90,000. According to most recent inquiries, the organizers of the trafficking in human beings maintain for many years a strict control over the illegal migrants, forcing them to work in restaurants and factories, or in the criminal markets (ex. drugs, weapons and sex).

Besides, many goods produced by slave-like work are exported to the industrialized countries (ex. carpets from central Asia; gold and other minerals from Brazil; cloths from China). Even in the case of goods that remain in the domestic markets, the close ties with the world economy do not loosen. The expansion of the market economy dismantles the traditional barriers and the long isolation, creating new opportunities for slavery-like practices to develop. This is true for the demand of slavery, but also for what we may call the “offer” of slaves. More complicated is the analysis concerning the impact of market economy on the demand of slave-type working conditions. Some of today’s slaves are forced to work in these environments. In most cases, however, the reduction into slavery is a more subtle proceeding. It starts with a relationship apparently based on a voluntary agreement, in which one part is desperately in need of money.

The market economy plays a fundamental role in this second kind of procedure: farmers that were once self-sufficient, are now forced to produce more goods to sell on the market or to earn money to buy goods for their own surviving. Many are compelled to leave their houses in the country and start crowding the city limits, were they become cheap labor force. Others decide to leave intentionally the agricultural work, tempted by the new opportunities offered by modern society. In these cases, the intent is that of reaching bigger cities in their country, or abroad, in order to acquire enough economical resources to buy the goods which the market offers.

The strong impulse towards a growing industrialization of the Indian economy, for example, has produced deep impacts on both sides of the bonded labor relationship and has made possible the rapid expansion of market economy in the sub-continent. Nurtured by an increasing number of agricultural workers and artisans entering the labor force market in search of a salary, debt-servitude was the main instrument which allowed the creation of new pre-capitalist factories. It has also constituted a basic reservoir for low wage workers that has made these firms competitive worldwide.

It is possible that, in the long term, this phenomenon will produce general, positive effects. After all, the Industrial Revolution in Europe and North America has worsened the living conditions of the first factory workers, but it has also given rise to modern society.

It is still difficult to forecast what effects the globalization of the market economy will produce in such underdeveloped areas. The only certain prospect is that the transitional period is going to give many opportunities of exploitation to those who are in the position to gain profits from it …. and these opportunities are entrapping millions of individuals all over the world! The global mechanism of production and consumption encompasses and circulates the goods produced by these slaves. There is no clear distinction between legal and illegal economy. When the goods reach the market they can be automatically sold or bought, transported or employed.

In some cases, slavery-like working conditions are encouraged to attract Westerners in the poor countries. Similar policies can be found especially in the sex business in which millions of women and children are employed.

The progress of the market forces is also clearly visible in the incredible rate of growth of domestic servants (mostly women). This kind of work is the first step towards city lifestyle for many unskilled migrants, most of which are constituted by women. The demand for domestic servants, on the other hand, is the result of the persistence of traditional habits or the consequence of modern sociological and economical transformations. Some of the women are employed in families that, because of their social status or because of the low cost of labor, are accustomed to having many servants for their satisfaction. Others are taking the place of those women who, after the process of emancipation or because of high financial expectations, have found work away from home and need someone to do the domestic chores and look after the children and the elderly.

A typical example of this is given by the States of the Persian Gulf that we have already mentioned. According to many humanitarian associations the working relationship that goes on in these countries is, in many cases, based upon slavery. The evolution of such a market is deeply connected to the expansion of global economics. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates suffer from a labor shortage since the discovery of the first oil fields in the early ‘30s. Since most of these countries were a British protectorate, thousands of Indians were brought in Saudi Arabia and in Bahrain in order to consent the development of the oil industry. In the course of the ‘50s and 60’s the States of the Gulf, one after the other, became independent and started to import labor force especially from the neighboring middle-eastern countries. In the ‘70s, however, they decided to diversify the origins of these workers and allowed the entrance of thousands of migrants from South-East Asia. The latter, in fact, were cheaper than the middle-eastern, had less requests and offered a diversified professional ability. New workers, attracted by the promise of high wages, started to come from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, South Korea and the Philippines, and later, from Thailand, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. The oil shock of 1973 caused a rise in the living standards in the Gulf nations and this determined an increase in the demand of laborers. Meanwhile, the oil price increases also brought a worsening in the living conditions of the migrants and increased the difficulties for the balance of payment sheet of their countries of origin. The export of workers from the countries of South-East Asia towards the Persian Gulf seemed the best solution for both sides: the poorer nations acquired financial inflows from the immigrant workers money transfers, while the Gulf states were able to resolve their chronic lack of laborers. The situation did not undergo substantial changes in the ‘80s and ‘90s, even though the oil price was suffering from a worsening of its general level. In fact, the major request of domestic female workers is not only favored by the rise of social and economical status, but also by the decline of the family dimensions and the number of its female components. Therefore, it becomes necessary to find, on the market, the persons that can replace and attend the domestic tasks that once were left to the women. In general, more than 20% of the migrants in the Gulf region is formed by domestic laborers. This is the highest percentage of female workers in the area. In the course of these years, the country of origins of the migrants have grown more and more dependent on the money transfers of the migrants towards their family members at home. But they are not the only ones who take advantage of this financial flow: the migrants’ remittances are also paying for the debt of the Third World countries. The flow of money that the migrants are able to send to their country is, thus, a breath of fresh air for their strained economic situation. Only a small amount of it, however, transits through the official channels: as it is commonly done in other ethnic groups, many prefer to use informal ways, such as friends or private couriers, to send money to their families back home. Therefore, the countries of the Persian Gulf and those of South-East Asia found to have convergent interests. In such circumstances the lamented difficulties that the migrants suffer, and are still enduring, in the Arab countries have fallen on deaf ears. In the second half of the ‘90s however these violations have started to obtain public attention. During the Iraky occupation of Kuwait, embassies were stormed by “guest workers”, mostly women, desperately trying to escape from the host country. The charges moved by humanitarian associations towards the slavery-like conditions in which many migrants live and the growing rate of human rights violations have forced the Arab governments to adopt stricter rules concerning the hiring and the treatment of these workers.

3. Trafficking in human beings. A “sociological” explanation.

Only recently has the illicit trafficking in people through illegal migration become a matter of priority for governments and international institutions. The trafficking in human beings is one of the foremost issues in the area of crime control. This criminal phenomenon is connected to the never-ending demand for alien workers from developing countries and with the expanding supply of illegal migrants provided by criminal organizations.

The criminalization of the trafficking of aliens has long been lacking. Numerous countries have only recently started to adopt specific measures to combat this phenomenon. In Europe, a variety of offenses are criminally punished within the context of the trafficking in migrants: traffic in migrants per se, the aiding, abetting, transporting and harboring of migrants, illegal entry, the forgery and use of fraudulent documents, illegal employment. Sanctions in Europe, however, are not homogeneous. They vary significantly from country to country: from the payment of a fine to the imprisonment for one, two or more years. As far as Eastern European countries are concerned, not all of them have provisions governing alien trafficking and often, although sanctions exist, they are weak and rarely enforced.

According to a State Department report (July 2001), about 23 countries are not making significant efforts to combat this problem. Among them are: Albania, Bahrain, Greece, Israel, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates.

In the last few years many non-governmental organizations have published data and estimates regarding slavery.

We now have a rough idea of the amount of trafficking that goes on, of the smuggling routes, of the identities of the traffickers, and of the characteristics of the trafficked people.

The trafficking in aliens has a twofold explanation: one connected to the expansion of the illicit market, the other closely related to the interests of legal economy.

The analysis of the links between migration and crime in Europe reveals the existence of a ‘circuit’ which connects illegal entry in a country with the high rate of foreign offenders in the European area.

The ‘circuit’ starts with the transporting of illegal aliens to the rich countries and ends with their exploitation by the trafficking groups. The demand for illegal migration is increasing because of the combination of increased push-factors and political entry restrictions imposed by the industrialized States. As a consequence, the opportunities for criminals to organize the supply of illegal migration are on the increase. The more criminal organizations intervene in the management of illegal migration, and make it one of their stable activities, the more synergies they find to exploit illegal migrants once they have reached their destinations. In the host countries, illegal aliens are put to work in the local drugs and prostitution markets, or in other criminal activities linked with or dependent upon the main criminal operations of the trafficking organizations (such as the production of fake or forged documents). To sum up, the outcome is that more demand produces more illegal trafficking, and this, in turn, produces more exploitation and more crime at the local level. As an indirect consequence, xenophobic reactions may be set off.

The modus operandi of these international criminal networks for migrant trafficking can be divided into three phases. The first consists in the recruitment of people who want to leave their countries in search of better living conditions. The second phase involves transportation to the country of destination by violating the immigration laws of the countries along the migratory route. The final phase is the best organized one and consists in the introduction of the illegal migrant into the parallel criminal circuits. In order to pay their debts, illegal migrants are often forced to join the black market and the informal economic system.

It is also possible to note a sort of vertical interdependence among the crimes committed by these traffickers, an interdependence which is the outcome of specialization: the more the group of traffickers is organized and stable, the more it is able to adopt methods that can give them a lawful appearance.

The employment of these persons in criminal acts is not, however, the main purpose of the trafficking groups. As a matter of fact, their unlawful actions are often a foreword for a much larger and less sanctioned behavior.

The issue of human smuggling in the industrialized countries, and the related problem of their exploitation in the Third World countries, needs to be correctly stated. As a mater of fact, in order to understand thoroughly the problem, it is important to put aside historical and cultural considerations, because today’s slavery has nothing to do with pre-modern institutes. Its genesis and purpose do not belong to the past, but rather to the present. Its roots are social and not only economical.

The use of slave labor enriches not only the economies of the poor countries, but it also boosts up the demand in the rich countries and contributes to their growth⁸.

In economics, the driving force of a “rational” person is that of maximizing his or her utility. This is true for any kind of advantage that a person is able to achieve, be it monetary or social. When a certain goal cannot be pursued individually, groups or coalitions are formed to make it feasible. Particular importance is given to the so called “relational goods”, which are constituted by products that are important for the group itself, but not necessarily for the single member of it (or at least “not as important to as…..”). The consumption of these “goods”, however, becomes a distinguishing feature of the group itself and of the membership to it. Therefore, even though its need may be purely “symbolic”, it becomes a vital issue for the single person.

Empirical evidence shows that there are close ties between how an individual is perceived by the other members of the group and how he or she tends to conform to the values and to the rules of the group. Group belonging, for instance, plays an important role in the building of our social identity. Everyone wants to have a positive image of oneself. But the “identity” of each of us is a combination of our self-image and of our social identity. Therefore, we tend to estimate and overvalue the group we belong to in order to gain a stronger image of ourselves. The more we do this, the more important it becomes for us to be accepted in “that” group. Therefore, it become essential to comply with all the rules and conditions of the group. It is just like in a tennis club: we can become members of it if we can afford to pay the entrance fee and if we continue to act/behave the way we are expected to do. Those who do not belong to our group are perceived as “different” from us, both culturally and socially. In cases of threats or of a possible advantage to be drawn, they can also become perfect “scapegoats”.

Today’s slavery has less to do with historical or ethnical reasons than it has with income and social hierarchy. The migrants/slaves are taking up the less “noble” jobs, thus occupying the lower steps of the social ladder.

The sociological explanation of this phenomenon is that the presence of the newcomers makes the former “proletarians” feel as part of the “newly rich”, and a full time member of the economically advanced countries.

Only by distinguishing ourselves from those who occupy the lowest levels of the social ranks are we able to gain a stronger self image and become a full time citizen in a heavily competitive environment. This brings forward a rise in our individual and social status. And because we live in a society based on the consumption of products and on the acquisition of property, we need these symbols to ensure and testify our belonging to society and to its standards.

The result is that we tend to consider everything as mere a instrument: a useful, but disposable object. Not much different is our consideration of the immigrant workers: they exist as long as they are useful.

In order to enforce our sense of belonging and our self-image, we need to have people, in group or alone, that we can consider as “less” than us. This is a safety valve for our minds and for our social stability. A free zone that allows us to relive our anger, our frustrations, our aggressiveness, our need of control. The social construction of reality tries to respond to our deepest needs of identification and of group belonging. By filling the gaps in the marginal social positions, these newcomers help us gain a stronger social cohesion. While the “value” of the dominant group rises, for example because of a growing prejudice against the migrants, so does the group’s resistance towards them. If we couple this result with the economic advantages that can be achieved and with the fear of a “social alteration” of our living standards by the newcomers, the result is a growing sense of differentiation and of exclusion.

It is not accidental that, while the demand for human rights and better working conditions is growing stronger in the developed countries, we are also witnessing to a multiplication of slavery-like of relationships in many parts of the world.

The illegal activities and services offered by the criminal market can be considered as a “free-zone” in a tightly regulated environment. Such advantages become particularly tempting if they can be positively combined with further economic gains, social acceptance, low chances of legal sanctions.

The concerns for better living conditions, for the progress of democracy and for the advancement of people’s rights has developed strongly in the rich countries, but it has not progressed uniformly. The globalization of economy, in this sense, has not been of much help. As a matter of fact, the number of violations is steadily increasing.

4. Conclusions.

The exploitation of some (i.e. modern slaves) is becoming the price that modern economics is willing to pay in order to boost up its growth. National legislation in the developed countries has become more and more stringent in diminishing working hours, in demanding the respect of certain working conditions, in regulating the main aspects of the relationship between workers and firms. This has helped workers to get better salaries, but it has also increased the price and the bureaucratic load on the owners of the firms. Escaping such burdens has made them gain more profits and staying competitive. Those who act “by the book” risk to be expelled from the market, because while the production costs tend to rise, the profits keep shrinking. Employees are expensive. It’s a lot cheaper to force them to work. In order to obtain greater financial advantages, many entrepreneurs prefer to buy or to produce goods where the labor cost is drastically lower, regardless of “how” this is achieved. Most of the cheap products that invade our markets come from places where people work in very poor hygienic environments and where their labor rights are constantly infringed. Yet, the goods that these people produce enter the globalized markets and constitute a relevant part of it. They enter our markets and lifestyles. They nurture our “social needs” and become tokens of our social identity. If we fail to understand the extent of such interests, we will never be able to determine the true “economic and social value” of the new forms of slavery.

Slavery is perfectly integrated into our globalized market and culture. As a matter of fact, recent studies show that human trafficking is constantly and rapidly growing. According to a U.S. State Department research, as many as one million people are annually enslaved in trafficking. According to to a U.N. report, it is a high profit making business that is worth about $9 billion a year.

The globalization of economy has given rise to the production of goods and services (both legal and illegal) that are offered all over the world. This way, criminals and non criminals are making lots of money at the expense of the new slaves.

The question is: Can we put a stop to this situation? Do we really want to?

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