Handbook of Research on Present and Future Paradigms in Human Trafficking

Human trafficking today is a global phenomenon affecting men, women, and children globally. Truly, it paints a picture of widespread human misery, which the dynamics are constantly evolving and its range of perspectives unimaginable. Although human trafficking has gained unprecedented national and international attention and condemnation over the past decade, the legal framework and instruments developed to combat this phenomenon have thus far proved insufficient. Trafficking takes place both within and across national boundaries.

Over the past years, at least 700,000, and possibly as many as four million men, women, and children worldwide were bought, sold, transported, and held against their will in slave-like conditions. In this modern form of slavery, known as 'trafficking in persons,' traffickers use threats, intimidation and violence to force victims to engage in sex acts or to labor under conditions comparable to slavery for the traffickers' financial gain. As an international enterprise, most of the literature on human trafficking discusses the actual practice of force, fraud, and coercion used by traffickers to relocate individuals and make them work against their will.

Available statistics are dependent upon a variety of sources, methodologies and definitions. Given its characteristics as an underground activity, its consequences are also hidden, and adequate indicators are yet to be developed that will allow the anti-trafficking community to successfully measure the impact of this crime. As a criminal act, the scope of the problem has been exacerbated through globalization and the focus of combating the phenomenon has become both political and social with the facts and risks involved in the illegal industry being public more than ever before. It is impossible to reach a consensus on the true scale of the problem. Regardless of the figures trafficked, every number represents a human life destroyed and none of us can claim to be wholly unaffected by this crime.

The main objective of this book will be that of contributing to knowledge. Additionally, this volume will seek to present a comprehensive view of what constitutes the underpinnings of human trafficking, the means of combating it, its moral implications and proffer possible solutions toward curbing its excesses. The book will seek to present a view of the many facets and the complex nature of human trafficking as a controversial phenomenon that is influencing every dimension of our (economic, political, social, cultural, religious) life.

This book will serve as a well-informed instrument to instruct, inform and advise its readers on the nature, origin and various dimensions of unethical conduct in the practice of human trafficking. Of immense importance is the fact that the concept of human trafficking undergirds our existential endeavors. One of the book's basic contributions will lie precisely in how these ethical problems and challenges will be tackled. The book will make great effort, without diminishing the rigor, to offer clear views about the major ethical challenges of human trafficking in our contemporary society and offer tangible and comprehensible proposals for dealing with some of these issues. It is expected that readers will be well informed, educated and enlightened on the dynamics of human trafficking in the society.