ACAMS Today | Ending Modern Slavery: The Financial Industry’s Role
By Terri Luttrell, CAMS-Audit, CFCS, Compliance and Engagement Director, Abrigo
Human trafficking—a form of modern slavery—is one of the fastest growing criminal activities in the world. It exploits an estimated 45 million people a year and generates approximately $150 billion in profits. Though the concept of human slavery is certainly not new, some are unaware of the impact and extent of human trafficking in the 21st century, both at home and abroad.
The good news is that the financial industry can play a part in disrupting this heinous crime. With proper education, knowledge of red flags and victim indicators, and by building strong relationships with law enforcement, the financial industry can help disrupt the problem of modern slavery.
Hidden in Plain Sight
According to the Foundation for a Slavery Free World, there are 20 to 30 million slaves in the world today. The Global Slavery Index estimates upwards of 40 million. In the U.S., the statistics are equally jarring. The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence reported that approximately 80 percent of trafficking involves sexual exploitation and 19 percent involves labor exploitation. According to the U.S. State Department, 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders every year, of which 80 percent are female and half are children.
The Action Means Purpose (A-M-P) model on page 19 is helpful in understanding the definition of human trafficking. Yet the extent of the problem remains a bit more difficult to define. “Hidden in plain sight” is a term used in the Department of Homeland Security’s Blue Campaign, an effort that aims to combat human trafficking. This phrase represents the difficulty of spotting human trafficking on the surface.
In a 2015 edition of Frontline, the Public Broadcasting Service illustrated the divergence between reported instances of human trafficking and actual arrests in the U.S. The article noted that in 2014, a federally funded hotline for U.S. trafficking victims received more than 21,000 calls. During that same period, the Department of Justice made only 184 convictions for trafficking, which shows the disparity between reports and arrests.
As former Secretary of State John Kerry said in the 2015 Trafficking In Persons Report,
“Whether we are talking about the sale of women and children by terrorists in the Middle East, the sex trafficking of girls lured from their homes in Central Europe, the exploitation of farm workers in North America, or the enslavement of fishermen in Southeast Asia, the victims of this crime each have a name.”
Each Victim Has a Name
Tenancingo, Mexico is widely considered the sex trafficking capital of the world. It is the single largest source of sex slaves to the U.S. Men who are masters of manipulation kidnap boys and girls as young as 14 years old from Tenancingo’s surrounding villages. They trick, threaten or seduce them into working for the sex trade. Many times these pimps capitalize on the residents’ values by pretending to start a relationship with them, telling them they love them and tricking them into a life of slavery.
Ultimately, the victims find out that they have been lured away from home in a prostitution or labor scheme, getting paid very little for very poor working conditions against their will. “He said the money was to buy land so we could build a little house, but it was all false, even the name he’d given me was false. He made me live a very sad, ugly, desperate life,” one victim told The Guardian in 2015.
However, trafficking is not just contained to communities like these. The problem is happening in our own backyards and even in wealthy neighborhoods and non-border states. Human trafficking affects people of all genders, ages and nationalities — even domestically.
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To see the full article, visit ACAMS Today, “Ending Modern Slavery: The Financial Industry’s Role.”
