Efforts to address push factors must recognize the two dimensions within those factors: that of survival and that of aspiration. For those women and children aspiring to a better life and lured into trafficking through deception, education programs to explain the risks and realities of trafficking may be effective.
However, where these socio-economic factors represent a direct threat to survival of the
individual, such educational efforts will not suffice. The state must
develop programs to rectify these conditions in order to give the at-risk
individual a viable alternative to being trafficked. One needs targeted
job programs, educational and job training programs, and social support
programs along with a larger effort to combat discrimination.
II. The Law
Brazil's recent efforts to reform the law on trafficking
represent important advances, expanding the coverage of the law to
cover a wider range of potential victims and the type of trafficking
involved. Nonetheless, it continues to address the problem of
trafficking in a piecemeal manner.
Moreover, as currently drafted, the law potentially creates a situation of psycho-social harm through the
treatment of the trafficked person as the secondary object of the law
as simply a victim rather than focusing upon the human rights of the
individual involved.
Recommendations
Brazil should adopt a new law on trafficking that adopts a
clear and coherent approach to the problem.
It should include the following essential features:
Rights Based Approach The law should conceptualize
trafficking as a violation of human rights so that the trafficked person
becomes a primary object of the law. This facilitates the larger
understanding that the state not only must seek to punish the trafficker,
but also that the state has ongoing obligations to the subject of
trafficking in terms of protection and rehabilitation.
Protected Class The law should protect all individuals from
vulnerable classes within society (i.e. those subject to severe
discrimination). The law must continue to reject consent as a defense
against trafficking. Moreover, categorization of a victim as coming
from a vulnerable class (not just children and adolescents) should be
deemed prima facie evidence of coercion or violence (insofar as
coercion or violence may be a required element of the crime in
internationally based actions).
Comprehensive Prohibition Since the harm to the individual
does not vary, the law should reject the current distinction between
domestic and international trafficking.
Purposes of Trafficking
The line between trafficking for
purposes of sexual exploitation and trafficking for purposes of forced
labor or involuntary servitude is not necessarily clear. There are
indications that the two may operate in tandem and that vulnerable
groups (particularly women) are often sexually abused while being held
in positions of domestic service. The law should address both problems
allowing prosecutors greater freedom in terms of their prosecution
strategies.