Immigration Minister Nathan Guy has said that although New Zealand is currently safe from human trafficking, the country is not immune to the menace that has become a thriving profession for criminals and some unscrupulous agents.
In an article that appears in this section, he said that New Zealand is ‘not an easy target’ but admitted that traffickers were active in sending their ‘human cargo’ from Asian countries to far off places including Canada.
Stories of hapless Indians being smuggled into some countries including New Zealand are heart-rending indeed.
Thousands of people fall a prey to agents, consultants and in some cases high profile individuals, who have no qualms in using them for their own self-centred motives.
We often hear from victims saying that they are brought to New Zealand on work visas but left to fend for themselves. Some of them subsist in inhuman conditions, become refugees and are forced to take up professions, to which they would normally not subscribe. We have tales of young women lured into fraudulent marriages ending up in the sex industry.
Our report in this issue also quotes an international organisation (www.humantrafficking.org) saying that New Zealand is a destination for human trafficking.
Human trafficking is not a new phenomenon, nor is it confined to developing or poor countries. It was practiced in ancient times to enslave people and in contemporary times, to ‘export’ or ‘import’ people to work as ‘glorified slaves.’
However, the trafficking of people, the business of trapping them into labour or prostitution by force or deception, has been a fast growing scourge.
According to the US government, almost a million women and children are trafficked every year, half of them from Asia.
Although not very large, a good number of victims are reportedly from India.
An International Organisation for Migration (IOM) report said Vietnamese are sent to Cambodia mainly to supply the sex industry and to Taiwan and China for marriage, while Cambodians shipped to Thailand, Taiwan and Singapore end up as beggars, sex slaves or domestic labour.
India has been a top destination for Nepalese and Bangladeshi women.
In Thailand, the IOM tries to reunite Cambodian families whose children have been “rented” for work or begging for 1,000-1,500 baht (US$23) a month; their parents being strangled by debt or believing their children are well taken care of.
Says the Economist: Those who hope to escape poverty or violence at home and manage to avoid the clutches of traffickers often fall instead into the hands of people-smugglers, who charge them hefty sums of money for a trip to a new country, often in appalling conditions.
“Most illegal migrants now use the services of smugglers, who cash in an estimated US$7 billion a year. Over the past few years, thousands of Iraqis and Afghans have reached Australia in gimcrack boats, for fares ranging from $4,000 to $8,000 a person,” the publication said.
Illegal migration, facilitated by smugglers, is creating political tensions. Malaysia is deporting more and more Indonesian illegal workers, though about one million people are thought to remain in the country.
Australia has been intercepting boats carrying Afghan and Iraqi asylum-seekers, mostly smuggled from Indonesia, and shipping them to Pacific islands to be processed.
Australia has tightened its border regulations, arguing for the need to crack down on human smuggling and to prevent refugees from jumping the queue to get into the country.
Some sources told this newspaper that victims fall broadly into four categories: those coming to work as seasonal labour, those who are advised by some immigration consultants in India to ‘go to New Zealand’ on visit visa, young brides less than half the number received by Belgium—would rather take refugees who apply offshore rather than those showing up uninvited.
As New Zealand tightens its border security, the Government should also look into the racket of people entering the country through fraudulent means, notably as farmers, fruit pickers and students.
It is time to tighten the laws and stop this business of human cargo.
