Understanding Human Trafficking and Its Health Impacts
The exploitation of a person by force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of forced labor or a commercial sex act is known as human trafficking, sometimes called contemporary slavery. It operates in almost every nation on earth, impacts all demographics, and generates an estimated $150 billion in illegal earnings for human traffickers worldwide.
It is commonly acknowledged that human trafficking, especially when it facilitates sexual and labor exploitation, is an severe human rights abuse that has a wide range of significant effects on people's social, psychological, and physical health all over the world. Negative health effects are common because human trafficking entails abuse and exploitation, particularly of severely vulnerable groups. In a 2003 study including primarily Eastern European women who had been trafficked to Western Europe for commercial sexual exploitation, Zimmerman and colleagues provided the first thorough report on this impact.
The research detailed the many forms of physical, sexual, emotional, and psychological abuse that victims of human trafficking endure, in addition to the numerous detrimental health effects that can arise from the experience, including physical and occupational injuries, sexual adverse health effects that could arise from the experience of human trafficking include physical and occupational injuries, problems with mental health and substance misuse, and sexual and reproductive health conditions including HIV/AIDS.
Forms of Abuse Endured by Victims of Human Trafficking
| Type of Abuse | Description |
| Physical Abuse | Beatings, denial of medical care, physical restraints |
| Sexual Abuse | Rape, forced prostitution, sexual assault |
| Emotional Abuse | Threats, humiliation, manipulation |
| Psychological Abuse | Intimidation, isolation, coercive control |
Since then, additional research has strengthened our knowledge of the negative effects of human trafficking on health. Since sexual exploitation accounts for the bulk of trafficking cases that are diagnosed, the first set of studies concentrated on the dangers of HIV and other STDs. In a study of South Asian brothel-based sex workers, Sarkar and colleagues found that abuse was linked to a higher risk of HIV and that trafficked sex workers endured greater abuse than non-trafficked sex workers. Similarly, the odds of HIV infection were considerably greater for women who had been forced into prostitution for a longer time than for those who were trafficked at a younger age (<14 vs. 18C) among trafficked women getting post-trafficking care in Nepal.
We acknowledge that more study has to be done to advance our scientific understanding of the various detrimental and long-lasting health effects that human trafficking causes. We see this collection as a crucial step in accomplishing that objective and as a rallying cry for scholars, activists, and decision-makers to unite in addressing the heinous human rights abuses associated with this worldwide public health emergency.