Head Chair: Luna Witchey Vice Chair: George Zhou Moderator: Trey Emmet
Position papers will be due on February 5th, 2021. The position paper format, and all other important conference documents, can be found on our conference website, http://lhhsconference.weebly.com/. Email all position papers to our committee email: [email protected] . Feel free to contact us via email if you have any questions or concerns!
Howdy, Delegates!! My name is Luna Witchey and will be your Head Chair this year at LHHS MUN. I am a senior and have done MUN for 4 years. I am on the board of National Honors Society, Red Cross Club, California Scholarship Federation, Kindness Club, and I am the president of the Ballroom Dance Club. I have done Taekwondo for 11 years and teach there. I am an extrovert for sure and love people! I have 2 poodles and 5 snakes. I am excited to see you soon!!
Hey there Delegates! I’m George Zhou and I will be your Vice-Chair this year for the LHHS MUN Conference. I’m a junior and I’ve done MUN for 3 years. I play water polo and swim at LHHS and I’m a member of multiple clubs, and I enjoy hanging out with people for the most part. I hope to see you soon and can’t wait for our conference!
Hello Delegates! My name is Trey Emmett and I will be your Moderator. I am a sophomore at Laguna Hills Highschool and this is my second year of MUN. I play basketball and volleyball at LHHS. I love to surf, spend time with my friends, family, and dog. I am looking forward to seeing you all in committee soon!
Topic: Human Trafficking in Latin America
Background Every year thousands of men, women, and children are trafficked, yet it is hard to target the criminals who commit this terrible crime. Human trafficking is the acquisition of people by improper means such as force, fraud, or deception, with the aim of exploiting them. It is reported that more than 70% of the 600,000-800,000 of annual detected victims of trafficking are women and girls, and about one third of the victims are children according to the UNODC. Nearly every country in the world is affected by trafficking, whether serving as a country of origin, transit, or destination for victims.Migrants are especially vulnerable to human trafficking, especially when moving from South America to North America and from Africa to Europe. The smuggling of migrants is harder to track and is a highly profitable illicit activity and is even defined as a multi billion dollar enterprise. So, smugglers often take advantage of this, along with the fact that many migrants who are in search for a better life, are willing to take risks as legal migration is much less accessible. These smugglers are often part of criminal groups and organized crime networks. In the Americas, Europe, East Asia and the Pacific, sexual exploitation is the main form of exploitation detected, while in the Middle East and the West, East, and Southern Africa, forced labor is the main form of exploitation detected. In South Asia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, forced labor and sexual exploitation are the main form of trafficking detected, while in North Africa, begging and other forms of exploitation are the most detected. Corruption is also part of the cycle in regard to the trafficking of humans since officials are bribed and allow the smuggling to occur. In fact, organized trafficking cannot take place without corruption. There are also many other aspects to the human trafficking issue, and contemporary conflicts have also exacerbated the already terrible situation trafficked persons are in. Latin America currently struggles with human trafficking severely. Latin America is the third largest source for sex trafficking and human trafficking in the world. Around 9% of all trafficked persons are from Latin America. Due to Latin Americas high demand for domestic servants, sex laborers, the pre-existing trafficking networks in Latin America, political corruption, and the lack of opportunity for women, Latin America greatly struggles with this issue. Although neighboring countries such as the United States have attempted to pass policies to combat this issue and also help Latin America, it still deals with this issue and struggles to find ways to combat it. Also taking into consideration the fact that Latin American countries have long histories of civil wars, lack of government regulation, and past violations against human rights, it makes this region an ideal location for human traffickers.
UN Involvement The UN has longed been a combatant of mass human trafficking, creating numerous resolutions in the hopes of addressing the widespread issue. The UN has deemed human trafficking as an urgent issue that needs to be addressed. Its widespread occurrence creates a difficult obstacle that needs to be dealt with systematically. As the only United Nations entity focusing on the criminal justice element of these crimes, the work that UNODC does to combat human trafficking and the smuggling of migrants is underpinned by the United Nations Convention on Transnational Organized Crime and its protocols on trafficking in persons and migrant smuggling. The UNODC and the rest of the UN has, with much effort, created and organized a number of groups, join initiatives, and trusts in hopes of alleviating the effects that human trafficking has, on countries, victims, and all others involved. The General Assembly of the United Nations created The Inter-Agency Coordination Group against Trafficking in Persons(ICAT), a policy forum that helps coordinate international organizations and UN bodies/agencies to coordinate a cooperative effort to address human trafficking act cohesively. The UNODC provides grassroots legal, humanitarian, and financial aid through the Voluntary Trust Fund for Victims of Human Trafficking, allowing for people and organizations the ability to help support all victims of human trafficking. In addition to this, the UN has created the UN Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking which helps spread global knowledge on the topic and create a global resistance against the crime. Beyond this, the United Nations has also enacted and passed numerous resolutions on the topic that have helped, to an extent, reduce the prevalence of human trafficking worldwide. UN resolutions 71/167 addresses the UN’s perspective on human trafficking, in particular women and children, and the actions they deem necessary to address the situation. Other resolutions such as Resolution 2331 and 2338 both address the severity of human trafficking and the significance this problem poses to us to this day. Overall, the UN has stated in clear opposition that human trafficking is a crime of global proportions that harms so many human beings in a multitude of ways and should be one of the many prioritized issues for the UN to address and work towards solving. With the cooperation of states, UN bodies, agencies, international organizations, and non-governmental organizations, the problem of human trafficking can be greatly diminished and one day it may potentially no longer plague the world.
Country Blocs African Group: The African bloc experiences quite a bit of human trafficking due to poverty, conflict, and cultural practices. This human rights violation has not been ratified at the main international conventions outlawing human trafficking by many in the bloc. There have been efforts at international, national, and local levels to combat human trafficking to only limited success.
Asia Pacific Group: ⅔ of human trafficking victims are in Eastern Asia and the pacific. Greater than 85% of the victims were from the region. In 2015 ASEAN adopted the Convention Against Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and children. The Bali process was created in 2002 to be a dialogue for Asia-Pacific countries. Since human trafficking is an inter-national and regional issue they encourage shared information, coordinated policies, and mutual assistance to protect and prosecute.
Latin American and Caribbean Group: The majority of Latin American countries do not fulfill the minimum standard of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA). Only the Bahamas, Columbia, Guyana, Chile,and Puerto Rico have. Most other nations have been shown to be taking action to improve other than Belize and Venezuela. These nations have had minimal anti- trafficking laws and prevention.
Western Bloc: Human trafficking is prohibited by the EU charter of Fundamental Rights. It is also defined as a particularly serious form of organised crime by the TFEU. The EU has created a detailed and gender specific legal framework in Directive 2011/36/EU. This includes victim protection and support as well as prevention and prosecution of the crime. The EMPACT was created to focus on human trafficking in the EU Policy on Organised and Serious International Crime 2014-2017. It includes a multi annual plan to address human trafficking.
Questions to Consider:
Is it the responsibility of other nations to intervene in the human trafficking crimes of another nation?
What can be done as a preventative measure for human trafficking?
What can done to assist and support individuals who have escaped human trafficking?
Is it feasible to address human trafficking unilaterally?
What can be done to bring human trafficking to light?
Works Cited
Anonymous. Trafficking in Human Beings. 6 Dec. 2016, ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/organized-crime-and-human-trafficking/trafficking-in-human-beings_en.
Written by Escrito por Parker Asmann -, et al. Latin America Still Falling Short in Combating Human Trafficking: Report. 10 Sept. 2019, www.insightcrime.org/news/analysis/latin-america-still-falling-short-combating-human-trafficking-report/.