Human trafficking and slavery have become the hot topic in international communities. Many NGOs, community based organizations and international organizations such as International Labor Organization (ILO) including Unite Nation have been trying to tackle the contemporary slavery and human trafficking issue in different regions. However there are still struggles in defining what is the meaning of contemporary slavery and human trafficking. People have difficulties differentiating human trafficking and smuggling. Likewise, although people have knowledge about how historical slavery would be, when it is come to contemporary slavery, they can rarely identify the event they encounter in their daily life.
This paper attempts to explore the nature of contemporary slavery and human trafficking. First, I will define the general definition of contemporary slavery and human trafficking. In this section, I will focus on the relationship between Thailand and Myanmar for the two issues. Then I will discuss about the factors influencing the victims and the perpetrators' behaviors of both countries. Second, I will explain how historical slavery and human trafficking is different from contemporary events as in political, economic and societal changes. Finally, I will discuss about how the establishment of International Human Rights Laws and Human Trafficking and Slavery Treaties have helped shaping the concept of community views on such events.
What is Contemporary Slavery and Human Trafficking.
Contemporary Slavery.
As mentioned earlier, there is no adequate definition of slavery because it can have different meanings according to the communities' norms, cultures and races. An NGO namely Anti-Slavery International defines contemporary slavery with four different elements. The first one is when the victim is being forced to work, the second is when an individual is owned or controlled by an employer in both physical and mental restraints, the third element is when a person is dehumanized and being considered as a "property" and the last one is when the victim is kept like in prison "no freedom to move around".