PES Manifesto

500.000 victims of trafficking - we can save them

Publié mercredi 4 juin 2008 à 15h15
par Asynjen (vu 383 fois et 0 commentaires)

Women's rights - in my view a core socialist issue. So far there's one particular aspect of the debate on women's rights which I think deserves a bit more attention here on Yourspace; namely trafficking.

According to the Coalition against Trafficking in Women 500.000 women are annually trafficked into Western Europe. Prostitution becomes the "trade" of these smuggled women - and please notice the inverted comments: these women are slaves, 'money machines' for kingpins without too many moral qualms.

Once in a while I come across arguments in favour of trafficking: Like the people smuggler himself who says that he's really doing the women a favour - they get a fair chance for a better life in Western Europe. They would have been even worse off in their home country. From this perspective trafficking is understood as a sort of "development aid" (again a big emphasis on the inverted commas!) - scary that some people are capable of rationalizing like this, right?

Luckily, such an attitude towards women and human rights is not found among Europe's socialists. We often - and loudly - express our concern about trafficking and the conditions of these enslaved women. I think it's time for a European-level ambitious plan for dealing with trafficking - and socialists should take the lead in this. The PES is connected to decision-makers in both 'sending' and 'receiving' countries - so let's present an ambitious proposal for saving women from slavery!

I encourage the PES, in its 2009 manifesto, to give priority to solving the serious problem of trafficking and to stop the violation of trafficked women's fundamental rights.

If you want to know more about trafficking in Europe then take a look at the CATW Factbook....

Tags: equality, human rights, women