Decrying ‘the product’
Up there with murder and rape as the most heinous of crimes is human trafficking, a more encompassing term than the long popular white slavery, which was confined to forcing white women into prostitution. Human trafficking is forcing (abducting, buying from impoverished parents) children, of whatever sex and colour, into illegal activities.
Prostitution is one. Used as mules (smuggling drugs) another. Slave labourers in factories and on farms yet another. There are people who pay the slavers good money for them, but only room and board to the slaves who are beaten, even killed. There are more where they came from. Indeed, a limitless supply.
Human trafficking is a lucrative business with many competitors, the men (or women) at the top obscenely rich, running international organisations which ensure that ‘‘the product’’ is obtained, transported and delivered without fuss. Authorities are bribed to turn a blind eye. Nevertheless, there are honest lawmen believing in protecting and serving. Yank author David Baldacci writes about the nefarious practice of human trafficking in his novel The Forgotten. The heavy is Peter Lampert. The author describes his home in Paradise, Florida, as being like Buckingham Palace, but more lavish. Lampert orders death for those he senses know what he’s up to, and may turn him in. One is an elderly woman who happens to be the kindly aunt of the protagonist of the story. Enter former Ranger in the Middle East, now US Army CID Special Agent John Fuller, son of a retired general.
Investigating her death leads Fuller to all manner of people, openly and undercover, trying to get the goods on Lampert. A woman cop from Colombia is one. A Bulgarian whose sister was whisked away by the slavers is another. Lots of shoot-outs. Bodies on all sides pile up.
Baldacci despairs that shuttling down one such organisation is only a drop in the bucket. There are many and because of the profits to be made, they are proliferating. As long as there are impoverished families, the promise of giving their daughters a better life is too appealing to resist.
As with most things, it comes down to money. The slavers want it and the people they sell ‘‘the product’’ to are too greedy to spend it. Alas, human trafficking exists the world over.