Human Trafficking As a Business Ethical Issue (Essay Sample)

Human Trafficking As a Business Ethical Issue.
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Human trafficking
One of the major modern-day unethical business practices is human trafficking. Human trafficking involves harboring, recruitment or transportation of people for purposes of sexual slavery, forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation among other social evils. In some instances, other social exploitation associated with human trafficking includes forced marriages, extraction of certain important body organs or tissues, ova removal, and surrogacy. This unethical practice of human trafficking can occur within a country or trans-nationally through underground well-linked agencies (Farrell, 2011).
Most of the victims of human trafficking are teens, children, and women. The report of international labor organization shows that most of the people trafficked are used for forced labor in the world. According to the report, 14.3 million people are in modern-day slavery 24.9million in a forced labor and 15.4 million in forced marriage. Out of the 29.4 million in forced labor 16millon are exploited in the private sector doing jobs in agriculture, domestic work among other private related jobs. 99% of the victims in the forced labor are women who are equally exploited sexually and used for commercial sex purposes (Roth, 2012).
Most victims of human trafficking are malnourished and most of them have physical injuries resulting from coercion during the process of trafficking them (Chisolm-Straker & Stoklosa,2017). A government authority can know them easily because most of them avoid eye contact when interacting with people in social gatherings or places. When asked questions, they seem to adhere to a prescribed or rehearsed responses. They also lack identification documents and in some cases, they do not even have personal possessions (Farrell, 2011).
Some of the courses of human trafficking are oppression, poverty, lack of human rights in their country, lack of social economic opportunity and dangers from conflict. Most countries in the third world are poverty stricken and due to this most of their citizens are trapped into slavery by being promised good jobs in countries where they are going to be forced into labor. Such countries are from Africa like Somalia, Kenya, South Africa among others. Other countries oppress their citizens resulting in the citizens looking for better places which leads them to human slavery, though such countries might be rich economically their tendencies of oppression and disregard of human rights leads to human trafficking. Examples of such countries are China and Russia which are communist countries. Countries like Syria, Pakistan, Libya, and south Sudan are among countries with conflicts which has led to a mass migration of its citizens who find themselves in the hand of traffickers (Farrell, 2011).
In some cases, some people get trapped into this human trafficking when looking for better social economic generating activities in the world. They fall into agencies that are working in collaboration with the human traffickers to export the human capital to the country of destination. However this vice is committed in few countries, according to the international labor organization report, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Sudan and Zimbabwe are countries where there is less human trafficking. This is partly because of economic stability and strict rules that make it impossible for human trafficking. Mostly human trafficking is done for purposes of monetary gains by the human traffickers (Farrell, 2011).
How free market features could help alleviate human trafficking
Some of the features of a free market are; limited government interference in the market operations, free supply and demand are allowed to determine the prices of goods and services, competition, profit, freedom of choice and a right to own private property (Shaanan, 2017).
In the light of the identified features, human traffickers could enjoy limited government interferences if they operated with valid licenses. This would require the government to permit the trade. The operators will thus enjoy the freedom, but the ethical question would eventually bring them down because most consumers who will enjoy the feature of freedom of choice will have to question ethical judgment before purchasing the commodities involved. This would eventually affect the demand and supply because the unethical practice will damage the reputation of the firm which will make it less attractive to the stakeholders who will withdraw their support from the firm which will eventually collapse due to lack of demand and supply (Brenkert, 2012)..
A justification of the expected decline in human trafficking due to introduction of free market features can exemplified by countries that legalized prostitution and enabled it to operate under the free market conditions. In such countries the business is rapidly declining due to the changes in supply and demand. Consumers of the commodities would consider their ethical principles before consuming those most of them due to ethics will prefer not to do prostitution because they shall be reprimanded by the society. Some of them care about their societal image and their place in the society. Due to this, the business of prostitution has declined significantly in countries that have legalized them.
Another way through which free market features would alleviate human trafficking is through introduction taxes on both the supply and the demand side. Validation of the trade would with taxes expenses that suppliers and buyers would incur. This would significantly reduce the number of suppliers and buyers of the product. Subsequently, with time no rational consumer would be tempted to buy a commodity with very high tax expenses significantly reducing the demand and supply to the market of human trafficking. High taxes also reduce the proceeds from the business as net profit. Businesses cannot survive if they keep on running on losses. This will make it less lucrative for investors and stakeholders making the business to close down eventually (Brenkert, 2012).
Competition as a free market feature could also help alleviate human trafficking through monopolizing a firm that offers human trafficking. This will increase make the supply of humans higher than the demand from the firm, in return the prices will go down for those who are willing to offer the services to the firm. Due to low prices, it will make human trafficking less attractive to the society hence killing the practice of human trafficking (Brenkert, 2012).
Risks of introducing marketing mechanisms where ethical issues exist
While the introduction of free market mechanism can help ameliorate the situation, there are number of risks linked to this move. The business may become more lucrative thereby increasing the effects of the problem instead of reducing it. The initiative may also affect the ethical and moral compass of the society as more participants would be encouraged to join the trade (Shanaan, 2017)
Unethical issue such as human trafficking may introduce negative ripple effects in the society such as abduction, rape, violence, and drug trafficking. Such social problems will have detrimental mental effects on the victims that will lead to suicide and other social dis...