Underground Railroads and Human Trafficking Research (Research Paper Sample)

Underground Railroads and Human Trafficking
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Underground Railroads and Human Trafficking
Underground railroads have a significant role in the history of slavery in the United States. It is via the Underground Railroad system that the various key activists were able to secure the freedom of hundreds of slaves. Using these underground railroads, hundreds of slaves were able to run to the slavery-free states of the nation. It is then safe to assert that devoid of this underground railway network, the escape from slavery would have been delayed for a significant while longer. The role of these underground railway networks has somehow changed over time to become opposite of what instigated its critical role and need in the period of slavery in the United States. It is unfortunate that human trafficking has become prevalent in the US because of the underground railway networks. Whereas the network had been a sign of freedom, it is now a sign of the perpetuation of contemporary forms of slavery.
In the contemporary society, human traffickers have been able to exploit the unique capabilities of the underground railway system to their benefit. It has to be understood that the shift in roles of the underground railway system is remarkable. Such a shift points to the complacency of the relevant authorities in meeting their mandated duties. The absence of effective monitoring has created an enabling environment for the success of activities of human traffickers (Perrin, 2010). The degree of success of the human trafficking activities is attested to by the actuality that underground railroads have now become synonymous with human trafficking activities. As such, it is factual to assert that the concept of underground railroads has experienced a significant shift for the worst: from a freedom, seeking tool to a freedom-curtailing tool.
The extent of development of human trafficking in the world signals the potency of underground railroads as a means of effectively transporting people between countries. It has been long been understood that human trafficking is slowly but steadily becoming a vice that is gaining popularity by unscrupulous groups. The people who are trafficked are usually forced in otherwise illegal activities. Victims of human trafficking become sources of cheap labor. It then translates to mean that slavery is still present in the 21st century.
Different measures have been employed to arrest the perpetuation of human trafficking. The nature of the Underground Railroad system is that it is not visible to authorities. Such a capability is the very reason why it was a potent critical tool for those fighting against slavery in America during slavery. The critics of slavery found it to be well positioned to cater for movement of the slaves from the pro-slavery states to those states that had banned slavery. Just as it was effective back then, it is still effective in the contemporary society. As such, the first factor that has to be given mention is its overall invisibility to the authorities. The human traffickers have perfected the use of these Underground Railroad networks by exploiting the capabilities of these networks. As such, the first issue is the inability of the relevant authorities to monitor the movements of the human traffickers, which will subsequently culminate in the capture of the suspected human traffickers.
Poverty is an aspect that makes it easy for the human traffickers to perpetuate their criminal activities (Hudson, 2002). More often than not, the human traffickers find all too willing unsuspecting people to traffic across state and borderlines. As such, poverty then creates an enabling environment for human trafficking and subsequently the use of the underground railroads. The relation between poverty and the use of underground railroads by the human traffickers is hinged that the allure of greener pastures. People from regions characterized with high levels of poverty are extreme gullible to the advances of the human traffickers. As such, the allure of escape from poverty by the victims and their families acts as a potent instigator for believing in the p...