U.N.: Refugee Crisis Makes People More Vulnerable to Trafficking
In its global study on human trafficking, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) found that the refugee crisis left more people open to exploitation by traffickers.
“People escaping from war and persecution are particularly vulnerable to becoming victims of trafficking,” UNODC executive director Yury Fedotov said. “The urgency of their situation might lead them to make dangerous migration decisions.”
By way of example, Fedotov pointed to the “rapid increase in the number of Syrian victims of trafficking in persons following the start of the conflict there.”
The report found that the socioeconomic status of refugees and migrants, as well as the presence of organized crime networks in their country of origin, heightens their susceptibility to trafficking.
Globally, the UNODC report found trafficking had taken place in 106 countries and territories between 2012 and 2014. Women and girls make up most of the victims of trafficking, but the proportion of men being trafficked rose from 13 percent in 2004 to 21 percent in 2014.
Children make up around one-third of trafficking victims. This week, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights warned that lack of coordinated E.U. policies to protect child migrants was making them vulnerable to trafficking in Europe.
Aid Groups Say Lake Chad and Yemen Most Neglected Crises of 2016
The scale of hunger and displacement in the Lake Chad area was the most neglected crisis of 2016, according to a survey of 19 international aid organizations by the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Aid groups flagged starvation in war-torn Yemen and the conflict in South Sudan as the next most neglected crises of the past year.
Despite the scale of suffering, these areas of the world receive less media attention than other parts of the world and aid funding can lag behind other crises.
The humanitarian group Christian Aid told the Thomson Reuters survey that the “emerging chasm between need and response” in 2016 could undermine the foundations of humanitarian aid.
Pregnant Refugees Given C-Sections Without Consent in Greece
Greece’s overwhelmed medical sector is performing C-sections on refugee women without their knowledge or consent, the Guardian reports.
Greece has one of the highest cesarean section rates in the world at more than 50 percent, while the World Health Organization recommends 10-15 percent.
A recent study of 29 refugees in Greece found that 60 percent of those who gave birth (20) had received C-sections. All of the surveyed refugees underwent medical procedures without an opportunity to provide their consent. One woman had her uterus removed during a C-section and was not told why.
The lack of translators and the pressure on overstretched doctors since the Greek economic crisis have exacerbated the problem, according to the Guardian.
Recommended Reads
- The Huffington Post: The 21st Century Gold Rush
- TIME: Don’t Blame Rescue-at-Sea Organizations for Migrants Coming to Europe
- The Conversation: Refugees in Africa Faced Bitter Disappointments in 2016
- IRIN: Migration Trends to Watch in 2017
- The Guardian: Nigeria’s Farmers Return Home to Rebuild Lives Shattered by Boko Haram