Cases of labor exploitation grew exponentially hand in hand with the pandemic

Perhaps we want or need to look forward and leave behind what happened in the pandemic, but first we have to know what has happened. And according to a report from the federal government, which the Chamber of Deputies received a few days ago, covid-19 quintupled the percentage of victims of trafficking for the purpose of labor exploitation in Mexico, going from 6% of total cases in 2019 to 32% in 2020.

Social distancing left millions of people isolated and that had different repercussions, but it prevented victims of trafficking from asking for help. The economic crisis affected almost the entire population, but it also increased the trafficker violence, “by not making gains caused by disruptions in the labor market.” In other words, the chaotic situation reduced their income and they took it out on their victims.

The Report 2019-2020 of the Intersecretarial Commission to Prevent, Punish and Eradicate Crimes in the Matter of Trafficking in Persons and for the Protection and Assistance to Victims of These Crimes was published in the Parliamentary Gazette only on October 18. The body, whose alternate president is Alejandro Encinas Rodríguez, has not delivered the report for 2021.

“Mexico is considered a country of origin, traffic and destination of possible victims of human trafficking,” acknowledges the Intersecretarial Commission, headed by the Ministry of the Interior (SG).

Maquila, construction, non-unionized mining, agriculture and housework are the occupations with the highest incidence labor exploitation or forced labor in Mexico, according to the Diagnosis Trafficking in Persons for Labor Purposes of the Polaris organization.

“Megaprojects (infrastructure, mining, tourism) and special economic zones (the northern border and the Bajío, for example) also attract migrant workers from rural and impoverished areas,” says the Polaris study.

“There are contexts that make it possible the crime of trafficking: failures of social systems, pre-existing or existing vulnerabilities that are manipulated, and power imbalances. Industries with few social protections are more vulnerable to trafficking, it is an inverse correlation,” says Andrea Rojas, director of the Strategic Initiative against Labor Trafficking at Polaris, in an interview.

“On the contrary, countries with strong social protectionsunemployment benefits, paid permits, social security and others, are less likely to exploit their population”, adds the lawyer with extensive experience in migration, refugee and labor human rights issues.

The wrong definition of trafficking

Much remains to be done to make Mexico a country free of trafficking, the Intersecretarial Commission acknowledges in the report. Said body, made up of nine state ministries and six federal institutions, raises the urgency of a legal reform to specify what human trafficking is and its different modalities, since the current definition of labor exploitation is incorrect, he says.

Andrea Rojas, as well as other expert activists, agrees with the latter. “The definition of trafficking in Mexico it does not fully fit the international definition.”

In 2000, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Trafficking in Persons Protocolwith the first internationally agreed definition: “The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons through the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, kidnapping, fraud, deception, abuse of power or of a situation vulnerability or the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to obtain the consent of a person having control over another, for the purpose of exploitation”.

The exploitation, it details, can be in the form of prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices analogous to slavery, servitude or the extraction of organs.

In 2012, Mexico created the law against human trafficking, which does not specifically mention what is meant by this crime, but in article 10 it indicates that “any willful act or omission of one or several persons to capture, engage, transport, transfer , retain, deliver, receive or house one or more persons for the purpose of exploitation will be imposed 5 to 15 years in prison and from one thousand to twenty thousand days fine”.

And in section III of article 21 it indicates that the remuneration of a salary below what is legally established is also labor exploitation. But, according to the Intersecretarial Commission, that part “punishes non-punishable actions for a poor definition of labor exploitation.”

It adds that there are “problems in the typification”, which hinder the procurement and administration of justice. Given this context, “an urgent legal reform that generates better public policies to be implemented in the three orders of government”.

Vulnerabilities, the food of trafficking

In the report, the authorities report a 27% decrease in the identification of possible victims. In 2019 they learned of the cases of 377 people and in 2020 they barely identified 170. But that does not mean a drop in crime, but rather that the pandemic prevented them from being detected, the document explains.

Although the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation continues to be the main form of trafficking, in 2020 its incidence decreased while the labor exploitation increased in Mexico.

Trafficking for sexual purposes went from 65% of all cases in 2019 to 53% in 2020, with women and girls being the main victims. The cases of labor exploitation they rose from 6% to 32% in the same time, and men are the majority; Among the women who have been victims, there are many more cases of girls between 7 and 12 years of age.

The report indicates that the means they used the most to capture people was “taking advantage of a situation of vulnerability”, such as unemployment and hunger. This occurred in 75% of the cases in 2020 and in 32% in 2019. The rise is clear in the year of the greatest crisis.

“In every employment relationship there will be some power imbalancebut when it is maximized and there is manipulation, the situation is dangerous”, says Andrea Rojas.

Las fake job offers “They play a decisive role in situations of recruitment of victims of trafficking. We all need work, that’s why when one comes to understand trafficking well, you don’t even distinguish whether it’s labor or sexual as an end, because they all start from this vulnerability”, says the lawyer.