The price of a trafficked person today: 6,000 euros
A Catalan farmer paid 6,000 euros for a woman: human trafficking remains active in the middle of the digital age.
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
Six thousand euros for a life: slavery still has a price
Slavery is not a leftover from history books. It still has a market price: 6,000 euros. That amount, the same as a second-hand car, was paid by a Catalan farmer for a woman, according to La Vanguardia. The figure rules out any complacency.
From mockery to a bank account
Public discussion has tended to treat it with distance and dark humor. People joke about there being no stock left on second-hand platforms, about middlemen called "wholesalers," or about the necessary paperwork, such as Spain's modelo 036 tax registration forms. That flippancy documents the trivialization of suffering: nothing dispels the fact that there are networks buying and selling human beings.
From the joke to the business there is only one step. As in any transaction, there are middlemen, documentation and a bank transfer. Legal procedures pursue them, but the networks find cracks.
Here lies the uncomfortable question: if the authorities monitor money to fight money laundering, why is the economic flow of human trafficking pursued with so much less zeal? Whoever has the answer, raise your hand.
Slavery is not a leftover from history books. It still has a market price: 6,000 euros. That amount, the same as a second-hand car, was paid by a Catalan farmer for a woman, according to La Vanguardia. The figure rules out any complacency.
From mockery to a bank account
Public discussion has tended to treat it with distance and dark humor. People joke about there being no stock left on second-hand platforms, about middlemen called "wholesalers," or about the necessary paperwork, such as Spain's modelo 036 tax registration forms. That flippancy documents the trivialization of suffering: nothing dispels the fact that there are networks buying and selling human beings.
From the joke to the business there is only one step. As in any transaction, there are middlemen, documentation and a bank transfer. Legal procedures pursue them, but the networks find cracks.
Here lies the uncomfortable question: if the authorities monitor money to fight money laundering, why is the economic flow of human trafficking pursued with so much less zeal? Whoever has the answer, raise your hand.
Also available in: Deutsch
Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (11 replies).
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