The NOWYOUKNOW project

Our Survey

 

 

One of the international teams in the project collaborated to produce the text of a Survey about human trafficking, human smuggling and modern slavery.

The survey was conducted only in Italy: 40 people were chosen according to age range and interviewed. The age ranges were as follows:

-students from Liceo “F. Petrarca” (10 people from different classes)

-19 to 30 years of age (10 people)

-31 to 45 years of age (10 people)

-more than 45 years of age (10 people)

We are perfectly aware that this is not an exercise in statistics, but all the same the results are quite interesting and we chose to include them here as relevant to our research. We are writing in 2015, therefore this should also be considered an important factor.

 

THE RESULTS

On the whole, there is great superficiality in the understanding of the phenomenon, regardless of which category. Italians tend to see migrations as one big, uniform phenomenon and can hardly distinguish between “human smuggling” (which involves the voluntary giving of money by the migrants to the smugglers, violent as they might be) and “human trafficking”, where the individual will of the victims is completely annihilated.

 

As to the causes of great human migrations, interviewees tend to think that people move almost solely for economic reasons and underestimate the impact of wars and conflicts. Natural disasters or environmental reasons (earthquakes, landslides, hurricanes, sea-level rising...) are seriously underestimated too, except for a growing awareness in younger people (who unfortunately are too young to be leading the world). The most underestimated cause of all is the great problem of debt, which is the engine of human trafficking and slavery in general.

 

Human trafficking stems from fragility, but the most fragile victims of all – children – are not identified as the most trafficked.

 

While being generally aware that a problem of slavery (maybe they prefer to call it over-exploitation) does exist, the great majority of the interviewed people tend to deny the existence of human trafficking in Italy, which sounds a bit contradictory. When asked to choose the sectors where this issue may present itself, they underestimate clothes/accessories manufacturing (a leading exporting sector in Italy!) and domestic workers. Agricultural slave labourers and prostitution get some more publicity in mass media and are better known.

 

Similarly, Asia gets the spotlight, while Africa is still the “dark” continent in terms of general knowledge.

 

When it comes to personal responsibility, we found a great ignorance of the problem. In fact just only 1/4 of the interviewed people were able to recognize the fair trade symbol, and consistently, 1/4 of the interviewed people know and have bought some fair-trade products (for example coffee, tea...).
On the other hand almost all of the people we asked are aware of being a consumer or user of a product that has probably been made by trafficking victims; a few of them also think that famous brands might be involved in human trafficking.

 

As to political action, the awareness that we are facing a global phenomenon is growing, with the worrying exception of the 19-to-30 age range - but luckily this is only 10 people, in our case!

 

In conclusion, what are the solutions envisaged by our interviewees?

Many answered that first there is a need to make this problem known around the world, and suggested encouraging humanitarian organisations to carry out campaigns around the world to raise awareness about human trafficking, in particular where the phenomenon is more widespread, so that a sense of common condemnation of human trafficking is created. Then, in those regions where the problem is present, humanitarian organisations should build daycare centres for people in need.

 

A few respondents proposed stronger action by the UN, that is, they would like the UN to condemn the phenomenon more firmly and to promote greater cooperation between member States.

Only a single person suggested a more general solution , consisting in a greater balance between different parts of the world in the use of resources , so as to improve the conditions of life where taking the migration route seems the only means of salvation.