| Erasure of borders created by globalization has largely fueled the trafficking of humans and forced the transgression to take on an organized crime nature, as was recognized by the 2000 United Nations Convention on Organized Crime (United Nations 2013). Human trafficking,---or modern day slavery (Buckley 2008; Polaris Project 2013, Richard 2004--2005),---is one of the biggest crimes plaguing the world today. Despite the crime's underground nature it is still an estimated 32 billion dollars per year industry (O'Connell Davidson 2011; United Nations 2013). Annually, an estimated 1.2 million children are trafficked worldwide (Buckley 2008),---with many suspecting the estimates might be higher in actuality but extremely hard to measure precisely.;The battle against human trafficking is being fought on both domestic and global arenas. This is the case for both the United States (Andrews 2004) and countries in the European Union (FRA 2009; Andrijasevic 2007). However, the nature of the crime makes it necessary to protect victims from both ends---by preventing possible trafficking and by identifying and protecting the victims (Hidalgo, Saddrudin, Walter 2005; Statham 2005). This is especially true of child victims who are in need to be identified, protected, and treated as children, not criminals. Safe Harbor Laws (SHL) aim to achieve these goals. This issue frames the research of the thesis by focusing on whether SHLs exist in the United States and the European Union which identify and treat child victims of trafficking as children and not as criminals, and, by studying the possibility of a statistically significant impact on child victims with the passage of SHLs. The work aims to look into Safe Harbor Laws in the United States and the European Union and analyze their effectiveness by looking at the number of victims identified before and after the passage of SHLs. Conclusions from the research will be utilized to provide potential recommendations for the future of Safe Harbor Laws. |
