If communication was more effective today globally then maybe the human trafficking cancer eating up the society today wouldn’t be spreading like it is doing. It is reported that up to 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders every year according to the U.S department of Justice.
CNN reported on a story of two African young women one from Nigeria and another from Ghana who were taken from their parents as teenagers and promised good education in the United States of America only to be falsely imprisoned while forced to work up to 14 hours a day!
“…and all this in broad day light…” as said by the reporter since for 5 good years the girls would take the same route to go to their unpaid forced labour of braiding hair in a normal American residential area without being given any of the proceeds from the hair business. It is estimated that woman behind this atrocity made almost 4 million US dollars out of it.
So just maybe if these girls had been fluent in English back then, then maybe they would have eavesdropped on the evil woman’s conversations who subjected them to miserable life and robbing them of their childhood.
This comes easy to linguists because they easily know or understand a bit of so many languages. However not everyone is a linguist and that is where translation comes in handy. Maybe if governments globally would have linguists and professional translators and interpreters to interrogate foreigners crossing into their countries so as to save those under trafficking rings unknowingly.
It should be noted that the traffickers do not necessarily have languages in common with the victims because they usually employ middle men in the first stages usually known to the victims to convince them by use of deception. Lies told to victims of human trafficking include; lucrative job opportunities, high wages, good education etc.
However, this rarely comes to pass as they are put into drug trafficking rings, illegal organ harvesting where victims are maimed and have their vital organs like kidneys removed, prostitution and for various commercial activities where they do not see a penny. They are usually subdued in inhumane ways for example severely beaten, maimed, denied food and in extreme cases killed.
It is reported that there are over 30 million slaves in the world today which is sad since it is a developed world we are living in today with human rights put at the forefront like never before in all history. Videos made round in November of 2017 with black Africans being auctioned at slave markets in places alleged to be Libya just like in the old slave trade eras!
Therefore translation and interpretation is very important and should be embraced by every organization out there if possible because professional translation aids effective communication and thus would help to try get rid of the human trafficking ring.