Mass murder’ reported off Malta, 500 drowned by human traffickers

[jimmy olsen]

Being dumped on a different continent than where you expected isn't exploitation?

Victimized, sure, but exploited? Not really.

[Valmy]

I love how this turned into a semantics debate.

[CountDeMoney]

Human traffickers = pure filth
Illegal immigrant smugglers =  drop their shipments at the first sign of an Imperial cruiser

[Berkut]

I know. It is so refreshing when an issue takes such an unexpected and unusual turn like that on languish...

[CountDeMoney]

I expect nothing less than from this collection of Rainman Assburgers.

[Jacob]

Of course every situation is different.  And you threw in the word "continual" which I never used.

But I objected to trying to distinguish "human traffickers" from "illegal immigrant smugglers".  These people invariably exploit their "clients" in one form or another.  Their business is in moving human beings - you can say they traffic in them.  The relevant definition of traffic is:

a :  import and export trade
b :  the business of bartering or buying and selling
c :  illegal or disreputable usually commercial activity <the drug traffic>

Calling them "illegal immigrant smugglers" gives them a sort of decency that they do not deserve.  They're not innocent businessmen - they're criminals.

So in your opinion there is no significant difference between, say,

1) the captain of a ship taking some money via intermediaries and as a result not sending anyone to check a particular part of his ship, in the full knowledge that some people will sneak aboard in one harbour, and sneak off when the ship puts in somewhere in the West, on one hand; and

2) someone who promises young women jobs as, say, cleaners in a foreign country but instead has associates confiscate their papers, force them into prostitution with violence and rape, and move the women from brothel to brothel every few weeks across the continent, on the other hand?

Both are criminal scum. Both have facilitated the transportation of people across borders without the appropriate paperwork. In your opinion they are at the same level of moral wrong?

[Ed Anger]

Human traffickers = pure filth
Illegal immigrant smugglers =  drop their shipments at the first sign of an Imperial cruiser

I saw that.

[Barrister]

Of course every situation is different.  And you threw in the word "continual" which I never used.

But I objected to trying to distinguish "human traffickers" from "illegal immigrant smugglers".  These people invariably exploit their "clients" in one form or another.  Their business is in moving human beings - you can say they traffic in them.  The relevant definition of traffic is:

a :  import and export trade
b :  the business of bartering or buying and selling
c :  illegal or disreputable usually commercial activity <the drug traffic>

Calling them "illegal immigrant smugglers" gives them a sort of decency that they do not deserve.  They're not innocent businessmen - they're criminals.

So in your opinion there is no significant difference between, say,

1) the captain of a ship taking some money via intermediaries and as a result not sending anyone to check a particular part of his ship, in the full knowledge that some people will sneak aboard in one harbour, and sneak off when the ship puts in somewhere in the West, on one hand; and

2) someone who promises young women jobs as, say, cleaners in a foreign country but instead has associates confiscate their papers, force them into prostitution with violence and rape, and move the women from brothel to brothel every few weeks across the continent, on the other hand?

Both are criminal scum. Both have facilitated the transportation of people across borders without the appropriate paperwork. In your opinion they are at the same level of moral wrong?

Not at all.

Both are human traffickers, but that doesn't mean the same level of moral blameworthiness.

Let's say one person doesn't like the way you look and gives you a slap across the face.  A second person also doesn't like you and gives you a savage beating, repeatedly punching, kicking, and stomping you.

Both are guilty of assault, ut the moral blameworthiness is quite different between the two.

[Berkut]

Article 3, paragraph (a) of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons defines Trafficking in Persons as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs

Smuggling illegal aliens is not human trafficking, unless you are doing so in order to sell them into servitude or something like servitude.

Just being dicks to them doesn't qualify.

[Martinus]

Illegal immigrants aren't human?

The difference is that between Bobba Fett and Han Solo. Happy now?

Han Solo didn't murder hundreds of passengers. Maybe off camera, granted.

But he shot first.

[Jacob]

Of course every situation is different.  And you threw in the word "continual" which I never used.

But I objected to trying to distinguish "human traffickers" from "illegal immigrant smugglers".  These people invariably exploit their "clients" in one form or another.  Their business is in moving human beings - you can say they traffic in them.  The relevant definition of traffic is:

a :  import and export trade
b :  the business of bartering or buying and selling
c :  illegal or disreputable usually commercial activity <the drug traffic>

Calling them "illegal immigrant smugglers" gives them a sort of decency that they do not deserve.  They're not innocent businessmen - they're criminals.

So in your opinion there is no significant difference between, say,

1) the captain of a ship taking some money via intermediaries and as a result not sending anyone to check a particular part of his ship, in the full knowledge that some people will sneak aboard in one harbour, and sneak off when the ship puts in somewhere in the West, on one hand; and

2) someone who promises young women jobs as, say, cleaners in a foreign country but instead has associates confiscate their papers, force them into prostitution with violence and rape, and move the women from brothel to brothel every few weeks across the continent, on the other hand?

Both are criminal scum. Both have facilitated the transportation of people across borders without the appropriate paperwork. In your opinion they are at the same level of moral wrong?

Not at all.

Both are human traffickers, but that doesn't mean the same level of moral blameworthiness.

Let's say one person doesn't like the way you look and gives you a slap across the face.  A second person also doesn't like you and gives you a savage beating, repeatedly punching, kicking, and stomping you.

Both are guilty of assault, ut the moral blameworthiness is quite different between the two.

I don't get your point then... there are two different things going on, and people apply two different names to them to distinguish the two - yet you insist we should use the same name for these two different situations, yet you distinguish between them.

Seems sort of silly on your part, to be honest.

[The Brain]

Illegal immigrants aren't human?

The difference is that between Bobba Fett and Han Solo. Happy now?

Han Solo didn't murder hundreds of passengers. Maybe off camera, granted.

But he shot first.

NOOOOOOOOO

[The Brain]

Calling them "illegal immigrant smugglers" gives them a sort of decency that they do not deserve.  They're not innocent businessmen - they're criminals.

[Caliga]

are they: fun loving criminals