Image by David Rodriques.
There are hundreds of ugly faces of poverty. And most people can see the connection between it and one of the most heinous crimes humans can commit, within our own species: humans selling humans. Humans who are not poor, vulnerable, and traumatized selling others who are. Yet it tends to be defined in logistical terms as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of people through force, fraud or deception, with the aim of exploiting them for profit. Without moral considerations, the crime seems much blander than it really is. After all, force, fraud, deception, and exploiting for profit are pretty standard fare. Politicians, the people who supposedly represent us in the public sphere, often engage in these things.
