People trafficking

• Particular problem was trafficking of women and children for the work of prostitution

  In 1921 the League led an agreement led an agreement called the 'convention for the supression of the traffic in women and children'

  Protected women and kids, raised the age that women could agree to be trafficked to 21.
• From 1924 to 1926, League investigated people trafficking in Europe, the Mediterranean, and America.

  In 1929 it investigated the near, middle and far east.

  It found hundreds of girls aged 14-16 being trafficked into prostitution. Sometimes by their own parents.
• League's intervention:

  Achieved the following 3 things...

  1. Highlighted that forced prostitution, and the trade was a global issue (until that point it had been down to the work of national, often voluntary groups)
  2. Rather than viewing prostitutes as the guilty party, the focus was on the supply of, or demand for people trafficking.

  In 1927, issued a report on how the trade actually worked by gathering information both from prostitutes and traffickers.
• The third thing the league achieved was at the conference of centeral authorities of Eastern countried was held in Java in 1937.

  It succeeded in many nations, raising the age of marriage and age of consent + abolishing illegal brothels (where prostitutes work).
• This commission had no major improvements, not all who signed convention actually made trafficking a crime.

  It also did nothing to protect women who chose to go into prostitution nor those trafficked within their own country.

  It also did not make the ownership of brothels illegal (domestic matter)