Human trafficking involves preying on the poor, weak, and isolated people in the society for monetary gain. It is a violation of basic human rights and a challenge to state sovereignty since it contravenes immigration laws and legal provisions. People’s vulnerability to trafficking is due to social exclusion, disempowerment, and economic vulnerabilities that marginalize these groups of people and make them in danger of being trafficked. Traffickers are usually in control of the victim ,they manipulate not only the victims but also the other criminals involved in this crime. This trade's profits are huge, which serves as the main motive for traffickers committing such crimes against humanity. According to Bryant & Landman (2020), in 2016 alone, over 40.3 million people worldwide were victims of modern slavery through human trafficking, this statistic indicates the severity of trafficking among nations. Victims are trafficked for reasons such as domestic work, prostitution, agricultural jobs, and criminal activities. Although there is no particular definition of human trafficking, trafficking is a complex phenomenon influenced by a number of issues; some may traffic to deal with financial issues, others may engage in such due to cultural factors and social factors. These causes depend on the country or state they occur. There are sociological theories of criminology that explain the cause of human trafficking as a crime. Sociologically, there are three major sociological theories of crime such as anomie/strain, labeling, and control theories. These theories explain human trafficking in terms of the social environment, including the society, the community, workplace, and family, school, or peer groups. These theories differ in that some explain individual differences in crime which involve reasons why criminals commit at a personal level, while others explain group differences which elaborate why some communities or states have higher crimes than others. Sociological theories of criminology efficiently explain why individuals engage in drug trafficking by giving reasons that are related to the social environment.
Anomie/Strain theory
Sociological theories assert that criminal behavior is a normal biological and psychological response to an individual’s social circumstances. Many social factors cause one to be a human trafficker. One of the factors is explained by the anomie theory, also known as strain theory. It was proposed by Robert Merton, an American sociologist. Still, it was introduced by French sociologist Emile Durkheim and later on revised by Messner and Rosenfeld’s Institutional Anomie Theory. Durkheim argues that his theory signified a state of lack of norms; he referred to a society that did not know the rules following the constantly changing social conditions.
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On the other hand, Messner explained that crimes occurred due to the strain caused by society ( Kaufman, 2017) . According to his theory, human traffickers commit these crimes due to their inability to attain their goals through socially acceptable means such as getting a legal job. They compare themselves with those who are better than them and end up feeling deprived and underprivileged. Due to these frustrations, the individual turns to illegal businesses such as trafficking. Therefore, trafficking is a result of disturbing society's disturbing stability due to inequalities in the social structure or the unavailability of the effective individual or collective strategies that can be applied during the changing social circumstances. There are push and pull factors that facilitate trafficking. Push factors include the supply side of trafficking that increases the vulnerability of social groups' disadvantages to trafficking. The push factors include lack of employment and education facilities, discrimination based on ethnicity or minority stays, internal displacement, refugees, and migration policies. Such factors are usually in the broader category of traditional and cultural practices. Pull factors on the other hand include the need for cheap submissive labor in the global economy. Human traffickers view this as a business opportunity that is highly profitable and low risk. Surprisingly, although there are statistics reports of the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act (VTVPA) and Bureau of Justice in the United States, several human trafficking cases go unnoticed due to the ease of covering up such crimes.
Crimes such as human trafficking are neither biological, neither psychological. They are brought about by the need to satisfy financial markets resulting from unemployment and other economic failures. Although to commit such crimes, one needs not to have sympathy, which is directly connected to mental issues, this is not the main reason why such people turn to inhumane crimes such as trafficking. Psychologically humans possess psychological features that make them do or not do things. Issues such as drug use and theft are explained by this concept or by genetic and biological means. Still, the complexity of human trafficking can only be explained by sociological needs such as food, clothing, safety, and financial security, which are common with both the victim and the trafficker.
Moreover, traffickers also offer friendship and intimate relationships, although it is temporary. Human trafficking crimes are committed primarily due to basic needs, and later psychological needs are met. Additionally, the classical school of thought, which Cesare Beccaria proposed, is also not adequate to explain the cause of human trafficking due to the rampant increase in corruption, especially if the perpetrators have links with the government and authority. Therefore, deterrence, or the fear of punishment, is not an issue other than the huge profits they acquire from the trafficking business (Bruinsma, 2018) . People have the rational choice to choose whatever path they take, and traffickers choose to be criminals. However, most of them do this due to a lack of choice, which is again linked to social factors. Therefore the strain to meet certain societal expectations and acquire financial freedom explains why criminals traffic other humans.
Control Theory
The control theory explains another cause of human trafficking. In this theory, the offender is linked to the social group or the societal bond. According to this theory, crime is caused by the social and economic drives within society. It illustrates how socioeconomic inequality between social classes from small scale to global between both developed and underdeveloped countries occurs (Winterdyk, 2020) . The conflict and struggle between classes, for instance, in human trafficking, is evident between the poor victim and the rich human trafficking agencies that try to benefit by selling fellow humans. Karl Max argued that social conflict involves conflict between two groups. The powerful group is the perpetrators with the mission of taking things from the poor by force. The contributors to human rights violations in human trafficking are classism, sexism, and racism. The focus is to take away power from the vulnerable. In this case, power means controlling their families, raking away their traditions and theory connection from the community. Due to the traffickers having the victims' passports, documentation, and have money, they are more powerful than the victims. These victims have to work odd jobs such as prostitution or even slavery to get money to get out.
Additionally, the bond with family members, involvement in societal activities and other avenues of progress, and commitment to moral values determines the individual’s inclination to crime ( Bryant, K., & Landman ,2020). . The criminals commit these crimes since they can be cunning, deceptive, and agile. Most of all can exercise their power. Individual self-control enables them to resist or participate in human trafficking. This explains why most criminals involved in trafficking have low self-control since the restraints are primarily internal. This kind of crime requires a lack of sympathy for the victim but does not require long term or medium goals. Those individuals with low self-esteem are insensitive and impulsive and tend to engage in physical activities instead of mental activities. These criminal activities arise from parental and child-rearing practices, usually at around eight years of age, and the individual might remain unstable for the rest of his life.
Based on the family bond and the commitment to moral values, some psychological theories such as those of Sigmund Freud tried to explain how one's personality,super ego mediates between the drives of the id and the restraints of the superego. Freud explains that criminal activities such as trafficking result from the failure of the superego, which is a consequence of incomplete development. However, such causes are not enough to explain why individuals result in heinous crimes such as human trafficking since such issues are more linked to monetary problems than psychological or biological reasons. Trafficker's actions are not affected by their biological makeup. It might affect their personality directly. Still, they may associate with crimes such as trafficking because of involvement with other criminals, mainly a social factor. Classical theories specifically, deterrence assumes that people are hedonistic or rather, their goal is to increase pleasure and avoid pain, are rational, and their actions result from their free will (Bruinsma, 2018) . However, these assumptions fail to apply, especially due to the conflict between the rich and the poor or the powerful and the powerless. Due to economic and social needs, people are willing to be irrational, go to jail, or be punished rather than vulnerable and poor in a society that struggles. In this case, the poor class of people seeks financial freedom. They may become victims of trafficking. They travel to foreign countries searching for jobs without considering the consequences and their safety, and the traffickers take advantage of the situation. Essentially it all comes down to social and economic pressure due to struggles between classes.
Labeling Theory
On the contrary, according to the labeling theory, human traffickers are made by societal reactions toward an individual. According to Howard Becker and Edwin Lemert, who are sociologists that emerged in the 1960s, the individual may once have been convicted for committing a crime; the community then labels the individual a criminal (Crewe & Guyot-Diangone, 2016) . This kind of conformity and marginalization was referred to as secondary deviance; it is associated with a shift in social expectations and self-concept, an alteration in the psychic structure, and increased interaction with deviant peers ( Altikriti et al., 2020). Due to the identity, the law abiding citizens begin to reject him while other criminals accept him. Due to this, the individual becomes more engaged in crime. The person who was once a common thief in the locality adopts the stereotype and begins committing more serious crimes such as trafficking. These criminals turn to embrace subcultures that are an alternative set of moral values and exceptions to which people can turn to if they fail to find an acceptable means to the expectation held for them by society (Winterdyk, 2020).
According to Cohen, the subcultures are a result of the union of young people with deviant values. These people unite to form gangs that carry out trafficking. These traffickers come together due to change and status problems of the gang members, which are caused by inequality of the existing societal class . It is important to note that some forms of human trafficking, most specifically sex trafficking, and may result from a criminal activity from the victim's side. The illegal activity of the victim then results in the proscription of the victim rather than the trafficking criminal. These victims then tend to conform to the labeling theory. They identify themselves as deviant criminals, therefore propagating their participation in trafficking since they believe it is a lifestyle choice. This is evident, especially since most victims of trafficking have served time with a history in prostitution, drug trafficking, or due to their extensive criminal backgrounds. However, later on, these individuals are identified as victims rather than criminals since they were willing to participate in trafficking due to their circumstances. In this instance, the victim is the individual who gets free from the trafficker, seek helpful services, and freely move go on with their lives. In other cases, people that commit crimes such as human trafficking are rich and powerful, people with connections with the authorities. The conflict theory explains how powerful people pursue their interests through the breaking of laws. Therefore, labeling theory demonstrates the power of self-perception and the perception of the administration and service agencies in ensuring that the victims are properly identified and have access to the necessary services.
Psychologists have also applied labeling theory to mental illness, in a concept known as modified labeling theory. However, this theory is more often used to explain the victim's perspective on human trafficking. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), self-harm and depression are the most common effects of human trafficking. Therefore the psychological theory can only explain the result of trafficking but not why criminals commit crimes such as human trafficking ( Altun et al., 2017) . Additionally, trafficking crimes are not linked to behavioral theory, as explained by psychologists. The behavioral theory by B.F Skinner claimed that behaviors, including criminal behaviors, are learned. However, human trafficking is a vice that arises from one being labeled by society. It is a decision one makes due to pressure from the community. There has been a linkage between criminality and twins and adoptees in terms of biological theories of crimes. Additionally, corruption is either linked to the maternal or fraternal side, which indicates the genetic influences on law-breaking. However, only biologically related crimes such as drug abuse are explained by neurotransmitters, genetics, or neuro-biology (Tong, 2020).
Socio-biological factors such as impulsivity and environmental pollutants are more appropriate in explaining crimes such as human trafficking. Still, they are not sufficient since there are other financial motives involved. On the other hand, classical theories explain that people fear to commit crimes due to the fear of being punished. However, individuals who commit crimes such as human trafficking are often ex-convicts who have no other means of income due to the labeling that society has branded them (Bruinsma,2018) . They are forced to do more odd jobs since the law-abiding citizens are afraid of hiring ex-convicts. Due to their frustrations, these individuals engage in more paying jobs such as trafficking, requiring people with a criminal record. Therefore it all comes down to self-concept, societal expectation, and marginalization.
Conclusively, human trafficking is a crime that has received much condemnation from all sectors that advocate for human rights and well-being because the offense involves taking advantage of the weak, isolated and marginalized group of people in the society by the selfish and most wealthy people in the community for their selfish gains. Undoubtedly, criminology's sociological theory explains the causation of human trafficking crimes better than physiological, biological, or classical approaches. The activity attracts large amounts of profit. That is why mostly only the wealthy people and those with links to the senior government offices can involve themselves because the sentence and kind of punishment attached to such a crime are ransom. Three sociological theories are used in explaining crime. This strain theory was introduced by French sociologist Emile Durkheim whose concept states that social circumstances bring about criminal behaviors. The idea also has that crime is a psychological and natural biological response to the social events of the equal society that people live in today. The other theory is the control theory, which explains that crime is driven by society's societal, social, and economic needs. The theory explains further that the people involved in the crime do so because they can exercise their power, be cunning, deceptive, and agile. The other approach is the labeling theory explains that human trafficking is brought about by the perfective that people have on certain individuals in society. Although other criminology theories such as classical, biological, and psychological theories are linked to human trafficking crimes, they do not sufficiently explain the causation of human trafficking, and sociological theories do.
References
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Altun, S., Abas, M., Zimmerman, C., Howard, L. M., & Oram, S. (2017). Mental health and human trafficking: responding to survivors' needs. BJPsych International , 14 (1), 21-23.
Bruinsma, G. J. (2018). Classical theory: The emergence of deterrence theory in the age of enlightenment. In Deterrence, Choice, and Crime, Volume 23 pp. 3-28. Routledge.
Bryant, K., & Landman, T. (2020). Combatting human trafficking since Palermo: what do we know about what works?. Journal of human trafficking , 6 (2), 119-140.
Crewe, S. E., & Guyot-Diangone, J. (2016). Stigmatization and labeling. In Encyclopedia of Social Work .
Kaufman, J. M. (2017). Anomie, strain, and subcultural theories of crime . Routledge.
Tong, X. Y. (2020). Is crime hereditary? An analysis of biological ideas from eugenics to the human genome project (Doctoral dissertation).
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