Cooper Grabow, Press Corps 13
UNHCR, General Assemblies — On the first full day of the Georgetown High School MUN conference, many ideas were brought up as possible solutions for the issue of modern slavery and sex trafficking. From forward-thinking ideas involving artificial intelligence (AI), to traditional solutions like collaborating with established Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), much progress was made.
Many diverse blocs of delegations were formed, including the BFFR, consisting of Egypt, Ukraine, and other nations. In speeches to the committee concerning ways to aid the victims of trafficking and provide humanitarian relief to them, many similar themes were brought up.
“Protecting victims that have already suffered this trauma is the most time-sensitive aspect of this issue,” stated the delegation from Egypt. “We are focusing on [rehabilitation] to promote sheltering that aids physical and mental damage to victims.”
There was a room wide consensus that victims needed to be a priority for all solutions that were going to be proposed, and each of the working groups later made progress to add language pertaining to providing aid to all who required it.
The delegation of Saudi Arabia went further, saying that “the most victimized group [of those enslaved and sex trafficked] is immigrants.” The delegation proposed a resolution to guarantee any refugee or immigrant a passport into the country of their choice.
This seemingly struck a chord with many other delegations, as murmurs quickly spread across the room. Some representatives saw it as hypocritical for Saudi Arabia to comment on protecting immigrants, while the Saudi government has faced worldwide criticism regarding their treatment of refugees and foreign workers.
Despite concerns, the Saudi Arabian delegation was able to partner with other nations, and is prioritizing efforts to build up regional economic cooperation, and creating larger, more structured regional economies. The NAIMUN Daily was unable to reach the delegates from Saudi Arabia to discuss specifically how they viewed a regional economic boost as a tool to combat sex trafficking. Other delegates were skeptical, as quizzical looks and whispers of doubt rushed about the room when they proposed their plan
“No way that helps,” said one delegate.
Many other delegations were focused on the innovative approaches that incorporated AI, as well as highly advanced facial recognition technology in order to identify and track the suspected sex traffickers. Speaking with regard to its potential implications, the delegation from South Africa proposed a bilateral approach to technology that involved a user based approach to improve network connectivity in rural areas, and a government based approach that uses AI to aid databases in collection and identification of suspected perpetrators. Many of the other delegations in the committee seemed to agree, as South Africa is part of a large group of countries.
Overall, new alliances were formed, and many ideas were proposed, modified, rejected, and accepted in the Human Rights Council, and progress is very positive.
Follow the NAIMUN Daily in coming days to read more about specific resolutions coming out of the UNHRC and all other committees at the North American Invitational Model United Nations conference!