Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural Committee (SOCHUM)

Director: Nicholas a. Hall

Topic A: Combatting Global Human Trafficking

Human trafficking is a global tragedy which jeopardizes the lives and livelihoods of millions of vulnerable individuals across the world, every year. And it’s a complicated problem. Firstly, it occurs in many different forms, encompassing black-market migratory services, underpaid labor schemes, debt bondage, sexual exploitation, and much more. This makes it difficult to design a response which tackles the problem in all its incarnations. Another complication is that it can be very difficult to detect: human traffickers often take advantage of the most vulnerable people they can find, who may sincerely believe they are being helped and may not realize what their situation is until it is too late. And lastly, it is most prevalent in parts of the developing world where state capacity is too limited to make its defeat a priority, while corruption and vested interests further complicate the incentive structures and make it even more difficult to root out. What social, political, and economic factors facilitate the spread of human trafficking? And what can the global community do to fight it? It will be your role to compose a framework of policy instruments which stand a chance of ending human trafficking for good.

TOPIC B: Protecting The Rights of Linguistic Minorities

The challenges faced by linguistic minorities are often overlooked, especially by more developed countries which have functional, nationalized education systems and broad linguistic cohesion across the vast majority of their populations. But in many places around the world this is not the case. Millions of individuals around the world live in countries whose “national language” they cannot speak. This cuts them off from education - since schools may not cater to their linguistic needs - as well as participation in the economy, civil processes and government. How can they progress economically if most jobs require them to speak another language? How can they vote if they cannot understand their politicians? And how can they advocate for their own rights, and articulate their own needs and challenges, if there stands a language barrier which the ruling powers decline to remove? These are just some of the manifold challenges faced by linguistic minorities across the world. How can they best be addressed? It will be your job to decide.