WHAT IS HUMAN TRAFFICKING?
Human trafficking is the forced capture and sale of human beings. It is slavery with two main subcategories - forced labor and forced sexual slavery - for the financial profit of the trafficker and the human being’s owner.
Other uses for human beings
for the profit of traffickers include forced sale of organs or tissues,
including removal of ovaries from women and girls; housework, and pornography. This post will focus on sex trafficking.
After the sale of guns, the sale of human beings is the most profitable activity there is. Trafficking of people is currently surpassing that of drugs because of the limitless profit. You can sell crack cocaine once and it’s consumed. A gun can be sold by one person one time.
A woman or a child can be sold by a sex trafficker or owner, over and over and over, up to 30 times a day, every day, with the only expenses other than the purchase being those of basic bodily needs and clothing. In the cases of children trafficked for sex, the sale often begins with the child’s parents or relatives selling him or her to the trafficker.
In 2014, the Oklahoma Bureau
of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control reported that profit from human
trafficking in the state surpassed that of drug dealing.
Drug dealers are abandoning
drugs to sell people. The average cost of a slave globally is only $90, according to The Issue of Human Trafficking.
The International Labor
Organization (ILO) estimates that the forced labor and human trafficking
industry is lucrative to the tune of $150 billion worldwide.
In a 2014 report, the Urban
Institute estimated that the underground sex trafficking economy in the US
ranged from $39.9 million in Denver, CO to $290 million in Atlanta, GA.
[Photo credit to Voices for Dignity]
THE VICTIMS
How old are the children?
Very young. Five and younger. Some clients like kids. About half of trafficking
victims globally are under the age of 18, according to The Issue of Human Trafficking.
Also, the sex traffickers
like kids. More than 2/3 of sex trafficked children are abused by their traffickers.
How do sex traffickers lure
their victims? It varies. Teenage victims may become romantically involved with
the trafficker, or are lured with promises of a job, such as dancing or
modeling. Younger victims may be sold to traffickers by their parents or other
family members.
From the PBS documentary The
Storm Makers, about sex trafficking in Cambodia:
At the age of 16, Aya was sold to work as a maid in Malaysia. She was exploited and beaten and eventually ran away, only to be captured and raped. When she returns home with an infant son, she is just as poor as when she left.
Her mother greets her not with joy, but with anger that her daughter has come back with yet another mouth to feed instead of money.
“I should have died over there,” says Aya in a singsong, childlike voice that masks the horrors she endured.
Why don’t the victims try to
run away? Because the trafficker usually knows where they’re from, and who
their friends and family are. If the victim runs, the family pays. So the
victims stay.
Why aren’t the traffickers
prosecuted? Money. They work out financial deals with local police and
authorities. Again from The Storm Makers:
Pou Houy, 52, is a successful trafficker who runs a recruitment agency in Phnom Penh and claims to have sold more than 500 girls. Shockingly outspoken and shameless, he expresses no remorse and sees himself as a smart businessman, a good provider and even a good Christian. Although his company has been accused of trafficking by the local media, he has never been investigated by the police and continues to recruit young and poor Cambodians to work abroad.Pou Houy’s enterprise relies on local recruiters, who bring him candidates from their rural communities. One of these is Ming Dy, who sold her own daughter and continues to supply Houy with new recruits from her village. She justifies her actions by claiming she has no other way to pay her bills.
WHERE DOES SEX TRAFFICKING HAPPEN?
The perception is often that
sex trafficking is a third-world problem, but it occurs globally. The UN
crime-fighting office announced in 2012 that 2.4 million people globally are
victims of human trafficking at any given time, with 80% of them being used as
sexual slaves.
Regions include Europe and
Eurasia; south and central Asia; north, central, and south America; Canada; the
Middle East and north Africa; sub-Saharan Africa; and India.
The National Human
Trafficking Resource Center has received reports since 2007 of 14,588 sex
trafficking cases inside the United States. From January to June 2015, almost
3000 cases were reported in the US this year. Here is a partial graphic, with the full graphic available at the NHTRC website.
Earlier this year, ABC News did a special report on sex trafficking in the United States. Here is the video (11 min.):
NEW CHALLENGES AND WHAT CAN
BE DONE TO HELP
The internet is contributing both
to sex trafficking, and to the battle against it. Aid organizations are listed
below.
However, a new trend of
children being forced to perform sexual acts, to be broadcast globally, is a
result of growing internet availability. The anti-trafficking movement must be
vigilant and innovative to keep up with traffickers.
Attempts at lawmaking are
growing, but due to issues of shame and fear of retribution, victims may not
press charges against traffickers and owners.
Also, economic hardship is a
factor. Wherever deprivation and poverty exist, so does desperation, which
often results in keeping victims cycling in and out of forced sexual slavery.
PTSD is common and makes it harder for the victim to see any hope of a better
life.
Finding work after recovery from sexual slavery is a challenge. Following the Academy-Award-winning documentary Born Into Brothels in 2004, work began in Kolkata, India, on Hope House, a safe residence for women and young girls coming out of the red-light district and in need of safe, legal ways to earn money and support themselves and their families.
There are organizations and
individuals working to combat traffickers and rescue victims. A good resource
is http://www.humantrafficking.org.
Some of the organizations
include:
- The Polaris Project
- Amnesty International
- Human Rights Watch
[Photo credit to The Blue Campaign.]
Thank you for reading this.
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