Human Trafficking Essay

After the illegal drug-trade human trafficking is the fastest increasing criminal industry. Human trafficking is commonly referred to as "modern-day slavery." This is the illegal trade of human beings for forced labor or for exploitation. Exploitation referring to the use of others for prostitution or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery, or the removal of organs. Woman and young children living in poverty are the ones who usually fall in the trap of the traffickers. Due to poverty many women are not educated and are not employed leaving them with no choice but to sell their bodies to provide for their families. An approximated 17,500 foreigners are trafficked each year in the United States alone, the number of United States citizens trafficked within the United States are even higher. Human trafficking is a near-guaranteed death due to HIV and AIDS. Governments around the world are just beginning to address this problem and have realized just how common this type of slavery has become.

Poverty is the leading cause of human trafficking. It has been documented that poverty leads to a lack of education leading to no employment and that leading to sex trafficking. By fighting poverty there is a possibility that there will be an end to sex trafficking. Woman living in poverty struck countries will not be looking into sex driven businesses for employment. "Trafficking is inextricably linked to poverty. Wherever privation and economic hardship prevail, there will be those destitute and desperate enough to enter into the fraudulent employment schemes that are the most common intake systems in the world of trafficking," Stated by The United States Agency for International Development. In Kenya, It has been reported that parents have sent their daughters into town for prostitution because they were desperate for money to feed their families. More than 1,500 girls under the age of 18 and as young as 12 in Kenya have been reported to be