Human Trafficking: Modern Day Slavery
Nearly 185 years later after the 13th amendment was ratified, slavery is still rampant in America. In today’s society it comes in different forms. The general term for modern day slavery is human trafficking. Human trafficking is a form of slavery in which people profit from exploiting others whether for domestic or sexual labor. It affects every country around the world, regardless of historical or political status. According to Polaris Project’s article “Human trafficking,” “The International Labor Organization estimates that there are 20.9 million victims of human trafficking globally, including 5.5 million children. 55% are women and girls (humantraffickingpara5).” After being raped, beaten, dehumanized and sold numerous times to complete
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strangers, victims of sex trafficking never psychologically recover.
There are a lot of things people don’t know about sex trafficking. For example, “Sex trafficking is a form of modern day slavery that exists throughout the United States and globally (sextraffickingintheuspara1).” According to Kimberley Koltras’ article “The Modern Day Slave Trade,” “around 225,000 people are trafficked out of South Asia each year… approximately 70,000 Brazilians, 50,000 Colombians, and 50,000 Dominicans have been trafficked to work in the sex industry... Some of the largest destination countries in the sex trafficking market are the United States, Canada, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Greece, Spain, and Portugal (para11).” In other words, sex trafficking is an epidemic that occurs nationwide with victims being transported to different countries. Koltra argues that “human trafficking is the third-most profitable criminal activity, surpassed only by drugs and weapons trafficking…each year, an estimated $9.5 billion is generated through all human trafficking, with at least $4 billion attributed to the brothel and prostitution industries (para8).” In the United States, sex trafficking commonly occurs in online escort services, residential brothels, brothels disguised as massage businesses or spas, and in street prostitution (humantraffickingpara3). Polaris project also reports that “in 2013, the national human trafficking hotline, operated by Polaris, received reports of 3,609 sex trafficking cases inside the United States. (sextraffickingpara8).” According to Svintla Batsyukovsa’s article “Prostitution and Human trafficking for sexual exploitation,” there are four known ways out of trafficking enslavement: “victims are rescued by authorities; freedom for victims is bought by customers, the escape of a victim; the death of a victim (para17).” In other words death, police intervention, and customers paying for victim’s freedom are the only ways someone could escape trafficking.
Deception is the tactic traffickers use to fool victims. Victims are “frequently lured by false promises of a lucrative job, stability, education, or a loving relationship (humantraffickingpara8).” Runaway and homeless girls, victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, or social discrimination are usually targeted by traffickers. Traffickers can be individuals or a part of an extensive criminal network. “Pimps, gangs, family members, and labor brokers, employers of domestic servants, small business owners, and large factory owners have all been found guilty of human trafficking (humantraffickingpara8).” In other words traffickers can be anyone, someone’s parent, aunt, uncle, and friend. Traffickers target homeless, runaway, and sexual assault victims because they are vulnerable. Homeless and runaways have nowhere to go so traffickers target them. Victims of sexual assault are targeted because they are emotionally distraught from what they may have endured which also makes them vulnerable. For example the author of “Victims’ Stories” made a report on a runaway named Ashley: When Ashley was 12-years-old she got into a fight with her mother and ran away from home. She ended up staying with her friend’s older brother at his house and intended to go home the next day, but when she tried to leave he told her that he was a pimp and that she was now his property. He locked her in a room, beat her daily, and advertised her for sex on websites (para10). Ashley was an easy target for traffickers where in her case it was a friend’s older brother who happened to be a pimp because she was a young runaway.
The push and pull factors that fuel sex trafficking are high cost, poverty, and prostitution.
High cost meaning the money people make from trafficking. “Traffickers generate billions of dollars in profits (humantraffickingpara3),” therefore traffickers are pushed into sex trafficking for the monetary gain. Poverty is another thing that fuels sex trafficking. According to Rita Chi-Yung Chungs’ “Global Study Review” article, “potential trafficking victims are “pushed” into the situation by poverty and the lack of employment opportunities (Chungpara5).”In short, people who live in poverty are pulled into trafficking because they want to survive.to survive one needs money.so they will do what they have to do at all cost to make money, even if they do not know the full extent of the jobs. “Victims’ Stories” emphasizes the severity of how poverty pushes people into sex trafficking with Maria Elena’s …show more content…
story:
Maria Elena was 13 years old when a family acquaintance told her she could make ten times as much money waiting tables in the United States than she could in her small village. She and several other girls were driven across the border... They traveled four days and nights through the desert, making their way into Texas, and then crossing east toward Florida…Finally, Maria Elena and the other girls arrived at their destination, a rundown trailer where they were forced into prostitution. Maria Elena was gang-raped and locked in the trailer until she agreed to do what she was told. She lived under 24-hour watch and was forced to have sex with up to 30 men a day (victimstoriespara2).”
Maria’s story signifies how poverty can get people into traumatic situations. She was not making enough money at work to take care of herself, so after listening to a family friend who told her she could make more in the united states, she was tricked and made to live a lifestyle that involved her being gang raped with no voice. If Maria had made more money at her job in Mexico, she would not have been in the position she ended up in.
Melissa Holman notes in the journal for “Modern Day Slave Trade” that in countries where prostitution is legal or tolerated, “there is a greater demand for prostitutes, and thus a greater demand for trafficking victims.
Customers often want unlimited access to a variety of women who are ethnically and culturally diverse. This constant demand for new and different women is one of the primary drives behind the international trade in women (page18).” To clarify, Prostitution fuels sex trafficking because it makes women into a commodity. And with commodities there are consumers, consumers want a specific type of item and in this case the consumers want a specific type of person, specific body type, hair color, and skin color. And traffickers know they will profit more if they have the right item, female, male, child per
say.
Sex trafficking victims endure so much physically that their overall health and wellbeing is affected negatively. The “Identifying Victims” article state that some victims have bruises, broken bones, burns, and scarring (identifyingvictimspara9). This is after being beat and raped. Meaning they have a lot of physical injuries. For this reason the victim’s general wellbeing isn’t good. Chung argues that despite being “forced into sex slavery…subdued with drugs and extreme forms of violence (chungpara9),” living under unsanitary and crowded conditions with poor nutrition creates a range of health risks such as scabies, tuberculosis, hepatitis, and other communicable diseases (chungpara10).Not only are victims drugged, their living condition is so bad that they develop a lot of diseases. This ultimately puts victims at high risk of being exposed to sexually transmitted diseases as well as addiction and injury that includes “HIV/AIDS, pelvic inflammatory diseases, forced substance abuse, damage to reproductive organs and other parts of the body due to repeated beatings, unwanted pregnancy, forced abortion, and abortion-related complications (chungpara10).”Many sex trafficking victims contract HIV from having sex with so many different people, forced abortions because they cannot work when pregnant, and pregnancy complications when they actually want to conceive because of all the damage done to their reproductive system. They do not have healthcare.
Many people would argue that victims of sex trafficking do psychologically recover after their traumatic endeavors. But “because traffickers dehumanize and objectify their victims, victims’ innate sense of power, visibility, and dignity often become obscured victims lose their sense of identity and security (identyfingvictimspara2).”This makes victims feel as though they have no self-worth. As a result “a variety of psychological symptoms surface over a period of time even after victims escape or are rescued from the trafficking environment (identyfingvictimspara2).” So instead of psychologically recovering, victims develop mental disorders and psychological changes. Chung’s global studies review states that “psychological changes that victims develop include a mindset of fear, distrust, denial, and conflicting loyalties. General feelings of helplessness, shame, guilt, self-blame, and humiliation; Suffer from shock and denial, or display symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, phobias, panic attacks, anxiety, and depression (identifyingvictimspara6).” Chung’s article also argues that victims of sex trafficking end up “living consistently in fear, create feelings of isolation, a lack of control over one’s life, a sense of helplessness and hopelessness, low self-esteem, self-worth and self-respect, self-blame, depression, anxiety, guilt, anger, rage, difficulty sleeping or insomnia, fear or hatred of men, paranoia, loss of appetite, lack of energy, dreams or nightmares about being abused, attacked or resold, lack of trust in and suspicion of people, suicidal thoughts, feelings of being trapped, easily startled, and always being on guard(chunghpara10)”.Psychologically, victims go through a lot of problems that change their lifestyle completely. Victims also “Become addicted to drugs and/or alcohol as a way to cope with or “escape” their situation, or as a method of control used by their traffickers; emotionally numb, detached, and (identyfingvictimspara10).”As a way to get over the events, victims begin abusing substances to help them forget about what happened. Although victims of sex trafficking never fully psychologically recover, there are many different ways you can help aid in reinstating a victim’s psychological wellbeing. The author of the “Internal Wounds Article” states that in order to help victims psychologically recover one must attend to victims’ “physical well-being (Internalpara7).”Meaning people must take care of or help victims to make sure they are physically okay; since they get different types of injuries. “Soliciting the support of medical experts, social workers, and psychologists who are trained in human trafficking, ensuring privacy and confidentiality to protect victims and their families and friends; providing unconditional support, especially amidst victims’ potential denial, distrust, reticence, shame, or anger (Internalpara7).”Soliciting the support of those who specialize in sex trafficking helps victims because the psychologist, medical experts are trained in that field. Most victims fear for their lives and the lives of their families because traffickers threaten them and their families to make them cooperate, so if victims know they will be safe, they will recover better than they would if they didn’t know they were safe. Since victims are beaten, demoralized, and treated as a commodity, they lose their sense of identity. So helping victims rebuild their identity will aid in their recover. The biggest step to help reinstate a victim’s psychological being is testing. It’s important that victims get tested for different psychological disorders such as anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress, and substance abuse. Otherwise, victims never recover and some disorders will only worsen. In other words, providing a lot of support from specialized counselors, having supportive family, friends, and ensuring victims that they are safe can help reinstate their wellbeing. Many people also argue that the government helps victims. This is not true because the government helps re-victimize the victims. The government aids in re victimizing victims by arresting and deporting victims; arresting the traffickers. In Michelle Brocks’ article “Life after being a victim” she states “In Bosnia, a woman that had been accepted into an IOM program as a trafficked person agreed to testify against her ‘owner.’ On the stand as a witness, the judge charged her with the use of false documents, despite the fact that she had just testified that the owner had purchased her, provided her with a fake passport, beaten her regularly, and forced her to work in a brothel without pay (para6).” This helps re victimize victims because it makes them afraid to come forward and testify because they do not want to get deported. Then if they get deported, they are being sent right back to the area where they were originally trafficked not knowing who is waiting for them. Brock’s article also states “Often governments offer protection to the victim and allow them to temporarily stay in the country, on the condition that they testify against their traffickers (para8).” In Austria, a man guilty of human trafficking, bodily harm, rape, forced abortion, forgery, and damage to property received only 8 years in prison, though two victims had enough courage to come forward (para9).”If two victims testifying against a trafficker gets him 8 years maximum, why come forward? What about retaliation? That’s going to happen 8 years from now when that trafficker gets out? It only puts the victims in harm’s way. Both tactics the government use create fear within the victims putting their safety at risk. There is no guarantee that after being rescued, arrested, deported, and that after jailing the trafficker the victim will be safe. In conclusion, Sex trafficking affects people all over the world. Traffickers prey on the weak and lure victims with deception. High cost pushes people into becoming traffickers. Poverty push and pull people into victims and Prostitution fuels trafficking by glamourizing it. Victim’s physical and psychological wellbeing are affected overall during trafficking. They Contract diseases, develop disorders such as anxiety and depression. Victims of sex trafficking never recover psychologically but there are sources that aid in their recovery.
strangers, victims of sex trafficking never psychologically recover.
There are a lot of things people don’t know about sex trafficking. For example, “Sex trafficking is a form of modern day slavery that exists throughout the United States and globally (sextraffickingintheuspara1).” According to Kimberley Koltras’ article “The Modern Day Slave Trade,” “around 225,000 people are trafficked out of South Asia each year… approximately 70,000 Brazilians, 50,000 Colombians, and 50,000 Dominicans have been trafficked to work in the sex industry... Some of the largest destination countries in the sex trafficking market are the United States, Canada, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Greece, Spain, and Portugal (para11).” In other words, sex trafficking is an epidemic that occurs nationwide with victims being transported to different countries. Koltra argues that “human trafficking is the third-most profitable criminal activity, surpassed only by drugs and weapons trafficking…each year, an estimated $9.5 billion is generated through all human trafficking, with at least $4 billion attributed to the brothel and prostitution industries (para8).” In the United States, sex trafficking commonly occurs in online escort services, residential brothels, brothels disguised as massage businesses or spas, and in street prostitution (humantraffickingpara3). Polaris project also reports that “in 2013, the national human trafficking hotline, operated by Polaris, received reports of 3,609 sex trafficking cases inside the United States. (sextraffickingpara8).” According to Svintla Batsyukovsa’s article “Prostitution and Human trafficking for sexual exploitation,” there are four known ways out of trafficking enslavement: “victims are rescued by authorities; freedom for victims is bought by customers, the escape of a victim; the death of a victim (para17).” In other words death, police intervention, and customers paying for victim’s freedom are the only ways someone could escape trafficking.
Deception is the tactic traffickers use to fool victims. Victims are “frequently lured by false promises of a lucrative job, stability, education, or a loving relationship (humantraffickingpara8).” Runaway and homeless girls, victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, or social discrimination are usually targeted by traffickers. Traffickers can be individuals or a part of an extensive criminal network. “Pimps, gangs, family members, and labor brokers, employers of domestic servants, small business owners, and large factory owners have all been found guilty of human trafficking (humantraffickingpara8).” In other words traffickers can be anyone, someone’s parent, aunt, uncle, and friend. Traffickers target homeless, runaway, and sexual assault victims because they are vulnerable. Homeless and runaways have nowhere to go so traffickers target them. Victims of sexual assault are targeted because they are emotionally distraught from what they may have endured which also makes them vulnerable. For example the author of “Victims’ Stories” made a report on a runaway named Ashley: When Ashley was 12-years-old she got into a fight with her mother and ran away from home. She ended up staying with her friend’s older brother at his house and intended to go home the next day, but when she tried to leave he told her that he was a pimp and that she was now his property. He locked her in a room, beat her daily, and advertised her for sex on websites (para10). Ashley was an easy target for traffickers where in her case it was a friend’s older brother who happened to be a pimp because she was a young runaway.
The push and pull factors that fuel sex trafficking are high cost, poverty, and prostitution.
High cost meaning the money people make from trafficking. “Traffickers generate billions of dollars in profits (humantraffickingpara3),” therefore traffickers are pushed into sex trafficking for the monetary gain. Poverty is another thing that fuels sex trafficking. According to Rita Chi-Yung Chungs’ “Global Study Review” article, “potential trafficking victims are “pushed” into the situation by poverty and the lack of employment opportunities (Chungpara5).”In short, people who live in poverty are pulled into trafficking because they want to survive.to survive one needs money.so they will do what they have to do at all cost to make money, even if they do not know the full extent of the jobs. “Victims’ Stories” emphasizes the severity of how poverty pushes people into sex trafficking with Maria Elena’s …show more content…
story:
Maria Elena was 13 years old when a family acquaintance told her she could make ten times as much money waiting tables in the United States than she could in her small village. She and several other girls were driven across the border... They traveled four days and nights through the desert, making their way into Texas, and then crossing east toward Florida…Finally, Maria Elena and the other girls arrived at their destination, a rundown trailer where they were forced into prostitution. Maria Elena was gang-raped and locked in the trailer until she agreed to do what she was told. She lived under 24-hour watch and was forced to have sex with up to 30 men a day (victimstoriespara2).”
Maria’s story signifies how poverty can get people into traumatic situations. She was not making enough money at work to take care of herself, so after listening to a family friend who told her she could make more in the united states, she was tricked and made to live a lifestyle that involved her being gang raped with no voice. If Maria had made more money at her job in Mexico, she would not have been in the position she ended up in.
Melissa Holman notes in the journal for “Modern Day Slave Trade” that in countries where prostitution is legal or tolerated, “there is a greater demand for prostitutes, and thus a greater demand for trafficking victims.
Customers often want unlimited access to a variety of women who are ethnically and culturally diverse. This constant demand for new and different women is one of the primary drives behind the international trade in women (page18).” To clarify, Prostitution fuels sex trafficking because it makes women into a commodity. And with commodities there are consumers, consumers want a specific type of item and in this case the consumers want a specific type of person, specific body type, hair color, and skin color. And traffickers know they will profit more if they have the right item, female, male, child per
say.
Sex trafficking victims endure so much physically that their overall health and wellbeing is affected negatively. The “Identifying Victims” article state that some victims have bruises, broken bones, burns, and scarring (identifyingvictimspara9). This is after being beat and raped. Meaning they have a lot of physical injuries. For this reason the victim’s general wellbeing isn’t good. Chung argues that despite being “forced into sex slavery…subdued with drugs and extreme forms of violence (chungpara9),” living under unsanitary and crowded conditions with poor nutrition creates a range of health risks such as scabies, tuberculosis, hepatitis, and other communicable diseases (chungpara10).Not only are victims drugged, their living condition is so bad that they develop a lot of diseases. This ultimately puts victims at high risk of being exposed to sexually transmitted diseases as well as addiction and injury that includes “HIV/AIDS, pelvic inflammatory diseases, forced substance abuse, damage to reproductive organs and other parts of the body due to repeated beatings, unwanted pregnancy, forced abortion, and abortion-related complications (chungpara10).”Many sex trafficking victims contract HIV from having sex with so many different people, forced abortions because they cannot work when pregnant, and pregnancy complications when they actually want to conceive because of all the damage done to their reproductive system. They do not have healthcare.
Many people would argue that victims of sex trafficking do psychologically recover after their traumatic endeavors. But “because traffickers dehumanize and objectify their victims, victims’ innate sense of power, visibility, and dignity often become obscured victims lose their sense of identity and security (identyfingvictimspara2).”This makes victims feel as though they have no self-worth. As a result “a variety of psychological symptoms surface over a period of time even after victims escape or are rescued from the trafficking environment (identyfingvictimspara2).” So instead of psychologically recovering, victims develop mental disorders and psychological changes. Chung’s global studies review states that “psychological changes that victims develop include a mindset of fear, distrust, denial, and conflicting loyalties. General feelings of helplessness, shame, guilt, self-blame, and humiliation; Suffer from shock and denial, or display symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, phobias, panic attacks, anxiety, and depression (identifyingvictimspara6).” Chung’s article also argues that victims of sex trafficking end up “living consistently in fear, create feelings of isolation, a lack of control over one’s life, a sense of helplessness and hopelessness, low self-esteem, self-worth and self-respect, self-blame, depression, anxiety, guilt, anger, rage, difficulty sleeping or insomnia, fear or hatred of men, paranoia, loss of appetite, lack of energy, dreams or nightmares about being abused, attacked or resold, lack of trust in and suspicion of people, suicidal thoughts, feelings of being trapped, easily startled, and always being on guard(chunghpara10)”.Psychologically, victims go through a lot of problems that change their lifestyle completely. Victims also “Become addicted to drugs and/or alcohol as a way to cope with or “escape” their situation, or as a method of control used by their traffickers; emotionally numb, detached, and (identyfingvictimspara10).”As a way to get over the events, victims begin abusing substances to help them forget about what happened. Although victims of sex trafficking never fully psychologically recover, there are many different ways you can help aid in reinstating a victim’s psychological wellbeing. The author of the “Internal Wounds Article” states that in order to help victims psychologically recover one must attend to victims’ “physical well-being (Internalpara7).”Meaning people must take care of or help victims to make sure they are physically okay; since they get different types of injuries. “Soliciting the support of medical experts, social workers, and psychologists who are trained in human trafficking, ensuring privacy and confidentiality to protect victims and their families and friends; providing unconditional support, especially amidst victims’ potential denial, distrust, reticence, shame, or anger (Internalpara7).”Soliciting the support of those who specialize in sex trafficking helps victims because the psychologist, medical experts are trained in that field. Most victims fear for their lives and the lives of their families because traffickers threaten them and their families to make them cooperate, so if victims know they will be safe, they will recover better than they would if they didn’t know they were safe. Since victims are beaten, demoralized, and treated as a commodity, they lose their sense of identity. So helping victims rebuild their identity will aid in their recover. The biggest step to help reinstate a victim’s psychological being is testing. It’s important that victims get tested for different psychological disorders such as anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress, and substance abuse. Otherwise, victims never recover and some disorders will only worsen. In other words, providing a lot of support from specialized counselors, having supportive family, friends, and ensuring victims that they are safe can help reinstate their wellbeing. Many people also argue that the government helps victims. This is not true because the government helps re-victimize the victims. The government aids in re victimizing victims by arresting and deporting victims; arresting the traffickers. In Michelle Brocks’ article “Life after being a victim” she states “In Bosnia, a woman that had been accepted into an IOM program as a trafficked person agreed to testify against her ‘owner.’ On the stand as a witness, the judge charged her with the use of false documents, despite the fact that she had just testified that the owner had purchased her, provided her with a fake passport, beaten her regularly, and forced her to work in a brothel without pay (para6).” This helps re victimize victims because it makes them afraid to come forward and testify because they do not want to get deported. Then if they get deported, they are being sent right back to the area where they were originally trafficked not knowing who is waiting for them. Brock’s article also states “Often governments offer protection to the victim and allow them to temporarily stay in the country, on the condition that they testify against their traffickers (para8).” In Austria, a man guilty of human trafficking, bodily harm, rape, forced abortion, forgery, and damage to property received only 8 years in prison, though two victims had enough courage to come forward (para9).”If two victims testifying against a trafficker gets him 8 years maximum, why come forward? What about retaliation? That’s going to happen 8 years from now when that trafficker gets out? It only puts the victims in harm’s way. Both tactics the government use create fear within the victims putting their safety at risk. There is no guarantee that after being rescued, arrested, deported, and that after jailing the trafficker the victim will be safe. In conclusion, Sex trafficking affects people all over the world. Traffickers prey on the weak and lure victims with deception. High cost pushes people into becoming traffickers. Poverty push and pull people into victims and Prostitution fuels trafficking by glamourizing it. Victim’s physical and psychological wellbeing are affected overall during trafficking. They Contract diseases, develop disorders such as anxiety and depression. Victims of sex trafficking never recover psychologically but there are sources that aid in their recovery.