Slavery: Human Trafficking In The United States
Slavery was abolished 150 years ago and yet there are more people in slavery today than in any other time in our history. Women and children all around the world search and hope for a better life. Some take that dream as far as to travel across oceans in pursuit of that goal. Unfortunately, these women and children usually fall victim to groups and companies who exploit and condemn them into slavery known as human trafficking. Human trafficking involves smuggle illegal citizens from other world countries and submitting them into forced processes such as prostitution, child labor, labor forces, and many others. Human trafficking is the second highest crime rate in America short of drug crimes. It’s a horrendous profit marketing that targets poorer country citizens.
Once brought overseas to America, the women, children, and even men often are subjected to horrifying torture and exposed to irreparable circumstances. According to Anti-Slavery.org “People can be trafficked for many different forms …show more content…
of exploitation such as forced prostitution, forced labor, forced begging, forced criminality, domestic servitude, forced marriage, forced organ removal.” Individuals who are forced into servitude often find themselves in that situation because they seek to escape from the harsh poverty and discrimination in their countries. Frequently they get an offer of a well-paying job abroad or in another region through recruitment agencies. However, when they arrive to this place of destination, they often find that the work they were promised never existed and instead they are forced into a job or conditions they did not agree too.
In addition to persuasion methods of acquiring people to traffic, other ways have been used. It’s more likely found if recruiters cannot coerce with fake benefits and promises of wealth and freedom often people get threatened or forced into these conditions. People in charge of acquiring the slaves often abuse the people they have with powerful tactics such as threatening to kill their families back home if they do not comply with their demands.
If you go onto anti-slavery.org, you will find actual stories of victims of human trafficking. One story in particular by a girl name Hai shows the appalling details of what can happen to young children who are subjected to human trafficking. In her story she explains “I grew up in a rural village in Vietnam and when I was fifteen-years-old my farther passed away. At that time, I was not going to school so I tried to make a living in the capital selling plastic bottles for recycling. A man approached me and said that I could earn lots of money in Europe working in a restaurant. I managed to raise several thousand dollars for an agent to arrange my travel and accommodation. I was excited to travel overseas and make some money to send to my mother and sisters.”
As you can see her captures used a form deception; claiming she can earn profits to help her family back home in order to get her to comply with them. Hai continues to inform her audiences about her journey by stating “After travelling through countless countries over a 14-month period, I was eventually left at a service station in the England where I was met by a Vietnamese man called Cuong who drove us to a house in Scotland. When we arrived, the man told me that I now owed more money for the trip, plus interest. They made me water cannabis plants to pay off the debt. My captor would lock me up in the house when he left and only returned every few days with bits of food and water. When I asked for anything or complained he would hit me and threatened that if I left the house, the police would arrest me and beat me.” In order to keep their victims like Hai they would use abuse and torture both physically and mentally. Besides beatings, Hai was subjected to mental abuse scare tactics using the police against her.
Unfortunately, the captures were right on the police threats because Hai’s story continues with her explaining that “Three months later the police raided the house that I was imprisoned and I was arrested and taken into custody. They questioned, I was so frightened and confused that I was too scared to tell them anything. My lawyer advised me to plead guilty and I was sentenced to 24 months in an adults’ prison and I would be deported after I served my sentence.”
This frightening story was just one of millions who’ve been forced through this type of torture and slavery. These human trafficking organizations use a 3 stage system to get their victims; recruiting, transporting, and enforcing. During the first stage these organizations go into low-income poverty stricken countries such as China, Russia, and the Philippines. Many of the victims are young women and children due to their vulnerability and desperate needs for money for their families or self. The next stage is to transport their victims; this procedure is established through boats and or planes. In addition, some of these organizations have families on both sides of the system assisting. From those who work on the inside of law enforcement to ensure fake passports and safe passage through to bribing those in charge to look the other way. The final stage is enforcement. Upon arriving at their destination, these criminals begin enforcing their victims to obedience early. If they do not obey, they will receive severe consequences such as beatings, starvation tactics, deportation, and sexual assaults. This happens to both voluntary and kidnapped, drugged, or threatened victims. Some victims are often sold into these servitudes from their parents who are in debt as means of last resort. Human trafficking is an ever-growing profit market for criminals.
Perpetrators can found from global networks to a single pimp. Cheaper labor and sexual exploitation have increased in high demand. Human trafficking provides cheap labor to sweatshops, nail salons, and other places in need of cheap workers. These employees earn as little as a dollar a day while working 12-15 hours a day. In addition, people who suffer sexual exploitation end up working for brothel owners, pornography producers, strip clubs, and sex tourists. Sex tourists are men who travel to a certain country or place for a “sexual adventure.” In Giselle Routhier’s essay on sex trafficking she quotes “Asia has one of the largest markets for sex tourism, as do other countries with legalized prostitution, such as the Netherlands. Developed countries such as the United States create some of the largest demand and produce the largest numbers of sex tourists for the commercial sex industry (Getu, 2006, p.
143).” Besides sex trafficking, human trafficking brings in profit from forced labor. The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that there are at least 20.9 million people in forced labour worldwide. The figure means that, at any given point in time, around three out of every 1,000 persons worldwide are suffering in forced labour (Anti-Slavery.org.) Almost 21 million people are victims of forced labour – 11.4 million women and girls and 9.5 million men and boys (ILO.) Forced labor is also a high profit margin for human trafficking since it’s workers end up in servitude making only enough to survive another day. Almost all their earnings go to the agencies and owners who sell the products their making. Economically, organizations promoting forced labor trafficking generate $150 billion in illegal profits per year. The new ILO estimate shows how forced labor affects different groups of people: 55 per cent of all victims are women and girls, 45 per cent are men and boys. Children make up around one quarter of all victims. Forced labor and Sex trafficking go hand in hand when dealing with human trafficking as a whole. It’s the largest two categories of trafficking going on right now in our country.
Conclusion
Human trafficking is a horrific crime that’s ever growing in our world today. The United States harbors an enormous amount of that trafficking. These human trafficking organizations run through a 3 stage system; recruiting, transporting, and enforcing. They subject millions of people to several categories of slavery from sexual prostitution and child labor, to organ removal. In many poorer countries, the flow and quality of information is limited. Therefore, the word cannot be spread about the dangers of trafficking and vulnerable populations will not be properly vigilant (Routhier, 2007, p. 9). All over the world we need to share what types of human trafficking is going on.
As you clearly see in this diagram breakdown of human trafficking it’s clear we have a huge part of it dedicated to forced labor and commercial sex trafficking. This problem is being faced all over the world including our own country. Exploitation of humans as slaves needs to be rectified for those suffering now. Sex trafficking has been all over social media including shows such as Law and Order: Special Victims, Criminal Minds, and even NCIS. It’s a popular threat we’re facing today.
Once brought overseas to America, the women, children, and even men often are subjected to horrifying torture and exposed to irreparable circumstances. According to Anti-Slavery.org “People can be trafficked for many different forms …show more content…
of exploitation such as forced prostitution, forced labor, forced begging, forced criminality, domestic servitude, forced marriage, forced organ removal.” Individuals who are forced into servitude often find themselves in that situation because they seek to escape from the harsh poverty and discrimination in their countries. Frequently they get an offer of a well-paying job abroad or in another region through recruitment agencies. However, when they arrive to this place of destination, they often find that the work they were promised never existed and instead they are forced into a job or conditions they did not agree too.
In addition to persuasion methods of acquiring people to traffic, other ways have been used. It’s more likely found if recruiters cannot coerce with fake benefits and promises of wealth and freedom often people get threatened or forced into these conditions. People in charge of acquiring the slaves often abuse the people they have with powerful tactics such as threatening to kill their families back home if they do not comply with their demands.
If you go onto anti-slavery.org, you will find actual stories of victims of human trafficking. One story in particular by a girl name Hai shows the appalling details of what can happen to young children who are subjected to human trafficking. In her story she explains “I grew up in a rural village in Vietnam and when I was fifteen-years-old my farther passed away. At that time, I was not going to school so I tried to make a living in the capital selling plastic bottles for recycling. A man approached me and said that I could earn lots of money in Europe working in a restaurant. I managed to raise several thousand dollars for an agent to arrange my travel and accommodation. I was excited to travel overseas and make some money to send to my mother and sisters.”
As you can see her captures used a form deception; claiming she can earn profits to help her family back home in order to get her to comply with them. Hai continues to inform her audiences about her journey by stating “After travelling through countless countries over a 14-month period, I was eventually left at a service station in the England where I was met by a Vietnamese man called Cuong who drove us to a house in Scotland. When we arrived, the man told me that I now owed more money for the trip, plus interest. They made me water cannabis plants to pay off the debt. My captor would lock me up in the house when he left and only returned every few days with bits of food and water. When I asked for anything or complained he would hit me and threatened that if I left the house, the police would arrest me and beat me.” In order to keep their victims like Hai they would use abuse and torture both physically and mentally. Besides beatings, Hai was subjected to mental abuse scare tactics using the police against her.
Unfortunately, the captures were right on the police threats because Hai’s story continues with her explaining that “Three months later the police raided the house that I was imprisoned and I was arrested and taken into custody. They questioned, I was so frightened and confused that I was too scared to tell them anything. My lawyer advised me to plead guilty and I was sentenced to 24 months in an adults’ prison and I would be deported after I served my sentence.”
This frightening story was just one of millions who’ve been forced through this type of torture and slavery. These human trafficking organizations use a 3 stage system to get their victims; recruiting, transporting, and enforcing. During the first stage these organizations go into low-income poverty stricken countries such as China, Russia, and the Philippines. Many of the victims are young women and children due to their vulnerability and desperate needs for money for their families or self. The next stage is to transport their victims; this procedure is established through boats and or planes. In addition, some of these organizations have families on both sides of the system assisting. From those who work on the inside of law enforcement to ensure fake passports and safe passage through to bribing those in charge to look the other way. The final stage is enforcement. Upon arriving at their destination, these criminals begin enforcing their victims to obedience early. If they do not obey, they will receive severe consequences such as beatings, starvation tactics, deportation, and sexual assaults. This happens to both voluntary and kidnapped, drugged, or threatened victims. Some victims are often sold into these servitudes from their parents who are in debt as means of last resort. Human trafficking is an ever-growing profit market for criminals.
Perpetrators can found from global networks to a single pimp. Cheaper labor and sexual exploitation have increased in high demand. Human trafficking provides cheap labor to sweatshops, nail salons, and other places in need of cheap workers. These employees earn as little as a dollar a day while working 12-15 hours a day. In addition, people who suffer sexual exploitation end up working for brothel owners, pornography producers, strip clubs, and sex tourists. Sex tourists are men who travel to a certain country or place for a “sexual adventure.” In Giselle Routhier’s essay on sex trafficking she quotes “Asia has one of the largest markets for sex tourism, as do other countries with legalized prostitution, such as the Netherlands. Developed countries such as the United States create some of the largest demand and produce the largest numbers of sex tourists for the commercial sex industry (Getu, 2006, p.
143).” Besides sex trafficking, human trafficking brings in profit from forced labor. The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that there are at least 20.9 million people in forced labour worldwide. The figure means that, at any given point in time, around three out of every 1,000 persons worldwide are suffering in forced labour (Anti-Slavery.org.) Almost 21 million people are victims of forced labour – 11.4 million women and girls and 9.5 million men and boys (ILO.) Forced labor is also a high profit margin for human trafficking since it’s workers end up in servitude making only enough to survive another day. Almost all their earnings go to the agencies and owners who sell the products their making. Economically, organizations promoting forced labor trafficking generate $150 billion in illegal profits per year. The new ILO estimate shows how forced labor affects different groups of people: 55 per cent of all victims are women and girls, 45 per cent are men and boys. Children make up around one quarter of all victims. Forced labor and Sex trafficking go hand in hand when dealing with human trafficking as a whole. It’s the largest two categories of trafficking going on right now in our country.
Conclusion
Human trafficking is a horrific crime that’s ever growing in our world today. The United States harbors an enormous amount of that trafficking. These human trafficking organizations run through a 3 stage system; recruiting, transporting, and enforcing. They subject millions of people to several categories of slavery from sexual prostitution and child labor, to organ removal. In many poorer countries, the flow and quality of information is limited. Therefore, the word cannot be spread about the dangers of trafficking and vulnerable populations will not be properly vigilant (Routhier, 2007, p. 9). All over the world we need to share what types of human trafficking is going on.
As you clearly see in this diagram breakdown of human trafficking it’s clear we have a huge part of it dedicated to forced labor and commercial sex trafficking. This problem is being faced all over the world including our own country. Exploitation of humans as slaves needs to be rectified for those suffering now. Sex trafficking has been all over social media including shows such as Law and Order: Special Victims, Criminal Minds, and even NCIS. It’s a popular threat we’re facing today.