The Consequences Of Human Trafficking

I want to discuss an issue that ought to concern every person, because it is a debasement of our common humanity. It ought to concern every community, because it tears at our social fabric. It ought to concern every business, because it distorts markets. It ought to concern every nation, because it endangers public health and fuels violence and organized crime. I’m talking about the injustice, the outrage, of human trafficking, which must be called by its true name—modern slavery. Human trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for commercial sex or forced labour. If we let them, traffickers and predators will continue to take our children. Human trafficking is out of control, it has surpassed
the illegal sale of weaponry/arms and will surpass the illegal sale of drugs in the next year. Drugs are used once and they are gone. Victims of child trafficking can be used and abused repeatedly. Every 30 seconds a child is sold into slavery, that means in the time that it takes for me to speak 20 kids will be sold, kidnapped and raped. What’s even more staggering is the average life span of a victim being 3- 7 years after their first attack, where they are either found dead from an attack, abuse, HIV and other STD's, malnutrition, overdose or suicide.

Trafficking victimization and perpetration share risks and consequences associated with child maltreatment, intimate partner violence, sexual violence, and gang violence — all major public health problems that professionals across sectors are working to prevent through local, state, and national efforts.
Perpetrators of sex trafficking often target and manipulate people who are poor, vulnerable, living in an unsafe situation, or searching for a better life. For example, youth with a history of abuse and neglect or who are homeless are more likely to be exploited. Consequences can be immediate and long term, including physical and relationship problems, psychological concerns, and chronic health
outcomes.

Sex trafficking is a corrupt 32-billion-dollar industry offering up misuse of women, men and children so people can selfishly and unjustly quench their repulsive physical desires thirst and all the while the business men and women can receive huge profits from this exploitation, how inhuman is this?
Not only is this industry unethical but immoral, to devalue women, men and children to the point of enslaving them is not what we as people were created to do. What if we could stop girls and boys as young as four from being sold daily? Not only is this an international problem but it’s here in Australia, it’s in our own backyard. What if we changed the statistic of every 30 seconds another person being sold into slavery? What if we could change it from being a billion-dollar industry, growing faster than Apple, Google and Starbucks combined? So, for so millions of kids this means waking up being trapped, cold, not having food and the only chance of survival is based on being sold for sex. Something that we all take for granted is our freedom. Who knew the little things like having your mum and dad wake you up, take you to school, come home, play a sport, learn an instrument, getting tucked into bed at night, a normal day to us isn’t the reality for millions of
children.

In June 2016, I visited a ZOE Children’s Home Protection Base in Chiang Mai, an organization that provides safety and homes for orphans and children deemed to be highly at risk of trafficking by the ZOE’s Child Rescue Department, and children rescued directly from slavery. There, I saw video content of a child that’s only four being raped by an Australian man that was a sex tourist in Thailand. And this child was so conditioned by her environment that she thought she was engaging in play.

It was awful.

Currently Australia doesn’t have a major organization working in Australia to help rescue and protect children from slavery. This industry is growing so rapidly that it’s time for us as Australians to work actively to stop and fund the fight against this modern slavery.
Even though Australia’s sex trafficking victims’ rates is much lower than those in developing countries, it greatly exceeds sex trafficking rates of predators and traffickers in other countries alongside the US, and it’s only getting worse.
We all agree that sex slavery is destructive, disgusting and vile, but why are so many Australians distancing themselves from the issue? Do people avoid it in conversation because it is an unpleasant topic or is it because they don’t think that it happens here? In fact, Australia remains to be a destination for women and girls to be subjected to sex trafficking and, increasingly, for women and men to be subjected to force labour according to a US State Department report in 2015. The annual global ‘Trafficking in Persons Report, released by US Secretary of State John Kerry, rates Australia and New Zealand in the top tier of nations who comply with the minimum standards of eliminating trafficking, but both were urged to step up efforts. Since, Australia has not taken significant steps to reduce the demands for forced labour or commercial sex and needs to vigorously investigate, prosecute and stringently sentence traffickers.

State and local leaders, decision-makers, and groups can implement comprehensive efforts that, encourage healthy behaviours in relationships, foster safe homes and neighbourhoods, reduce demand for commercial sex, and end business profits from related transactions. We too, as Australians need to act by being the voice for the voiceless. We can do this by posting links on social media, engaging in conversations and posting resources and outlets to draw attention to this critical issue. Another way you can do this is having an awareness event in your community, where you shed light on this injustice or maybe you would like to write, submitting pieces to your local newspaper also helps gain awareness in your community.

One famous author, Judith Herman wrote, “It’s very easy to side with the perpetrator, all they ask from us is our silence”, Famous philosiper Edmund Burke also states, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”; therefore, we must speak fully of this injustice, we must act and we must never be silent for the sake of fitting in or not desiring the spotlight on such an important topic. The human trafficking industry is corrupt and directed by men and women who are selfish and greedy who desire profit over honor, satisfaction over integrity and wealth over justice.

When a little boy is kidnapped, turned into a child soldier, forced to kill or be killed—that’s slavery. When a little girl is sold by her impoverished famil—runs away from home, or is lured by the false promises of a better life, and then imprisoned in a brothel and tortured if she resists—that’s slavery. It is barbaric, and it is evil, and it has no place in a civilized world.