by
ScarletRose
@ Friday, Mar. 07, 2008 - 04:49:20
Human trafficking involves the movement of people against their will and by force for the purpose of sexual or labor exploitation, abduction for sexual and domestic service, abduction for debt release, the exchange of women for settlement of disputes, forced prostitution, and sexual exploitation of children. Fraudulent practices, such as fake employment advertisements that promise jobs and safe entry into another country generally lead to sexual exploitation, dangerous or hard labor, and sex tourism. Victims are either held against their will, afraid to ask authorities for help due to possible deportation, or may not be able to speak the local language when seeking help. Other victims are forced to toil in sweat shops, construction sites, brothels and fields.
Men, women and children experiencing dire political or economic instability are the most susceptible as potential victims. Many, unknowingly, enter this network of organized crime while trying to escape poverty and unemployment or forcibly during conflicts/wars.
Because this criminal enterprise recognizes neither boundaries nor borders, humans are now the third most lucrative illegal traded commodity, after drugs and guns.
The trafficking of persons is becoming the fastest growing illicit activity in the world, annually generating $8-10 billion and moving 800,000 - 900,000 people across borders. The number of human trafficking victims had begun to grow in the early 1990s and in 2004 totaled about 700,000 yearly across international borders and from one million to two million overall. Thirty-five percent are under the age of 18. The trafficking of women and children, many of whom are forced into prostitution, are worldwide human rights problems that may involve two million people a year.
Other victims have been sold in this ancient form of slavery by a relative, acquaintance, or family friend. Not long ago, CNN showed children being sold by their parents, boys and girls alike. Young women sold out by husbands and parents to send money back home. Young women in North America holed up in motel rooms too scared to leave their rooms, and being told what to do. http://www.cnn.con/CNN/Programs/res...easy.prey.html)
The Department of Justice and Congressional Research Service estimates that 17,000 people from overseas are trafficked into the United States each year and coerced into labor or sex slavery for little or no pay, dehumanized and abused both mentally and physically. Worldwide, the United Nations calculates that there are between 20-27 million people who are held in slavery against their will. Congress had strengthened the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, but the Act is not tough enough and those United States’ allies that harbor traffickers are treated with kid gloves (for political reasons. http://www.humantraffickingsearch.net, http://library2.cqpress.com)
Donna M. Hughes, The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, has explicitly stated how new technology - trafficking and sexual exploitation on the Internet - is used as a means of promoting this type of global exploitation against women. That is, bride trafficking, sex tours, promotion and where to buy a prostitute. (http://www.feminista.com)
Some observers of the United States Department of State estimate that the number of persons trafficked per year may be higher than the public report conducted by The Department of Justice and Congressional Research Service. (www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/)
Despite that a second annual Trafficking in Persons Report was sent to Congress, and that the United States seeks to bring international attention to this type of horrific practice, the United States Government is still combating human trafficking and engaging in discussions with governments to help strengthen cooperative efforts to eradicate this growing plague. We all continue to wait for the governments efforts to end human trafficking all around the world. And while we wait, it's difficult to understand why there isn't a greater uproar about this issue worldwide.
Is it possible that the issue of human trafficking isn't getting the attention it deserves because too many people think it is simply prostitution? Perhaps some people believe that because sex slavery is not a modern plague, and has been going on for thousands of years in one form or another with both genders, not just women and girls, that there’s not much that can be done to stop human trafficking in the future?
The issue of prostitution is that a number of us always believed that prostitution should be illegal, as well, that the true criminal is not the prostitute but the person who uses economic power to abuse the vulnerable. Prostitution is not victimless, and reflects the ever continuing grasp of misogynist political philosophy on the application and enforcement of laws that demeans and degrades women and men. Another group believes that by not legalizing prostitution, it is not going to make it go away so it may as well become a legal industry, while giving fair rights to those people who participate in prostitution and may minimally have a legal leg to stand on.
With mixed feelings and ideas from either side and on every side, it seems that the ending of human trafficking is not near.
