What is
human trafficking?
I would like
to start by reading a quote by President Barack Obama:
“It ought to
concern every person, because it’s a debasement of our common humanity. It
ought to concern every community, because it tears at the 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”
Perpetrators
of this horrific crime are in some cases gang members and criminal
organizations. Rival gangs are putting aside their differences and working
together to profit from human trafficking. Gangs in the United States and gangs
in Mexico are working together. There are some who will offer to bring them
across the border for a fee; however when they get to the United States the
trafficker will tell them they owe more than the original amount, which they
know the victim cannot pay. They tell the victim they must work off what they
owe to the trafficker by prostitution or little or no pay or they will turn
them in to the authorities. Victims are not willing to call the police because
they may be deported or because they think they will be arrested for
prostitution or some other crime the trafficker threatens them with. While this
is more common in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, because we share
borders with Mexico it is not the only way traffickers operate and it is not
only gangs who traffic people.
Criminal
organizations are seeing the profitability of human trafficking which is a $32
billion dollar a year business. Human trafficking is safer for these criminals
than trafficking drugs or guns; with drugs and guns once they sell the product
they need to replenish their inventory. With human trafficking they can profit
from the same person as long as they can control them. In 2006 the number of
trafficking convictions worldwide was only 3160, that is equal to 1 conviction
for every 800 victims according to the Global Initiative to Fight Human
Trafficking. The estimated number of human trafficking victims at any time is
20.9 million worldwide. In some cases the trafficker will kidnap people from
other countries and take them where ever they need, to make their money. 72% of
trafficking victims are Americans. 1.2 million Children are trafficked every
year. Traffickers will recruit children from Jr. High and High schools, court
houses, online social sites, homeless shelters and half-way houses. Traffickers
will get the victim addicted to drugs or recruit victims who are already
addicted by offering to get drugs for them. Traffickers will use a victim’s
deep needs or a weakness as a way to gain their trust or to have some way of
controlling their victim. Sometimes the traffickers know their victims and in
other cases they recruit victims that are unknown. Human trafficking is a crime
that happens to men, women, and children of every nationality, economic, and
social status.
Families
have also been known to persuade relatives to come to the United States and
once they arrive force them to work with little or no pay.
In 2000 the
Federal Government passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which defines
human trafficking as:
a. Sex
trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud or
coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age; or
b. the
recruitment, harboring, transportation, or obtaining of a person for labor or
services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of
subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.
Some states
now have a human trafficking task force, thanks to funding from the department
of justice; however we have only just begun. We must do more!
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