For the full CNN report, refer to "Held as slaves, now free" from CNN's website
This is kind of a hot button issue for me. Human trafficking awareness is something I am very passionate about. I began researching about a year or so ago on the subject, after hearing about it essentially for the first time (or at least, becoming more aware of it) in a violent sex crimes class. I'm a Criminal Justice major with a hope of doing something in the realm of working against trafficking in women and children.
The following is the introductory paragraph from a final paper for one of my CJ classes this past semester:
If someone asked me what I would buy with fifty dollars, I would think of a dinner for three at Applebee’s, a jacket from Target, or a tank and a half of gas for my truck. I would never think that for fifty dollars, I could buy a human being. Every day, in nearly every country across the globe, from China to our own backyard, human beings are bought and sold in a vast system where they are exploited by slave traders and holders. This global phenomena is known as Human Trafficking. In the United States alone, more than 100,000 people are enslaved at any given time while an additional 17,500 new victims are trafficked across our borders each year (David Batstone, Not for Sale). While statistics do inference “at risk” populations, the viral industry that is Human Trafficking typically does not discriminate by race, nationality, or gender. Any human being can be trafficked.I have compiled a survey of some of the research I have done on this subject:
- Globally, 80% of trafficking victims are female. 50% are children. (Hidden Slaves)
- Johns pay to have sex with enslaved girls as young as five years old. They often view their payment as earning the right to take a child's liberty. (The Client)
- Traffickers will groom their victims to earn their trust; they eventually convince their victims to travel with them, most often to a foreign country, often under the guise of a well paying job or an education
- Once victims reach their destination, they are stripped of their identifying documents (passports, driver's licenses, etc.) and often brutalized. Traffickers will often use rape, especially if their victims are virgins, as a control device. In many cultures, an unmarried woman who has sex regardless of the circumstance is considered despoiled and a shame on her family. Traffickers know this well and brutally use it to shame victims into staying with them
- Traffickers essentially create a situation where their victims are utterly dependent on them. A victim may find herself in a foreign country where she doesn't speak the language, where she is told that if she goes to the police they will put her in jail for illegal immigration (which in some cases is sadly true), where she has no personal identification documents. She is completely at the mercy of her captors.
- It is from there that traffickers exploit the women and children who are their victims, selling them for domestic and/or sexual slavery to the highest bidder or pimping them out, allowing them to be raped over and over again, daily.
- Trafficking is not just a problem in Asia, Europe, or Africa. It thrives in the U.S. as well.
While I am hopeful that CNN's coverage of this particular case of the women from West Africa will gain more attention to the problem of trafficking in the U.S., I know that for cases like this one that make the News there can be hundreds more that go unnoticed. There are people in our own country who are enslaved, many of them pass under the public eye without a hitch.
Here are some sources I highly suggest for more information:
- Not for Sale, by David Batstone
- Trade, 2007 film
- The Client, pdf
- Hidden Slaves, Forced Labor in the U.S., pdf
Signed,
RF
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