Human Trafficking And The Media

“Human trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, and the transport of people within countries for sexual exploitation, forced labor, and/or organ donating.” (Gale) “Slavery is the condition in which one or more persons is owned as property by another and is under the owner’s control.” (American Heritage Dictionary) Trafficked people who are often regarded as disposable, are often used for these various reasons. Although, many believe slavery ended with the Thirteenth Amendment, slavery still exists in 2017. In order to understand that human trafficking is a form of slavery, one needs to examine what it is, the effects, and the solutions.

Human trafficking is a public health problem within the United States and Internationally. The victims subjected to the lifestyle of human trafficking can have sexually transmitted disease, HIV virus, and AIDS. It is an estimated 30,000 victims of human sex trafficking dying each year from abuse, disease, torture, and neglect. According, to U.S. government an estimates, of 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders annually, and up to 17,500 people are trafficked into the United States each year (Hodge, 2008). “According to United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), over the past 30 years, over 30 million children have been sexually exploited through human trafficking” (Random Facts, 2015, para. 24).

There are multiple types of human trafficking that occur in the world, but the most common heard forms of trafficking are sex trafficking, forced labor, and organ trafficking. Many people are taken each year and are enslaved into human trafficking. Women are the most affected and the average age is 12 to 14 years (“WEAVE, Inc.”). There are many common uses for humans that are being trafficked in regards to forced labor such as farmworkers to harvest crops, factory workers that are put through terrible working conditions, and put in homes as domestic servants (“Labor Trafficking in the US”). Workers that are victims of forced labor work for little to no pay and they often work long hours (“Labor Trafficking in the US”). The

Human trafficking is defined as a recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, of receipt of persons, by means of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, or abuse of power of a position of vulnerability for the purpose of exploitation (Human Trafficking Information). Today human trafficking, also known as modern-day slavery, has been one of the controversial issues in the United States and nationwide. In fact, it is now considered as the fastest growing multi-billion-dollar business form of organized crime. Also, Human trafficking is affecting the lives of millions around the globe and robbing the victims of their pride. As a matter of fact, Traffickers deceive men, women, and young children from around the world to force them into unspeakable

Globally, about 20 to 30 million people are involved in the human trafficking system, and of those, 14,500 to 17,500 people are trafficked in the United States every year. Human trafficking is more prevalent today then ever before. It is the third largest crime internationally. People are abused and taken advantage of. According to the article, “11 Facts About Human Trafficking,” on average, a person is forced into the system around age 9, and the majority of victims are women and girls, with a small percentage of men and boys. In addition, the human trafficking system is a $32 billion dollar industry. Human trafficking can be defined as the selling and trade of human beings, ranging anywhere from children to adults, for the purpose of

Human Trafficking and Slavery universally happens in the world when individuals are placed or maintained in and exploitive situation for economic gain. Women, men and children are trafficked for a range of different purposes; forced and exploitative labour in factories, farms and private households, sexual exploitation, and forced marriage. Trafficking can happen to all people if the circumstances are right.

One of the major issues today in criminal justice is human trafficking. As a definition, human trafficking is the illegal transporting of people, by use of force, to be sold or sent to modern-day slavery (Homeland Security, 2017). There are countless methods of human trafficking throughout the world. Unfortunately, each one is more horrendous than the preceding. To elaborate, some types of human trafficking are Forced Labor, Debt Bondage, Domestic Servitude, Commercial Sex Trade, Child Soldiers, and Child Commercial Sex Trade (The United States Department of Homeland Security, 2017). That being said, the most widely discussed forms of human trafficking are sexual subjugation (Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit, 2017).

When trying to define human trafficking it gets hard because is it slavery or is it some kind of other servitude? The United Nations defined trafficking as it “Involves the movement of people through violence, deception or coercion for the purpose of forced labor, servitude or slavery-like practices.”# This means that the traffickers use violence to coerce the victims to do anything they want. Including controlling all aspects of their lives from where they go, who they talk to, and essentially controlling their freedoms. This new breed of Human Trafficker is “global sophistication, complexity and control of how women and children are trafficked from/to/in all parts of the globe.”#

Human Trafficking is “considered a form of modern slavery” involving the recruitment, transportation, transfer and/or harboring the receipt of a person by either the means of force or coercion that is affecting thousands of men, women and children per year both abroad and locally. This is a crime in violation of human rights (“Human Trafficking/What is Human Trafficking”, 2015). Human trafficking is an umbrella term that is not quite defined and/or recognized by law.

Back in the 1600’s slavery was brought to the United States to help aid in the production of crops. We have come a long ways since then through our government system to help provide a more riotous and free system, the land of the free. Slavery ended and racism has declined but today there still exists a different type of slavery and this is known as human trafficking. Many call sex or human trafficking the modern day type of slavery because people are forced to work for another person mostly by selling their body. According to the United Nations and their protocol signed by more then 80 countries sex/ human trafficking is the “recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use

Human trafficking is considered to be another form of slavery and very common in many countries around the world. Several countries throughout the world are sites of cause, travel, purpose, and/or inner trafficking. There are many cases of human trafficking that have been reported in all fifty states within the United States. Human trafficking is a market-based economy that exists on values of supply and demand. It thrives due to circumstances, which allows for higher earnings to be obtained at low risk. With that being said, it is important to understand how human trafficking is defined. According to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, the legal definition

Human trafficking exists in several nations all around us. No nation, including the United States is exempt from human trafficking. There may be factors that create unique anti-trafficking issues and obstacles for each nation, but the characteristics are all the same or very similar worldwide. These characteristics are how the trafficking is conducted, how the victims are kidnapped, the percentage of victims, the gender of the victims, and the percentage of each gender in different trafficking situations. The situations include children, adults, male, and female victims. The situations the victims fall into are pornography, forced labor, sex slaves, prostitution, child sex tourism, and many more. These are the issues and key points made by the authors to persuade the reader to agree with their position.

Human trafficking is viewed as modern day slave exchange. It is a genuine crime under both global and national legal systems. It opens casualties to economic exploitation with a significant number of them being women and children less than 18 years old years. It is essential to know the way that human trafficking has raised critical human rights issues, particularly concerning women and children as stakeholders are beginning to reexamine their way to deal with this societal issue. Human trafficking has emerged as the third greatest criminal industry by drug trafficking and illicit arms. The human trafficking industry has helped in the expansion of different crimes, such as child abuse, prostitution and violence against women. With the assistance of existing research, this paper seeks to explain the different measurements of human trafficking and how it has influenced the general public at the individual, national and global level. The paper offers a few proposals with regards to the most ideal route concerning managing the issue of the current slave trade.

Human trafficking can take many forms, as well as many victims. One form of trafficking is slavery. Slavery is having a worker who is unpaid and who works by force using coercion, fraud or threat of bodily harm. “According to the United Nations, there are between 27 and 30 million modern-day slaves in the world (Jesionka, “Human Trafficking: The Myths and the Realities”).” “By 1860, the nation’s black population had jumped from 400,000 to 4.4 million, of which 3.9 million were slaves.(Henry Louis Gates).” That means there are nearly ten times more slaves today than there were in the late 1800’s.

In recent times, the number of human trafficking cases has skyrocketed through the roof. So, what exactly is human trafficking? Human trafficking is defined as a criminal activity, in which people are recruited, harboured, transported, bought or kidnapped for the purposes of exploitation. These exploitations include forced labour, child soldiery, sexual slavery, forced marriages and so on. Statistics show that the main victims of human trafficking consist of women and young girls while children come in a close third (Appendix A). Over the years, human trafficking has become rampant worldwide as the demand for human labour and sex slaves drastically multiplies due to the Internet.