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Human Trafficking Policy Paper

Decent Essays

Policy Problem
Human trafficking, also known as the modern-day form of slavery is a global problem, a national problem, a state problem, and a local problem. Research findings revealed that one of the major challenges faced in fighting human trafficking is lack of awareness and education among the public (Johnstone, 2018). Most often, trafficking is underreported due to its nature, definitional differences or variations, and misconceptions held by the public. Often people in the United States believe human trafficking is a problem in undeveloped countries, sorry to say that is not the case.
The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) defines human trafficking as the “involvement of recruitment, harboring, transporting, or procurement of a …show more content…

Victims are found working in various industries, such as agriculture, hotels, restaurants, domestic work, and prostitution (Waitt, 2017). Depending on the victim's age, they would be put into wide-ranging service markets from commercial sex to labor. Then, victims are divided into three categorical groups; children under the age of 18 are persuaded into commercial sex, adults ages 18 and over are persuade into commercial sex through force, fraud, or coercion, and both children and adults are persuading to perform labor or services through force, fraud, or coercion (Victims, n.d.). These victims would spend an average of 20 months in forced labor; however, this varies with the different forms of labor (Human trafficking, …show more content…

State Department, human trafficking is “one of the greatest human rights challenges of this century” affecting the world and the United States (Lehnardt, 2016). Among other countries, the United States is ranked very high as a destination country of trafficked victims (Lehnardt, 2016). In 2016, the International Labor Organization estimated 40.3 million victims are deceived in trafficking around the world, and with hundreds of thousands in the United States (Global estimates, 2017; Victims, n.d.). Meaning there are 5.9 adult victims for every 1,000 adults and 4.4 child victims for every 1,000 children in the world (Global estimates, 2017). More than 71% of the trafficked victims around the world are women and girls and 29% are men and boys (Human trafficking, 2017). In Texas, the Dallas Women’s Foundation reported that more girls are being trafficked in one month, than those who die by suicide, homicide, and accidents combined (Human, n.d.). In the last five years, trafficking profits grew by nearly 400%, making human trafficking the second most profitable criminal industry in the world and generate around $150 billion dollars globally (Shut out, n.d.). With its fast-growing criminal enterprises, it's anticipated that the drug trade would be surpassed by human trafficking in the next five years (Popp,

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