Essay on Human Trafficking in the United States

Human trafficking is an issue that no one really wants to talk about. The media portrays this horrible crime as something that only happens in foreign lands. Americans do not want to believe that something so heinous could happen on our own soil. However when survivors of human trafficking come forward, people are forced to confront the reality that this issue is not that far from home. Some individuals still choose to deny that this is a real issue. However the facts make it extremely hard to deny that human trafficking happens on American soil.

Scamming these victims by promising them a better life and telling them this job will be a great opportunity is another way the traffickers pull women into their business; this act of fraud seems to be the biggest way traffickers are able to get their victims to come work for them. The last way to get women to fall prey to their business is coercing them into it. The victims who enter these types of jobs are often told they have a debt that must be paid off and while they are there working for these people the debt continues to raise because of the money the owners use to feed, transport or give them security. Even though these fake businesses are taking place in the United States it does not mean that the workers being forced to stay there are American citizens; most of the time they are immigrants. since the workers sometimes are immigrants that gives another advantage for the traffickers and business owners to use against the victim, telling them that if they do not work for them then they will be shipped back to their country where they will then again have to struggle for work.

Coming to America is supposed to be a positive thing, most people would assume because of the reasons someone would pay to be smuggled in but is that the only way they’re brought here? What if the situation was much darker than that instead of wanting to leave people were captured and forced to, constantly being abused mentally and sexually so that they feel like there’s no way out. This isn’t just a hypothetical situation it’s an actual ongoing problem in the U.S called human trafficking. Commonly misinterpreted for human smuggling this issue affects multiple countries in the world. Leaving a long list of victims and stories of their experiences.

This work problematizes current these approaches to trafficking as a “law and order” by reframing the problem of trafficking as a global migratory response to current globalizing socioeconomic trends, a plea for more comprehensive approaches to trafficking. As Anne Gallagher explains, trafficking lies at one extreme end of the emigration continuum , a call to account for macro factors that encourage, induce or compel migration. Traffickers, being opportunity-seeking by nature, simply take advantage of the resulting vulnerabilities to make a profit. A call for a broader view of human trafficking as a product of the larger socioeconomic forces that feed the push and pulls factors toward risky labor practices in our globalized economy is warrant.

There are many forms of Human Trafficking, but one consistent aspect is the abuse of the inherent vulnerability of the victims. Trafficking for forced labor is one form of human trafficking. Victims of this widespread form of trafficking come primarily from developing countries. They are recruited and trafficked using deception and coercion and find themselves held in conditions of slavery in a variety of jobs. Man, women and children are engaged in agricultural, fisheries and construction work, along with domestic servitude and other labour-intensive jobs. Trafficking in women for sexual exploitation is another form of human trafficking. This prevalent form of trafficking affects every region in the world, either as a source, transit or destination country. Women and children from developing counties, and form vulnerable parts of society in developed counties, are lured by promises of decent employment into leaving their homes and travelling to what they consider will be a better life. Victims are often provided with false travel documents and an organized network is used to transport them to the destination country where they find themselves forced into sexual slavery and held in inhumane conditions and constant fear. Next is people smuggling which is closely connected to trafficking in human beings is the issue of people smuggling. This has taken on new proportions in recent months,

"Human Trafficking" is known as Modern-day-Slavery wrongdoing which fuses constrain, misrepresentation or compulsion to get some kind of work. This implies making individuals work compellingly without their permission. These criminals have a tendency to create billions of dollars of benefit as a turnover for every year. It is a concealed wrongdoing reason being in such cases the casualties seldom approached to look for help this could be because of the reason of dialect obstruction whereby the casualties are sent to spots where they neglect to convey their issues because of the dialect. Besides they may fear the traffickers. One of the fundamental explanations behind human trafficking is for sexual abuse. The traffickers regularly target individuals

People who work in this illegal crime activity may also give the victims false promises “Many women are convinced to strike a deal with traffickers whereby they incur debts in exchange for entry and transportation into a country” (Reiger 7) Traffickers tempt women that have no meaningful economic opportunity in their countries, but instead they are forced into sex slavery to pay off their debts. They use their victims fears of deportation and arrest to keep them under

Traffickers use coercion, deception, or abduction to get their victims. They take advantage of the vulnerability of children, woman, and men who live in poverty or are looking for more favorable opportunities and lured them into leaving their home and travelling to what they assume will be a better life, just to realize later it's not.

Human trafficking is the modern form of slavery, with illegal smuggling and trading of people, for forced labor or sexual exploitation. Trafficking is officially defined as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons by means of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, or abuse of power of a position of vulnerability for the purpose of exploitation. (“dictionary.com”) Human trafficking is not equivalent with forced migration or smuggling. In the U.S., human trafficking tends to occur around international travel-hubs with large immigrant populations, such as California and Texas. The U.S. Justice Department estimates that 17,500 people are trafficked into the country every year, but the true figure could be

Out of the thousands of people that have been human trafficking victims each year, only an insignificant amount of them is actually reported. Imagine being in 8th grade. Having all sorts of hopes and dreams. Now flash forward to dreams being taken away by a pimp that lures people into human trafficking. In short, this is true for Holly Austin Smith, a survivor of human trafficking. The punishment for the pimps that ruin the lives of these young girls is not severe. Therefore, there is not much aid for the girls after they get rescued from this tragedy. A realization Holly had soon on and explains, “...Although I was soon recognized to be a victim, the specialized aftercare needed for a trafficking victim did not yet exist... Twenty years ago, there were no anti-trafficking laws in place. This pimp, who raped and lured a child into prostitution, served only 365 days in jail” (Smith). This young girl had recovered from this vile incident all by herself. Many other girls in her position have gone through similar experiences and have been abused by their pimp. In addition, the pimp will not receive much punishment. A heartbreaking story repeated across America and is very prominent in other countries. In America, most of the time victims are the ones that usually serve time in jail since in some cases it’s considered prostitution, even if it was forced by the pimp. In most cases, the pimps stay uncovered and if the

Trafficking victims are physically and verbally abused and often forced to pay large sums of money for the cost of trafficking them between countries. Victims include men, women and children who are purchased for commercial sexual exploitation, domestic servitude, forced labor or as mail-order brides. 80% of trafficking victims are women, and 70% are trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation. In addition, increasing anti-immigrant sentiment has led to restrictive policies, making it more difficult for migrant workers to enter the U.S., and more likely that they will fall victim to traffickers. Trafficking victims are often pushed into sexual or labor slavery by conditions of poverty, discrimination, and gender-based violence and are pulled by the demand of wealthy countries for cheap labor and prostitution.

Human trafficking is considerably different than migrant smuggling. While smuggling is considered a voluntary act, often as a result of escaping from one’s country, trafficking most often involves the use of force and deception against an unwilling victim. The perpetrator intends to use this individual to perform commercial sex acts or labor services for their own profit.

The main contributor and cause of the unending cases of human trafficking is corruption. Corruption can be defined as dishonest exploitation of power for personal gain by use of the deprivation technique. The traffickers engage in the trafficking activities for monetary gain (Hetzer, 2007). The victims are either coerced or deceived to cross the border without them realizing they are being trafficked or exploited. Many victims are promised better job opportunities, better pay, and working conditions and the ease of movement without enduring the legal process of visa acquisition. The border control authorities have accepted the bribes and the huge amounts of money offered

Human Trafficking is in many instances different yet similar to that of human smuggling, one being that human trafficking involves elements of enforcement and harassment where as human smuggling is on many occasions voluntary (Albanese, 2011). Often times these two merge into one, some of those who “voluntarily” choose to be moved from one place to another are sometimes exploited opposed to their original plan and are subjected to become victims of human trafficking (Albanese, 2011). In the book Transnational Crime and the 21st Century, the author Albanese gives us an example of just how human smuggling and human trafficking sometimes overlap each other. He mentioned that it is often common in many countries (i.e., The Bahamas, Barbados, Jamaica, The Netherlands Antilles, St. Lucia) that women and young girls were frequently misled to believe that they were being promised work. Either as bartenders, sales associates, cashiers, waitresses or dancers only to be informed that as soon as they would arrive to their destination that they would be arranged in prostitution which is a form of human trafficking (Albanese, 2011). Thus, making the “voluntary” aspect of human smuggling nonexistent and it is to be overruled at the discretion of the smuggler (Albanese, 2011).

Those in a problematic situation, tend to live and work in the shadows, they are too afraid to complain and are not allowed the rights and freedoms of a human person. During migration there are many push/pull factors; Push factors are factors that