Sex Trafficking And Prostitution In The United States

Human trafficking is a prominent problem within the United States that is often overlooked. The definition of human trafficking is, “Human trafficking - the illegal practice of procuring or trading in human beings for the purpose of prostitution, forced labor, or other forms of exploitation” (“Human trafficking”). People in the United States believe that human trafficking is a problem that occurs in other less developed countries compared to the United States. What these individuals do not realize is that human trafficking occurs on American soil contrary to popular belief. The United States is one of the top three destination countries of human trafficking and human trafficking is a top criminal enterprise across the world (“WEAVE, Inc.”).

World wide slavery is a thirty-two billion dollar industry. There are more than twenty-seven million slaves. But sex trafficking in the U.S. alone is a $9.8 million industry. Nearly 100,000 of those slaves are youth that are trafficked in the U.S. annually.(Donley-Hayes, 1.) In order to solve this problem people need to be aware of the extent of the problem, along with causes and effects before a solution can come about.

The United States has always been known for sticking their nose in places where it does not belong. America has been part of wars that could have been avoided, scandals that had nothing to do with the United States. Millions of lives over the years could have been spared if America would have just simply stayed where they belong. What if though, America feels like they have to get involved in forging affairs if they think it can cause or is causing a problem on American soil or with the Americans themselves? Human trafficking is issues that most people do not necessarily knows about or even really think about. There are several different types of human trafficking and smuggling crimes that are in today's society. The number one kind of human trafficking is sex trafficking. The handlers usually kidnap someone, ninety percent of the time, a girl under the age of eighteen, and sell them to different people all over the world for sexual reasons. The girls they kidnap and sell can be from the area or just passing through and get in the wrong place at the wrong time. Forced labor is the second most common type of human trafficking in the world. This is where a person takes advantage of a worker and changes labor laws to make them work longer hours or harder, more tiring jobs with very little pay. Victims of forced labor most of the time do not even know what is happening to them. Most of the people that get sucked into the forced labor trade are very vulnerable;

Human sex trafficking and its sister category, Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking also referred to as DMST, (Kotrla,K. 2010) is the most common form of modern day slavery. In the United States there are an estimated 293,000 youth who fall under high risk factor or DMST (Walker-Rodriguez, A. & Hill, R. 2011). Many men prey on the at risk youth to make a fortune for themselves. DMST exposes the youth to a life filled with violence, abuse that is both mental and physical as well as a isolation. The Victims of the Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 defines sex trafficking, “in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion or in which the person induced to

On decemeber 18, 1865 slavery was abolished by Abraham Lincholn why has it become so easy for women and children to have their rights taken away from them? Many can argue that slavery doesnt exist in our society today, yet women all over suffer from slavery as they are taken and forced into the sex trafficking business. If slavery were truely abolished why is it so easy for women and children to become worthless and traded for a few dollars?

“According to UNICEF, every two minutes a child is being prepped for sexual exploitation.” Studies have shown that 1.2 million children are being trafficked each year. “This number excluded the millions already being held hostage by trafficking.” (1).

Throughout the 21st century, the number of human beings being capture and put into sex trafficking and prostitution has risen. In 2013, about 270,000 young boys, girls, and women were forced into human trafficking in the United States alone and estimated 20.9 million in the world. The UN has also estimated that nearly 4,000,000 are trafficked each year. UNICEF has estimated that as many as 50% of all trafficking victims worldwide are minors and that as many as two thirds of those adolescents are at some point forced into the sex trade. This is a 52 billion dollar industry. Two kids are sold every minute, 120 per hour. In other cases mothers of these children would sell them off for money due to financial reason, which

Between 14,500 and 17,500 victims are trafficked into the United States annually, and often, the average age of entry is thirteen to fourteen years old (Hodge, 2008). One victim recalls that her pimp, a man who controls sex workers and keeps the earnings, would take her and two other girls from the ninth grade out of school during lunchtime, have them do calls, and bring them back. She explains, “He knew how to read each girl—this one likes to party, that one needs a job, this one wants drugs.” By doing

Slavery is when persons are owned and controlled by other persons, and they have little to no freedom. In Eastern Europe slavery ended in 1528, but human trafficking has been going on for thousands of years. A few decrees did not stop the horrible crime called human trafficking. By definition human trafficking is modern day slavery; people that are victims are imprisoned and worked until they are physically unable to any longer. Many people turn a blind eye to human trafficking. Despite the minimal efforts of various governments Eastern European human trafficking is on the rise, leading to an increase in the economic exploration of the victims of human trafficking.

When looking at today’s society we look at America as the land of the free, but we forget to recognize the fact that some people such as women, and children are still writhe from brutalization and imprisonment at the hands of others. These victims are becoming commodities, sold to the highest bidder and sometimes for little as pennies. When thinking about the situation it’s a form the presents as slavery, but the act of slavery ended when Lincoln signed in 1863. The Emancipation Proclamation stated that all the people who are held as slaves within the confederate states should be free. Now in modern day human trafficking continues to cultivate in the United States. Millions of women, and children are thrown into the human trafficking market

When looking for topics to research I wanted to do something that was a prominent problem in my hometown, which was Sex Trafficking (ST). Coming from Houston, Texas, Sex Trafficking is one of the major hubs in the United States. Houston’s main highway I - 10 is the main road used to travel these victims to state lines to get them out of the country. A better definition of sex trafficking is when someone uses force, fraud or coercion to cause a commercial sex act with an adult or cause a minor to commit a commercial sex act. A commercial sex act is a list of things known as prostitution, pornography, and sexual performance done in exchange for any item of value, such as money, drugs, shelter, food, or clothes( United Nations, In the United States alone 14,500 - 17,500 people are trafficked alone in the United States and 46% of it is from Texas. Most cases found on sex trafficking come from Women and Child, but there are a percentage of males that are trafficked, but because the act makes most feel degraded they refuse to report it. The effects it has on victims is indescribable. Many programs were created and people were made available to help victims but still sometimes these victims do not get the closure they need. This topic is important because it is a worldwide social issue that destroys not only the person physically taken into the trafficking but everyone that is involved in saving that person. When choosing these two articles, “Sex Trafficking: Policies, Programs,

In recent years, the topic of human trafficking – or modern day slavery as many call it – has captured the attention of the American public. Realizing that slavery, a problem thought to have been fixed a century ago, was still growing rampant in the world, Americans became indignant. As a result, countless campaigns, fundraisers and organizations have been formed to try and alleviate the problem. The type of trafficking that scares the population the most would be the sex trafficking of thousands of women and girls each year. However, other forms of human trafficking such as forced labor and trafficking humans for organs, are just as big an issue in America, as well as throughout the entire world.

I mainly just picked sex trafficking in the United States because this is a ‘Dear America” presentation. I do acknowledge that this is happening every where in the world and that this is a universal crises, I just wanted to focus on the U.S since a lot of people are not aware that this is still happening here, just like over seas. Since 2016, there has been human trafficking has rose to 35.7 percent according to UPI.com. There was a total of more than 26,000 calls on the trafficking hotline. According to UPI, the National Human Trafficking Hotline stated "Left unchecked, human trafficking will continue to flourish in environments where traffickers can reap substantial monetary gains with relatively low risk of getting caught or losing

Child sex trafficking is the profitable sexual act induced by force, fraud, coercion or a person is lured to have sex before they reach 18 years of age. It includes all the activities of recruiting, harboring, patronizing, advertising, transporting or obtaining children for sexual services involuntarily, through servitude, debt bondage, peonage or slavery. Due to advanced technology, it has acquired new course. It has become a complex phenomenon involving multiple stakeholders at commercial as well as institutional level. It is the modern-day form of slavery perpetrated against minors regardless of their race, class, socioeconomic status, education, gender, cultural conditions or citizenship (“Department of Justice," 2015).

As mentioned before human trafficking has been an issue in the United States for many years; but where do we start when it comes down to, “why this problem isn’t resolved or human trafficking rates are not lowered?” Well, we should look at the similarities of the adolescent females who are targeted which is looking at the risk factors of these females. After reading the article titled, Human Sex Trafficking in America: What counselors Need to Know, there were three main areas where risk factors were mentioned. Those three areas were: the environment, the socioeconomic background, and the education of the females and their parents. Before discussing the risk factors in an environment, I want to point out, there are some females who chose