Summary: The Health Care Industry

The services provided to victims of human trafficking are inadequate and inappropriate and they lack coordination and consistency (Gabriele, Sapoznik, Serojitdinov & Williams, 2014).

Human trafficking is one of the many faces of organized crime. Human trafficking is a broad term which contains trafficking for the purpose of sex along with the exploitation of labor. Currently, there are 20.9 million victims of sex slavery (Stacy.j.cecchet 2014 482) whom have or are suffering suffer inhumane circumstances and consequences. Sex trafficking is one of the largest criminal activities in the world (Stacy 249). Vulnerable women and children are taken advantage of and thrown into sex slavery, yet there is no explanation available as to how women and children are taken and thrown into the industry within countries such as Canada and the United States of America (482 Stacy j Cecchet 2014), which have human rights protection. Sex slavery leaves everlasting mental and physical effects on the abused women and children being trafficked. Even though sex trafficking is a crime it is also, for a lack of better words, an industry which would cease to exist if it was not for the supply and demand for women and children.

The Nation’s Health states that Health workers are working to help identify sex trafficking victims.

Human trafficking has received increasing global attention over the past decade. Trafficking of women and girls for forced sex work and, to a lesser extent, domestic servitude, were the sole focus of advocacy and assistance. There is recognition in today’s society that women, children, and men are trafficked into many different forms of labour, and for sexual exploitation. In her article, “Understanding and Addressing Violence Against Women”, Cathy Zimmerman and Heidi Stockl focus on the commonality of human trafficking and how evident it is in everyday life. They bring in the health effects and possible solutions to human trafficking to help validate their opinion and argument. In the solutions they offer, Zimmerman and Stockl shine a light on policy-makers/decision-makers, health-care providers, and researchers/funders and what each of these groups of people can do to help combat the issue of human trafficking. In a quote from their article, Stockl and Zimmerman say: “Health care providers and organizations involved with trafficked persons should increase their capacity to identify and refer people in trafficking situations and provide sensitive and safe services to people post-trafficking”. This quote shows how Zimmerman and Stockl believe human trafficking should be combated by caring and talking to those affected by the issue but how they also believe awareness should be made about human trafficking so as to allow people surrounding the issue to identify and help victims of this issue. Zimmerman and Stockl’s view on the ways human trafficking should be combatted relate to those of Soroptimist due to the fact that the two groups of people are focused mainly on helping women and girls who have been trafficked and trying to get them to a better life after getting out of the trafficking situation. Both groups focus on helping men as well, providing options to help them such as raising money and awareness, and getting educated on being able to identify victims of human trafficking.

Human trafficking, commonly known as modern day slavery, is a secretive crime that has generated billions of dollars worldwide and currently enslaves more than twice the total number of people involved in the 350-year African Slave Trade (Bates & Soodalter, 2009 cited in Richards, 2014). Approximately 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders and 14,500 to 17,500 of those individuals are being trafficked within and across the United States border annually (Richards, 2014). Trafficked individuals experience many health issues and nurses are one of the first health professionals to be in contact with trafficked individuals during their captivity and upon their release (Holland, 2014). The researchers are gathering information to educate nurses on evidence based practice for victims of human trafficking and the key health assessment techniques. Providing community resources and patient and family education are topics that will be discussed pertaining to the nurse’s role in intervention. With the assistance of the Colorado Human Trafficking Council, the researchers were in contact with a local registered nurse involved and human trafficking advocate. The findings will be discussed.

In 2013, Konstantopoulos et al. performed a research study trying to determine how public health effects sex trafficking victims. The study consisted of interviews in eight different cities around the world. They interviewed 277 anti-trafficking stakeholders to look at sex trafficking at a local context. The authors looked at questions that consisted of: who is being trafficked, what causes these individuals to be trafficked and how does healthcare impact these individuals? The study was conducted through interviews that took around sixty minutes to conduct and the study lasted for twelve months. The cities that was included in the study consists of: Los Angeles, New York City, London, Salvador, Rio de Janeiro, Kolkata, Mumbai and Manila (Konstantopoulos,

It has been estimated that up to 30% of all human trafficking victims will have contact with healthcare provider during the period of time that they’re being victimized. (Perkins, 2015, page 37) The healthcare facilities that may be accessed by the victims here in US may be the following; hospitals particularly the emergency department, urgent care clinics, community health centers, gynecologist or obstetrician offices, family planning centers like Planned Parenthood, and private doctor’s offices. The most common health care setting reported by 63% of trafficked respondents was the ED. (Hachey and Phillippi, 2017, page 36) The healthcare workers especially the nurses are the first ones to come in contact with victims through admission and assessment, therefore, they play a very essential role in identifying possible human trafficking victim. The emergency department(ED) has been identified as the most frequented setting where trafficked victims seek medical care. As a result, it is critical that the healthcare providers are able to identify and appropriately manage the care of the patient who has been trafficked to achieve optimal health and legal outcomes. (Stevens and Berishaj, 2017 page 49) If a nurse believes or feels that

The modern world today is proud to recognize the equality that has been acknowledged between age, gender, and race. Women are beginning to be treated as equals with men, in new customs, lifestyle, society, and economy. Today, women are freer and are liberated from their traditional roles as housewives, and are pursuing their hopes and dreams. However, this is not the case in many regions of the world. In the developing countries, thousands of females are dehumanized by prostitution and the trafficking of women and children is dehumanizing which serves only to benefit men. It exploits and violates the rights of women in the developing world. Sexual exploitation, which includes sex tourism,

Human trafficking and human smuggling is a significant human rights issue that is not addressed enough. Human Service Provisions or Human Services that help service community organizations, adult care facilities, youth agencies, group homes and institutions for the mentally ill are all trained in their field however, their training should be expanded to identify domestic and international sex-trafficking victims. The authors conduct research using government

Victims of human trafficking continue to face health consequences years after their release. Potentially one of the most devastating forms of human trafficking, sex trafficking and its associated sexual abuse is responsible for the majority of long term health conditions that arise from trafficking (Muftic & Finn, 2013). According to Muftic and Finn (2013), women who enter into sex work via human trafficking, are at even greater odds of suffering from severe health conditions “…than women who enter into sex work by other means” (p. 1866). Other factors such as length of time in captivity, location of captivity, and age, also affect the long term severity of medical conditions (Oram et al., 2012). Trafficking victims who are exploited within

These findings are a cause of great concern. Sex trafficking victims can only receive help after they have been identified and given an opportunity to get help. If the hospital staff are unaware of sex trafficking than they do not know the trafficking indicators to look for, then many victims go unidentified and thus are not given the option to get

Each year, thousands of men, woman, and children are victims of human trafficking (UNODC, 2017). According

A strict conclusion can be drawn while examining this at a human rights perspective. With an elaborate history of women selling their bodies, along with pre existing power dynamics in society, as well as the present gender issues occurring that have a extensive mental affect on women, the focus of sex trafficking can be seen as more of a gendered issue, rather than an economic issue.

Sex -trafficking has not dissipated over time; it is a growing, adaptive market that is prevalent across the world. We are not talking about an industry that sells depleting commodities. Sex trafficking is a giant market that profits on human slavery. It is paramount that this issue be moved nearer to the forefront of global consciousness, in light of violations of basic human rights and losses of autonomy.

It is were women who have been traffic become victims of the sex industry. Some women like Katia 23 years old from Odessa in Ukraine are aware that they are being recruited for prostitution; however they do not realize the abuse they are going to suffer from their traffickers. After escaping from sex trafficking she confessed in a documentary call “ Sex-slave” that she could not believe places like that actually existed. She said “ I thought I will find I least one kind person, or that one of the pimps would set me free” “ they did not see us as human being but just as whores, as flesh that they could use. That's all”. Even if women consent to prostitution they are still abused and severely traumatised by their “buyers”. They become victims of sex-trafficking because they are held prisoner and at the end forced into prostitutions. They can not stop or leave when they want. They are denied the most basic human rights , and in the worst case, they are denied their right to life. In order to attempt, to regulate and control such terrible activities and discontinue the suffering from victims of sexual-exploitation, international organisations such as the UN, OSCE ( the organisation for security and co-operation in Europe) and the Council of Europe have put protocols and specific laws into place . Since the mid-1990s European institutions have