The Slavery of the Millennium

Sex trafficking is essentially systemic rape for profit. Force, fraud and coercion are used to control the victim’s behavior which may secure the appearance of consent to please the buyer (or john). Behind every transaction is violence or the threat of violence (Axtell par. 4). Just a decade ago, only a third of the countries studied by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime had legislation against human trafficking. (Darker Side, par.1) Women, children, and even men are taken from their homes, and off of the streets and are brought into a life that is almost impossible to get out of. This life is not one of choice, it is in most times by force. UNODC estimates that the total international human trafficking is a

“ She was just seventeen when she got into prostitution- child trafficking- but she didn’t know she was a victim at the time. She had been beaten and raped by her father since she was twelve years old.” (Zhai Yun, 1.) Young victims of youth sex trafficking are not just kidnapped by unknown people into this. It can be by their father, mother, brother, or sister. It can be forced upon them by people who have come into their life claiming they can make it better. When in reality it just makes it worse. They have no idea what they are getting into and what is going to happen to them. They are fed with lies and false pretentions of what is going to happen. They are caught in a trap that is hard to get out of. Often they are to scared to try to run or be rescued. They just do what they are told so that they live or so their loved ones live.

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.

This article provided an overview of relevant issues surrounding contemporary sex trafficking, including risk factors. The article estimates that 600,000 to 800,000 men, women, and child are sex trafficked every year. It also explains three main factors that play into sex trafficking: human rights, migration, and security. This article exemplifies women’s lack of agency in relation to their bodies. Although there are male sex workers, there are many more female workers, further exploiting women’s sexuality. This aids in the fear women grow up and live with; the fear of being sold.

Although slavery was abolished in 1865, the practice of it is still very alive today. Human trafficking, a form of modern slavery, is the buying and selling of people, whether it 's for forced labor or commercial sex. Every year, thousands of adults and children, especially girls, are forced into the endless trafficking ring. “The International Labour Organization estimates that there are 20.9 million victims of human trafficking globally” (“The Facts”). The human trafficking industry is a worldwide network that is worth an estimated 150 billion dollars (“The Facts”). Millions of stories about victims experiences can be found and read. Many of these victims are sucked into the world of human trafficking because they are immigrants trying to escape to the U.S. and have debts to pay off once they get there. Trafficking happens everywhere, from big city shopping centers, to small town massage parlors. People are being captured, sold and transported across the world via various forms of transportation at all times. With updated technology, it becomes easier and easier to buy and sell these “slaves” and with this, the chances of being caught and punished is almost nothing. Many people think slavery is dead; however, human trafficking is still alive and it needs to be stopped because many people are being forced into involuntary sex and labor.

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.

“Infographic: A Global Look at Human Trafficking” states that an estimated 21 million people are trafficked globally. This generates over $32 billion in profits internationally (“Infographic: A Global Look at Human Trafficking,” 2017). So, if this is such a high paying crime, why do we not hear about it more often? This is because the connection between human trafficking and slavery can be difficult to distinguish for an uninformed person. However, “Slavery in the Fields” relates a familiar topic, slavery, to the unfamiliar human trafficking topic, to prove that human trafficking and slavery are, in fact, the same.

Awareness, Housing Services, and Spiritual Care, they reveal the importance of increasing the awareness of human trafficking in relation to providing services to the victims, as well as in developing methodologies for prevention. A survey was conducted of agencies that provide services to victims of human trafficking. The results revealed that one of the most integral needs for improving the quality of services provided to the victims of human trafficking, as well as increasing prevention efforts and legal repercussions, is to increase public awareness on the matter of human trafficking. Currently, the lack of public awareness, compounded with the society’s views of prostitution as a choice-based moral issue, is having a negative impact on the ability to secure and use public funding for human trafficking research and services.

Society relates slavery to the civil war and most would argue that slavery ended in 1865. With this standpoint, we often brush off or neglect to further investigate slavery in its most modern forms. Over the course of history, there are hardly any situations where a social problem was solved. Starvation still exists, as does poverty, racism, war, segregation, injustice within government systems, and yes, even slavery. Human trafficking is modern day slavery and it exists everywhere with two different categories: sex exploitation and labor exploitation. Human trafficking is not new, but what recently developed is the volume of trafficking taking place and how little we know about it. How can a problem, so monstrous and so widespread, continue with most societies being unaware of its existence? The 1800’s, and even years’ prior, were a period of unfathomable abuse towards people considered less than. The 21st century is also a period of unfathomable abuse towards people considered commodities. Now the common place relation between slavery and the civil war must be over, because the monster of modern day slavery has awoken.

“ If you think slavery ended in the United States in 1865 … Think again.” This is saying that slavery hasn’t really ended because human trafficking is still happening. As U.N crime fighting office stated, 2.4 million people across the world are victims of human trafficking at any one time, and 80 percent of them are being exploited as sexual slaves. Human trafficking continues and numbers are growing larger , 42 percent of the recruiters are Women. Recruiters seek any gender and any age so human trafficking victims are growing everyday. Human trafficking is and social injustice because it is incompatible to the principles of freedom and dignity. The abuse of human beings dehumanizes the individuals who are trafficked, and

The victims of sex trafficking are being forced to sell themselves for sex and when a police officer catches them in the act they are guilty of the act of prostitution (Jordan 29). When the trafficked victims are caught they try to plead their way out, their owners bail them out of jail before they can do any harm to the industry (29). As a result the victims are still seen as an accomplice to the prostitution industry because they did not get their story across to the police force. In reality these women are victims because they are being held against their own will and are being force to partake in actions that harm their own health. They are victims of abuse, but because sex trafficking is similar to prostitution, these women are rarely saved from this monstrous industry (Goodey 34). These women are victims and are being treated as criminals because of loopholes present in the European economy.

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.

“Sex-Trafficking” is a very complex and layered phenomenon. Critically evaluate some possible explanations for it's continued prevalence and seeming invincibility to regulation and control.

Although slavery was abolished in 1865, the practice of it is still very alive today. Human trafficking, a form of modern slavery, is the buying and selling of people, whether it 's for forced labor or commercial sex. Every year, thousands of adults and children, especially girls, are forced into the endless trafficking ring. “The International Labour Organization estimates that there are 20.9 million victims of human trafficking globally” (“The Facts”). The human trafficking industry is a worldwide network that is worth an estimated 150 billion dollars (“The Facts”). Millions of stories about victims experiences can be found and read. Many of these victims are sucked into the world of human trafficking because they are immigrants trying to escape to the U.S. and have debts to pay off once they get there. Trafficking happens everywhere, from big city shopping centers, to small town massage parlors. People are being captured, sold, and transported across the world via various forms of transportation at all times. With updated technology, it becomes easier and easier to buy and sell these “slaves” and with this, the chances of being caught and punished is almost nothing. Many people think slavery is dead; however, human trafficking is still alive and it needs to be stopped because many people are being forced into involuntary sex and labor.

Human trafficking has become a major problem worldwide which affects many people. An estimated 600-800 thousand people are moved unwillingly between international borders each year (Kristof, et al, pg. 10). There is an even larger number of 12.3 million people who are estimated to be forced to work in agriculture, manufacturing, and the sex trade (Shepherd, pg. 94). A majority of the people forced into labor, especially into the sex trade, are children, most of which are women, at an estimated 1 million children per year (Kristof, pg. 9). There is a large amount of violence and abuse involved in sex slavery, many times leading to death. Globalization seems to have played a major role in the rise of sex slavery and the sex trade but