Disclaimer: Please note that the following article contains graphic material that may be disturbing to some readers.
Let’s say you’re sitting in a cafe doing your homework. Soon a girl, perhaps a little bit older than you, approaches you. She makes a genuine compliment on how she loves your boots or the way your hair looks, and you two start to chat. You come to find in your conversation that this girl is very sweet, and you guys have a lot in common. She ends up talking to you for hours and it starts to feel like she’s an old friend.
After exchanging numbers and social media information, you and the girl hang out every so often and catch up. You get closer, and it feels like an actual friendship. Soon she texts you that she heard about this job opportunity through a friend of a friend that would be perfect for you, and that you should see about taking the job. It’s in a nearby city, pays great, and sounds ideal.
You drive over and go to meet your new boss, who greets you warmly and starts talking about the wonderful company and all that you will be able to do for them. You are walking with them to a building, and then you walk into a dark room, and something starts to feel…off.
Before you know it, you’re blindfolded, gagged, and tied up. People emerge from nowhere, and they tell you what you’re in for.
“In your city, children are being sold for sex at the hands of sinister criminals. They have no regard for the children’s humanity or innocence.”
-DemandingJustice.org
When most people in the U.S. think of slavery, they think of it as something from the past. The reality is that slavery, or human trafficking, is still a huge problem. It is estimated that there are currently about 30 million enslaved persons in the world, which is more than there have ever been before, at any time in history. 13 million of those enslaved are children. 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders every year, and this doesn’t include those trafficked domestically. In the United States alone, 14,500 to 17,000 slaves are smuggled into the country, and an additional 100,000 persons are enslaved within the country every year.
Human trafficking can mean domestic servitude, debt bondage, forced child labor, the unlawful recruitment and use of child soldiers, and sex trafficking. Sex trafficking, which is defined as the commercial sexual exploitation through buying, selling, or trading sexual services through force or coercion, makes up roughly 80 percent of all human trafficking.
Although it is difficult to gauge the profit from an illicit activity, it is estimated that the human trafficking industry makes about $32 billion a year. In comparison, Coca-Cola made $29 billion in 2014. These figures are even more shocking when you realize that the average cost of a slave around the world is $90. Ninety dollars is all it takes to own another human being.
“They forced me to sleep with as many as 50 customers a day. I had to give [the pimp] all my money. If I did not [earn a set amount] they punished me by removing my clothes and beating me with a stick until I fainted, electrocuting me, cutting me.”
–Kolab, sex trafficking survivor from Cambodia
So how does this happen?
In the early stages of recruitment, many pimps often use friendship or romance as a tactic to attract girls from middle and high schools. This acquaintance will present him/herself as a friend and attract the girl with gifts, promises, protection, and whatever else she thinks she needs. After securing her love and loyalty, he/she will force her into the sex trade. 35 percent of traffickers are females, making it easier for them to gain the young girl’s trust. Once they have this trust, the trafficker or pimp uses physical, emotional, and psychological abuse to coerce the victim into becoming a part of the sex trade. Traffickers are highly skilled at manipulation, and often employ tactics that create a trauma bond with the victims that is so strong that, in many court cases, the young boys and girls that were originally forced into trafficking will refuse to testify against their pimp, and insist that their pimp really cares for them. In some instances the trafficker could manipulate the victim into thinking that her life is worthless, and that sex trade is her only option. Another strategy that traffickers use is blatant force; physical abuse, or threat of physical abuse to the victims’ loved ones, are often enough to get the victim to comply.
“Family members will often sell children and other family members into slavery; the younger the victim, the more money the trafficker receives. For example, a 10-year-old named Gita was sold into a brothel by her aunt. The now 22-year-old recalls that when she refused to work, the older girls held her down and stuck a piece of cloth in her mouth so no one would hear her scream as she was raped by a customer. She would later contract HIV.”
-Benjamin Skinner, Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery
In the U.S., sex trafficking more frequently involves stripping, pornography, and ‘traditional’ prostitution. This frequently causes the consumer to believe that the women chose this lifestyle, so there is less of a perception of these women as victims. Abroad, however, especially in countries that have weak legal systems that ignore sexual abuse, it is commonplace for local clients or “sex tourists” (people who travel to another country to buy commercial sex) to arrange a meeting with a trafficker to intentionally buy or use an enslaved person at ‘slave auctions’.
What’s Being Done About This?
The U.S. Government has spent almost $1.2 billion (almost four percent of the industry’s profit) on fighting sex trafficking globally, which is a great start. However, there is a lot of dissatisfaction about how this money is being spent among nonprofits and NGOs (non-governmental organization) of the same cause. The United States is spending a strong majority of its funds on advertising and anti-trafficking campaigns, as opposed to conducting research and rescue operations.
Despite the government’s effort to eradicate sex trafficking, there are many domestic policies that hurt rather than help survivors of this crime. Because prostitution is illegal in 49 states, the court system tends to view the prostitute as a criminal rather than a victim, without doing investigations to determine if the girl on trial joined the trade willingly or through force. This causes many victims of the trafficking industry to fear going to the police, because they know it will only lead to another type of imprisonment. Even minors who were forced into the sex trade will, in most cases, be tried as adults and sentenced to jail. To put this into some perspective: let’s say a 17-year-old girl decides to have consensual sex with her boyfriend, who is 18 years old. In this case, the court will rule against the boyfriend, citing statutory rape. Yet if that same 17-year-old girl has been forced into the sex trafficking industry and is forced to sleep with a middle-aged man, she is condemned and no longer seen as a minor. The trafficking victim is viewed as the criminal while the buyer goes free.
“I was taken to the Super Bowl by my kidnapper. He sold me to tourists who came to watch a football game, have a good time with friends, and pay for sex. They went home to their families and I was arrested for prostitution. I spent my 15th birthday in jail.”
-survivor stories, UNICEFUSA.org
Sweden, Norway, and Iceland, which have some of the lowest rates of sex trafficking, have addressed this problem by decriminalizing prostituted persons, and instead criminalize those who purchase sex (placing the blame on the buyer). Unfortunately, this is still only a policy in three out of the 184 countries where sex trafficking is a problem.
How Can I Help?
Being a slave of the sex trafficking industry violates several basic human rights, including the rights to bodily integrity, equality, dignity, health, security, and freedom from violence and torture. Victims are at an extremely high risk of contracting STIs, miscarriages and unsafe abortions, lasting physical trauma, suicidal tendencies, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, drug and alcohol addiction, personality and dissociative disorders, and clinical depression. You can help end this epidemic by:
-Volunteering with or Donating to Treasures Ministry, a support group for women in the sex industry, including victims of commercialized sexual exploitation and trafficking (approximately half an hour away from CLU).
-Working with Children of the Night, a group home for children involved in the sex trade industry (approximately half an hour away from CLU).
-Calling the National Human Trafficking Resource Center Hotline 1 (888) 373-7888 if you or anyone you know needs help or is in danger from trafficking.
-Becoming a part of the Equality Action Network, a national organization that campaigns for more legal and institutional support and protection for victims.
-Getting involved with a national or local organization dedicated to helping the survivors of sex trafficking.
Statistics and Information Found At:
US Department of Health and Human Services
HumanTrafficking.org
Polaris Project
International Labor Organization
DoSomething.org
Equality Now.org