Slavery 101

A quick guide to understanding the issues of human trafficking and sexual exploitation.

Who

According to the United Nations, trafficking is “the world's second largest and second-fastest growing criminal enterprise, trailing only the illegal drug trade run by organized crime.” Who are the estimated 27 million victims? They are vulnerable people from every race and social status with the majority of the world’s slaves being women and children. The greatest contributing factor to vulnerability is poverty.

 

What

Human trafficking is the illegal trade in human beings for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation, forced labour, or a modern-day form of slavery. Trafficking can take place across borders or within a country.

Simply put, a slave is someone who is forced to work without pay and cannot get out of their situation. People are enslaved in many different industries, such as domestic servants, factory work, service industry, mining, rug making and agriculture. Children are additionally exploited as child soldiers, beggars, in the fishing industry, and as circus performers. The biggest area of slavery is in the sex industry. There are 2 million children in the sex trade worldwide. There are approximately 12 million slaves in prostitution, strip clubs and pornography worldwide.

There is another large group of people who are sexually exploited but who may not clearly fall under the legal definition of a trafficking victim. These are individuals exploited in prostitution, strip clubs and pornography. Instead of it being viewed as unacceptable that people are exploited in this way, the sex industry is supported and even validated in our culture. The pornography industry is estimated to bring in $9.5 billion annually. In the media it is normalized and joked about. It’s general acceptance in our culture reveals a deeper level of tolerance for the exploitation of some people for the pleasure of others. LINK- Mother’s day

 

Where

Human trafficking is a global problem and affects every country, including the United States. There are an estimated 17,500 foreigners are trafficked into US annually and the number of those currently here is in the hundreds of thousands. Many of these are U.S. citizens.

How can this be? Laws exist in every country that make enslaving someone illegal and punishable. But laws are useless without follow-through. In many countries political instability and corruption lead to a situation where perpetrators are rarely caught & prosecuted. Therefore the risk of consequence for criminal behavior is minimal.

In the United States’ legal system a prostituted girl under age 18 is oftentimes treated as a criminal as opposed to a victim of rape. LINK- AZ bill She can end up in prison and likely will return to her pimp because he is the only one with whom she has a relationship.

 

When

When you think of slavery you might first think back to the African slave trade which was abolished in the United States in 1864. But slavery is certainly not a thing of the past and there are more slaves today than ever before.

 

Why

Humans are naturally self-centered. For the majority of humanity our selfish bent doesn’t lead to criminal behavior and the victimization of others. But in the global market, the quest for higher profits demands cheaper goods. In this marketplace it is easy for the relatively rich and powerful to prey upon the poor and vulnerable. Unlike the other biggest money makers, illegal drugs and weapons, humans can be sold again and again generating much greater profits. In fact, trafficking is the fastest growing international business, and generates roughly $32 billion annually.