Human Trafficking

Imagine a world where it is common practice to pass a brothel or in other words, a house of prostitution, on your commute to work, or where a child in your suburban neighborhood went missing and was sold into prostitution, and a world where your physician's wife was purchased from a catalog and forced into a life of servitude and sexual abuse. What is more frightening; the fact that this is happening in the United States and in a local communities every day, or is it the idea that this is almost impossible to picture because we are unaware that these atrocities could be right under our noses, and we refuse to believe that explicit violence and corruption is a part of our lives, either directly or indirectly? Here we will examine the inner workings of Human Trafficking and how to prevent it.

Human trafficking is a 32 billion dollar industry that is enslaving men, woman and children of all ages, races and nationalities for the purpose of forced labor or commercial sex exploitation. (Song) The largest percentages of those who are victimized in this form of modern day slavery are trafficked into commercial sex operations, which include prostitution and child sex tourism. Although men are not immune to this nightmare, women and children fall prey to this malicious crime more often and, of that statistic, approximately half of them are minors.

"Severe forms of trafficking", according to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, are defined as the recruitment, obtaining, harboring or transportation of a person for sex acts induced by coercion or force and also any acts performed by a person who has not reached the age of eighteen. A common misconception in human trafficking is that a person needs to be transported from one country to another but a victim does not need to be physically transported to fall within this range of trafficking. ("The Facts"). For the first time, in October of 2000, a public law was enacted to protect those affected by human trafficking and to prosecute their traffickers. This legislation is known as the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 ("Victims of Trafficking"). The TVPA has three goals, or also known as the three P's; prevention, protection and prosecution. ("Three P's"). In effort to reduce trafficking, prevention is a key part as knowledge is power. A country must take on measures to prevent trafficking by educating the public on this matter by ensuring its citizens that participating in criminal acts such as prostitution or sex tourism, is unacceptable and will be punished. The ability to find victims is a challenge in itself, getting them to speak out in regards to their abuse, let alone confront their abuser in court, is an altogether unique task. It is crucial that a victim will feel safe if he or she were to come forward, that is where the second 'p', protection, comes into play. The TVPA grants a "T visa" to those who have been mistreated in trafficking that allows them to be temporary residents of the United States, if they are not already citizens. The "T visa" is offered so that those who qualify are also able to receive federal assistance benefits to restart their lives. These benefits include housing, education, health care and job training. The Witness Protection Program is also available for those who qualify under this law. Prior to the "T visa", victims were deported as illegal aliens. With the establishment of this visa, many go on to receive permanent residency status in the United States. With thanks to the TVPA, law enforcement now possesses the tools to better prosecute those who violate human trafficking laws. ("T-Visa").

Seventy percent of the women who are taken into the world of human trafficking end up in the sex trade. These victims are forced into different forms of exploitation such as pornography, stripping and live sex shows. Pornography and prostitution have been described as the "most exploitative forms of commercial sex operations", by the National Human Trafficking Resource Center ("Types"). This description was made for these sex crimes because they are in highly visible areas like windows along a 'red light' district, or on a 'street corner'. The NHTRC also shares that those who end up prostituting usually begin dancing or stripping in clubs. Sex operations can be more privatized; located in residential homes or more public, yet quiet, at spa's or massage parlors, perversely known as 'happy endings'. For an example, in the mid-1980s, four massage parlors offering sex, operated in Vernon, CT. Police raided the parlors and arrested several people on prostitution charges. (Ownes)

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