The number of slaves in the world today is far greater than ever before in history.
- E. Benjamin Skinner, A Crime so Monstrous
There are more individuals in slavery today than at the height of the trans-atlantic slave trade.
- The Polaris ProjectHuman trafficking is a very different field than consensual sex work. Trafficking is modern-day slavery. It is an issue that affects both men and women and all victims are important and deserve to be recognized. Girls and women are trafficked at much higher rates than boys, though. Many girls who are trafficked are as young as six years old.
Victims in the sex trafficking industry are raped daily, receive little or no medical care, are subjected to botched, late-term abortions, receive no schooling, little food, are brutally beaten by their pimps and often die from such beatings, as well as from untreated sexually transmitted infections.
 |
| TRAFFIK by Norman Jean Roy |
How to girls end up in these situations? In developing countries, contraception is either illegal or not made easily available. Poor families may have a large number of children, sometimes more than they are able to provide for. In the cycle of poverty girls always lose. They are sometimes sold into slavery by their families. In other instances families might be tricked by traffickers into thinking their daughters will be taken to the city to work or receive an education, only for them to later be forced into prostitution by their captors after they are taken from their homes.
If girls are able to escape from their brothels and return home they are often shunned or stigmatized by their villages and often even by their own family.
Human trafficking is the second largest industry in the world, pulling in about $32 billion annually.
Two children are sold every minute.
Human trafficking does not just affect developing countries. The countries with the highest recorded amounts of human trafficking are include: Belarus, the Republic of Moldova, the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Albania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Romania, China, Thailand, and Nigeria.
Human trafficking is also a large problem in the United States. Over 100,000 children in the United States alone are forced into prostitution or pornography each year. Trafficking tends to increase around areas hosting large events, such as the Super Bowl or the Olympics.
The average age of entry into human trafficking and pornography in the United States is twelve years old.
Women like Anuradha Koirala, CNN's 2010 Hero of the Year and the founder and executive director of Maiti Nepal, are working to combat human trafficking and to provide a reliable means of recovery for its victims.
Since 1993, Koirala's work with Maiti Nepal has led to the rescue of more than 12,000 Nepali women and girls.
Somaly Mam, CNN's 2006 Hero of the Year, president of AFESIP (Acting for Women in Distressing Situations) and president of the Somaly Mam Foundation, is another women who rescues trafficked girls and helps pave a road to recovery for victims of the sex trade industry.
Mam was once a victim of sexual slavery herself. She shares her personal story into and out of the brothels in her book The Road of Lost Innocence.
The Girl Effect is an organization that strives to empower women by keeping girls in school, which will lead to them to marry when they choose, stay healthy and HIV negative, raise a healthy family, and to be able to provide for themselves, raise the standard of living for their villages, and empower other young girls around them.
By valuing, educating and empowering girls, human trafficking can be cut by a wide margin.
For more information about human trafficking, check out Love146.org, a religiously based organization that strives to educate people about human trafficking and combat its causes. Its website provides shocking personal stories from trafficking victims themselves and from people who have gone into brothels to recover these victims.
Read its online zine here.
If you would like to make a donation to an organization that is combating human trafficking and its causes (and I urge you to donate to a charity that is completely secular, these girls need food, shelter, and medical attention, not bibles and preachers), I highly recommend Maiti Nepal as well as The Somaly Mam Foundation, and of course, The Girl Effect.
This is a very important post, and you have hit the nail square on the head. It is crucial that we find ways to combat the enslavement of young girls. Education is one of the ways out for many of these vulnerable girls. Thank you for posting this very important topic.
ReplyDeleteThis is amazing post! I am very glad you included the fact that the super bowl is a large attraction for sex trafficking, people are not aware that this is happening in our own backyard too. Events like that cause people to be moved in and set up their rings up to a year before the actual event. Also the links are very informative!
ReplyDelete