Human Trafficking

Human Trafficking is a form of organized crime, in which people of all ages are taken from their homes to be exploited for sexual or labor purposes. The traffickers use fear and violence to get these people to come with them, and all they really want out of it is money. I will be using four main sources to gather my information. First I will give a general overview of two websites giving great depth into the topic of human trafficking. I will then summarize three case studies on human trafficking. Finally, I will give my views on the issue, and tell why it is such any important topic for the public to hear about.

Human trafficking is a growing problem in the world today, and will soon be the largest criminal industry in the world. For the most part, certain groups of people are trafficked. For instance, the poor, people who have run away from there homes, and also migrants. There are many ways for traffickers to manipulate people to do what they want, and if that doesn’t work they can always turn to violence. One major way they try to control the people is by using psychology. They will make all the trafficked people believe that no matter where else they go they will be enslaved or killed. They tell the trafficked people that they are safe with them. Also, traffickers say that they will have a much more prosperous life with them. Besides those ways, often time the trafficked people consent to it at first. They have no where else to go and they are hardly able to eat because they are so poor. So if a man is willing to give them food and water then they will do anything.

Many people ask what the difference between human trafficking and migrants is. Migrants are people that wish to be moved to another country, usually to try to make a better life, but don’t have any legal way of doing so. They consent to going, and usually once they arrive at their destination, they are set free, or put in sweat shops to work off the debt of the trip. As you can see someone who has to do a little hard labor in return for a trip to another country is not nearly as bad as people plucked from their homes, or cities and forced to work for no pay just to make the traffickers profit. Also, even if the people first consent to being trafficked, they quickly change their mind, but have no control over the situation.

The website www.thedaymygoddied.com gave a startling view at how bad the human trafficking industry is. Girls as young as seven are forced to have sex, and if they deny it, they are ruthlessly beaten. They are also threatened with death. There are three major ways that these young girls end up being trafficked. First, they could be sold into it by an elder family member. Secondly, they are often promised jobs and the start of a family if they go, and lastly, they are physically drug into it by the traffickers. Once these girls arrive in the brothels, run down prostitution houses, they are forced to begin making all the money they can for their owner. Some of the girls speak of having to take part in sex over twenty times a day. It is for this reason that the spread of the HIV virus is so massive, and that 80% of the trafficked girls in Bombay have HIV.

There are ways to help these girls, but it is not always easy. Some of the women who were formerly forced into the brothels are now becoming major aspects in saving many of these girls. A woman named Maili was trafficked at the age of 19, and now is risking her life to save girls through an underground railway. Another woman, Jyoti, lead a massive raid, getting two brothel owners arrested, and saving seven girls. It is very hard, however, to save these girls, especially with the often corrupt police, and harsh consequences that come if you are caught.

The testimonial of Deng who was originally from Thailand, and trafficked to Australia was unbelievable. Deng, a young woman at the time, was told that if you moved to Australia, she could make a lot of money as a prostitute. She was shipped there, but when she arrived she was locked up and told that she would have to pay an enormous fine of about $30,000, which would equal out to about 900 men. Even when Deng was sick, or starving, she was forced