HumanTrafficking

=**The Unexpected Life of Misery** By : Danya A.Abbi T. Brie V.Heather F. =  Sex slavery is an international issue made infamous by globalized corporation scandals. We as Americans tend to write off acts such as sex slavery as a foreign problem corrupting the lives of American families whose daughters are being taken into the business. To call sex slavery a business sounds morbid but the truth is many people around the world are turning profit from sex slavery and interconnecting markets to create one globalized business. //McMafia// author Misha Glenny attributes twenty percent of global gross domestic product (GDP) to criminal transactions for the purpose of sex slavery (Morrison 31). The United Nations pegs total earnings for sex slavery at $10 billion per year, that’s a price of roughly $12,500 per slave (Morrison 38).
 * PROOF **

The estimated price for a sex slave does not mean that that is how much you pay for the slaves themselves. This is the money spent to kidnap or buy, transport, trade, and maintain undisclosed. An estimated 17,000 young women and girls annually are forced to work in the sex industry in the U.S. by organized criminals (Kahng) “Chicago, Houston, St. Paul, Minnesota, these crimes are happening in every community in America big and small,” says Marcie Forman, director of investigations for ICE (Immigration Customs Enforcement). “We’re talking about money here. Millions of dollars and these people don’t think about these women as human beings. They think of them as dollars and cents,” Forman says (Kahng). Slavery is a risky business and every move you make has to be perfect or the organization as a whole goes down. That is the reason most “lords” of sex slavery are from a famedia type="youtube" key="-QpIZ0c-sa4" height="269" width="368" align="right" mily operation. Young men grow up learning to treat women as possessions and objects instead of human beings. In many occasions, when a boy turns thirteen he is given his own sex slave to service him as well as his friends. Once he turns eighteen he may start recruiting women and the process goes on.

Although we want to believe that this is a foreign problem, Americans are a big factor in sex slavery. Although most sex slavery businesses are centralized outside of the U.S. and the girls are mostly from overseas, the sex slavery business is mostly derived from a demand for more heightened and experimental sex from American men. The open sexual nature of Americans is what keeps the demand high. It is easy in America to find other people who own or have experience with sex slaves. A prime example is “google”. The first document that comes up in “google” if you type in “punishment for sex slaves” is an article by Laura Goodwin on the training of your sex slave. This is a woman who owns a male sex slave, contrary to most peoples’ assumptions that only women are used as sex slaves. She has taken him as her husband and “trained” him to her services. Her articles teach others how to reward and punish your slave until they become “ as obidient as a beaten dog” (Goodwin).

The demand for sex slaves is rising every year, and with that rise comes a rise in riskier and more violent sexual fantasies. The age for the average sex slave has decreased. In 2002 it was 14 and now in 2009 its 11 (Pesta). That doesn’t mean that there are not younger children who are forced into sex slavery. Girls as young as three have been found in sex brothels, being taught to give oral sex by the use of starvation and then honey on the genitals. Streypov Chan is a young Cambodian girl who was sold into sex slavery by her mother at age seven and forced to have sex with hundreds of men before she was ten (Pesta). The sex slaves are being forced to do more painful and unusual acts for their clients.

The life of a sex slave is one of physical and mental pain and exhaustion. Women and c hildren are either kidnapped or bought into this global slave trade and that is where there journey to hell begins. One rescued girl said to authorities, “I thank you from the bottom of my heart, that you saved me from that hell.”(Leung) First they are brought to a brothel which is a house or other central location where the slaves are stored. Then they are taken onto ships where hundreds of them are forced into tiny spaces and brought overseas to Mexico. Some women are even tricked into paying for their own transport to America when they are told to meet an organization there set up to give them a new job and better life, and are then surprised when the “new job” is forced sexual acts. Once in Mexico some either stay in brothels there, where men travel through and “rent” a slave for the night, or are brought over the border and smuggled into brothels in various cities all across the U.S. (Leung)

The sex slave business is stationed all over the world. Romania, like many poor Eastern European countries, has become a popular place for international traffickers to purchase girls.(Leung) Romania has streets full of women who can be purchased, not just for a night of sex, but forever. "You can buy 10 girls in one night, if you want to. You can say I want a 13-, a 16-, a 17-, and a 21-years-old, and you can buy them all like that," says Iana Matei, who runs a shelter for trafficking victims outside Bucharest. Poor countries are easy targets for sex traffickers because of the desperation of the women there. Many girls will do almost anything to get out of the life they are currently living, not fully understanding what they are in store for. Countries of war are also big targets. Many women are taken in raids and forced to become sex slaves for the soldiers. One girl tells her encounter with Serbian soldiers: "Then they started torturing me. I lost consciousness. When I woke up, I was totally naked and covered in blood, and my sister-in-law was also naked and covered in blood. ... I knew I had been raped, and my sister-in-law, too." In a corner, she saw her mother-in-law, holding her children and crying. That same day we were locked in our house. That was the worst, the worst period of my whole life. That's when it started. Every day we were raped. Not only in the house -- would they also take us to the front line for the soldiers to torture us. Then again in the house, in front of the children," Jasmina said through a translator, remembering the 10 other women who were brutalized with her. I was in such a bad condition that sometimes I couldn't even recognize my own children. Even though I was in a very bad physical condition they had no mercy at all. They raped me every day. They took me to the soldiers and back to that house. The only conversation we had was when I was begging them to kill me. That's when they laughed. Their response was 'we don't need you dead.' (Clarke) The trading of women and children for the purpose of sexual slavery is a violent and globalized business. The victims of this catastrophe are from all over the world and suffer great amounts of torture and abuse to be trained to their owners will. In this business, there is no room for mistakes. It is all about making money, much like the businesses we buy from today, accept their products are human beings. The only way to stop this crime is to stop the demand which many theorize to be impossible. As long as the demand is there, sex slavery will thrive. Its obvious to conclude that no matter where you are in the world, sex slavery effects you or your country, and in turn, you are able to take action agianst it. The biggest thing we can do now is raise awareness of what it’s really like to be a sex slave and why something must be done.

 media type="custom" key="5414375" **__CAUSES__**

All over the world children should be growing up living a somewhat healthy life, laughing, going to school, getting married or becoming successful working adults. This is a wish for all young boys and girls, except those who face the realities of war, poverty, political persuasion, corrupt governments, as well as greedy businessmen and women who have no value for human respect. Young women find themselves being sold or coerced by their families promising to be educated, an opportunity for a better life, or to work off personal or family debt. This is happening in just about every country around the world and is not by choice but by force. Sexual slavery is a multibillion dollar global business where young girls (and sometimes boys) are often falsely led into what is known as “human trafficking,” thinking they are fortunate enough to be given a chance at a better life. Some of the first documented cases of sexual slavery were drafted by the Japanese Imperial Army to serve in military camps. The women would be sent to camps and forcibly raped into submission often being beaten, tortured, or killed. Their military service required them to “service” the males in the army. It was thought that by keeping the men sexually satisfied that they would be able to concentrate and fight harder. These young teenage women became known as “comfort women.” Only 25 percent of these women survived and most were unable to bear children due to being raped repeatedly or because of sexually transmitted diseases. “About 60,000 comfort women survived the War and approximately one thousand are alive today, the youngest of whom is in her sixties. After decades of hiding what happened, they are now finding the courage to come out and tell their stories” (Brown). In another instance, “the women cried out, but it didn’t matter to us whether women live or die. We are the emperor’s soldiers. Whether in military brothels or in the villages, we rape without reluctance” (Treatment of Comfort Women, Yasuji Kaneko p.40). There are many causes which lead families to the decision to sell their young girls to “job brokers” but the main one appears to be satisfying some form of debt owed. Faced with extreme poverty and threats of violence to the family, a young teenage girl is sold by her family and forced to work as a sex slave in a brothel. Sometimes encountering dozens of men each day, the physical abuse and violence keeps these girls from running away.

“The most prevalent form of slavery in Thailand is a form of debt bondage, in which families become reliant upon their daughters’ work to repay interest accumulating debt. Teenage girls (in rare cases, boys as well) are sold by their families or lured away from their villages by recruiters, convincing the girls they will have respectable, well paying jobs on Bangkok as maids or factory workers. Although families receive payment for their daughters-between $200 and $2000-the contractual agreement they sign specifies this amount is a loan that must then be paid back with labor.”

As sad as it may seem, the lives of these young women and children have not chosen to live this type of lifestyle. With government corruption, sometimes even the police and local government officials are paid off to keep from interfering in the so-called businesses. In many cases these young women are falsely promised to be employed as housekeepers and maids, nannies, cooks, models, or just forced to work as prostitutes in brothels. There are also instances where male members of a family have engaged in fighting against someone or a government and the young women are forcibly removed from the home forced into becoming prostitutes to satisfy the crime. Today, many women who lived these miserable lives are now speaking out on their experiences hoping that it will bring about change. Some of these women often feel they owe it to those who may have lost their lives living under such circumstances beyond their control.

Human trafficking is the third largest and fastest growing criminal industry in the world. It is a crime against humanity. Human Trafficking is the act of recruiting, transporting, transferring, harboring or receiving a person through force or other means, for the purpose of exploiting them. Every year thousands of men, women and children fall into the hands of traffickers, some in their own countries but mostly abroad when they are the most vulnerable. (UNODC) Forty three percent are used for sex. This industry is a ten billion dollar industry, and the price for one slave is 12,500 dollars. Human Trafficking is in every country in the world, the effects are never ending. (Morrison)
 * __EFFECTS__**

The global commercial sex trade exploits 1.8 million children, although this number may differ due to the large numbers of underground dealings. For example Cambodia is one of the so called hot spots for child sex trafficking NBC news network went undercover to gain perspective of what is happening to thousands of kids in and around Cambodia today.

 “Inside the world of child sex trafficking, each year, by some estimates, hundreds of thousands of girls and boys are bought, sold or kidnapped and then forced to have sex with grown men. Dateline’s investigation leads to the troubled and distant land of Cambodia.”(Children). One 14-year-old, who was recently freed from a brothel, says she came from an extremely poor family in the country next door, Vietnam. She says when she was walking home from school one day; she was approached by a woman offering work in a café. But the café turned out to be a brothel. With no money and no way to get home, she didn't have much of a choice and was forced into sex with grown men, many of them American. (Children) “I thought, I am here to serve coffee, not be a prostitute. But the boss told me that I had to be a prostitute. She forced me, and I was scared. I did not want to go with those men, but being beaten was worse.” (Children)

Many of the Women or girls who are forced into prostitution are tricked into it by the prospects of better jobs or a better living experience. The effects of human trafficking on the victims are the most severe, from physical and psychological abuse to trauma; the effects of this horrible crime are never ending. (Oriole) Women and children all around the world are being subjected to these atrocious crimes. Approximately seventy percent of those trafficked are women and girls, nearly fifty percent are minors. (Human trafficking), mostly being kidnapped. A lot of human trafficking results as a lack of civil rights in poverty stricken places. Many actually get sold into this business because their families need to pay off their debt to the person who loaned them money. These parents are selling their flesh and blood to heartless people who care only about money and the business they run. The social effects of human trafficking are numerous, people in many countries such as Russia, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Cambodia and Kazakhstan. The vast majority of people in these regions constantly live in fear of kidnapping or being sold to brothels or sex slave houses where young girls and women, sometimes men are taken advantage of and are abused sometimes for years and years. There are many stories of people being taken and being abused. Such as the story of Sunarsih, an Indonesian woman who thought she was taking a job as a maid in Saudi Arabia but ended up working as a sex slave for her so called employers. (Indonesian)

"I felt like I was dying. It would have been better for me to commit suicide," she said in an even voice, despite a few tears betraying her pain. "I was humiliated. They treated me like an animal. But the pimp said that the clients paid a very high price for me." (Indonesian) She managed to escape when Saudi police raided the operation. She was jailed for six months and then deported. (Indonesian) Women and children who have been molested, raped and sold for sex will never really no happiness and that is a huge effect on the hundreds of thousands of people who are having this terrible thing happen to them.

Effects of human trafficking are huge and the amounts of people being affected are in the hundreds of thousands. Throughout this essay I hope I have shed light on this horrendous problem that has not only gotten the attention of major news/media outlets but also governments around the world. As I have stated the victims are numerous and strike right at the core of the family dynamic. 

media type="youtube" key="xKRx5SQpwSM" height="344" width="425"__** (Pay close attention to the **Human Trafficking** section.)  media type="youtube" key="eQr00L81lL0" height="344" width="425" align="left" media type="youtube" key="zPoauYYhI5E" height="344" width="425"
 * __ SOLUTIONS

www.notforsalecampaign.org

<span style="background-color: #ff0000; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; text-align: center;">**__FUTURE__**

Human trafficking is a growing problem and is predicted to continue growing if serious actions are not taken. More people will die and many more will suffer the trauma that will affect them for the rest of their lives. This crime needs to end because too many innocent and unknowing people are suffering and dying at the hands of other human beings. No one really knows how drastically this international epidemic will change in the coming years. It is very unpredictable due to the number of cases that remain unreported. It is estimated that more than 17,000 people were trafficked into the United States last year alone. (“Trafficking”). That number is simply too large, those people are brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters.

"The illicit commercialization of humanity is one of the largest criminal industries in the world, and the selling of children is the fastest growing global crime (Axworthy)." There are many evils in the world, but sexually abusing children must rank with the worst (Axworthy). Many young women are tricked into trafficking by promises of jobs, or a better life in another country. They believe that they will be helping their families and themselves by taking this seemingly amazing offer. These people have no clue what kind of horror they are about to endure.

Although we have just marked the two-hundredth anniversary of the formal abolition of slavery, many people around the world today are literally slaves, and many others are de facto slaves. Their ability and that of their families to leave their "employers" is severely restricted and would meet any modern definition of slavery (“Slave”). What is today a crime against humanity was once a legitimate form of commercial discourse; then, however, in relatively short order, slave trafficking was outlawed, first by national and eventually by international laws. Today the law universally proscribes trafficking in slaves--indeed, slavery itself (“Slave”). Examination of the circumstances surrounding abolition reveals frequent evocations of "humanity." These days it is commonplace to call an atrocity a "crime against humanity." Yet there is little understanding of the term. Why is it that when the victim is humanity, rather than a human being, international intervention becomes proper? (“Slave”). The only hope of getting a serious handle on this growing epidemic is for the leaders of countries all over the world to come together. This is by no means something any other person or country can take on by themselves.

Human trafficking is not by any means happening in the United States alone countries from Albania to Zimbabwe all have had reported cases of human beings trafficked in and out of the country. There is a report made by the Department of State, called the “//Trafficking in Persons Report”// which assesses the government response (i.e., the current situation) in some 150 countries with a significant number of victims trafficked across their borders who are recruited, harbored, transported, provided, or obtained for forced labor or sexual exploitation. This report separates the countries into three tiers based on the government’s response to the problem. There are 53 countries named on the CIA website and those countries are on in tier 2, meaning they have done little thus far to prevent this human trafficking, but they have committed to helping the cause (The world fact book ). Sadly, Human Trafficking is one of the many horrors of the world that no one quite knows how to over come. As to the future of human trafficking, nobody quite knows what the outcome will be, but it can go either way. It is simply too difficult and great of a task to completely eliminate the trafficking of humans. However, we can make more harsh laws in an attempt to protect our country and its citizens from a horrific fate that comes with being trafficked into the sex industry. One of those legal changes could be higher standards for massage parlors that would involve more frequent and thorough inspections. This would make it easier to bust illegal prostitution rings including trafficked women and children. The best we can do is to take care of the few people who survive and escape this terrible ordeal. The future of this heinous crime remains unknown.

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<span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; msobidifontfamily: Symbol; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore;">· <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Axworthy, Thomas S. “Canada to Join Obama to End HumanTrafficking.” Toronto Star (Toronto, Canada) Feb.11 2009:A.15.SIRS Researchr. Web. 31 Januafry 2010. <span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; msobidifontfamily: Symbol; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore;">· <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Brown, Anthony. "Japanese Comfort Women: One Woman." //cpcabrisbane.// 9.4 (2004): n. pag. Web. 23 Jan 2010. <http://cpcabrisbane.org/Kasama/Archive/FelicidadDeLosReyes.htm>. “Comfort Women” //Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia//. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 21 January 2010.Web. 24 Jan 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort_women <span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; msobidifontfamily: Symbol; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore;">· <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">"Country Report: Thailand ." //Iabolish//. 2010. American Anti-Slavery Group, Web. 24 Jan 2010. <http://www.iabolish.org/slavery_today/country_reports/th.html>. Mendenhall, Preston. "Infiltrating Europe's shameful trade in human beings." //msnbc// (2010): n. pag.Web. 23 Jan 2010. <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3071965>. <span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; msobidifontfamily: Symbol; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore;">· <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Axworthy, Thomas S. “Canada to Join Obama to End HumanTrafficking.” Toronto Star (Toronto, Canada) Feb.11 2009:A.15.SIRS Researchr. Web. 31 Januafry 2010. <span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; msobidifontfamily: Symbol; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore;">· <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Slave trafficking 200 years after abolition. (Proceedings of the 101st Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law: The Future of International Law) (Discussion).” Proceeding of the Annual Meeting-American Society of International Law 101 (2007): 277+. General OneFile. Web.31 Jan. 2010. <span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; msobidifontfamily: Symbol; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore;">· <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">“Trafficking in Humans.” Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles,CA) 25 Apr 2009: A.32.SIRS Researcher. Web.31 January 2010. <span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; msobidifontfamily: Symbol; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore;">· <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">“The World Fact Book.” www.cia.gov. CIA, Web.31 Jan 2010. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2196.html?countryName=&countryCode=ionCode=%C2%BC <span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; msobidifontfamily: Symbol; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore;">· <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Bukola, Oriola. Effects of Human Trafficking on Children. Hubpages Inc., 2010. http://hubpages.com/hub/Effects-of-human-trafficking-on-children "Children for Sale ". NBC. Febuary 8, 2010 <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4038249/>. <span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; msobidifontfamily: Symbol; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore;">· <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">"Effects of human trafficking on children". Hubpages. 1/21/10 <http://hubpages.com/hub/Effects-of-human-trafficking-on-children>. <span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; msobidifontfamily: Symbol; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore;">· <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">"Human Trafficking." __Global Issues in Context Online Collection__. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Detroit: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Gale,  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">2009. __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Global Issues In Context __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">. Gale. Tallwood High School. 21 Jan. 2010 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <http://find.galegroup.com/gic/start.do?prodId=GIC>. <span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; msobidifontfamily: Symbol; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore;">· <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">"Human trafficking ". humantrafficking.org. 1/21/10 <http://www.humantrafficking.org/countries/united_states_of_america>. <span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; msobidifontfamily: Symbol; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore;">· <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">" Indonesian sex slave breaks her silence". CNN. Febuary 8, 2010 <http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/11/17/indonesia.sex.slave/index.html>. <span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; msobidifontfamily: Symbol; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore;">· <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Morrison, David C. “Transnational Crime: Globalization’s Shadowy Stepchild.” //Great Decisions 2010//. The Foreign Association, New York: 2010.

<span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; msobidifontfamily: Symbol; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore;">· <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">UNODC- Human Trafficking. UNODC 2010. //UNODC.// February 10, 2010. http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/what-is-human-trafficking.html.