Human Trafficking
Every year, six-hundred thousand to eight-hundred thousand men, women, and children are trafficked across borders worldwide; but what exactly does that mean? According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, human trafficking can be defined as, “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring of receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.” In most cases, this exploitation is sexual, but can also be composed of forced labour …show more content…
It is the use of violence, threats, lies, debt bondage, and other forms of coercion to force adults or children to engage in sex acts against their will in order to gain a profit. Sex trafficking can be advertised as a fake massage business, online ads, escort ads, on the street, or in hotels and motels. Victims can be lured in by predators or even sold by their own friends, family, and acquaintances. Victims can be stuck in the network for weeks, months, or years until they are able to get out -- if they get …show more content…
Hundreds of billions of dollars are generated while people are held against their will and forced to be in terrible situations and conditions. While this is something that is not often talked about, it is all around us; in fact, it is the world’s third biggest crime behind drug and firearm trafficking. Since this operation is so widespread, victims are very diverse and come from different ethnic backgrounds. One thing they do have in common though is a vulnerability, which traffickers take advantage of by promising jobs, an education, and stability. Often times, runaways, homeless children, victims of domestic violence, and war victims are targeted due to their instability and unpleasant past lives. Victims rarely gain access to help because they may not speak the language they are surrounded by, they may not know where they are, they have no way to contact their family or the authorities, they have no identification, and they have extreme trust