Human trafficking. The word sends shivers down most people’s spines. It seems like something far off, something happening in foreign countries. People can push it out of their head this way, telling themselves that it doesn’t affect them.
But it does.
Because of the nature of trafficking, it’s difficult for officials to obtain accurate statistics. But here’s what the National Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC) and the Office of Refugee Resettlement know:
5,042 unique cases of potential human trafficking were reported to their hotline in 2014.
Nearly 18% (3,495) of these calls came from California, where the 3 largest epicenters of human trafficking are located (San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco.) (NHTRC)
Human trafficked occurs in two types: Sex trafficking and labor trafficking.
“Sex trafficking: the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act, in which the commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion. or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age.”
“Labor Trafficking: the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.” (ORR)
Most victims of trafficking are females or children
They are brought into it in 3 ways:
Force: The use or threat of violence to the victim.
Fraud: False promises of things such as employment, working conditions or wages.
Coercion: Threats or a scheme to cause harm to any person so the person will do as the aggressor says, because the victim believes that failure to do so will result badly.
Last year, there were reports of human trafficking in every single state in America.
And then, there are the stories. Heartbreaking stories of innocent people forced into trafficked. Below are a few stories, but you can find more at http://www.polarisproject.org/what-we-do/client-services/survivor-stories
A young girl named Sarah. She was from a bad home, where her mother and stepfather drank and ignored her. One day, when she was walking to the store alone, a 30-year-male began to talk to her. She unloaded on him, telling him the problems she was having at home, and he asked if he could take her to get her nails done. He figured that it would cheer her up. For the next two months, she hung out the with the older man, who spent a lot of money on her. Eventually, they begun a relationship and he asked her to move in with him. After a month, though, things turned bad. He couldn’t pay his rent, so he asked her for a favor. He asked her to go on dates (and have sex) with older men. Sarah was uncomfortable, but would do anything to avoid going back to her house.
So she did it.
Her boyfriend praised her for it, and for a while, all was well.
Until, that is, Sarah was raped by a stranger. She called the police, was taken in for an exam, and things finally started to get better.
She left her boyfriend, moved into a shelter and got a part-time job. She now has her own apartment, attends classes in the evening, and hopes to go to college next year.
Keisha ran away from her foster home when she was 14. Then, she met a 26-year-old man named “Mastur D”, who offered to help her find her biological family, who were located in Florida. He said he would pay for them to get there, but she would have to support them by having commercial sex with his friends. She agreed to this, because she had no where else to go. Once they got to where her Florida, he insisted she hadn’t made enough money and assaulted her, and threatened her, saying that she would not see her family unless she had sex with men that he picked.
She felt, once again, that she had no choice. She continued working a sex worker.
Keisha was arrested for solicitation and served time in a juvenile detention center, then was returned to her former foster family.
She ran away again, calling Mastur D to help her.
She was arrested again.
She told parts of her story to Polaris, and they immediately stepped in to provide her support. She now has an order of protection against Mastur D and is almost finished with her GED.
Brittany met a man who claimed to have a restaurant and said that he was looking for waitresses to start working for him as soon as possible. She called the number on the card, asking for the address, but the man said that he would come pick her up.
When he did, he took her to a hotel. There, he told her that she was going to be a prostitute, not a waitress. He forced her at gunpoint to drink multiple bottles of vodka and take pills that made her dizzy and disoriented. She looked for help, but was locked in without a phone.
She was there for 3 days, beaten, drugged and forced to have with at least 60 men.
When she finally managed to escape, she asked the first car she saw to call the police. Now, she has a strong support system and is even enrolled in school.
Natalia’s parents sent her to live in the United States from their small village in Ghana because they could no longer afford the school fees in their home. She was told that she was living with a family friend, but the man she was living with began to abuse her, both physically and sexually, shortly after she arrived.
For the next six years, she was forced to cook, clean and take care of the family. She often worked 18 hours a day and was never payed. She was never allowed to enroll in school or have any contact with the outside world.
When she saw an opportunity to run away, she went and told the neighbor to call the police.
She was taken to a hospital for medical care. Within a month, she was attending school and in transitional housing.
Now, she volunteers at an animal rescue shelter, attends poetry workshops and pan son being a nurse.
These are only a few stories, from the few girls that feel comfortable talking about what they went though.
Human trafficking IS happening in the United States, and we can no longer turn a blind eye and pretend that it isn’t.
There are ways to take action though, ways that people who have never been affected by it can help.
Polaris is one of many organizations that is aimed at helping victims of human trafficking, there are others out there, if you look for them.
If you or someone you know is being trafficked, you can call, email, or report a tip to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center.
Comments are closed.