Stop Human Sex Trafficking

This is quite a disturbing title; yet, what is even more disturbing are the statistics involved with human and sex trafficking. Recent statistics report that an estimated 500, 000 to nearly one million people are being forced in human and sex trafficking in the United States alone. The bottom line is that these women are often abducted or forced by friends, family, and false claims of good paying work by traffickers. They are held captive and raped of their dignity and sense of self. They are taken away from their countries, from people they know, and stripped of their identity, and forced to become sex slaves in the sex trade industry.

The Department of Justice reports that about 100,000 to 300, 000 sex slaves are children or those under the age of 18. But, how could these statistics exist? I mean, isn’t this just a fallacy in reporting of information and possibly an exaggeration? It is the 21st Century, right? The 21st century where those enslaved are forced to have sex with 10, even up to 30 persons a day. How many of us have seen news captions blinking across our televisions on how sex slave rings have been on trial and charged with trafficking hundreds of thousands of women into the US and across the borders each year? Women and children that become victims of sex trafficking are truly defenseless. Often, these women that are trafficked each year are lured with the promise of legitimate jobs that appear valid, such as work as a waitress, babysitting, and administrative or secretarial work. Bushwhacked and sold into the sex trade business these women are usually unable to runaway or escape. They are robbed of their identity because their passport, driver’s license, birth certificate and legal papers are taken at the time they meet their captors. Headed for a fate of the unimaginable, these women’s’ lives are ruined. Their captors, pimps, take total emotional, physical, and psychological control via blackmail, severe physical torture, verbal abuse, gang rape, and are even given forced drug injections as part of the abusive cycle to gain physical and psychological control. It is about dominance and submission for the pimps.

Victims are just pieces of property; commodities to be bought and sold for a price. These women are living an unimaginable nightmare where for some, there is no waking up. Imagine being beaten physically, emotionally, and held captive by people that force you to have sex every day against your will. Clearly, unfathomable for many alerted to the issue. This is clearly a human rights issue and one that is escalating each day every second. These women exploited everyday are merely commodities to their captors.



With the rise of sex slavery, victims are at significant risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases and even more life threatening diseases, such as HIV/AIDS. Not to mention increased drug use and death as a result of overdose. While Russia is the main supplier of these women enslaved, other countries are soon catching up in numbers.

Fear, anger, shame, and guilt haunt these women trapped. For some, they are sold right before their eyes under false pretenses of meeting someone who will offer them a good paying job. The reality of this problem is that because these women know they are going to work illegally in other countries, they will lie to the customs officials. This just helps the trafficker accomplish the mission of smuggling them for the purposes of sex slavery. It is fast and easy for the traffickers where deals are made, women are sold, and their destiny decided in a flash. Many of those enslaved are traumatized daily and often do not escape usually because they can’t escape; or, they fear what will be done to their family and friends if exposed. Cruelty by the pimps is the rule to dominate and control. A trade fueled by corruption, money, and power, sex trafficking yields close to 42 billion dollars a year. While there are many investigations ongoing to capture and end sex slavery, given the profit involved, statistics are likely to increase because of the money that is exchanged and made from this sex trade. Once trafficked, these women are forced to work immediately to earn money. Life is forever changed!

So, what are you doing to stop human and sex trafficking?

Dr. Stephanie Sencil-White, PsyD, PhD, LCSW, DCSW

References:

http://www.acf.hhs.gov/trafficking/about/fact_sex.pdf

http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/law-enforcement-bulletin/march_20...