Elizabeth Vinson

Brandon, Minnesota
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Human Trafficking

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Human Trafficking: The Secret Shame Around the World 
     What is human trafficking? Human trafficking is selling men, women and children into some kind of slavery. Sex slavery is the destination for many women and girls. Most of the men and male children go to labor-intensive places. According to freedom4innocence.org, human trafficking in the Middle East happens to 12% of men, 22% of children and 66% of women. The article also says that 80% of traffic victims end up as sex slaves. Traffickers do this for the sole purpose of making money. In 2005, the global human trade industry made over $31.6 billion in profits.  
     One thing many people do not know is the victims often go with the traffickers willingly. They go with promises of jobs or marriages. Some families also sell their children to traffickers. Many of the people are vulnerable individuals who have no family, such as orphans or street people.  
     The most common ways victims experience exploitation are prostituting, forced labor, slavery and removal of organs for sale. Sexual exploitation is by far the most common. The female victims suffer from a much higher risk for STD’s, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis. These women are forced to have sex for making pornography.  
     These women often have permanent damage to their reproductive organs and many suffer from PTSD. A trafficker can make 20 times more than he paid for a victim. If the victim remains in “good condition”, a pimp could sell her again for an astronomical amount of money.
     Around half of these victims are under the age of 18. Many of the trafficked children undergo sexual exploitation as well. These children are much more likely to develop mental disorders, to engage in drugs, to resume the prostitution and to become involved in violent crime later in life.
     The other half of the victims go in to physical labor. This is the second most common form of trafficking in the world. As unbelievable as it sounds, there is a market for slaves. The average cost of a slave is $100. An estimated 27 million slaves exist around the world. The most popular destinations are Italy, Belgium, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Japan, Germany and the US. Many of the young victims become victims because their family members sell them into slavery.
     
There are many survival stories with human trafficking. However, the stories of those never saved are much more common. The stories of the survivors are hard to read and hear about but the public needs to be aware of what goes on around the world, even here in our own country.
Many of the survivors are forever damaged by what happened to them, whether the damage be psychological or physical or both. The following stories are from survivors.
    Dai, a young female Korean immigrant was taken into sexual slavery after years of parental and spousal abuse. She escaped her abusive relationship, but not before he took her naturalization papers. A female pimp in Las Vegas who invited her to join an escort service approached her.      
Another story, perhaps even more upsetting, is Concy’s story. When she was nine years old, she was taken from her village in Uganda. She became part of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). She became a child soldier and married the Brigade Commander against her will. At the age of 10, her “husband” forced her to have sex with him. The Brigade Commander had 20 “wives”, most of them between 12 and 18. Since Concy was a soldier who fought, she was the “top wife”. When he left, Concy was in charge of keeping the other girls in line. A year after being captured, there was a large fight between LRA and Ugandan government soldiers. She used that opportunity to run away. Life back in her village wasn’t easy, though. Her people shunned her, because they knew the unspeakable things she had been forced to do. She went back to school, and one day when she was 15, was forced into a man’s hut, where he raped her. She was shunned again and she returned to the man, as he was now her “husband”. She became pregnant and lived for a year with her “husband”. He abused her, and she left with her daughter. She is now working in a bakery in Pece and remarried a good man (Survivor Stories).      Trafficking is something that happens all around the world. It is a hard thing to talk about, and because of that, many people just ignore it. It is something that needs to change, and future generations have the power to change it.  

     Several weeks later, she found herself in a prostitution/ sex slave ring. She spent six months in this world, where she lost her identity and her dignity. A wealthy man eventually bought her and conditioned her to become a female pimp. She began to do the same thing those people did to her. She became addicted to drugs, which she used to escape her reality. While she was on the run, she found people she could trust, became a voice against trafficking, and dug herself out of that hole (A Survivor’s Story).