What is human trafficking?
Human Trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery. Victims of
trafficking are exploited for commercial sex or labor purposes.
Traffickers use force, fraud or coercion to achieve exploitation.
Technical
Definition: Trafficking is the recruitment,
transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons by
means of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, or abuse of power
of a position of vulnerability for the purpose of exploitation.
- Victims of sex trafficking are often found in the streets or
working in establishments that offer commercial sex acts, i.e.
brothels, strip clubs, pornography production houses, etc. Such
establishments may operate under the guise of: massage parlors,
escort services, adult bookstores, modeling studios and
bars/strip clubs.
- People forced into indentured servitude can be found in:
sweatshops (where abusive labor standards are present);
commercial agricultural situations (fields, processing plants,
canneries); domestic situations (maids, nannies); construction
sites (particularly if public access is denied); restaurant and
custodial work.
Where does it happen?
- Cases of human trafficking have been found all across the
world. In addition, cases have been reported in all fifty states
of the United States.
- Los Angeles is one of the top three points of entry into this
country for victims of slavery and trafficking. Trafficking
occurs in a triangle from Los Angeles, California to Las Vegas,
Nevada, and back to Sacramento, California.
Who are the victims?
Victims of sex trafficking can be women or men, girls or boys,
but the majority, at more than 80% of the victims, are women and
girls.
- There is not one consistent face of a trafficking victim.
Trafficked persons in the US can be rich or poor, men or women,
adults or children, foreign nationals or US citizens. Some are
well-educated, while others have no formal education.
- While anyone can become a victim of trafficking, certain
populations are especially vulnerable. These may include:
undocumented migrants; runaways, homeless and American at-risk
youth; and oppressed, marginalized, and/or impoverished groups
and individuals. Traffickers specifically target individuals in
these populations because they are vulnerable to recruitment
tactics and methods of control.
How Women and Children are Trafficked:
There are a number of common patterns for luring victims into
situations of sex trafficking, including:
- Promise of a good job in another country
- False marriage proposal turned into a bondage situation
- Being sold into the sex trade by parents, husbands,
boyfriends
- Being kidnapped by traffickers
Sex traffickers frequently subject their victims to debt-bondage,
an illegal practice in which the traffickers tell their victims
that they owe money (often relating to the victims’ living
expenses and transport into the country) and that they must
pledge their personal services to repay the debt.
Sex traffickers use a variety of methods to “condition” their
victims including starvation, confinement, beatings, physical
abuse, rape, gang rape, threats of violence to the victims and
the victims’ families, forced drug use and the threat of shaming
their victims by revealing their activities to their family and
their families’ friends.
Barriers to Seeking Services
Undocumented immigrants in the US are highly vulnerable due to a
combination of factors, including:
- Do not speak English and are unfamiliar with the U.S. culture
- Lack of legal status and protections
- Limited employment options
- Poverty and immigration-related debts
- Social isolation
They are often victimized by traffickers from a similar ethnic or
national background, on whom they may be dependent for employment
or a means of support. Frequently victims:
- Fear and distrust health care providers, government and
police – including fear of retaliation or deportation
- Are unaware that what is being done to them is a crime
because they:
- Do not consider themselves victims
- Blame themselves for their situations
- May develop loyalties, positive feelings toward
trafficker as coping mechanism
- May try to protect trafficker from authorities
- Sometimes victims do not know where they are, because
traffickers frequently move them to escape detection
- Fear for safety of family in home
country
I feel like they’ve taken my smile and I can never
have it back.
-Lithuanian woman trafficked to London
How WEAVE
helps victims of trafficking.
You can help victims of trafficking. Donate
now.
Facebook
Twitter!