Human Trafficking Short Essay

Human Trafficking the two part mini series that aired Monday on Lifetime Network caught my interest and made me research it further. The mini series Human Trafficking follows the story of four woman and girls as they are taken into the vicious world of human slavery. Human slavery is to this day is still a very real problem in the world. As I researched my topic I found that Human Trafficking is a trade that includes not only sex, but pedophilia, human slavery and even organ harvesting. The slave trade is popular in south eastern Asia, in countries like Thailand, where the people are poor and have no other choice but to sell themselves as if they were products on a shelf. The sex trade is an ancient trade that goes back hundreds of years. When a young Thai prostitute was interviewed by world net daily she said "I am but one brick in that long, unbroken wall of female exploitation and misery." Rio de Janeiro is also a popular location to collect children for this trade. Rio has the largest population of unclaimed children in the world. This is due to the sugar plantation back in the 1500's The coast of Brazil flourished with plantation but due to climate changes, and drought the plantations shut down after a certain amount of time. So the families moved to the city, and sent the children away as they could not feed their families due to lack of jobs. The government in Brazil actually pays people to go out and kill these children due to overpopulation, poverty, and crime. Small battles are being waged against this Trade Ring. The US has denied aid to five countries; Burma, Cambodia, Cuba, North Korea, and Venezuela. As these countries are not up to minimum standards of Anti-Trafficking Act, and have done nothing to help the prevention of human trafficking.

There are also organizations helping woman and children free themselves of their pimps and gangs. Some slaves can be traded up to 7 to 10 times to other pimps or gangs. Among them is the very charitable Amnesty International, If you are at all concerned about this issue, I urge you to get involved and help, You can do so by joining Amnesty International or by reaching out through other organizations to stop Violence against women and children.

Sources:

http://usinfo.state.gov/gi/global_issues/human_trafficking.html

http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/trafficking_human_beings.html