Human Trafficking In America Summary

In an article entitled “Tessa’s Story: Human Trafficking in America,” Venus Rodriguez tells the story of Tessa, a seven year old girl who was raped by her father and survived by viewing her body as not a part of herself. When she was a teenager, she was befriended by a guy named Jared who flattered her, bought her gifts, and made her feel special. She had no idea he was a pimp and that she would soon be on the street selling her body. Jared would withhold food if she did not meet her quota. Jared would drug her; he even convinced her that nobody would want her. At one point, Jared had Tessa so drugged that he tattooed her neck with his name to make it known that she was his property (Rodriguez, 2-6). This is one of the many examples of human trafficking that take place every …show more content…
Due to the lack of awareness about what is going on around communities and states, many men, women, and even children are sexually assaulted, beaten, threatened, drugged, and forced into servitude every hour of every day. There will be no solution to the growing problem of human trafficking until more people are aware of how human trafficking takes place, until states begin to deter human trafficking more effectively, and until more individuals take an active role in reporting possible acts of trafficking to the proper authorities. Therefore human trafficking cannot be defined as any one particular crime; it is not simply sexual exploitation. It is much more than that because human trafficking has many different characteristics. In the article "Hidden in Plain Sight: Human Trafficking in the United States,” Hepburn and Simon state that “. . . the characteristics of human trafficking are