Human Trafficking Victims In The United States

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When someone says the words “human trafficking,” images of emaciated children, forced to work long hours for a pittance in third world countries most likely comes to mind. However, in recent years, the face of a trafficking victim in the United States has changed. In the state of California, 79% of reported trafficking crimes are related to the commercial sex industry, and in 2011, 80% of sex trafficking victims in the U.S. were American citizens. While many immigrants and nationals of other countries are still targeted, impoverished American women are being lured into captivity by promise of a better life by traffickers. Immigrants and US citizens alike are being trafficked at an increasingly higher rate; this is in part due to the fact that vulnerable, poor children are most preyed upon and the rate of poverty in the US is increasing. All humans deserve to have control over their bodies. In most films, the trafficking victim is drugged, forced into a van and sold into a life of slavery. In reality, most victims know their captors, and go to work for them under the false pretense of legal jobs, such as waitressing or modelling. The traffickers then seduce the victims with the illusion of work, and once they commit to the abuser, the victims are forced into selling sex almost immediately. Concurrently, these same controllers profit from their girls, making on average $632,000 a year. In comparison, the average U.S. citizen earns $59,261 annually. Human trafficking, at least for the traffickers, is a low risk high reward business. In 2013, 253 were prosecuted on charges related to trafficking; only 174 were convicted, and of those only 113 were related to child sex trafficking. Even if someone is convicted, that person is more likely to receive a longer sentence for drug trafficking than for human trafficking. With such high rewards and low risk and work, trafficking is an appealing business, especially for men who are already involved in organized crime. Poverty is a huge factor in deciding both the traffickers and the trafficked. Traffickers enter the commercial sex industry because it appears to be a relatively uncomplicated way to make exorbitant sums of money, and the trafficked are easy prey because they are almost always desperate for money as they’re impoverished. In human trafficking, the most common victims are the vulnerable and poor, and therefore the rise of poverty contributes to the increase of victims. Since the majority of victims are incredibly poor, and as a result are lured in by the promise of work, the rise of poverty is linked to the risk of victims. In fact, poverty, homelessness and substance abuse were the top three reasons for falling into a controller’s trap according to BeFree by survivors. These three factors drive victims into desperate situations, and as poverty rises in the United States, as do the number of people pushed into these situations. This desolation can also drive them to hurt people they love. One woman was sold by her mother when she was eight, and as a result, has been selling sex ever since. Even after she broke free from her pimp, she was forced to continue working in order to pay for her drug habit. Another girl was sold by her mother when she was 13 in exchange for a pickup truck. She spent two weeks in captivity where she was gang raped brutally daily, then sent out on the street to make money for her abusers. Once again, the inequality gap between pimps and their victims grows: while a pimp …show more content…
Over recent years, there has been an increase in state legislation to protect trafficking victims and punish traffickers. As of 2014, 39 states have passed forceful laws combating human trafficking, and many had passed legislation related to victim assistance, including laws about trafficking hotlines and safe harbors for minors. One federal act, the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 added the possibility of longer sentences for traffickers and made getting a T visa for a trafficked foreign national much easier. The T visa allows victims of human trafficking to stay in the U.S. for up to 4 years and eventually apply for permanent residence, as well as allows victims to work legally, helping to eliminate their

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