The Psychological Effects Of Sex Trafficking

Superior Essays
Sex trafficking is one of the largest billion dollar industries that is unknown to most. This industry is believed to bring about seven to twelve-billion-dollars in sales each year. Trafficking has been around since the 18th century and continues to this day; it involves the recruitment of victims, transportation, selling and buying, and the harsh psychological effects on the victims throughout the process. Average citizens are unaware of this violent process that opposes an immense amount of human rights. Global politics, specific regions, poverty, and disenfranchisement contribute to making women and children deceiving victims of sex trafficking. Sex trafficking is the practice of selling and enslaving humans to others for sexual servitude purposes. This act has been evolving for centuries. Between the 1840’s and 1890’s, cities such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai, and New Delhi became desired places for business men. …show more content…
Business men in these places became part of selling and buying humans for slavery work, which shortly turned into the process of buying and selling humans for sexual purposes. This is now known as sex trafficking. In the late 1890’s prostitution slowly started to popularize itself. It became prominent in Asia, the Americas, Europe, and the Middle East. Prostitution became very organized which made it easier for specific races to know their place. American women stood at an elite status, while Chinese women were employed in brothels owned by criminals. As prostitution became more popular, citizens started to familiarize themselves with it and formed coalitions and organizations to put and end to it. In 1904, the “White Slave Traffic” was put into action. This international agreement was to protect white women of all ages from being forced of deceived into prostitution. The “White Slave Traffic” campaign only benefitted white women when 99% of prostitutes were of color. “The agreement served only to call attention to the problem and to reveal a racial divide. As noted by Scully (2001), 99% of prostitutes were women of color, yet the agreement made no attempt to protect them. It was not until 1921 that women of color were included in international agreements to combat forced prostitution or trafficking” (Criminal Justice). Also, in 1921, the United Nations signed an international agreement that advocated for prosecution of any person who trafficked women or children. This agreement made little progress. Over the centuries, trafficking has evolved and continues too, but the rate and way it is evolving is worsening. Women are not aware of the process in which traffickers traffic them. Recruitment is the first step in sex trafficking. This step makes many of the victims vulnerable and easy targets. A factor that matters is location, location can help determine how easy it will be to trick the victim into the trafficking process. Some locations degrade women and undervalue them which makes it easier for the trafficker to offer them jobs or a better life and deceive them into the process. Foreign women are always seeking for employment, marriage, or a better life in general, most often the trafficker will use these tactics against the women. Traffickers are not just men, they can be women, friends, boyfriends, or even parents. When women are recruited, they are taken to a travel agency to receive passports and visas for travel. The women are valued at first until the recruiter has finalized the travel plans. The victim is told they are going to one place but is usually passed through many countries and end up in another. The purpose of this is to make the women psychologically unstable and disoriented. Since the women are in a country they …show more content…
Many countries like Russia, Nigeria, Ukraine, Thailand, Bulgaria China, Poland, Romania, and Mexico have citizens involved in illegal trafficking of humans. These countries are where recruiters find their victims or abduct them. As stated earlier, sex trafficking operations are not only male- operated. Women can also operate them, sometimes husband and wives operate them together. Children as young as fifteen can also operate them and they sell their teenage friends into the trading process. Age and race are not significant factors for becoming a victim, but women and female children are a large determinant. It is possible for recruiters to pick their victims based on the victims, education, unemployment, poverty, and social

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