Human Trafficking: A Societal Cancer That Needs To Be Stopped

Human trafficking is a serious offense that horribly violates the rights of those affected. Every year, millions of men, women and children are abducted, lured and enslaved into shady lifestyles of forced labor or sexual exploitation worldwide. Some humans are even killed or operated on against their will and their organs sold on the black market.
The German philosopher Samuel von Pufendorf recorded in 1673 that “more inhumanity has been done by man himself than any other of nature’s causes.” Scottish poet Robert Burns expounded on that same thought when he penned in his poem Man was made to mourn: A dirge the words “man’s humanity to man makes countless thousands mourn!” Humankind is supposed to be progressing towards more civilized and tolerant behavior yet the atrocities of human trafficking are both prevalent and growing. It is time this scourge on society is stopped.
The Facts behind Human Trafficking
Human trafficking is the act of recruiting, transporting, transferring, receiving, or harboring persons that have been forced, coerced, abducted, or deceived into controlled and abusive situations for the purpose of being exploited for sexual acts, forced labor, slavery, or organ removal and sales.
The U.S. State Department has listed human trafficking as the world’s fasted growing crime and the second largest criminal enterprise in the world behind the illegal drug trade. Each year, between 600,000 and 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders, the majority of which are females and children.
Although the majority of human trafficking victimization occurs in developing countries where more people are seeking opportunities to climb out of abhorrent poverty, developed countries like the United States also see large numbers of people being used, mainly in the commercial sex trade.

Women and young girls make up the majority of human trafficking victims worldwide. In the US, roughly 80 percent of victims are female and of that number 50 percent are minors. Runaways are the main targets of human traffickers because they are normally young, naive and vulnerable. Of the 2.8 million child runaways in the U.S. each year, approximately one-third of those are coaxed into illegal pornography and prostitution rings within 48 hours.
The majority of those trafficked are children with an average age of 12 years and most are funneled into the sex trade industry. In the U.S., approximately 200,000 national children are exploited for sexual acts annually, mostly in the booming pornography industry. Between 14,500 and 17,500 human traffic victims are estimated to be shipped into the U.S. from other countries each year.
Types of Human Trafficking
There are numerous reasons that people are bought, sold and used by human traffickers. However, there are three main types of human trafficking that demand the most victims. Those are sexual exploitation, forced labor and the harvesting of organs.
1. Sexual Exploitation
Sexual exploitation contains, by far, the largest portion of human trafficked victims. The majority of those trafficked for sexual acts and pornography are women and children who tend to be more vulnerable and more easily controlled.
You can see more of this article in our July/Aug 2014 issue of ModelsMania