Slavery still exists. And it affects people of all different races and genders.
This new form of slavery exists in the rapid growing sex trade industry.
Young girls and sometimes boys, are sold by desperate parents, hoping to provide a better life for their family by sending them to America. They sell their children under false pre-tenses that they will “work” legally, instead they are implanted into a life that they least expected.
“Human traffickers profit by turning dreams into nightmares,”
said Michael Garcia, U.S. attorney in Manhattan, where the
majority of the traffickers face prosecution. “These women
sought a better life in America and found instead forced prostitution
and misery.”
Last week in New York over 20 raids in the Northeast uncovered over 70 sex-slaves in New York. They were illegal aliens AND U.S. citizens.
“It’s a very overwhelming subject for a lot of people to recognize
that there is slavery at this time in our country,” said Carole Angel,
staff attorney with the Immigrant Women Program of the women’s
rights advocacy group Legal Momentum in Washington. “It’s hard
for us as humans to contemplate what this means.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13415620/
The study concluded prostitution and sex services accounted for 46 percent of the documented forced labor.
The estimated number of sex-traffickers and slaves is a difficult one to put a finger on. Most estimates are on the lower side of the percentage because it is difficult to truly discover all of the illegal trafficking businesses going on around the world.
According to the 2005 report, 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders each year, with 14,500 to 17,500 trafficked into the U.S. The report does not provide data on sexual exploitation specifically; the numbers include people trafficked for any sort of forced labor. (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/slaves/etc/stats.html)
For further information:
+ “The Natasha Trade: Transnational Sex Trafficking”Overview of trafficking of women from Ukraine by Prof. Donna Hughes. (National Institute of Justice Journal , January, 2001)
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