Human Trafficking An Epidemic - 2920 Words

Police Struggle to Stop Human Trafficking Ever since human trafficking has become an epidemic, police have been struggling to stop it. Human trafficking is the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt that profits from enslaving people for sexual servitude and forced labor (35). Traffickers are members of highly sophisticated networks of organized crime. Human trafficking occurs all around the world today leaving no discrimination towards anyone. Not everyone is aware of it being an issue in the United States, as opposed to many foreign countries. In the United States alone, traffickers earn up to 9.5 billion dollars yearly. Not only does human trafficking includes sex and labor, but also smuggling, which makes it the†¦show more content†¦Ã¢â‚¬Å"Human trafficking affects everyone because it is a form of slavery. Slavery has been outlawed for many years and trafficking affects our children s future (Kinsley). Victims of human trafficking are women, girls, and boys, in which 80% of the victims are female. Increasingly, pregnant women are being used for their newborn babies. These babies are then sold on the black market, where the profit may be divided in between the traffickers, lawyers, doctors, border officials, and/ or anyone else involved. Traffickers often recruit children not only because of their adolescence and the likelihood of them being more vulnerable than adults, but there is also a high market for younger victims. A trafficker can make a lot of money off selling children ranging from $150,000 to $200, 000 per child. According to the United Nations Children Fund, over the past 30 years, over 30 million children have been sexually exploited through this crime. Traffickers target victims on the telephone, internet, through friends, at the mall, and in after-school programs (Facts). On the other hand, some recruit their victims by a promise of a good job in another country, abducting their victims and even being sold into t he sex trade by their own parents, husbands, or boyfriends. Such as in Leticia s case where Aurelio told her he can get her a job in the United States as a servant to a rich family, but convinced