"You can't regulate child labor. You can't regulate slavery. Some things are just wrong"- Michael Moore
Many Americans will say that the Civil War ended slavery. Legally it did. Congress abolished slavery in 1865, but it continues today under another name: human trafficking.
When we think about trafficking we things of places far away, usually third world countries with corrupt or ineffective police forces. However much we wish that the problem would stay away it has developed a deeply rooted presence in the United States. The two main types of human trafficking supply people for the labor and sex industries. People of all races and backgrounds are kidnapped, threatened, or drugged into the trafficking rings where they are sold or used by the highest bidder. 82% of people taken in the United States in 2013 were under 18 years of age and at any time 293,000 American youth are at risk for being coerced into the human trafficking industry. Runaways and children with abusive parents are often those who are exploited most as they are easy targets who have no one that will miss them or want to know what happened.
Slavery has always had a history of preying on the weak. What made it possible for the slaves traders to obtain slaves was their guns and money. The same thing occurred in Ancient Greece and Rome. While it remains possible to limit human trafficking, I believe that it is impossible for it to stop completely. As long as humans have the desire for power and control, there will be exploitation of other people.
Sources
http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/law-enforcement-bulletin/march_2011/human_sex_trafficking
http://stophumantraffickingny.wordpress.com/a-survivors-story/
I found it really interesting that you related slavery and human trafficking. More often than not, I consider slavery a separate entity. This piece made me realize how slavery is a type of human trafficking and that the exploitation of people is still occurring.
ReplyDeleteI like how you sort of "synthesized" the types of oppression. It's an interesting idea to think of slavery as trafficking. I never considered it like that before. Nice.
ReplyDeleteIt's cool that you had sources for your data! It seems like people too often will say something and provide no way to confirm what they said. The issue of human trafficking seems to be so out of sight to most Americans-- myself included. Every now and then I will read an article about it (or a blog) and remember the issue and the horrors people face. Its sad to feel so helpless in such a terrible thing. Also, the comparison of trafficking to slavery was very effective.
ReplyDeleteWhat's more--this is more common in other countries--is that the law can sometimes help people to do this.
ReplyDeleteSeveral winters ago, my church youth group did an overnight event to help raise awareness and understanding of human trafficking and forced prostitution in other countries, and in a video, they showed a man who owned slaves by offering to pay their debts, and forcing the indebted to work for him (while being sheltered and fed by him) until they paid their debts. The money the work brought in "cost less" than the cost to shelter and feed them, so they could never escape their debt to this man.
The creators of the video were able to openly interview him; there was no threat of government intervention.
It's shocking--the things people will do for money or power.
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Our church worked with the people here: https://www.ijm.org/ I don't know where the video is specifically though.