Sex Trafficking In America

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Sex Trafficking Sex trafficking is a major problem in the United States today. In the book The Slave Next Door, Kevin Bales and Ron Soodalter tell the story of a young girl sold into sex trafficking. Maria grew up in Guatemala with a farmer as a father that experienced financial hardships. When Maria was sixteen a man came to visit her parents and offered to send their children to America to work. Her parents selected Maria and at first everything seemed to be good. He promised her that he could make her a successful model. All went downhill the night that Maria was scheduled to head north the man picked her up in his truck, drove her to a border town and rented a motel room. She was locked in the room for the next four days and was raped…show more content…
According to David R. Hodge in the article “Sexual Trafficking in the United States: A Domestic Problem With Transnational Dimensions,” 600,000 to 800,000 people being trafficked across nations with about 14,500 to 16,500 people being trafficked into the United States annually. With numbers this high, awareness in the nation should be more prominent when it comes to dealing with trafficking. Many young women, like Maria, are sold into the sex trade at young ages and are forced to perform sexual acts. The women’s “sponsors” brainwash the women into thinking multiple reasons that make forced commercial sex seem acceptable. It is the duty of government to enforce laws that will help protect women and children from becoming victims. While there are many ways that the issue of sex trafficking can be addressed, the best way is for government to intervene. Hopefully, through the actions of government people will become more educated on what sex trafficking consists of, the common characteristics of the victims and how the industry…show more content…
In “Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking: A Network of Underground Players in the Midwest,” by Celia Williamsom and Michael Prior, organizations that are already formed in the Unites States are proven to have a positive influence on eliminating the crime. Many of these organizations such as “Polaris Project, founded in 2002, Shared Hope International, founded in 1998, and End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography, and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT), founded in 1991, have chronicled the abuse of children through both labor and sex trafficking worldwide.”(Williamsom and Prior 3). These organizations are committed to stopping sex trafficking. They understand the workings of how and why the crime functions and the common characteristics of the victims and the criminals. These organizations have surfaced some of the recent reports of sex trafficking in the United States. (Williamson and Prior 3). These organizations truly help to better understand sex trafficking and they are able to spread their findings to society so that people will no longer be oblivious of what can be occurring in their country and the rest of the world. Government needs to promote the formation of more organizations like these. With
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