Who is Affected by Human Trafficking?

All of us. The United Nations reports:

Human trafficking affects every country of the world, as country of origin, transit, or destination. Victims from at least  127 countries have been found to be exploited in 137 states.

At 79% of identified trafficking victims, sex trafficking is particularly a harsh problem. This being understood, it is not surprising that the UN also reports that women are disproportionately victims of human trafficking (two-thirds being female) and a large majority of traffickers and exploiters are male. The view of women as a whole internationally is negatively impacted by this harsh reality. Young men are being negatively influenced by easy access to internet pornography and prostitution. The access of human trafficking makes it much harder to condemn and makes it much easier to exploit individuals.

This issue is a big issue. It is conservatively estimated by the International Labor Organization that there are 21 million people enslaved in the world today. Furthermore, it is estimated that human trafficking internationally generates 32 billion dollars a year. That is 32 billion dollars being illicitly traded in the world with no taxes each year (over 15 million coming from industrialized countries). With this many people being exploited and this much money being illegally used, of course this issue affects us all.

What Now?

Since we are all affected by the problem we all need to be apart of the solution. The Freedom Center gives us 4 specific and tangible ways in which we can combat Human Trafficking:

• Raising public awareness of the existence of slavery in the global economy by, for example, listing products or services derived from forced labor;
• Pressing for national laws and local statutes that make human trafficking a separate and distinct crime;
• Reducing demand for commercial sex by increasing liabilities for those who purchase sex;
• Enforcing existing national prohibitions against slavery and human trafficking through increased reliance on transnational investigational work and data collection and sharing.

Here are some resources to help you take these steps towards ending slavery:

• Want to plan an event that brings awareness and action against human trafficking? World Vision ACT’s cite gives hundreds of activism ideas and resources. These resources are from  individuals that have run events on their college campuses, community centers, churches, and neighborhoods. You also can add your own activist ideas and events to the collection!
• The first step towards supporting legislation that combats trafficking is being aware. Research, research, research. International Justice Mission’s cite has resources, information about district meetings, and a TVPRA bill tracker. This is a good place to begin your research on campaigns and legislation that are important for change.
• Everyone can work towards change. However, as long as there is demand, there will be people exploited. In terms of sex trafficking it is mainly men that have the control to change demand. If you are struggling with sexual addiction, please seek help. There are resources out there to help you overcome your struggle. You have the ability to make the biggest impact in combating sex trafficking. XXX Church is one resource that helps men overcome pornography addictions as well as other sexual addictions. For other resources please visit “A Call to Men” and “The Epik Project”.
• Don’t stop here. Take the resources and terms you have learned from these durr posts and continue to do more research and educate yourself around this issue.