Issue Overview
Trafficking in persons, especially women and children for the purposes of sexual exploitation, is quickly becoming the world's fastest growing industry and most profitable criminal activity.
Virtually every nation in the world is engaged to some extent in this tragic trade, whether as a country of origin, transit or destination for victims. UNICEF estimates that two million children alone are forced, sold, abducted, or coerced into the commercial sex trade annually [1].
Estimates of women and children trafficked across international borders each year range from 800,000 to four million [2]. In 2006, the U.S. State Department estimates that as many as 17,500 men, women, and children are trafficked into the U.S. each year, many for sexual exploitation [3].
As for profitability, it is estimated that slavery has exploded into a $32 billion a year global industry with sexual trafficking constituting a major part [4]. A girl who is purchased by a trafficker for as little as $150 can be sold to customers as many as ten times a night and can bring in $10,000 a month profit [5]. With minimal expenses, police as co-conspirators, and almost unlimited victims to prey upon, trafficking for sexual exploitation is surpassing the sale of illegal drugs as the preferred industry for criminals. Hundreds of thousands of women and children around the world are held in sexual slavery against their will and with little hope of escape. In India, there are estimated to be 2.3 million women and girls in prostitution and/or working as madams in the brothels [6].
For the unlikely few that do attempt to get out, it can take up to fifteen years for them to purchase their freedom. And, the economics behind the freedom are staggering. Typically, a brothel owner or madam (often a woman) receives a paying customer's money up front and then gives the girl her cut which often is quite minimal. To pay for movies, clothes, make up, and extra food to supplement a diet of rice and dal, the girls borrow from moneylenders at an interest rate of 500%. All of these debts make it virtually impossible for the girls to financially secure a life outside of the brothel.
From the poverty-stricken villages of the small nation of Nepal, thousands of young daughters are sold by their parents into sexual slavery. Every year, 12,000 Nepalese children, mostly girls, are trafficked within Nepal or to brothels in India and other countries for commerical sexual exploitation [7] Parents willingly sell their daughters to traffickers to purchase relief from their financial pressures but in exchange their daughters have been given a death sentence.
Out of the economic and moral chaos that followed the USSR's collapse, staggering numbers of young women and girls who live in poverty are being falsely lured into sexual slavery. Estimates suggest that one-third of all sexual trafficking is taking place in nations that were formerly part of the Soviet Union [8]. Young girls are abducted outright in areas of Moldova, Romania and Bulgaria as they walk home from school along back roads [9]. In Moldova in particular, a despicable pattern of trafficking targets the thousands of girls who live in state orphanages. Exploitive traffickers track and follow the exact timing of when sixteen and seventeen year old orphans come of age and are released into independent life. Knowing the orphaned young girls have nowhere to go the traffickers meet them outside as they are leaving the orphanage and promise them a better life. Enslavement follows in brothels in international cities across Western Europe where new victims are raped and brutalized until they are driven to submit to their new roles out of despondency. In all of the trafficking schemes, once the new victims' legal papers are submitted into their new bosses' possession, they quickly lose their freedom and any illusions of a better life.
Project Rescue exists to rescue and restore women and girls who have experienced the tragedy of trafficking and sexual slavery. Please check out our site for more information about our ministry!
SOURCES
[1] U.S. Department of State, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (2008) "Trafficking in Persons Report: 2008"
[2] Ibid
[3] U.S. Department of State (2006) "Other Bilateral Economic Assistance" link
[4] U.S. Department of State, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (2008) "Trafficking in Persons Report: 2008"
[5] Bales, K (1999) Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy. Los Angeles: University of California Press
[6] Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (March 8, 2006) "Human Rights Practices-India"
[7] UNICEF (2006) "Child Protection Information Sheet: Commercial Sexual Exploitation" link
[8] Kent Hill (2005) presentation to Consortium of faith-based initiatives on human trafficking, Washington, D.C.,
[9] Victor Malarek (2003) The Natashas: Inside the New Global Sex Trade. New York: Arcade Publishing