IT'S NOT OKAY.
THE PROBLEM
Human Trafficking is both complex and dynamic. Here’s the no-fluff version: it’s modern-day slavery and it exists in every city around the world. From massage parlors to sporting events, the exploitation knows no bounds, often moving victims between cities, countries, and continents.
Here are some additional articles from leading organizations in the fight against human trafficking...
The ILO report, "Profits and Poverty: The Economics of Forced Labour", said two thirds of the estimated total of US$ 150 billion, or US$ 99 billion, came from commercial sexual exploitation. Women and girls are disproportionately affected by forced labour, accounting for 99% of victims in the commercial sex industry, and 58% in other sectors.
Human trafficking can happen to anyone but some people are more vulnerable than others. Significant risk factors include recent migration or relocation, substance use, mental health concerns, involvement with the child welfare system and being a runaway or homeless youth. Often, traffickers identify and leverage their victims’ vulnerabilities in order to create dependency.
Human trafficking deprives millions worldwide of their dignity and freedom. It undermines national security, distorts markets, and enriches transnational criminals and terrorists, and is an affront to our universal values. At-risk populations can face deceitful recruitment practices by those bent on exploiting them for labor or commercial sex. Meaningful partnerships between public and private sectors and civil society can expand awareness, leverage expertise, and facilitate creative solutions.
Stats and info provided by polarisproject.org
MYTH
It’s always or usually a violent crime.
REALITY
The most pervasive myth about human trafficking is that it often involves kidnapping or physically forcing someone into a situation. In reality, most traffickers use psychological means such as, tricking, defrauding, manipulating or threatening victims into providing commercial sex or exploitative labor.
MYTH
All human trafficking involves sex.
REALITY
Human trafficking is the use of force, fraud or coercion to get another person to provide labor or commercial sex. Worldwide, experts believe there are more situations of labor trafficking than of sex trafficking, but there is much wider awareness of sex trafficking in the U.S. than of labor trafficking.
MYTH
Traffickers target victims they don’t know.
REALITY
Many survivors have been trafficked by romantic partners, including spouses, and by family members, including parents.
MYTH
Only undocumented foreign nationals get trafficked in the United States.
REALITY
There have been thousands of cases of trafficking involving foreign national survivors who are legally living and/or working in the United States. These include survivors of both sex and labor trafficking.
MYTH
Only women and girls can be victims and survivors of sex trafficking.
REALITY
Men and boys are also victimized by sex traffickers. LGBTQ boys and young men are seen as particularly vulnerable to trafficking.
MYTH
Human trafficking only happens in illegal or underground industries.
REALITY
Human trafficking cases have been reported and prosecuted in industries including restaurants, cleaning services, construction, factories and more.
MYTH
Human trafficking involves moving, traveling or transporting a person across state or national borders.
REALITY
Human trafficking is often confused with human smuggling, which involves illegal border crossings. In fact, the crime of human trafficking does not require any movement whatsoever. Survivors can be recruited and trafficked in their own home towns, even their own homes.
MYTH
If the trafficked person consented to be in their initial situation, then it cannot be human trafficking or against their will because they “knew better.”
REALITY
Initial consent to commercial sex or a labor setting prior to acts of force, fraud, or coercion (or if the victim is a minor in a sex trafficking situation) is not relevant to the crime, nor is payment.
MYTH
People being trafficked are physically unable to leave their situations/locked in/held against their will.
REALITY
That is sometimes the case. More often, however, people in trafficking situations stay for reasons that are more complicated. Some lack the basic necessities to physically get out – such as transportation or a safe place to live. Some are afraid for their safety. Some have been so effectively manipulated that they do not identify at that point as being under the control of another person.
MYTH
Labor trafficking is only or primarily a problem in developing countries.
REALITY
Labor trafficking occurs in the United States and in other developed countries but is reported at lower rates than sex trafficking.
MYTH
All commercial sex is human trafficking.
REALITY
All commercial sex involving a minor is legally considered human trafficking. Commercial sex involving an adult is human trafficking if the person providing commercial sex is doing so against his or her will as a result of force, fraud or coercion.
MYTH
People in active trafficking situations always want help getting out.
REALITY
Every trafficking situation is unique and self-identification as a trafficking victim or survivor happens along a continuum. Fear, isolation, guilt, shame, misplaced loyalty and expert manipulation are among the many factors that may keep a person from seeking help or identifying as a victim even if they are, in fact, being actively trafficked.
