I saw a commercial for a local news station the other night about human trafficking right. I missed the newscast (as I often do – on purpose because it is just generally depressing), but today, I saw the article on the news web site and decided to read it.
A local woman claimed she was a victim of human trafficking racket here in my hometown of Memphis. Now, I’ll admit, I read this with some skepticism. She claimed that at age 18, a “friend” sold her into a commercial sex ring. One night she went to a party house with said “friend’ and she drank until she passed out. When she woke up the next morning, she saw used prophylactics everywhere and all the furniture in the house was gone. She knew then she had been set up. The ringleaders threatened to kill her if she didn’t continue as a sex slave. She said it took her months to get away.
Now, at this point, I am still skeptical. Human trafficking? In America, a country that abolished slavery almost 150 years ago? Really? Yes, it is possible.
I learned that human trafficking in America is a huge problem. If you are wondering what the exact definition of trafficking is, it is bonded labor (where you have to work an impossibly long time to repay small loans), forced labor (think sweatshops), child labor (underage workers, which also includes prostitution and pornography), and sex trafficking (a minor or adult used in a commercial sex ring against their will).
The more I read statistics, the more it blew my mind that this was happening in, not a Third World, but in our own backyard. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) says that human trafficking is the fastest growing business for organized crime. The Bureau estimates that 293,000 American youths, a large majority of whom is runaways, are at risk of becoming victim to a commercial sex ring. The average age at which a female begins prostitute in America is 12 to 14. For boys and transgender youth, the average beginning age is 11 to 13.
What can you do about this? I’ll tell you more tomorrow.