NOT FOR SALE # Human Trafficking.

When the word slavery comes to mind in the present day most people think of it as something that has passed, a long and tragic historical event that involved the capture and exportation and exploitation of human beings as forced labor with no freedom of movement or choice. Slavery brings to mind the forcible deportation of Africans into the new world, associated with colonization and empirical money making ventures, like sugar, coffee and cotton. Yet, the reality of the situation is that slavery exists today, and on an even greater scale than it did during the empirical era.
Human trafficking is one of today's most egregious human rights violations. Traffickers prey on the most vulnerable members of society: people burdened with poverty, disabilities and discrimination. Trafficking in persons refer to the illegal trade or "sale" of human beings for sexual exploitation or forced labor through abduction, the use or threat of force, deception and fraud. It knows no gender, race, age, or even boundaries (due to globalization). 

Slavery today is often called by other names, like human trafficking and undocumented immigration as well as many other like savory monikers but it is still slavery and people are still stripped of human dignity, choice and human rights on a grand scale. Women and children smuggled across national or international borders are made to forcibly participate in the shady sex trade or work in unsanitary and even dangerous conditions  for little or no compensation. There are even many known cases where women and children have been taken to other countries as forced domestic servants or nannies, with coercion and fraud as a tactic for the voluntary immigration of unknowing victims and families who often believe they have done their child a favor sending them somewhere to get an education and live in a nice house. Families often do not find out until it is to late, if they ever do, that they have put their child or their sister or wife in harms way by allowing them to leave the home to help someone cook, clean or care for their children.

 The slavery of today is subtler, as there is no official government recognition of its existence in many nations, there is a great deal of governmental inaction as millions of individuals in groups or alone are smuggled into other countries to provide labor for industries which cannot hire their own workers due to pa scale, conditions and pure greed. The problem is often born of rural poverty as the people, who are given at least a minimal choice are usually made promises that are never kept and often end up in circumstances even more dire than those they are fleeing.

 At least 700,000 persons annually, primarily women and children, are trafficked within or across international borders. Many of these persons are trafficked into the international sex trade, often by force, fraud, or coercion. Traffickers primarily target women and girls, who are disproportionately affected by poverty, the lack of access to education, chronic unemployment, discrimination, and the
lack of economic opportunities in countries of origin.

 Human Trafficking has turned into a major world crisis and needs to be known about. Something needs to happen around the whole world so that human trafficking can end, what that might be nobody knows. People are doing everything in their power to try to help, and they are upgrading everyday. Even though there are lot of programs already helping to stop human trafficking, there needs to be a lot more, there can never be enough. People just need to be aware of the problem so they know what they can do to prevent it from growing and happening. If there were more people who helped and understand human trafficking then it wouldn’t be the second biggest and fastest growing crime rate in the world. “You can only sell a drug once, but you can sell a human being over and over”.