Fighting Human Trafficking

Human Trafficking In the United States

We hear in the news about people being kidnapped and murdered but how many times do we hear about someone being trafficked? Human trafficking is not told in the news on a daily basis which sometimes can cause us to be unaware of what is actually going on in our world. What is human trafficking? Human trafficking is a crime against humanity in which involves an act of recruiting, transporting, transferring, harboring or receiving a person through the use of force, coercion or other means, for the purpose of exploiting them. Human trafficking is the second largest illegal business in the world. According to estimates provided by the United Nations Children’s Fund, also known as UNICEF, there are about 1.2 million people who become victims of human trafficking globally every year. But how many people become victims of human trafficking locally? There are 50,000 women and children being trafficked into the United States from no less than 49 countries every year and as many as 75,000 women and children have been trafficked into the United States over the last decade. A June 2008 trafficking in persons report by the U.S. State Department stated that the United States is a destination country for thousands of men, women, and children trafficked largely from East Asia, Mexico, and Central America for the purposes of sexual and labor exploitation. “Nearly every country is involved in the web of trafficking activities, either as a country of origin, destination or transit. Countries of destination include Australia, Brazil, Cambodia, France, India, Israel, Japan, The Netherlands, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, and the United States” (Surfus, 2009-2012, para 3). Human trafficking has been making its way into the United States and the top states with the most cases of human trafficking are New York, Florida, California, Texas, Washington DC, Georgia, Nevada, and Tennessee.

With human trafficking rising...