Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Sex Trafficking by Michelle Sherman

Sex Trafficking is when women, children and men are forced into prostitution and coerced into staying. It is also the enslavement of unwilling people who are coerced into a condition for any form of sexual exploitation. Sex trafficking is the second fastest growing criminal industry, just behind drug trafficking. Pimps are the people who are the traffickers. They instill fear in their victims and make it so that they feel like they cannot leave. Sex trafficking accounts for 83% of all human trafficking and brings in $32 billion per year in just the U.S. 78% of adult prostitutes start off as juveniles.
Nevada is the only state in the U.S that has prostitution legalized. Brothels houses were first opened up in 1971. Despite prostitution being legalized, sex trafficking is still illegal. Sex trafficking slips under the cop’s radar though due to police targeting the prostitutes instead of the pimps and johns. In Netherlands and Germany, prostitution is legalized while sex trafficking is still illegal. However, Statistics show that sex trafficking brings in almost 90% of prostitutes in the Netherlands.

In order to make sex trafficking less prevalent, states and countries need to make more laws that would put harsher punishments on people who are caught purchasing a prostitute and selling/trading the victims. As of now, most states have purchasing a prostitute listed as a misdemeanor. Countries need to come up with law enforcement groups to help break up the trafficking rings and save these victims from endless sex abuse. Students can fight against sex trafficking by joining activist groups or write to congress about making harsher laws.

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