Carla Nuñez
29 April 2015
POLI 337
Human Trafficking
Human trafficking is the worlds
second fastest growing criminal industry right behind drug trafficking. The estimated global annual profit of all
trafficked victims is around 31.6 billion dollars. Human trafficking is an
injustice that needs to be addressed immediately. Human trafficking is an
injustice because in many cases the victim (prostitute) is the one who suffers
legal consequences not the pimp. In the Netflix documentary ‘Tricked’ Danielle
stated she was arrested so many times that she had to start using a fake name
while her pimp never saw the inside of a jail cell. The notion of human dignity
in all cases of human trafficking is diminished. The pimps often “season” the
victims, seasoning means the break down of an individual by sexual assault,
confinement, and creating a dependence: drug use or psychological abuse.
Human trafficking is not just prostitution;
it also involves forced labor, slavery, and the removal of organs to be sold in
the black market. Trafficking is done through threat, coercion, abduction,
fraud, deception, and abuse of power. Typical trafficking victims work in
massage parlors, strip clubs, brothels, or they have ads in back page
newspapers. Trafficking victims suffer from both physical and psychological
effects. The psychological effects the victim feels are feeling insignificant,
living in constant fear due to the threats of harm to family and friends, and
the trauma of an abusive relationship. The physical effects are obvious, STDs,
burns and scaring, pelvic pains, and forced abortions.
You may ask yourself who would
be capable of doing such horrific acts to another human begin? Those who commit
these horrendous crimes are typically called pimps. There’s a romeo pimp who
uses psychological abuse, they typically manipulate the victims by dehumanizing
them, taking away their dignity and self worth. Then there are gorilla pimps
who use physical abuse to control their victims, beating them instilling fear,
making them believe the beating is their fault. Traffickers also consist of
brothel owners, gangs, factory owners, and even intimate partners or family
members. 52% of recruiting victims are men and 42% are women. The other 6%
consists of the intimate partners. While there are many international laws such
as United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, Slavery
Convention, Universal declaration of Human Rights these laws are not enforced.
The laws are sometimes hard to enforce due to the fear the victims have of the
trafficker, there’s also a lack of training of officials who deal with the
trafficking victims.
While human trafficking is a vast
problem globally it’s also an enormous problem right here in Baltimore. Many
say Baltimore is a “prime hot spot” for human trafficking due to the easy
access to ports and the truck stops on the major interstate 95. A recent local
case involves Matthew Warren Brown, 25 and Anthony Leon Eley, 30. The local
Baltimore County police answered an ad in the paper. They met three underage
girls 14, 16, and 17 at a Best Western hotel. Matthew and Anthony drove the
girls to the hotel, gave them condoms, and told them to rob the “johns”, people
who buy sex, afterwards. When the police interviewed the girls they told them
the specific instructions from both Matthew and Anthony. The underage girls
also made the police aware that Matthew and Anthony knew they were under the
age of 18 despite claims that they didn’t know. Both Matthew and Anthony were
charged with human trafficking, but in Maryland human trafficking is only a
misdemeanor. Just last month, March, a bill was purposed to make human
trafficking a felony charge and the bill was denied. What can we do as
students? We can become educated on trafficking, all of its forms, where it’s
happening, and who is doing the trafficking. You can also write to government
officials to make human trafficking a felony in Maryland, this is a serious
crime and it deserves to be treated as such.
Sources
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