Tabbi Coffman
Mr. Logsdon
AP English
13 December 2015
Modern Human Slavery
and Trafficking
The majority of
the people in this room are taking a US history class, and for the few of you
who are not, let me fill you in on what we have been studying. Last week we finished up our last unit of the
year: the Civil War.
One of the
important outcomes of the Civil War was the addition of three important amendments
to our Constitution: the 13th, 14th and
the 15th. For my purposes, we’re just
going to focus on the 13th Amendment.
The 13th Amendment
abolished slavery and involuntary servitude in the United States. So no more
slavery! What a happy ending.
If that were true,
I wouldn’t have chosen modern slavery as my topic. Modern day slavery and human
trafficking may be below the average person's radar here in the US, but worldwide,
and even here, it is still a serious problem, and should be of concern to
us.
First, let me
define the difference between slavery and trafficking. Human trafficking is the
illegal movement of people through the use of violence, deception or coercion
for the purpose of exploitation. Slavery is the exploitation of people, often
through forced labor or sex.
There are also
many forms of slavery, including bonded labor, child slavery, forced marriage,
forced labor, trafficking, descent based slavery and sexual slavery. All of these forms are being used worldwide...
though there is no exact number of how many slaves there are, the estimates are
still staggering: 21 to 36 million.
Now these are
pretty scary facts, but I am going to narrow the topic even further to the one
form of slavery that affects mostly women, but also some children and men:
sexual slavery, which can take several forms, being forced to have sex for
money, or being forced to have sex with the slave owner, for example.
This exploitation
of people for the purposes of forced sex work mostly happens to women and
girls, but also a small percentage of boys and men. The women who are trafficked usually come
from poor, unstable countries where women look for economic opportunities. This search for work is often how they become
tricked or coerced into sexual slavery.
Slavery is most
prevalent in Africa, India and Russia, but is also found around the world, and
even in the US. So let's discuss the
areas where there is significant slavery, beginning with Africa, specifically,
Niger.
Niger is a land
locked West African country, one of the lowest ranked by the United Nations
Human Development Index, and slavery is still a prevalent issue. It is estimated that 5% of the population is
enslaved. One of the slaves was Tamazrat
Ousame.
Ourame is a woman
who was enslaved 20 years ago by a high ranking nomadic family. Taken as a
small child, at age 5, she was forced to work from early in the morning until
late at night, sleeping on the ground outside the master's family's tent. For twenty years, she was forced to cook,
clean and bear children until she escaped.
The next prominent region is Asia. Asia
is home to nearly half the world's slave population. There are 14 million in
India, 2.9 million in China, and 2.1 million in Pakistan. Of the 14 million in
India, 1.2 million are children being used for sexual exploitation.
Hazel Thompson is
a journalist who has spent 11 years of her life investigating and documenting
the horrors of the red light district in Mumbai, India. A red light district is an area of the city
that contains brothels and other sexual or sex related businesses. In the case of Mumbai, the red light district
is an area of the city where thousands of girls are enslaved, caged and
raped. Over her years of research and
investigation, Thompson is able to share here documentations of the brothels
she's seen. She describes the conditions
that the girls are kept in. Prostitutes
had described "cage rooms" where they'd be held in boxes, not knowing
if it was day or night, for months or even years on end. Keeping the girls locked in cages for
extended periods would "break" them so that they wouldn't run away.
And this
description is just for one particular brothel, when there are hundreds of
brothels in Mumbai, and thousands in all of India.
Red light
districts are not just in Asia...they are in Europe too. But in Europe you certainly don't think of
slavery. It's developed there, not a
poor developing country like Niger.
Prostitution is legal, and the red light districts of Europe are a sexy
tourist destination: nothing to fear, nothing to hide, and nothing to be
ashamed of…except for the thousands of trafficked victims, and hundreds of
enslaved women in those red light districts.
One of the most
infamous red light districts is in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, where 80% of
the prostitutes are foreigners, and 70% of them don't have the proper paper
work, meaning they have probably been trafficked.
Lauren Bethell, an
international consultant for Netherlands International Ministries often volunteers
with organizations to investigate the red light district. In an interview she was able to discuss the
how's and why's of these women getting there.
For many of the
foreign women, they came voluntarily knowing they would be working as
prostitutes, to earn money to support their families. What they don't know is that they will become
trapped, and won't be able to leave. For native girls, you’re targeted when you’re
around our age—or younger—when you’re naïve and insecure. It's a process called
grooming, where a pimp will develop a co-dependant relationship with a girl, so
that as soon as she turns 18, she can be coerced into prostitution whether she
wants to or not.
But that doesn't
happen here in the United States, right?
That's in other places and happens to other girls. "It won't happen to me...I have nothing
to worry about."
Let me make this
relevant to the people sitting in this room.
300,000 children
are at risk of being coerced into the sex industry annually, and 86% of US
counties report sex trafficking as a significant issue.
In 2014, there
were 113 sex trafficking cases in Kentucky.
Of those cases, there were 160 victims, the average age being 21, the
most frequently occurring age, 17, 86% female, and 14% male.
Sex Trafficking
and Human Slavery happen all over the world, and even in Kentucky.
I don't mean to
scare you with these statistics, but in my opinion, one of the most dangerous
things about sex trafficking is how little people know about. We all need to be aware of the dangers of slavery in America. This problem is not
going to be solved by donating to a fund.
Many of us are
17. Being a teenager, you are at a
vulnerable age. We're all young and
pretty, and almost adults, but still children. We should be kept aware of this
issue; by social media, and by our schools. We also have to have strict laws
enacted to bring an end to human slavery and sexual trafficking. This is not the 1860’s; and slavery should not
be an issue.
Bibliography
·
Conrad, Naomi. "Modern Day Slavery Still
Rampant in Niger ."
Dw. Deuste Welle, 22 Aug. 2014.
Web. 13 Dec. 2015. <http://www.dw.com/en/modern-day-slavery-still-rampant-in-niger/a- 17871711>.
·
Feingold, David. "Sex Trafficking." Human
Trafficking Gsgp. JSTOR, 27 Apr. 2013.Web.13Dec.2015.<http://humantraffickinggsgp.weebly.com/amsterd ams-red-light-district.html>.
·
Gates, Sara. "More Than 29 Million People
Live As Slaves, According To New Report."
Huffington Post 18 Oct. 2013. Print.
·
Goldberg, Eleanor. "10 Things You Didn't
Know About Slavery, Human Trafficking
(And What You Can Do Against It)." Huffington Post 15 Jan. 2014. Print.
·
House, Thomas. "Human Trafficking." Anti-slavery
International: Today's Fight for
Tomorrow's Freedom. The Stableyard, 19 Sept. 2015. Web. 13 Dec. 2015. <www.antislavery.org>.
·
Marquez, Emcarnacion. "Sold Into Sex
Slavery: The Plight of African Women Migrating
To Europe ." Online interview. 15 July
2015.
·
Saar , Malika.
"Girls, Human Trafficking, And Modern Slavery In America ." Thinkprogress. Center For American
Progress Fund, 6 Oct. 2012. Web. 13 Dec.
2015.
·
Thompson, Hazel. "Inside the Brutal and
Hopeless World of Mumbai's Trafficked Teenage
Sex Slaves." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited, 28 Sept. 2013. Web.
13 Nov. 2015. <http://www.theguardian.com/orld/2013/sep/28/trafficked-in-india-red- light-districts>.
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