Human Trafficking: Modern Day Slavery

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“Trafficking” refers to illegal trade, an over-used word by the media that can be daintily attached to drugs, weapons, and humans. We hear the term so often; one can easily be desensitized to its context. Nicholas Kistof of the New York Times states, “Human trafficking is a convoluted euphemism.” He goes right to the heart of the matter and refers to it as modern human slavery. Human slavery is raw, honest and sadly much more prevalent than we would like to believe.

Every year an estimated 800,000 people are transported across international boundaries for the purpose of human slavery. In the United States alone it is estimated that 100,000 children each year are part of the sex trade. According to the US Department of State in 2007, 4 to 27 million people globally are in some form of slavery.

Most Americans feel that human trafficking is it happening “somewhere else” and although appalling, there is nothing we can do to change the way other countries and peoples choose to live their lives. Now slavery on the other hand was worth fighting a war over. A hundred and fifty years ago this country fought and died for the freedom of slaves. If our first step is awareness, then we should demand the media call it what it is, human slavery.

Taking a global look at the problem we recognize that cultural relativism is compounding the problem. Cultural relativism is the idea that an individual belief or activity should be understood in terms of his or her culture. Even in America we have distorted beliefs that would be seen unfavorable in other parts of the world. Hard to believe but look at circumcision. Some (even within the US) would consider the act cruel and unnecessary and yet we fully accept that as part of our cult...

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...We cannot as a human race continue to poison the human family and expect that we will come out healthy. Educate yourself through the amazing organizations that have begun the fight for us and then empower the ones you love with that education. This cannot become an acceptable part of our global society. We won this war once and we can again.

Works Cited

Kristof, Nicholas D. “The 21st Century Slave Trade.” The New York Times April 22, 2007.

U.S. Department of State Diplomacy in Action: US Laws on Trafficking in Persons. The Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 (P.L. 106-386), October 28, 2000. Laws updated again in 2003 & 2005.

The Polaris Project: For a World without Slavery. Human rights group founded 2002. http://www.polarisproject.org/human-trafficking/overview

Gupta, Rushira. Jounalist and Founder of apneaap.org in 1994.

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