Online Child Sex Trafficking

1750 Words4 Pages

Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said “The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children.” If the morality of our society were to be determined based on the risk and danger faced by children around the world today, we would not be praised to be a moral society at all. The lives of children and their innocence have always been of high importance to members of the society. With increasing importance placed on material gains, the priorities of people have shifted. As such, the exploitation of children for material gains is prevalent in various avenues in the world. Innovations in science and advancements in technology are aimed to better the lives of all human beings. They are aimed to be beneficial to all and to eradicate the problems associated with poverty. However, modern day technological advancements have resulted in the evolution of child sex trafficking into a global cyberspace phenomenon that victimizes millions of children worldwide. In this essay, we will assess the issue of online child sex trafficking and impacts globalization has had on it.
The US federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act defines sex trafficking as “The recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act where such an act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age”. The commercial aspect of trafficking is critical to distinguishing between sexual assault and trafficking. There must be an exchange of anything of value such as money, food or shelter for a sex act for it to be established as trafficking. Children are commercially sexually exploited through prostitution, pornography and e...

... middle of paper ...

...

Works Cited

Child trafficking statistics. US & International (2013). Retrieved on 11 November, 2013, from http://www.arkofhopeforchildren.org/issues/child-trafficking-statistics#.UoGgxSefVUU.

Child victims of human trafficking (n.d.). Retrieved on 11 November, 2013, from http://www.law.washington.edu/AsianLaw/HumanTrafficking/child_victims.pdf
Criddle.L. Child Trafficking and the Internet (n.d.). Retrieved on 11 November, 2013, from http://ilookbothways.com/2010/06/15/child-trafficking-and-the-internet/. Latonero, M.(2011). The Role of Social Networking Sites and Online Classifieds. Human Trafficking Online, 18-21.
Webcam child sex tourism must stop!(2013). Retrieved on 11 November, 2013, from http://www.tdh.ch/en/news/webcam-child-sex-tourism-must-stop?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Tdh-News-English+%28Tdh+-+News+in+English%29.

Open Document