Essay On Human Trafficking

Amid a storm of controversies including gay marriage, state data hacking, and a heated debate on the Confederate Flag, South Carolina’s media has paid little attention to the pressing issue of human trafficking. Perhaps this is due to the viewpoint of many Americans that human trafficking is a third world problem far removed from them and the people that they care about (Archer). This simply leaves them unconcerned, and the media cannot sell topics that people are not upset or in an uproar over. However America, including South Carolina, is not exempt from this type of human rights abuse. Without proper recognition of the importance and prevalence of this issue from the general public, human trafficking cannot be solved even when the government takes combative action. This is the case of South Carolina legislators, who in November 2012, had House Bill 3757 signed by Governor Nikki Haley to go into effect on December 15th, 2012 (Conley). House Bill 3757 is one of the most promising pieces of anti-human trafficking legislation ever turned into law with many beneficial effects and ideas, but even it is not without its issues and areas for potential improvements.
In order to understand the both the positives and negatives of South Carolina House Bill 3757, one must understand the state of human trafficking both internationally and domestically. Most commonly know as modern day slavery, human trafficking covers a wide variety of human rights abuses. Human trafficking was defined by the Trafficking in Persons Protocol as: recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a po...

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...th the situation appropriately. Wilson would also like to see specific training given building inspectors, as there have been occasions when building inspectors have seen human trafficking in the course of their work. Unfortunately the inspectors were not prepared to properly deal with the situations they were placed in. Most often, the inspectors do not contact the police, and in cases that they did, the traffickers have often already moved their victims to another location before the police could arrive (Conley). With training, Wilson has faith that inspectors, as well as other people, can react with greater efficiently to the signs of trafficking and as a result more trafficking victims will be liberated (Conley). This is a great goal to work towards as currently only one to two percent of victims are extricated from their horrific circumstances (Randhawa 1).