Sex Trafficking Essay

Effects of Sex Trafficking

In order to understand how sex trafficking affects its victims, one must first know the severity of sex trafficking and what it is. The issue of sex trafficking affects 2.5 million people at any given time (Abas et al., 2013). The form of sex slavery affects many women and children across the world. Even though both males and females are sexually trafficked and exploited, there is a deep emphasis on the sexual exploitation of women and children. This is due to gender discrimination (Miller, 2006). This is because women and children are more vulnerable and appeal to the larger populations of brothels and the so-called “clients” since the majority are men. Ecclestone (2013) stated that children as young as age three are trafficked. Sex trafficking has changed over time; “Today, the business of human sex trafficking is much more organized and violent. These women and young girls are sold to traffickers, locked up in rooms or brothels for weeks or months, drugged, terrorized, and raped repeatedly” (Walker-Rodriguez & Hill, 2011). It is found that many of the victims of sex trafficking are abducted, recruited, transported and forced into involuntary “sex work”. These sexual acts include prostitution, exotic dancing, pornography, and sexual escort services (McClain & Garrity, 2011). What happens to these sex trafficking victims is extremely traumatizing.

Studies have been performed to see whether or not sex trafficking victims suffer from mental disorders upon entering the world post-trafficking. The Abas et al. (2013) study takes in to the account, the victims’ pre-trafficking conditions such as whether or not they were abused as a child as well as the place that the victim was being trafficke...

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...ession and anxiety is correlated with the experience the victim had in trafficking as well as their personal experience entering back into society after trafficking. Stressors play a large role in this such as, entering back into employment, the type of support they have, how they are dealing with their emotions from trafficking, and whether or not their families accept them back. The studies also looked at whether or not the participants of their studies had experienced violence before trafficking. The results showed that those who did experience violence had a higher chance of developing mental disorders after trafficking. This goes back to the discovery that the more violence the victims are subjected to, the more likelihood they will have PTSD as a result. Overall, the entire aspect of sex trafficking is degrading to its victims and causes them much pain.