Human trafficking has several forms: forced labour, sex trafficking and debt bondage. Any type of human trafficking can happen to both women and men. The effects of human trafficking can be devastating and potentially life threatening. There are many organizations based around helping victims of human trafficking and organizations that provide safe houses, medical care and rehabilitation into normal society for victims. Organizations are used to bring awareness to the issue of human trafficking. Human trafficking is a big issue in countries ridden with poverty, low employment and poor education rates. This paper will cover various articles that talk about sex trafficking in Eastern Europe. Through these sources sex trafficking will be explained …show more content…
using victim’s personal experiences and emotions; along with telling the history of sex trafficking, the way it can be stopped and how the victims can be helped. Key Words: Sex Trafficking, Awareness, Victims, GEMS, Polaris, Solutions, Eastern Europe Through awareness, education, and intervention, sex trafficking in Eastern Europe can be drastically reduced to help bring an end to this form of modern slavery.Sex trafficking is often overlooked in Eastern Europe.
Trafficking in Eastern Europe will be minimized by our actions of implementing a branch of Girls Education and Mentoring Services (GEMS) organization and collecting supplies needed for victims. This non-profit organization branch will be JEWELS- Juvenile Education and Women's Enrichment Lifestyle Services. JEWELS will be a resource outreach towards victims of trafficking and girls at risk of human trafficking. Through the organization we will collect and donate supplies to help educate and create a safe environment for these girls. Sex trafficking is a worldwide problem that is the exploitation of women, men, and children into sexual acts against their will. The solution of JEWELS is needed in Eastern Europe where women and young girls mostly, are being forced into the sex trade against their will, causing their safety and health to be threatened …show more content…
daily. Eastern Europe has been riddled with sex trafficking for many years. After the fall of Communism, around 1997 alone, about 175,000 young women from Russia, along with the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, were sold as commodities in the sex market to developing countries. In the 1990s, the sex trade was at its highest along with sex tourism. With the growing of the sex trade, non-profit organizations started to gear up to help initiate a solution,(Regello 2007 p. 1-2). When the Soviet Union collapsed, Eastern Europe felt the repercussions of it, for the fact that, “The collapse of the Soviet Union has been identified as one of the main contributing factors in explaining the recent increase in human trafficking. It provided both human capital and new regional opportunities to fuel the expansion,”(Kligman and Limoncelli 2005). There have been several other solutions that have been implemented such as, arresting the “prostitutes,” and placing them in prison, without gaining their trust, in order to get information out of them. Or not even hearing the victim out, “ However, women trafficked into Germany are, according to a report by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, frequently subjected to immediate detention and deportation, denied health services, and are viewed as illegal immigrants who have committed a crime, rather than individuals in need of support,”(Lancet 2006 p. 1 sec. 2 par. 3). Another solution has been to minister to the girls without providing a way for them to escape their bad situation, besides the shelter. These solutions, however well-intentioned they may be, are not working as well as one would like, since prostitution is still the third largest criminal business in the world. These “solutions” have failed because they cause the blame to be bestowed onto the prostitutes/victims instead onto the traffickers. With that being the case in leads to the victims not trusting the police and in the end not receiving the help they need nor do the law enforcement gain the information about the traffickers leading the issue to continue. The most common and somewhat successful solution is creating safe houses for the women who have and/or are currently escaping the trade. But, the reason safe houses are now failing is due to them being used to unintentionally smuggle humans from central and eastern europe to other places and to keep them “captive” so to speak, ”Safe houses are also occasionally used to house victims forced to pay off their debt through illegal employment (Bruckert and Parent 2002; Friebel and Guriev 2002, 2004). In some cases, shop owners have got involved as they offer space above their shops for the purpose of human smuggling (Merritt 2003),” (Leman and Janssens 2007 p. 1380 par. 3). Through the changing and smuggling incidents, safe houses are losing their effect on actually being “safe”. Increased violence has been occurring more than ever in eastern Europe’s safe houses, with increased crimes being forged and executed. The proposal of creating JEWELS- Juvenile Education and Women's Enrichment Lifestyle Services, will be a branch of the organization GEMS (Girls Education and Mentoring Services) located in Eastern Europe. JEWELS will provide support to empower survivors to express their experiences, observations, and desires for a better life and world. JEWELS will provide a place for the victims to receive help whether it be medical care, personnel supplies and clothing, food, and educational needs to be reintegrated into society. Our organization wants to eliminate the stereotype of being forced into the sex trade as “willingly prostituting,” because the labeling of the sex trade causes bystanders and readers to not feel as if they should provide help and support, because all the facts aren’t there. We want to get rid of the label of sex trade victims as “lost causes” and “trashy prostitutes,” by providing people with the real facts about the sex trade and the fact that it can be forced upon anyone, the judgement will be eliminated. Provided below is a real life situation of where a young woman was forced into the trade unknowingly. Masha, a 24-year-old Russian, was thrilled when a stranger at a St. Petersburg train station offered her a job as a housemaid in Germany. Within months, she had moved to Hamburg, eager to start work. But her dream of a legitimate job turned into a nightmare. Masha (a pseudonym) says she was forced to become a prostitute, turning over her earnings to two Germans who kept her immigration papers under lock and key,” (Enrich 2001 p. 1). Masha believed she was receiving a job, not being forced into the sex trade. False advertising is one of the many causes of how someone can be forced into the trade. The judgement sex trade victims receive will decrease and help will hopefully be willingly provided, by teaching everyday people the truth about sex trafficking and its effects of these women. Some women don’t escape or even try for the fact that they’ve been in the trade so long, they don’t know how to live in normal society. Or the traffickers/pimps threaten the women that if they do try to escape, they’ll be tracked down and killed. Most people don’t understand why we stay with a pimp. Many of us have been exploited by our peers, society, and often by the people that we trust. When we’re the most vulnerable, pimps attack, promising us stability, a family life, a future. They reel us in. He becomes our father, and our boyfriend, until we see what he really wants. Then he intimidates us and reminds us constantly about the consequences if we leave. Most tell us that they’ll find and kill us, no matter where we go. We’re afraid of being afraid. Resources are limited and many of us do not see a way out. —Anon (GEMS Empowering Survivors). Fear is one of the main reasons women don’t leave the trade. Whether it be fear of policemen, the legal systems, jail, or their traffickers/ pimps, JEWELS wants to reach out to these victims and help them through these fears by providing ways to cope. For JEWELS to be successful we would need to find ways to educate the victims and potential victims, such as getting books and textbooks donated and maybe pairing with a school, so we can help reintegrate the victims into society.
We would encourage people to volunteer and maybe have teachers volunteer. With JEWELS being implemented in the Eastern Europe region, having the support and reliances of the citizens, our organization will flourish. GEMS, the organization that is the “template” to JEWELS, has annual GEMS movements to help spread awareness about the sex trade and human trafficking. There are ways to support the organizations and help to also educate people on the sex trade and its effects on our society. Through the movements and awareness, GEMS has been a successful organization, so JEWELS hopes to provide the same opportunities.
Sex trafficking is a very real problem that many don’t understand or haven’t come to the full understanding of it. JEWELS being an organization that will be helping sex trade victims, there may be some repercussion for it, such as the unaware people believing we are helping “prostitutes” that did this to themselves or the ideal that with help and needed donations, JEWELS is “stealing” from people who actually need the supplies, not “prostitutes.” Every organization has repercussions, due to not being able to please everyone, but JEWELS will not quit its efforts to help women in the sex trade get
out. Sex trafficking threatens the women’s health and safety,”Damage to trafficked women’s physical and mental health can be severe and enduring. Yet these health needs are frequently ignored by governments, leaving non-governmental organisations as the only providers of essential care, shelter, and counselling,”(Lancet 2006 p. 1 sec. 2 par. 3). Not only is the women’s physical health at stake, but their mental health is as well. The mental health of these women is the most damaged when they escape the trade. JEWELS hopes to create funds needed for emergency and long-term health care for these women, including,”support for safe housing, educational training, medical care for injuries or sexually transmitted diseases/infections and long-term psychological care,”(Lancet 2006 p. 1 sec. 2 par. 3). Overall, the creation of a branch of GEMS in the Eastern Europe region as JEWELS- Juvenile Education and Women's Enrichment Lifestyle Services is the best solution to the growing sex trade, that is threatening the safety and health of women and children on a daily bases in countries riddled with poverty, low employment and poor education rates.
The significance of this publication is to promote awareness on the issue of sex trafficking.
In the modern age, “one of the biggest impediments to anti-trafficking efforts is a lack of understanding of the issue“(Jesionka). People need to work together just like they did to end slavery, when everyone sees this as wrong there is nothing that can stop the demise of sex trafficking. In many communities “[people] can turn on the TV now and see pimps glamorized in TV shows, music videos, and movies”(Frundt). In the communities, people see the aspects of sexual trafficking as glamorous and they don’t realise that it is a type of slavery and the girls are miserable. If communities can work together to eliminate this issue, this modern slavery can be eliminated altogether because people won’t allow it to continue in their communities.
Awareness of child sexual trafficking can be viewed as a balanced scale, with one side representing the country’s population that is fully informed of the issue, while the other side is either unaware or unattached to the issue. The public needs to have more involvement with this affair based on multiple concerns; first, the act of child sex trafficking itself is a serious crime that violates human rights (Fong & Cardoso, 2010). Second, various negative health repercussion including transmittable sexual diseases, physical damages, mental disturbance, post traumatic stress disorders, and other illnesses plague many victims (Fong & Cardoso, 2010). Third, sexual trafficking is responsible for generating poverty as a result of obstructing economic, and social development (Reid, 2012). Child sex trafficking proves to be a global dilemma affecting numerous countries
This is an interdisciplinary paper, which focuses on the trafficking of young women and children into prostitution. It starts with a brief description of what is human trafficking and how it works as a business. Then, it focuses on the sex trafficking part of it and how young women and children are more vulnerable to victimization and exploitation. Many victims of human trafficking are under this idea of debt bondage, which is sort of the commitment that victims have with their traffickers. Victims are forced to work until they pay their debt, which most of the time is unpayable. Public corruption is one of the many reasons why many traffickers can transport their victims within or out of the country, which can make it harder to help the victims,
Human rights are by definition rights that every human being has and can not and should not ever be taken away by any one no matter who that person is. Unfortanitly this is not true for every person in the world and even in the United States of America where it is the land of the free. Many women in the United States of America have a very important human rights taken away from them with out them having a choice. Many women in the United States of America are pulled into the sex trafficking underworld with out them having choice and them not wanting to be in such a world. The sex trafficking underworld dark cold world that should not exist but it does exist and is a real part of the United States of America. No body likes to talk about
Identifying the victims and rescuing them is the main key to preventing human trafficking, which in turn reduces costs to the healthcare system. Human trafficking is a form of organized crime. It involves a hierarchical system, which is similar to that of other criminal organizations. The traffickers represent every social, racial and ethnic group. Some traffickers are involved with local gangs, while others are members are part of nationally recognized gangs and organizations. Some traffickers are independent and do not have any affiliation with other gangs or organizations. Traffickers exist irrespective of gender. There are several women in human trafficking activities along with men. Several young girls living on the streets, engage in prostitution. Some of them are involved in nationwide organized criminal activities where the organizers of crime force these young girls into human trafficking. It is problematic to enforce anti-trafficking laws because in most of these cases, the victims do not tell the identity of the traffickers with the fear of being
According to Van Wormer & Bartollas (2014), sex trafficking, “encompasses the organized movement of people, usually women, between countries and within countries for sex work” (p. 289). Sex trafficking is also a very lucrative business, it is estimated to make $31. 6 billion annually. This amount is estimated from the 2.5 million people who a trafficked each year. The exact number of people who are victims of the sex industry cannot be predicted accurately for all over the world. In the United States alone there is about 14,500-17,500 people trafficked each year. Human trafficking it the third biggest organized crime after drug and arms trafficking (Hodge, 2014). Young men make up about 44% of people being trafficked, while women and girls
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.
Once some women’s lives are changed, they will never return to normal again. Human sex trafficking is a growing problem that affects women emotionally, physically, and psychologically. To begin, human trafficking is an enormous industry. The sex industry makes up approximately 75-80 percent of human trafficking (“55 Little Know” 1). Although organ harvesting and labor are other forms of human trafficking, the sex industry controls the biggest portion of human trafficking.
Many people are aware of the issue of minor sex trafficking in the United States, but people may not be aware of the extent of the problem or what it is that attracts these “pimps” to children in the sex trafficking business. Sex trafficking is a major issue both in the United States and in foreign countries, although many Americans do not realize that there are more U.S. citizens that make up the victim count of traffickers than foreign nationals, and of these victims, children are the most vulnerable (cite DMST). According to the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000,
Summary: We see that there are many different aspects and types of human trafficking that everyone should be made aware of. As a whole human trafficking is a lucrative industry raking in $150 BILLION globally. The impact that this industry has on its victims is
The focus on human trafficking which results come from the U.S. demands, involves victims who are under the age of 18, and sexual abuse. The Government acknowledge that human trafficking is a global problem and that there are victims of all ages, but there is little to do in this cruel and dark topic. Every day human traffickers find new ways to vanish and get new victims. Human trafficking has many faces to it and technology’s role varies as a result.
Sex trafficking is a world wide epidemic. It targets unknowing victims such as women and children enslaving them and exploiting their innocence. Human trafficking is becoming one of the biggest money making organized crimes in the world. The sex trade is one of the most profitable of all current slave trades. Through the age, gender, class, and race many are trapped in a never-ending cycle of coercion and abuse in order to survive in the corrupt society around them. In order to stop this monstrosity in the world, we need to start at the root of the problem. We must bridge the barriers between gender, class, and race in order to respect one another and live in harmony
Sex trafficking is essentially systemic rape for profit. Force, fraud and coercion are used to control the victim’s behavior which may secure the appearance of consent to please the buyer (or john). Behind every transaction is violence or the threat of violence (Axtell par. 4). Just a decade ago, only a third of the countries studied by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime had legislation against human trafficking. (Darker Side, par.1) Women, children, and even men are taken from their homes, and off of the streets and are brought into a life that is almost impossible to get out of. This life is not one of choice, it is in most times by force. UNODC estimates that the total international human trafficking is a $32-billion-per-year business, and that 79% of this activity comprises sexual exploitation. As many as 2 million children a year are victims of commercial sexual exploitation, according the the U.S. State Department.-- Cynthia G. Wagner. (Darker Side, par. 4) The words prostitute, pimp, escort, and stripper tend to be way too common in the American everyday vocabulary. People use these words in a joking manner, but sex trafficking is far from a joke. Everyday, from all different countries, people are bought and sold either by force or false promises. Some are kidnapped and others come to America with dreams of a dream life and job. The buyers involved in the trade will do anything to purchase an innocent life just to sell for their own selfish profit. Many people wouldn’t think of a human body to be something you can buy in the back room of a business or even online. But those plus the streets are where people are sold most often. There are many reasons and causes for sex trafficking. The factors behind sex traffic...
Sex trafficking in Russia is a problem because the government looks the other way or is bribed to ignore the issue. The solution to this problem is start a program for sex trafficking victims with the government involved so the victims aren’t treated like criminals. These victims need to be able to go to the police or a government agency and tell them what happened and they need to address the problem. Young people need to be informed of the situation in Russia because that is how they keep getting victims. Women are promised a better education or a free education or a better job or more money and they go to Russia from other countries and they end up as victims in sex trafficking. Sex trafficking is a problem because the government looks the