Had it not been for a social justice project in high school, I would never have known the human trafficking industry was so active in the United States. The whole idea of a person being sold for a fixed price is horribly frightening. The following video shows the trafficking industry today and a few facts:
A very shocking statistic I've heard in recent discussions is the fact that there are more slaves in the world today than at any time in history. But what shocks me the most about human trafficking in the United States is how little it is discussed. In Lucinda Peach's article about human trafficking, she discusses how prostitution is illegal in the United States mostly due to the moral standards of maintaining human integrity. I've heard a lot about prostitution in recent years on the news; mostly about women being arrested for participating in the act, but in most cases, the media portrays these women as criminals. I've learned that in reality, many prostitutes are forced into selling their bodies through the process of human trafficking. So I seek to understand why the United States chooses to essentially cover up the issue of trafficking. The U.S and the media should be prompted to increase the coverage of trafficking. I for one know that ignorance about this situation is plentiful. If more people become aware of trafficking and that individuals are being forced, or coerced, into slave and sex labor, the problem could eventually become eradicated. Unfortunately, most situations of human trafficking occur in plain sight. But with so many people unaware of the situation, it becomes impossible to see.
Not only are people forced into the sex industry, but large corporations traffic people for agricultural labor and industrial labor that sustain horrific conditions in the name of cheap production.
Moreover, regarding your points about sex-trafficking- I find it hard a lot of the time to differentiate prostitution and sex-trafficking. I understand that trafficking is the movement across borders and cities, but both are forced. The "choices" of some prostitutes do not really seem like "choices" to me. It is a decision between life or death, or starvation, homelessness or abuse. In another one of my classes, an advocate and former prostituted woman from Breaking Free came to speak to us. It was never clearer to me that such things are rarely if ever a choice, and if they are, when women cannot get out, it is no longer a choice.
By focuses on issues of choice, or blame, or "illegality" we as a society fail to examine the larger systems at work that perpetuate trafficking, slavery or sexual violence. Isn't it time we stop placing blame and scapegoating, and actually get to work fixing, changing and expanding our societies?