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Sex Trafficking

“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.”

or

Some seriously messed up shit that needs to be stopped.

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Causes

Although it isn't possible to know every cause of sex trafficking, we have a pretty good idea of why it occurs, and on the scale that it does.

Pimps needing money is an obvious major cause, but what many don't know is the fact that many traffickers are switching their trade from drugs to humans due to higher profits for lesser risk. Another major cause is young girl's vulnerability. The average age for girls entering sex trafficking is 12-14. At this age girls can be vulnerable and tend to seek affection blindly, without acknowledging consequences. Pimps will offer girls love and protection, gifts, money, acceptance, a promising future, and so much more. To the recent runaway, these sound amazing, no matter how sketchy the guy may be.

Hustlers have grown quite smart in being able to target women and children for trafficking. They tend to look for impoverish and low income peoples, ethnic minorities and illegal migrants, people with low levels of education, and minors running away from home. They use local contacts to identify susceptible families, family members to sell them people directly, deceit (as mentioned in the previous paragraph), and debt bondage to obtain and keep victims.

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Effects

Sex trafficking has taken a huge toll on our people since, essentially, the dawn of humanity as we know it. It has effected millions in ways that most of us can't even comprehend.

Children are being raped and murdered by their pimps and customers all across the globe.

3,287 people are forced into slavery everyday, that's 136 people an hour.

4.5 million people are victims of sex trafficking worldwide.

There are more people in slavery now than there were at the peak of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.

1/3 of teen runaways will be lured towards prostitution and trafficking within 48 hours of leaving home.

Women make up 98% of sex trafficking victims.

$32 billion is generated yearly by sex trafficking worldwide, $9.5 billion in the United States alone.

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Solutions

As a whole, the solutions to trafficking are quite simple, actually. If we are able to work hard enough to eliminate the underlying causes, we can completely rid the world of this issue.

Eliminating gender inequality and curbing the huge demand for all prostitution will ultimately lead to the end of sex trafficking.

And

Finding, housing, and rehabilitating, victims is also largely important eliminating sex trafficking altogether.

These two major causes of sex trafficking are not only contributors to slavery, but many other world issues as well. These should be top priorities to the U.S. government, as well as the world.

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How can I help?

Although Trafficking can seem like an impossible force to overcome, if we band together we can free all the girls being held as slaves. Now, this may seem quite cheesy, I mean it sincerely. There are 5 basic steps to overcoming this issue.

Submit an anonymous tip online. If you know of, or suspect that someone is being trafficked, contact www.thecoveringhouse.org, www.traffickingresourcecenter.org, www.polarisproject.org, or the Homeland Security and FBI websites. These foundations can use your information to apprehend pimps and save the victims.

Alternatively, call in an anonymous tip. 1-(888)-373-7888.

Sign a petition or join a campaign. Using the search words "sex trafficking petition" and "sex trafficking campaign" on your favorite web browser you can electronically sign petitions against sex trafficking, particularly regarding current or upcoming laws. www.dosomething.org  is a great resource,

Call your government. By calling your local government, you're exposing the people in power to issues like this one that need to be solved. In changing people's thinking, you can make a great impact, even to the extent of being able to manipulate current and future laws and punishments against traffickers.

Spread awareness! The more people that know about sex trafficking, the more power we have against the issue, If common people are aware of the crimes being committed every day, they can spot them and report them for what they are. I believe this is the ultimate key to succeeding in ending human trafficking once and for all!