Every year, up to 17,000 humans arrive in the United States (Bickerstaff 15).  They are not coming on vacation, nor are they coming on business. Mostly women and children, these individuals are being forced into a world of labor, violence, and torture.  This is not something that only happens in other countries. It happens here. There could be a pimp, who forces girls to have sex, living right down the street. The shirt you are wearing, the one you were dying to buy after you saw it, could have been made by slave workers, who died after making it. The underground enterprise of trading, selling, and kidnapping human beings is a global occurrence. What’s the solution? Educating the public on warning signs to identify modern slavery is a simple solution to a serious problem. Even more importantly, the government has to institute stricter laws and harsher punishments for the traffickers.  The government, along with the help of people from all nations, can put an end to this heinous crime once and for all.

Human Trafficking is the organized criminal activity in which human beings are treated as possessions to be controlled and exploited. There are three types of slavery that exist in the world today: debt bondage, chattel slavery, and forced prostitution.  Debt bondage occurs when a person has to pay back debt to a dishonest employer through extreme amounts of work. However, the employer will never allow them to pay off their debt.  Chattel slaves are often kidnapped or tricked into the captivity of a trafficker.  They become property and are bought and sold to make their “owners” profits.  The last type of modern-slavery that we see in the world is sex slavery.  This usually involves young teen girls, misled by adults into forced prostitution.  Sadly, this is also the most common form of slavery, as 46% of trafficked individuals are sex slaves (Bickerstaff 15). 

  “Trafficking thrives in the shadows. And it can be easy to dismiss it as something that happens to someone else, somewhere else. But that is not the case. Trafficking is a crime that involves every nation on earth, and that includes our own” (Hilary Clinton).  People simply do not realize that anybody in any place can fall victim to human trafficking. Most modern slaves come from lower-class countries, such as India, Thailand, and Pakistan. However, some of these slaves will end up in England, America, and other first-world countries. Slavery is common in big cities, where it can go undetected or by authorities and citizens. In other regions, the government is flooded with corruption. Some police officers and border patrol knowingly allow traffickers to cross borders with their new “property”. Poor countries rely on human trafficking to keep their economies steady. Regardless of where these events take place, they are not tolerable.

Victims of trafficking are left with lifelong scars.  Oftentimes, violent threats of hurting friends and family are the reason that victims do not run away.  They are left emotionally scarred and often have nowhere to go if they end up being emancipated. In addition to emotional scars, they are also left with the physical reminders of how they were treated.  Some people have to be hospitalized due to their injuries. Even after their recovery, victims who have been forced into prostitution are not welcomed home in all countries. Cultures in the Middle East consider these women “impure” and most refuse to allow them to return to their families. Therefore, these women find it hard to get married and start a new life. The impact that trafficking has on its victims makes it a genuine issue.
As a solution, we need to inform the general public about the topic and how they can assist authorities. If we provide education to the general public, they will be able to identify and help the situation. Watch out for people who live with their “employer”, are extremely tired and malnourished, are school-aged but do not attend school, and do not have proper identification but are “working”. These signs are examples of red flags that have to be reported to authorities. Educating the public is necessary but making sure the government agencies know how to deal with these situations is even more essential.  Police departments without a human trafficking unit should consider creating one.  Sometimes, victims are wrongly treated as criminals. The institution of a human trafficking unit would assist victims in getting proper representation and in finding temporary housing. There are laws in place that punish criminals and protect victims but they are not always helpful.  Repercussions for pimps and traffickers should be more severe. This would deter them from participating in the trade in the first place.

People should not be traded, under any circumstance. According to the CNN Freedom Project, a person’s life is worth an average of $90 in the slave enterprise.  This is not acceptable. Life is a priceless thing that is worth a lot more than a black-market value. The victims of human trafficking need law enforcement, the government, and the people of all nations to help rescue them. If you know the warning signs, you can stop it. How can anyone stay silent when horrible people are making $32 million annually off of the sale of humans? As William Wilberforce said, “You can choose to look the other way but you can never say that you did not know”.