Kids trafficking

After watching the news this morning it saddens me to see that  in our present day, slavery still exists and the exploitation of the poor and weak are deepening poverty ( financial poverty, spiritual poverty, and emotional poverty) around the world. Human trafficking and slavery affects 161 countries around the world.  From these 161 countries, 90% of them are countries poverty stricken, leaving them vulnerable to such atrocities. There are many forms of slavery; each one of these is both damaging to the enslaved person AND also hinders a country’s growth and development. The three main areas that are affected by slavery are the labor force, education, and sociological and psychological aspects of a country. Human trafficking is largely a misunderstood subject, to better introduce the topic, here are definitions of different types of slavery that occur:

Forced Labor: forced labor may result when unscrupulous employers take advantage of gaps in law enforcement to exploit vulnerable workers. Forced labor is a form of human trafficking that is often harder to identify and estimate than sex trafficking. This occurs very frequently in sweatshops around the world, where workers are not allowed to leave or form unions. It may not involve the same criminal networks profiting from transnational sex trafficking. Instead, it may involve individuals who subject workers to involuntary servitude, perhaps through forced or coerced household or factory work.

Bonded Labor: One form of force or coercion is the use of a bond, or debt, to keep a person under subjugation. This is referred to in law and policy as “bonded labor” or “debt bondage.” An example of this is when people pay a smuggler a fee to smuggle them into another country. Then they work in exploitative conditions in order to pay off their debt.

Debt Bondage Among Migrant Workers: The vulnerability of migrant laborers to trafficking schemes is especially disturbing because the population is sizable in some regions. There are three potential contributing factors: (1) abuse of contracts; (2) inadequate local laws governing the recruitment and employment of migrant laborers; and (3) intentional imposition of exploitative and often illegal costs and debts on these laborers in the source country, often with the support of labor agencies and employers in the destination country.

Involuntary Domestic Servitude: A form of forced labor is that of involuntary domestic workers, whose workplace is informal, connected to their off-duty living quarters, and not often shared with other workers. There are numerous cases of young women being taken from poorer countries and smuggled into the U.S with promises of schooling,  however when they get to the U.S (this occurs mostly in middle class suburban neighborhoods) they are forced to work long hours with no pay and in isolation.

Forced Child Labor: The sale and trafficking of children and their entrapment in bonded and forced labor are among the worst forms of child labor. Any child who is subject to involuntary servitude, debt bondage, peonage, or slavery through the use of force, fraud, or coercion, is a victim of human trafficking regardless of the location of that exploitation.

Child Soldiers: Child soldiering is a unique and severe manifestation of trafficking in persons that involves the unlawful recruitment of children— often through force, fraud, or coercion—for labor or sexual exploitation in conflict areas

Sex Trafficking: Sex trafficking comprises a significant portion of overall human trafficking. When a person is coerced, forced, or deceived into prostitution, or maintained in prostitution through coercion, that person is a victim of trafficking

Child Sex Trafficking: According to UNICEF, as many as two million children are subjected to prostitution in the global commercial sex trade. International covenants and protocols obligate criminalization of the commercial sexual exploitation of children. The use of children in the commercial sex trade is prohibited under both U.S. law and the UN TIP Protocol.