Human Trafficking, an often overlooked and underestimated crime is the practice of people being tricked, lured, coerced or otherwise removed from their home or country, and then forced to work with no or low payment or on terms which are highly exploitative. Considered a form of selling people, human trafficking (which many believe) resembles slavery is receiving national attention as of yesterday.
Victims of human trafficking are used in a variety of situations, including prostitution, forced labor (including bonded labor or debt bondage) and other forms of involuntary servitude. The sale of babies and children for adoption or other purposes is also considered to be trafficking in those children. Trafficking in women plagues the United States as much as it does underdeveloped nations.
Yesterday former football player Lawrence Taylor was arrested for the alleged rape of a 16-year-old runaway sold to him in Montebello, New York by a pimp/trafficker. This is clearly an example of an individual (the trafficker) seeking a person with money to participate in the normalization of the sexual exploitation of women and girls.
Trafficking boys is also common which is evidenced in a case that involved a Florida Atlantic University professor who was charged with alien smuggling and passport fraud for going to Honduras and bringing a teen-age boy back to Boca Raton, Florida for sex. Another case of trafficking involving women includes a Pennsylvania lawyer is being charged with raping and imprisoning two Honduran women he met through magazine ads.
Although the New York State Anti-trafficking law is the strongest anti-trafficking law in the nation this is one of many situations regarding men with money and power participating in such a crime. Years ago a Manhattan businessman was charged with abusing an immigrant Burmese woman whom he kept chained in his bedroom for nearly two weeks after offering her work as a cleaning woman.
Over the years many people have become activists for what is considered the fastest growing criminal industry in America. While in office President Bill Clinton and Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi established a specialized group to deal with this form of crime. The purpose of the group was to recognize and address trafficking in women and children for the purpose of prostitution.
As of today the football hall of famer, who previously appeared on Dancing With The Stars was dropped as the endorser of Nutrisystem. Yesterday’s event involving Lawrence Taylor who states that his sexual encounter with the minor in question was consentual, is an eye opener to many people including myself of a crime that affects more people than we realize.
Editor-In-Chief, Stephanie Penn-Danforth -- Daily Venus Diva.
Have you read Nicholas Kristoff’s book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide? He spends a lot of time discussing human trafficking and the sex slave trade. Really awful stuff, but ultimately the book provides suggestions on what we can do as a society to prevent this from happening. Really powerful book.