Human Trafficking
• Though the specific definition may vary, human trafficking is universally understood as a form of slavery.
• About four million people are trafficked throughout the world each year, resulting in up to seven billion dollars annually in profits to various criminal networks.
• Many criminal groups use employment advertisements as a way to lure in women as they disguise themselves as employment agencies, travel agencies, and marriage firms. The women who are falsely informed of these employment opportunities believe that they are destined to be working as waitresses, entertainers, or barmaids overseas; little do they know that they are to be sold as commodities to overseas traffickers.
• Victims of human trafficking find themselves in unwanted positions as they are threatened, drugged, beaten, raped, sexually abused in other forms, and even killed if they have not yet been forced to commit suicide.
• Many countries around the world are involved in the international tradeoff human trafficking including
Thailand, Switzerland, Japan, Germany, Israel, and the United States.
• The sex industry has been growing for many years, targeting men as the primary source of business. This growth is due to the fact that,
“When one sells a woman, they can sell her over and over and over again... It is an incredibly lucrative business.” – Crate Johnston, USAID.
• According to the Coalition Against the Trafficking of Women, 90% of women arrested for prostitution or drug-related crimes in the Kaliningrad region of Russia are infected with HIV (Fact book on Global Sexual Exploitation: Russia)