Millions of children are exploited each year and case studies show the range of abuse on a global scale. In Russia, a teenager, Yulia, was told that she could get work and then return to Russia to finish college with money. But instead she was kept in a run-down house with no hot water and bars on the windows. A video camera tracked the movement of all the women and only allowed them outside thirty minutes a day. There were fines for staying outside too long, looking sad when with a "customer", staying in the bathroom for more than five minutes, and refusing to go with a man. Yulia is one of the few "Natashas" (omnipresent East European girls forced into the sex trade) that survived the sexual exploitation that has left many dead or in grave physical and mental conditions. Resistance to being trafficked or sexually exploited can lead to severe beating, rapes, and confinement in room at gunpoint for days. One girl enslaved by the Cadenas-Sosa family in the United States said they worked six days a week and twelve hours a day. "We mostly had to serve thirty-two to thirty-five clients a day. Our bodies were utterly sore and swollen" (King 29). Many of the young girls exploited end up pregnant, facing long-term repercussions of exploitation, risk of STD infections, lesions that may not heal, and suffer severe impacts on the reproductive systems for those who were not ready for sexual activity. Whether it is the bait-and-switch practices run by the traffickers, or servitude of well-meaning parents, the essence of slavery and trafficking cannot be hidden. .
In the economic world of countries that hold an endless cycle of poverty and illiteracy, human trafficking thrives. The victims of human trafficking pay a high price that includes both physical and psychological harm. Some examples including stunted growth, permanent damage to reproductive organs, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
