Imagine being kidnapped from your home, separated from your family, friends and loved ones, only to sold like a piece of merchandise. Many people, especially young girls, experience this tragedy everyday. These people are forced into sexual, commercial, or labor purposes that destroy their lives. The buying and selling of people, or human trafficking, generates an estimated $32 Billion in revenue every year across the globe. Despite being one of the most widespread and horrendous crimes, very little progress has been made to stop it. Human Trafficking continues to grow and something has to be done about it. .
One may wonder what is being done to stop this so far. The governments of most countries have established and banned what is clearly human trafficking. Although this sort of slavery is assumed to be a notion of the past, human trafficking still exists today. All of over the world, even in the U.S., traffickers use violence, scam/ fraud, or coercion to capture innocent people into these lives. Human Trafficking is defines when the victim in unwilling forced into use of commercial sex or slave-like labor. By having this clearly defined in the law the government's of many nations seek to peruse traffickers and bring justice and freedom to captured people. Government agencies like, Polaris (a U.S. based organization), seek to destroy human trafficking networks by using investigative teams, informational tip hotlines, and public awareness efforts. Billions of dollars are spent year around to try and prevent Human Trafficking from growing and hurting more people.
Despite the efforts made, 20.9 million people suffer from human trafficking according to the International Labor Organization. One of the reasons why these efforts have failed is because there is no international organization to find and eliminate traffickers. Since many victims are transported away from their homelands it becomes harder to follow networks of trade.
