The New Global Sex Trade
Chuck Norris
These victims of sexual slavery come from some of the most well-known sexually trafficked areas in the world, including Cambodia, Thailand, Latin America, Eastern Europe (countries like Romania, Lithuania, Albania, Moldova and Ukraine), Russia and even Africa.
The U.S government reports, "Of the estimated 600,000 to 800,000 people trafficked across international borders annually, 80 percent of victims are female and up to 50 percent are minors. Hundreds of thousands of these women and children are used in prostitution each year."
And to whom are these sexual servants being sold? Those in nearly every country on the planet, including Germany, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Italy, Turkey, Greece, Great Britain, Canada and even America!
Sexual slavery in the U.S.?
Not many would consider the sex trade a problem in the United States, but the increase of sexual enslavement can be found in every level of society. Despite governmental attempts to abolish it, 20,000 to 40,000 sexual slaves are still annually brought into America.
ABC News reported that, "The FBI estimates that well over 100,000 children and young women are trafficked in America today. They range in age from 9 to 19, with the average age being 11. "
All of this in a country that has as its 13th Amendment to the Constitution, "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude … shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
How does one become a sexual slave?
Traffickers begin by enticing women with jobs (like housekeeping, being a nanny, waitressing, etc.), but end up turning these employment opportunities into forced prostitution. Other victims are literally abducted from their homes or off the streets and imported to countries under the force of heavy-handed intermediary agents.
Countless stories and personal testimonies are retold even online of how young women are tricked and abused into submission by traffickers. Though relatively few manage to escape, some fortunately do.
Deborah Finding, a leader of the POPPY Project, a government-financed organization in Great Britain that provides up to four weeks' support to trafficked women, explained to PBS the unique participation of some families in the sexual slave business:
What is quite common and what I find most shocking is how often the women's families are involved, or at least complicit in the trafficking. I think we had a woman who was sold by her alcoholic father. We had a woman who was brought into trafficking, into prostitution by her older sister. We have heard of families where they haven't believed the [woman's] story, or the traffickers go back to the woman's family and tell them that their daughter is a prostitute, and they don't want anything to do with her.
America's not the only one with leaky borders
How do traffickers and their victims make it across international borders? Look at our own country! If drug lords and illegal aliens stream across, how difficult can it be for sexual traffickers? There are endless avenues to get into most countries, from using authentic travel papers to being smuggled in on trains, planes, automobiles and boats.
After two years of investigation and interviewing traffickers and their victims, journalist Victor Malarek documented his findings in his book, "The Natashas: Inside the New Global Sex Trade." Malarek also commented to PBS:
The smuggling [routes] around the world were established many decades ago for weapons and drugs. It's far easier to smuggle human beings. The Bohemian borders around the European Union are very easy to cross. You cross the Danube in narrow areas or on boats, you go over the mountains and get yourself into Kosovo and Bosnia into Albania, and you [go] across the Adriatic, and ... you get yourself into Italy. ... Once they're in the European Union, it's just a free-for-all.
You go to a country like ... Israel. It's hugely secure. How in heaven's [name] do 5,000 women from Moldova, Romania and Ukraine get into Israel? ... Some of them [go] overland through the Sinai Desert after landing in Cairo, almost like a biblical trek for them, scary biblical trek.
Then there are all kinds of ways that you can get into North America: under student visas, under temporary work orders, under tourism visas. You can get into Canada by taking a boat. A lot of these freighters come over, and in the back of them are girls and there are women, so when they park their little boats ... in Vancouver or in Halifax or Montreal late at night, they're taken off, and they're here. ...
How does sexual slavery continue?
The easy answer is supply and demand. The not-so-easy answer is found in that, while most countries have laws prohibiting human trafficking, very few enforce them. In answering why, Malarek succinctly says, "Because of corruption, complicity and complacency in this issue."
Because trafficked women are often seen as nothing more than prostitutes, they are sometimes arrested and returned back on the streets as quick as they're booked. At most, they're sent to immigration authorities, who deport them back to their countries, where the sexual trade cycle often starts all over again.
How to reverse the tide of sexual slavery
In commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Great Britain, I'm encouraging citizens everywhere in March to cry out from the shores of complacency regarding the 27 million slaves alive today on the planet. We must fight for those who cannot, and that includes those in sexual servitude.
We must raise awareness of international sexual trafficking and give people resources to fight it, just as humanitarian groups like Chaste ("Churches Alert to Sex Trafficking across Europe") are excellently doing.
We must also assure that every country cares for its daughters. We must do more than appeal for new international laws; we must assure basic human rights and protections for those who live in each of our countries. We must build up borders throughout the free world. Tightening and enforcing immigration laws must be a mandate.
We must appeal to our own local, state and federal representatives in order to awaken them from their slumber on the matter of international sexual exploitation and slavery.
More than anything, we must work for the freedom of one sexual slave at a time. Success comes in numbers of one. Just as revival happens when one heart is changed, so it is true for those freed from sexual enslavement. We must celebrate every life that is liberated.
She's waiting for your help – probably where you least expect her.
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Note: Throughout the month of March, Chuck will be addressing different aspects of the modern slave trade in his weekly column, in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Great Britain. Stay tuned next week for Part 3!
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