Human Trafficking – Today’s Slavery

January 11, 2023. Updated from the original post in July 2020

Human trafficking isn’t anything new. It has been around for decades. Lately, it has been in the news a bit more because of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Their involvement was in sex trafficking. Most human trafficking involves sex trafficking. And these slaves’ average age is 12- to 14-years old in the United States. Sex trafficking doesn’t start at age 12. There are victims out there who haven’t yet celebrated their first birthday. Think about that for a moment.

The remainder of victims are trafficked for labor. Examples include some domestic workers in homes, some factory workers, homeless people begging for money on street corners, employees in some massage parlors, and some farm laborers. All victims of human trafficking are slaves. They are not doing this by choice. There are more slaves in the world today, than at any time in history.

Human trafficking is defined by the United Nations as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat of or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deceptions, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person, having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.”  This is not drugs or guns, it’s people.  Basically, it is slavery.

Who are the United States victims?

Many people believe that human trafficking in the United States involves people brought into the United States. However, most victims in the United States live in the United States and most likely were born there. I’ve had the opportunity to meet several victims. They were all teenage girls who live in the United States. When I first visited them, I was very surprised to find girls of all skin colors, most of them young and once innocent, but now they were fighting to regain a normal life. They were fighting to become a survivor. That new normal life sometimes means being away from their families, because sometimes their trafficker was a family member.

Trafficked children usually do not go to school. They are hidden from the world that could possibly rescue them. There are no pets allowed. Victims don’t go on vacations or school field trips. And they are not taken to the doctor or dentist. Their childhood is lost and sometimes, so is their life.

In the United States, 60% of children that are trafficked are coming from Foster Care or group homes. Many runaways are picked up by a pimp within 48 hours. It is estimated that more than 80% of victims are female. Over half of them are children. There are also men and young boys being trafficked. Men make up 2% of sex trafficking victims.

Where are victims located?

Every continent in the world has a problem with human trafficking. In the United States, the top states for human trafficking are New York, California, and Florida. The top fifteen cities include Houston and Dallas, Texas, Chicago, Illinois, Las Vegas, Nevada, San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Sacramento. These locations have easy access to freeways. Very likely there is human trafficking happening in your city or county.

The top sex tourism destinations include The Super Bowl (USA) and the World Cup (Brazil.) They are very profitable for traffickers. Traffickers bring their girls/boys there to service the large number of men that spend the weekend partying. Airline and hotel workers are being trained to recognize victims and report them. The United States is a top destination for Americans seeking sex with a child. Americans are the number one consumer of sex trafficking, both in the United States and in foreign countries.

Human trafficking is very profitable

Human trafficking is becoming the number one criminal activity. It has passed up illegal gun sales (formerly number two) and is expected to pass up illegal drug sales (currently number one) within a few years. Guns and drugs can be sold only once. A human can be sold 10-40 times a day. Depending on where you purchase your “slave,” the price can be as low as $90 up to over $10,000. This gives you ownership of that person. Later if your “slave” doesn’t work out you can sell her/him. As an owner, you can sometimes sell your “slave” for a higher price because that girl/boy has already been trained and has had her/his spirit broken. Sex trafficking is a $100 Billion industry.

It is estimated that a human trafficker can earn 20 times the price he/she pays for a young child. Sometimes over $150,000 a year. It won’t take long for an owner to be making millions of dollars a year if he/she has enough children to sell. Girls sold as virgins go for a higher price so pimps have actually sewn a girl’s vagina closed to pass her off as a virgin. The younger the child, the higher the price paid by clients.

Welcome to sex trafficking

Most children that are taken into sex trafficking will need to be trained in how they should act with clients. That may mean that that child will be raped repeatedly by his/her owner. Or they may be gang-raped, while they lay naked, arms and legs spread and tied to an old bed. Starvation, threats to their family, and beatings also work. The goal is to get the victim to obey and make money. If a girl fights back too much, she can be brutalized to get her to submit to the trafficker’s requests. If a girl becomes pregnant, the baby is usually aborted, and the girl returns to work in a few days. Or she can be beaten until she loses the baby. All victims are merchandise to their owners, not humans, they are money-making merchandise.

99% of buyers are men.

Minh Dang was the only daughter of Vietnamese parents.  Around 2- or 3- years old her dad began abusing her.  She was told that she had to serve her parents.  At age ten, her father took her to bars and brothels and sold her for sex.  Her father taught her at home by raping her.  He kept all the money she earned.  Her mother started selling Minh because she wanted some money, too.  During the 10 years that her parents sold her, it is estimated that her parents made 2 million dollars, plus bought 2 houses, cars, and some land in Vietnam.  Minh’s story made the news in December 2010.  Minh grew up in San Jose, California. I heard Minh talk about her life at a conference. At the time, she had not planned to bring charges against her parents.

How low can traffickers go?

Vicki lives in Sacramento, California.  On March 18, 2008, her daughter went to a local grocery store and didn’t come back home.  In Vicki’s words, “I feared the worst, and the worst for me at that time was thinking she was dead.  I thought that was the worst until she was recovered and we found out what had happened to her.  We were made aware that our daughter was being sold for sex.  I believe my daughter was targeted because she is cognitively developmentally disabled.  At the time she was a beautiful 17-year old physically, but had the mind of maybe a 10-, 11- or 12-year old and was very vulnerable.  What happened to my daughter cannot be undone.”

San Diego Detective James Hunter says “There is a trend toward targeting special education students.  The bottom line is they are much easier to control.” That means fewer beatings and more compliance on the part of the child.

Traffickers seem to have no problem finding infants and children. One way to gain access to the children is by purchasing them from a mother desperate for money to buy drugs. Or taking a pregnant woman and then taking her baby once it is born. In Georgia, in 2018, a child sex trafficking ring was uncovered in an FBI sting. 60 adults were arrested. They also found four children. Of the four children rescued, there were two siblings, a 3-month-old baby girl and her 5-year-old sister. They were available for sale for $600.

Now what?

One of the most heartbreaking conversations I had was with a rescued 16-year-old girl. She had been trafficked since age eleven. She was leaving the next day to return to her trafficker because, in her opinion, “This is all I know. I can’t do anything else.”

What can you do about human trafficking? Become more aware. Look into the following organizations: Polarisproject.org, Exoduscry.com, thesoldproject.com, Love146.org, notforsalecampaign.org, ijm.org, and newdayforchildren.com *. Vote, write Congress, write the President. Let your voice be heard. Tell others about the truth of human trafficking. Be aware of your neighborhood. Is there someone who has a bedroom in their garage? Does your neighbor have a housekeeper who never leaves the home?

If you suspect human trafficking, call the Human Trafficking hotline at 888-373-7888. The Polaris Project runs this hotline. Get involved with an organization in your community. Pray for the traffickers, the victims, and the men/women that purchase them. Donate money to an organization that is working to rescue and restore children from human trafficking.

I leave you with this quote from William Wilberforce, a man who worked to free slaves back in the 1800s and died three days after slavery was abolished, his life’s work complete:

“You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know.”

Human trafficking is happening on a regular basis at the Mexico/United States border. Become aware. Fight for the children. Babies shouldn’t be play things of grown men. You are aware now. What are you going to do? Please leave a comment below.

*New Day for Children is my favorite charity. They have relocated their home for girls to Texas. You can send donations to them at New Day for Children, P O Box 439, Alamo, CA 94507. They were originally located in California, where I first learned about them and visited their location several times, to work on the property with a group from my church. They still have many fundraising events, in California. Their donations still go to California and are sent as needed to their various locations. They have a location in California for girls over 18. They have also begun taking in boys. New Day gets referrals of children from all over the United States and from the FBI. They take in children from ten to eighteen years old. Any donation you make to New Day for Children will be used to give children a place to do things that normal kids do, like ride a horse (this is therapy for them) or play with a dog. The children have nurses, psychologists, teachers, and other staff to help them through the transition of being free again. You do not get an education at the local school when you are trafficked. You do not get prepared to go to college. But at New Day for Children, you do.