Child trafficking is a business that continues to grow throughout the world. It is an underground business that is mostly conducted through the internet. Today, there is an estimated 2.5 million children being exploited by the multibillion-dollar industry. The majority of child trafficking can be found in Europe, the United States, Russia, and Africa. Andrea Powell, executive director of FAIR Fund, idenitified fifty-six cases of sexual exploitation just in the Washington D.C. area last year.
FAIR Fund was established eight years ago to stop child trafficking worldwide. One child prostitute told Powell that most often it was a fifteen hour work day in the sex trade. United States congressman, Chris Smith, is an advocate for the rights of victims in the human trafficking industry. Almost 100,000 American girls around the age of thirteen are living on the streets. Smith states that within forty-eight hours of being on the street, pimps will successfully force the young girls into prostitution. They will be beaten, raped, and many will eventually contract an STD.
Helga Konrad, a former representative on human trafficking for the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe, says that no country is free from human trafficking. The perpetrators are internationally linked. FAIR Fund has discovered that Serbs and Albanians work closely together within the trafficking industry and recieve huge profits from the sex trade.
Congressman Smith calls for more police officers trained to spot a trafficked woman, but especially young females. Instead of police officers going into strip clubs and paying for sex, they should be on the streets stopping the growing problem of child trafficking. More importantly, Smith points out that the girls should not be treated as if they are criminals because it is their souls and bodies that have been violated.
The State Department states that between 14,000 and 17,000 girls are being smuggled into the United States from other countries and are being forced into prostitution.
I honestly can not believe that there are so many children in the United States that are being sold into prostitution. 100,000 young girls live on the streets in our own country. I have always thought that this issue was more of a problem in other countries, especially poor and undeveloped ones, but it is happening in the United States as well. It is mind blowing to know that someone I pass on my way to school could have once been sexually exploited as a child, or maybe they still are. This article makes me question why this issue isn't talked about more and why it isn't discussed very much in the media.
http://www.energypublisher.com/article.asp?id=39622
2 comments:
I think that this is such a huge issue that is going on, whether people want to believe it or not. Child traffiking in the United States is something that is happening so close to home, but yet there still is not enough being done about it. This should not be happening to children.
I know it sounds so mushy, but no innocent child should ever have to undergo such horrible treatment. And as far as it happening int the United States, I agree; it's hard to believe its so close to home. It makes me wonder if someone I pass walking through the mall has ever had to undergo such a horrible situation as described in my blog.
Post a Comment