Human Trafficking- "Modern Day Slavery"

For this project in English class, we were told to choose a world issue that we felt passionately about. We were told to think of something that would help us develop our knowledge and passion in this area. Immediately, my mind jumped to human trafficking. Human Trafficking is often called ‘modern day slavery’, because it is, by definition, “an act of recruiting, transporting, transferring, harboring or receiving a person through a use of force, coercion or other means, for the purpose of exploiting them.” Victims of human trafficking are forced by one way or another into labor without their permission. This can be seen in manual labor, domestic labor, and sexual labor. About 87% of trafficking victims are sexually exploited.
doctor-ani-kalayjian-human-trafficking-chart
doctor-ani-kalayjian-human-trafficking-chart

Women and girls take up most of the trafficking victims, but that’s not to say that trafficking is not a real threat for everyone. In fact, there are more slaves today, an estimate of about 3 billion, than in any other time in history. While some people would immediately say that they couldn’t see any reason that this would ever happen, the trafficking industry takes in about $32 billion dollars of yearly profit. In fact, money is primarily the reason for trafficking. Poor families often sell of their young girls to rich family members or brothels in order to make some money. 


Human Trafficking is a real issue for everyone in the world- nearly every country is involved as either a country of origin or destination. Not only that, but also only one person gets convicted for every 800 people trafficked.

So why did I immediately think of human trafficking? Well, many reasons. I’ve already been involved in campaigns to end this horrific occurrence. One of the organizations that I’ve researched, and donated to, is the Not For Sale campaign, which essentially raises awareness and money to save victims of trafficking around the world. However, more recently, my good friends uncle created a movie called “Horse & Rider.” The film was created in partnership with Freedom Firm, which is another organization dedicated to rescuing victims of human trafficking, specifically those of sex trafficked victims in India. The film follows the stories of two girls who were rescued from the trade, and are now in a rehabilitation center. I was asked to sing on the soundtrack for the movie, along with a few other girls, and it was a great experience to get connected and proactive in the fight for the end of human trafficking. I realized that human trafficking is a huge issue across the globe, and no one is safe from it.  

notforsalegirl
notforsalegirl
This girl advocates for the Not For Sale campaign.

So now we know what human trafficking is, and how big of an issue it is. But how can we help? What can we, as citizens, do? I think it’s also important to think about what has been done already, how far has that gotten us? How much improvement has this cause seen, and how much can it expect to see within the next few years?



You can see the bibliography of my work here.

Comments (2)

Alexa Dunn (Teacher)
Alexa Dunn

This is super cool that you got to sing on the film's soundtrack!! Your blog post is very informative, approachable in tone, and well written. I also like how passionate you are and already I feel attached to want to know more about this topic and what we can do about it. Looking forward to reading more posts…

Nomi Martin-Brouillette (Student 2015)
Nomi Martin-Brouillette

I notice that this seems like a really complex issue, that has a lot of causes, and there seems to be a cycle going on.

I wonder how people can help? If this is such a complex issue, how can we begin to stop human trafficking?

What if, in the next few blogs, you told us what we can do to get involved?