effect of human sex trafficking in the U.S
This research was conducted to determine the effect of human sex trafficking in the U.S. The study also analyzed various human sex trafficking cases that have been decided by the U.S. Court of Appeals in 2016. The data analyzed in this research came from secondary sources such as journals, books, and articles that reflect on the state of human sex trafficking.
Findings
This research revealed that human sex trafficking is rampant in the United States. The majority of the victims are women and children. Human sex trafficking in the United States includes transportation, harboring, recruitment, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor services to subject them to involuntary servitude. Further, the study showed that human sex trafficking often coincides with other forms of crime. As a result, human trafficking statutes are sometimes inadequate in prosecuting sex trafficking cases.
Additionally, the research found out that the United States Courts of Appeals affirmed all the convictions for human sex trafficking. The study also revealed that the majority of sex trafficking victims are female minors. The offenders exploited the victims of the 2016 sex trafficking cases. Consequently, the survivors of sex trafficking bear the cost caused by economically-motivated offenses (Richmond, 2017). Sex trafficking has adverse effects on the victims. Millions of sex trafficking survivors across the world have had devastating consequences on their physical and mental well-being (McTavish, 2017). Human sex trafficking crimes should be averted to protect the welfare of citizens and especially, the vulnerable groups.
Discussion
There is a misconception that trafficking involves movement and particularly, across borders. However, human sex trafficking does not have to include movement across borders. There is also a misconception that victims of sex trafficking are always kidnapped and taken into sexual servitude. In some cultures, parents sell their children to sex traffickers while in others, sex trafficking is considered an honorable act as long as the victim’s family gets funds for their living expenses (Walker, Gaviria, & Gopal, 2018). However, the federal law in the United States forbids recruiting, keeping, smuggling, transporting, or offering people to forced labor or sexual exploitation. The sex trafficking offense includes diverse activities such as harboring, financing, assaulting, or threatening victims to involve them in commercial sex acts.
Sex traffickers use emotional exploitation to influence the victims into going to a foreign country with the promise of offering preys jobs or good lives. Manipulation is a common element of sex trafficking. Traffickers take advantage of people’s needs to engage them in sex activities. Sex trafficking is a direct effect of harmful inequalities caused by economic globalization, poverty, and increased disenfranchisement of the poor (Kara, 2017). Vulnerable populations such as children, women, low-income earners and drug addicts are primary targets for sex traffickers. Undocumented immigrants are also exploited by sex traffickers.
As evidenced by this legal and social research, human sex trafficking is highly evolving due to advancement in technology. Sex traffickers are propagators of cybercrime. They use the internet to solicit for clients for illicit commercial sex. They also use technology to advertise their activities and recruit vulnerable people. Changes in the practice of human sex trafficking poses a challenge to the conviction of these offences. The complexity of sex trafficking often results in many adolescent victims being identified by law enforcement as offenders rather than victims and they become entangled in the juvenile justice system (Reid, Baglivio, Piquero, Greenwald, & Epps, 2017). From the research, there are also issues that emerged in the sentencing of sex trafficking cases. However, the 2016 cases led to developments in the way courts sentenced convicted human sex traffickers. (Richmond, 2017). These developments include lowering of the base offence levels for conspiracy to commit sex trafficking, enhancement of vulnerable victims and the application of concepts such as “use of a computer” and “commission of a sex act”. Other developments in the sentencing of sex traffickers include the use of repeat offender status.
Conclusion
Human sex trafficking is a significant national problem. Majority of the victims of sex trafficking offences are women and children. Conversely, men are the primary perpetrators of sex trafficking. However, the involvement of women as offenders and men as victims of sex trafficking should not be underestimated. Although the stereotypical sex trafficking victim is depicted as an innocent young girl lured into commercial sex activities, not all victims fit this description (Peters, 2015). Any person can be a victim or a perpetrator of sex trafficking. The perpetrators of these offenses engage in the activities for their economic gain at the expense of the victim’s physical, mental and emotional well-being.
There is need to have social protection for vulnerable populations to prevent them from becoming victims of sex trafficking. Economic status is a major factor that causes people to get involved in commercial sex activities. Vulnerable populations engage in sex trafficking as a way of trying to meet their basic needs. The government and other stakeholders should therefore, develop interventions that enable vulnerable groups to meet their basic needs.
Communities should be empowered to recognize human trafficking and develop ways of addressing it. All members of the community should be educated about their rights. They should also have knowledge of how they can report cases of sex trafficking. Involvement of the community in sex trafficking interventions makes it easier for law enforcement agencies to curb the challenge. Governments and other stakeholders can design and implement public awareness campaigns aimed at educating people on human sex trafficking