Human Trafficking

  If I were the leader of the free world, the first issue I would address would be human trafficking. Human trafficking is the way of selling humans into sexual slavery. It is one of the world’s three most profitable forms of organized crimes. The first is selling drugs. The second one is selling military weapons. The third is human trafficking. The people who do this mainly go after poor, uneducated, minority teenagers. Rarely is any person kidnapped in human trafficking found.  

  Human trafficking is defined as recruiting, harboring, transporting, kidnapping or obtaining a person for forced labor or services. It involves using force, fraud or manipulation and basically makes that person a slave. There is no easy solution or way to solve this horrible crime against people. We thought that we abolished slavery, but we haven’t. Slavery has been hiding in the shadows.  It has come back to haunt us now, because we are at our weakest hour. We are in war, leaving war, and in an economic depression. Human trafficking is a brutal and thriving problem that generates an estimated $32 billion dollars annually according to the United Nations.  Some reports say those who deal in human trafficking can make up to $200,000 for selling one young girl.

  There are an estimated 12.3 million adults and children who are in some type of forced labor or forced into the sex trade, according to the U. S. State Department’s 2010 report, trafficking in Persons. The report said there were less than 5,000 successful court cases against human traffickers. That is not that many. The department also said there are 15,000 to 18,000 victims each year in the United States alone.

  Human trafficking can happen in your own family. Some families sell their young girls to get money. Others are drugged and forced to fight in the war. The victims are helpless because of poverty and exploited by traffickers. Men are bounded/ chained and are forced to work in mines. Women are enslaved in quarries and households. Women and girls are trapped in the sex trade.  Boys are forced to fish in dangerous waters for pearls, exotic fish and who knows what else.  People are forced to do all those things when no one in their right mind would do them for pay. 

  It is hard to believe that the United States, our very own country, teenagers are being bought, sold, and smuggled like modern day slaves. As the leader of the free world I would love to go to war with those who traffic humans. However, they are not just some ordinary group or country. This is like a disease. It is all over the world. So if you capture some human traffickers, more will just take their place. There would be no way to start a war with them because we could never find all of them. What I will do though is to try and rescue the victims and also go after the predators themselves. Our goal is to try and save as many victims as we can, while at the same time arresting as many predators as we can.

  To help victims, we would set up both educational and advertising campaigns to teach local residents about the dangers and horrors of human trafficking. One of our greatest tools is the public, and we can get them to help by recognizing the signs and notifying the police. We also would promote safe places, like buildings, where victims can run to if they can escape or fear they are in danger.

  To go after the criminals, we would create task forces with specially trained officers who can work with the officers in other countries. It is very important that all countries are a part of this campaign. I also would pass laws that would allow the death penalty or keeping people in prison for life who are convicted of human trafficking. I will make sure that special human trafficking officers and the courts have enough money to go after as many criminals as we can find. That is what I will do if I were the leader of the free world.