Victims

“I saw how my own African sisters were physically and mentally abused. Some were sexually harassed and subjected to forced labor on an empty stomach.” These are the conditions that millions of human trafficking victims are put in each day. They try to escape, but fail and receive punishments for trying. Sometimes the victims are left on the verge of death. One girl named Crissy spoke about her experience working as a domestic worker. She explained how she got roped into it, the living conditions, her many escape attempts, girls she met along the way, and more. Crissy eventually escaped her traffickers with the help of a good Samaritan and the police. She said, “I am happy to be alive today to tell you my story but not all the young ladies who travel out get the chance I got to return home to their families” (Okertchiri).

There are at least 100,000 children that are trafficked in the United States each year. It’s hard to know exactly how many people are being trafficked because human trafficking is an underground operation. Any time there’s a big sports event or any type of significant event, there will be people looking to take advantage of women and children. The 24-hour human trafficking hotline had a rise in the number of calls during the last Super Bowl (Fatoorehchi).

Human trafficking has been a huge problem for millions of victims. Human trafficking is most common in Asia. Once there was an older doctor accused of indecently assaulting a domestic worker; he was only jailed for 30 months. The women assaulted gave evidence that other women had been abused by this elderly doctor as well. Hong Kong planned to fight human trafficking and have better protection for domestic workers in 2018. The plan put in new screening tools and had designated teams to help with the issue. There has been some confusion around the law of forced labor and human trafficking. There have been multiple cases, like the one above, where abusers weren’t punished correctly (“Human Trafficking”).

Human trafficking rights groups say that more must be done to rescue women and children escaping the war in Ukraine. They are becoming more vulnerable and prone to becoming victims of trafficking and sexual violence. “Wherever people have to flee their homes, there will be vulnerabilities.” There are already reports of human trafficking and sexual assault against people moving from Ukraine. Volunteers working to help people escape said women had been raped, assaulted, recruited by men, and approached by men in what looked like trafficking attempts (Holt).

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