-Human Trafficking Can Happen Anytime, Anywhere

By: K. Cabo

In the past when I heard about “Human Trafficking,” I didn’t really understand what it was. I just thought it was just a bunch of people stuck in traffic, but I was totally wrong.

Trafficking is something that happens all around the world, even in our own islands, and it makes me sick.

“Human Trafficking is a crime against humanity,” according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. “It involves an act of recruiting, transporting, transferring, harbouring or receiving a person through a use of force, coercion or other means, for the purpose of exploiting them. Every year, thousands of men, women and children fall into the hands of traffickers, in their own countries and abroad. Every country in the world is affected by trafficking, whether as a country of origin, transit or destination for victims,” said the UNODC website.

http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/what-is-human-trafficking.html

Even thought trafficking is illegal, it still happens undercover, and you would never even know that it’s happening. When I did some research, I learned that there might be some trafficking going on right here in the Virgin Islands.

When the illegal immigrants come in on the boat late in the night, they are promised freedom and a chance of a new life. But if their transporter doesn’t feel like giving them that chance, he or she will lie to them and say that their documents didn’t go through, or that they didn’t give them enough money. And then they will tell them, “In order to gain your freedom, you will have to be my sex slave or work in my factory.”

According another website, “Worldwide, there are an estimated 31 million people trafficked as sex slaves every single year. Of that number, at least 3 million are children. Many of these children will be raped 30, 40, even 50 times per day. And yes, this happens right here in the United States. It happens in big cities and small towns. It probably happens within a few blocks of where you live.” http://www.tillhecomes.org/31-million-sex-slaves/

It’s time to put human trafficking to a stop, it doesn’t just hurt the women and children being trafficked, it’s also hurting their families because they think that their loved ones are in a wonderful place.

That is why President Obama declared January as National Human Trafficking Awareness Month; he did this so that people can be aware that this type of criminal activity really happens. It doesn’t only happen on T.V. It may be happening in our own backyard.