Back In The 1600’S Slavery Was Brought To The United States

When thinking of slavery, it is common for a person to think of stereotypical slavery: African Americans working in harsh conditions without pay or choice. However, since the Thirteenth Amendment was passed, this type of slavery has decreased significantly. Today, we use the term ‘human trafficking’ to describe modern slavery. Grant Oster states that, by definition, “human trafficking is the act or gathering, moving, receiving, or keeping of human beings by threat,

Biljana Meshkovska, Melissa Siegel, Sarah E. Stutterheim & Arjan E. R. Bos (2015) Female Sex Trafficking: Conceptual Issues, Current Debates, and Future Directions, The Journal of Sex Research, 52:4, 380-395, DOI: 10.1080/00224499.2014.1002126

Human Trafficking is in America, it’s in backyard and most don’t even know it. Many Americans believe that this horrible action only takes place in countries such as China, Japan, India, and Ghana but no; it happens in the United States also. The definition of human trafficking is the “illegal practice of procuring or trading in human beings for the purpose of prostitution, forced labor, or other forms of exploitation” (dictionary.com). Slavery was abolished in 1865 in the 13th amendment in the constitution but it sad to say, it still exist. “60,000 people in America in November 2013 could safely be called modern day slaves” (Slavery isn’t a thing of the past). Today human trafficking is counted as immigrant workers who are smuggled into the country and forced to work under the threat of violence. And also men and women, forced to sell their bodies for sex and give all their money to their pimps (Slavery isn’t a thing of the past). Pimps are the ones who usually run the human trafficking business. Approximately75-80% of human trafficking is for sex (55 little known facts about human trafficking). Many believe that only adults are being worked but children and teens are too, matter of fact the average age is between12 and 14. The number of human trafficking in the United States will continue to increase because it is too difficult to find and prevent.

What exactly is human trafficking? We have all heard of it, but what actually is it. It’s a modern form of slavery. It involves controlling a person through force, fraud, or coercion to exploit the victim for forced labor, sexual exploitation, or both. It strips victims of their freedom and violates our nation’s promise that every person in the U.S. is guaranteed basic human rights. This is a crime (Beccera). Sadly, the United States is widely regarded as a destination country for human trafficking. According to the federal reports, nearly 14,500 to 17,500 victims are trafficked in the United States annually. That doesn’t even include the number of victims that are trafficked WITHIN the United States. If you are looking for a defined definition of human trafficking, California legislatures states it as being “ALL acts involved in the recruitment, abduction, transport, harboring, transfer, sale or receipt of persons, within national or across international borders, through force, coercion, fraud or deception, to place persons in situations of slavery or slavery like conditions, forced labor or services, such as forced prostitution or sexual services, domestic servitude, bonded sweatshop labor, or other debt bondage.” (Beccera) This is a crime that needs to come to an end.

The common relations of slavery are between slavery and the Civil War. Most would argue that slavery ended in 1865. With this standpoint, we often brush off or neglect to further investigate slavery in its most modern forms. Over the course of history, there are few times we can truly say a social problem was completely solved. Starvation still exists, as does poverty, racism, war, segregation, injustice within government systems, and yes, even slavery. Human trafficking is modern day slavery, and it exists everywhere with two different categories: sex exploitation and labor exploitation. Human trafficking is not new, but what is new is the volume of trafficking taking place, and how little we know about it. How can a problem, so monstrous and so widespread continue with most society being unaware of its existence? The 1800’s, and even years’ prior, were a period of unfathomable abuse towards people considered less than. The 21st century is also a period of unfathomable abuse towards people considered commodities. Now the common place relation between slavery and the civil war must be over, because the monster of modern day slavery has awoken.

Human trafficking can take many forms, as well as many victims. One form of trafficking is slavery. Slavery is having a worker who is unpaid and who works by force using coercion, fraud or threat of bodily harm. “According to the United Nations, there are between 27 and 30 million modern-day slaves in the world (Jesionka, “Human Trafficking: The Myths and the Realities”).” “By 1860, the nation’s black population had jumped from 400,000 to 4.4 million, of which 3.9 million were slaves.(Henry Louis Gates).” That means there are nearly ten times more slaves today than there were in the late 1800’s.

Many believe that slavery ended years ago. However, a modern form of slavery has ruined the lives of thousands of people from around the world and continues to do so. It is referred to as human trafficking. Human trafficking is “the movement of persons for the purpose of exploitation.” People can be sold into sex slavery, or forced to do hard labor. They are taken, oppressed and treated as an object. Even though slavery was abolished in the United States in the 19th century, exploitation, dehumanization, and forced labor continued and still exists today. The history and origin of slavery impacts the current issue of slave trading and human trafficking in America because it is still an existing problem

“Slavery occurs when one person controls another person, using violence or the threat of violence to maintain that control, exploits them economically, pays them nothing and they cannot walk away.” In 1865, slavery was abolished here in the United States. It states in the thirteenth amendment that, “neither slavery, nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” Even though it states that slavery is illegal in the thirteenth amendment, human trafficking is equivalent to modern slavery and it still exist today in the United States. Human trafficking happens when someone owes money, is kidnapped,

Human trafficking is defined as a recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, of receipt of persons, by means of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, or abuse of power of a position of vulnerability for the purpose of exploitation (Human Trafficking Information). Today human trafficking, also known as modern-day slavery, has been one of the controversial issues in the United States and nationwide. In fact, it is now considered as the fastest growing multi-billion-dollar business form of organized crime. Also, Human trafficking is affecting the lives of millions around the globe and robbing the victims of their pride. As a matter of fact, Traffickers deceive men, women, and young children from around the world to force them into unspeakable

Slavery, as aforementioned, is the keeping of slaves as a practice or institution, but what many do not know about that goes hand in hand with slavery is human trafficking-the illegal transportation of humans for forced labor or sexual exploitation. Traffickers nowadays are often pimps-men who control prostitutes and arrange clients for them (while keeping profit for themselves), or just that-traffickers who buy and sell women, children, and even men to pimps and handlers globally.

181-187). Although this theory of human trafficking only goes back to the 19th century, this is something that has gone on for a a long amount of time. If one was to think about history and how slaves were traded from Africa to the United States, the theory of “Human Trafficking” still applies. The slaves from Africa would be traded to someone who bought them. At times the slaves would be bought to work in fields, raise the children, and to provide sex for the “master” whenever summoned. If the person was to buy them to be a worker, or to nurse the children, even to have sex with. The definition of human trafficking is the illegal movement of people, typically for the purposes of forced labor or commercial sexual exploitation (Unknown,

“No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.” (UN-Universal Declaration of Human Rights-Article 4) According to IRIN Human Traffickers make about 7-12 million dollars annually just from the US. This makes it the second highest criminal active just passing Weapon Trafficking, and fastest growing, and yet in most countries there is little to no punishment if you get caught. But wait, what is considered Human Trafficking? According to the UN, Human Trafficking is recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of violence, of abduction, fraud, deception, the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability

As a student reaching for his degree in criminal justice I have taken a human trafficking and human smuggling class in which this article helped me better understand the characteristics of sex-trafficking victims. For my future I hope to be deeply involved in law enforcement and with the knowledge this article gives, I will be able to better access someone that could be a victim of sex-trafficking and I will be able to contact the right organizations to help the victims. I suggest that more people become aware of their surroundings and these types of articles should be funded in advertisement to spread the knowledge in sex-trafficking or human trafficking in general. Even though this article is very detailed, it still lacks many factors that effect this research because this article was not funded at all, which I believe if the two authors received money for their research there would be more

Human trafficking was once called slavery. “Slavery began in Ancient Greece when they captured prisoners of war. They traded these slaves with other people to be used as laborers, including domestic work to build the pyramids. Slavery continued to grow all throughout Asian civilizations and into the birth of America.” (Gale) The slave trading began when the Europeans began establishing colonies with the Americans. Experts say that three hundred thousand slaves were sold to plantation owners in the 1400s and the 1500s. American colonies traded molasses and weapons for these slaves. Our textbooks tell us that slavery existed but it doesn’t always go into depth of what really happens. Everybody knows that slavery is bad. The word slavery itself, seems very unnatural and provokes mixed feelings depending on a person’s heart. Nobody really

Human Trafficking has become the modern day slavery; endangering millions if innocent humans. What is human trafficking? Well human trafficking or sex trafficking is when someone is illegally moving people from one country to another; it’s typically known for forced labor or forced sexual exploitation. Many victims are tricked into thinking that they are getting a better job offer, better living environment or even tricked into thinking they will be moved safely to a better country. This illegal industry is making a fortune, over $32 billion yearly, and is spreading all over the world. Now many people aren’t aware of the major threat and that is because people aren’t aware of what’s going on. For example, many of the students in my English class were unaware of what human trafficking was. During the class we had the opportunity to read Sold written by Patricia McCormick, and it opened up all of our eyes. It gave us the perspective of what the slaves had to deal with. With the book and the recent movies, like Taken, have opened up the eyes of society and see how dangerous and common human trafficking is.