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Nataleigh Hemberry
Honors English 10
Period Seven
10 March, 2016 Slavery Is Not Extinct
Slavery, the keeping of slaves as a practice or institution, has held a grim but important role in America’s history. Since the founding of the United States, slavery has been a moral and human rights issue that citizens have argued over to the point of war. To most Americans, the day slavery ended was January 1st, 1863-the day President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation and freed all slaves within America’s borders. However slavery never did end-and is in fact at an all time high as of 2016. Despite the ban on slavery over one hundred and fifty years ago, slavery and human trafficking,especially for sexual exploitation, are still an issue and still exist in the United States.
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. One hundred and fifty three years ago amidst a civil war, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, stating that:
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...any and all persons held as slaves
Human Trafficking is “considered a form of modern slavery” involving the recruitment, transportation, transfer and/or harboring the receipt of a person by either the means of force or coercion that is affecting thousands of men, women and children per year both abroad and locally. This is a crime in violation of human rights (“Human Trafficking/What is Human Trafficking”, 2015). Human trafficking is an umbrella term that is not quite defined and/or recognized by law.
Human trafficking is as described by Wikipedia as the illegal trade in humans for the use of sexual exploitation or forced labor.
Although many people think slavery is just being forced to work physically, there are a wide variety of slavery. One type of slavery is human trafficking, a term with slaves that are smuggled across the borders from country to country to
Back in the 1600’s slavery was brought to the United States to help aid in the production of crops. We have come a long ways since then through our government system to help provide a more riotous and free system, the land of the free. Slavery ended and racism has declined but today there still exists a different type of slavery and this is known as human trafficking. Many call sex or human trafficking the modern day type of slavery because people are forced to work for another person mostly by selling their body. According to the United Nations and their protocol signed by more then 80 countries sex/ human trafficking is the “recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use
Human Trafficking and Slavery universally happens in the world when individuals are placed or maintained in and exploitive situation for economic gain. Women, men and children are trafficked for a range of different purposes; forced and exploitative labour in factories, farms and private households, sexual exploitation, and forced marriage. Trafficking can happen to all people if the circumstances are right.
Our sixteenth president, Abraham Lincoln spoke the following words in the Emancipation Proclamation, which were meant to free all slaves in the United States from bondage in 1863.
Slavery began in America in 1619 when African slaves were brought to Jamestown, Virginia, to help in crop production. For two and a half more centuries, these people were exploited and mistreated for the success of the white man. In 1861, the long-fought conflict caused the Civil War, which ended in 1865 with the publication of the 13th Amendment. This was supposed to be the end of slavery in America, but if this were so, this essay wouldn’t exist. Instead of the outright exploitation of African-Americans, slavery has evolved into a $150 billion industry that takes people from their homes and forces them into unpaid or underpaid service anywhere around the world. Human trafficking comes in many forms and affects a variety of people, but no matter the situation, it’s still a crime that ruins lives.
World wide slavery is a thirty-two billion dollar industry. There are more than twenty-seven million slaves. But sex trafficking in the U.S. alone is a $9.8 million industry. Nearly 100,000 of those slaves are youth that are trafficked in the U.S. annually.(Donley-Hayes, 1.) In order to solve this problem people need to be aware of the extent of the problem, along with causes and effects before a solution can come about.
Human trafficking is the modernized version of slavery that involves force, fraud, and/or a type of labor in a sexual act. The United States government defines it to be “In which a sex act is forced in which the person induced has not yet been attained eighteen years of age” (National Institute of Justice). Human trafficking is a threat to all nations and promotes breakdown of families and can support organized crime. Trafficking can occur everywhere. Human trafficking and human smuggling are related to one another, but different crimes. The difference between smuggling and trafficking is that smuggling is the illegal movement of someone across a border while trafficking is the illegal exploitation of a person.
Slavery in the United Sates ended in the nineteenth century due to the Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln. Sadly, that was only the end of legal slavery. Today a modern form a slavery still continues not only in the United Sates but other countries as well. Some forms of modern slavery are human trafficking, forced marriage, and forced labor. According to Employee Relations Law Journal “slavery is where ownership is exercised over a person, where individuals are coerced into providing their services or do so under threat of a penalty.”(Whincup, Garbett, & McNicholas Spring 2014 65)
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.
Slavery, the keeping of slaves as a practice or institution, has held a grim but important role in America’s history. Since the founding of the United States, slavery has been a moral and human rights issue that citizens have argued over to the point of war. To most Americans, the day slavery ended was January 1st, 1863-the day President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation and freed all slaves within America’s borders. However slavery never did end-and is in fact at an all time high as of 2016. Despite the ban on slavery over one
“Human trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, and the transport of people within countries for sexual exploitation, forced labor, and/or organ donating.” (Gale) “Slavery is the condition in which one or more persons is owned as property by another and is under the owner’s control.” (American Heritage Dictionary) Trafficked people who are often regarded as disposable, are often used for these various reasons. Although, many believe slavery ended with the Thirteenth Amendment, slavery still exists in 2017. In order to understand that human trafficking is a form of slavery, one needs to examine what it is, the effects, and the solutions.
When we hear the word slavery our mind paints a picture of colonial America down in the South with big plantation houses harvesting wheat, with workers being unpaid and unfairly treated. At this time in our county we were struggling with the idea of equality for all. America has come a long way from those days but not with out a fight. Abraham Lincoln, the Civil Rights moment and free and public education has been addressed. Today, we face a new conflicts and a different type of slavery. Slavery and sex trafficking is occurring not just abroad but at home as well. In 2004, “800,000 to 9000,000 men women and children are trafficked across international borders every year, including 18,000 to 20,000 in the US. Worldwide slavery is in the
Human trafficking is modern-day slavery and involves the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act (Homeland).