Thaqawah Philander
History 1000C
Professor A.Bozian
Wednesday December 19th, 2018
Sex Trafficking
Assuming that we have all watched the movie “Taken” starring the famous actor named Liam Nelson, when we think of this movie what do we think of? Some would say abduction, but going into the deeper meaning around the movie, it is mainly about sex trafficking. Though many people may not think that this only happens outside of the United States and mainly in foreign countries, the truth is this is considered to be a worldwide issue.As of today, sex trafficking if growing instantly and many are not considering the fact that almost 40 million people is being sex trafficked. The problems of racism, government policies, the president, the economy, etc. is what overshadow the fact that sex trafficking is growing tremendously. There are also so many misconceptions when it comes to thinking about sex trafficking. This is mainly regarding the fact that people who are taken are only women and children (18 years or younger) and that in order to be apart of sex trafficking many people have a clear understanding that is with people who is dealing with making crimes. In most cases, sex trafficking have all genders, from children all the way to adults. There is no sexual discrimination within this topic at all. Moreover, when we hear the word “trafficking”, though our mind may draw the attention of sex, there is other different types. For example, Labor, Medical, Human and etc. Human trafficking and sex trafficking can be seen as the same thing, but in most cases, they both have different effects of people. In other words, mainly when it comes with sex trafficking, it deals with both prostitution and poronography, which could lead to a person having physical, emotional and psychological distress. Globally, this affects 3.8 million adults, and 1.0 million children. Yet most of the people who are caught up with sex trafficking, is mainly women and girls. In the modern world today, people are under the great impression of sex trafficking starting since slavery and on top of that continued even after “slavery was abolished”.
Starting in the 1400s, it is known that this is when sex trafficking started to occur. Mainly from the start of the European Slave Trade, which took place in Africa. From the 16th century to the 19th century, the European Slave Trade was most famous for its trade. Up to 12 million slaves were moved from Africa to America. Other things were traded, such as, sugar and coffee (Americas to Europe), arms, textiles, and wine (Europe to Africa), and mainly slaves (Africa to the Americas). This was also known as the Triangular Trade. Yet, the first time anyone had seen people being transported to another location and being used as slaves was with the European. In other words, the Portuguese were taking Africans and sending them to Portugal and using them as slaves, by putting them on plantations. In 1562, the British joined with the European slave trade and they also began to move Africans to another location and use them as slaves. Africans were being brought to America, which there was seen to be a increment of people on plantations. Because of this slave trade, it left Africa is distraught. In other words, population decreased, the fear the Europeans would come back and try to capture more, and most importantly, the economics in Africa decreased greatly. In fact, the people who were taken, were women who were in there younger years and young boys. Yet, they left behind people who they knew wouldn’t be much help to them, for example, the elderly, disabled, and like stated before people would not help them proper with their economy. This goes back to sex trafficking because as they took the women from Africa, while they were on the voyage to America, they were being sexually abused. As we can see, they were not only captured, but they were also forced to have sex. People were also dying on this ship and thrown overboard. But, while this was occurring, in the 1600s, other countries were joining and taking part in the European slave trade, such as, countries in North America, France, Sweden, Denmark, and Spain.
As the slave trade continued from the 16th century to the 19th century, in 1904, there was an agreement that was put out and signed. It was known as the International Agreement for the Suppression of “White Slave Traffic”. The reason for this agreement being out was to protect women, it didn’t matter the age either (young or old) from being taken and used within the “White Slave Trade”. Outsiders who were looking in got the understanding that when you thought of “white slavery” it meant that white women who were looking for work aboard were being used for there bodies, in other words, sex trade, by being forced or mislead, but the agreement made white women less than a target when it came to trafficking. Furthermore, in 1927, after World World II, the League of Nations was starting to be created. The main goal of the League of Nations was to have peace and one of the goals they focused on was sex trafficking, as well as human trafficking. The first thing they started with was changing the provision that International Agreement for the Suppression of “White Slave Traffic”had. What this meant was instead of it being just for white women, they opened it to women and children. In other words, there was no discrimination when it came to any race when it came to this agreement, mainly, due to the fact, that the League of Nations revised the agreement and changed it from “white slavery” to “traffic in women”. This increased the significance of trafficking to a international issue. Next, the League of Nations, went about looking into depth when it came to finding out where the trafficking was coming from, the East? the West? When they went about looking into this, they looked into how many women were in prostitution, the environment of women who were being sex trafficked, and most importantly, information regarding the people who were in charge of trafficking.
Additionally, in 1932, it was found out that Japan had a system in where they forced women all around Asis in sex slavery. “Comfort places” was a place in which they were housed in. Within these “comfort places”, they were confined and was not able to get out. While they were confined, they all got beatings and were tortured until they couldn’t take anymore, but this only happened if they were not listening and/or going against the rules. Many of the women who were in here had different types of deaths. For example, they either had a disease, didn’t eat enough, exhaustion, and suicide. The women who were inside was not able to escape because of there was barbed wire that was around the entire “comfort place”. This was put into place mainly to reduce further sexually transmitted diseases, and to ensure a isolated group of prostitutes to satisfy Japanese soldiers. Moreover, in 1956, India changed gears and instead of trying to continued sex trafficking, they wanted to stop it. What this meant was India put forth an act named Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act. This act meant to make sexual abuse an offense. In other words, this meant obtaining money from sexual acts, sex trafficking, and or having a place where sexual acts of misuse can be done. Though people did feel as if this act didn’t really help women who were already put into prostitution, but many people were arrested due to partaking in such activities, which the act revoked. Moving on, another occurrence that took place would be the United States holding the fourth World Conference to stop human and sex trafficking. They believed that humans rights was supposed to be a universal thing and people who are put into trafficking are likely to are supposed to have all rights, mainly for their, sex, age, ethnic-origin, nationality, migratory status and so much others, Most importantly, during this meeting it was known to have a great accomplishment. The accomplishment made was the fact that trafficking was noticed on a higher level. Activity was made to make these changes, for example, meetings were made for the topics, such as, slavery, trafficking, laws that would enforce nationally. Help would also go out to people who have been affect not only physically, but also emotionally and psychologically.
Not only were changed made in the 19th century, but it happened within the 20th century, as well. For starters, in 2002, the Polaris Project was put into effect. This was made happened by seniors from Brown University named, Katherine Chon and Derek Elleman. This was started due to them finding a place nearby there school, in which had women and men engaging in prostitution and forced sexual activity. By making this project is was to stop human and sex trafficking. Some things that they did provide was a toll free number in which your able to call if you know anyone being trafficked or if you want to get out of being trafficked. Other things would be to seeking awareness and trying to make trafficking be known that it is a global problem. Nevertheless, even though many people were trying to make awareness, there was more situations that occurred recently, for example, in 2008, it was discovered that there were traffickers who tried to smuggle migrants into Thailand to use them in trafficking, but instead they ended up dying after trying to smuggle them in a seafood container, with no air. Good news was that there was 67 survivors ! This not only opened the eyes to people in Thailand, but also in America. Another issue that took place was in Taiwan. In this situation, it was seen that young females were brought to the U.S illegally and while they were trying to get visas, with the use of there fake passports, they were discovered by the National Immigration Agency that they were from a trafficking group which help up to 75 people.
Sex trafficking has been not only a problem that is foreign countries, but it happens in the United States, as well. Government officials should be looking at this problem as something world wide and not only trying to handle a situation when it occurs. This issue is as big a immigration and voting, in my opinion. How can we try to prevent something, if we don’t awareness. Sex trafficking should be spoken to not only within the government, but in schools to get children's awareness. This is because those are who targeted the most. Some things that could be done to raise awareness is protesting, have fundraisers, working with your local community, meeting with local government representatives, and most importantly, having awareness events.