Modern Slavery

Imagine stopping at the red light, you see this youthful face, standing at the corner of the street. You notice her high heels and rather skimpy clothes and you immediately and consciously register her as a streetwalker. All of a sudden, all the wrongdoings in the world and lack of character notions develop in your head pertaining to her. You see her low morals screaming loud and clear, you see the whore she is. All this thought process going on in your head, and you seeing reality from your own two eyes, a whore standing proud and tall, working the corner ready to sell herself to the next man.

In all your preconceived notions about prostitution, and conspicuous ignorance towards any such individual involved in the sex industry, what you terribly fail to see are bruises on her body, distress and panic on her face, fear in her eyes and a leash around her neck keeping her down and locked in this miserable pit of modern-day slavery. In the olden days, slavery was conventional, people were habitual slave owners who paraded their slaves openly in broad day light as the number of slaves they owned was a show of power and prestige. Today slavery is condemned, the society rejects such horrendous ideas and is believed to be progressive and allied under the banner of equality.

Yet human trafficking for sexual or labor exploitation is a multi-billion-dollar industry, estimated to gross $32 billion per year and to involve 2.5 million victims worldwide at any given time. (Adams, 2011). These atrocious numbers reveal the true picture of our time and are a wake up call for us to get out of our comfort zones and address the human trafficking, which is modern slavery. Back then slavery was openly advertised, today is disguised and hidden from the common eye but is still eroding away at our system. As we continue to view human trafficking as free will prostitution, millions of minors and adults are being coerced to sell themselves as they are constantly being revictimized. Sex Trafficking is defined as the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act. (Kubasek & Herrera, 2015). Pimp controlled prostitution is one of the most brutal forms of human trafficking and it follows a set business model. The pimp/ trafficker is the seller, the john is the buyer and the victims are the commodity which are being sold. To establish a coherent insight into the American sex-industry it is vital to understand how its run. According to Anthony Harris, a convicted sex-trafficker, there are many types of pimps. The boyfriend pimp , who uses love and emotional blackmail along with physical violence to force his victim to become a streetwalker.

There is the druggy pimp who uses addicts to work for him as a payment for drugs. Then there is the worst kind, gorilla pimp such traffickers use sheer fear and intimidation, victims of such pimps are badly battered, starved, tied and chained and sometimes even killed. Tricked is documentary that takes an in-depth survey of all sides of American sex-trade. Pimps are modern day traffickers who widely use the boyfriend-ing in tactic. It is used to lure in minors with tender love and affection. At first, they are showered with gifts and fun dates. Minors who are desperately seeking love, fall quickly into this trap. Young girls looking for love are easily manipulated and get stuck in a web of lies fed to them by these traffickers. Misconceptions lead these 12, 13, 14-year-old girls to submit to these monsters who exploit them, using and abusing them as sex-slaves. One victim of this recalled her experience as it's like being raped over and over and over and over. Another victim that came forward in the documentary was trafficked when she was merely 14 years old. This child was maltreated for ten years before she was rescued. Her pimp terrorized her by instilling guilt, and shame, he used isolation and weekly beatings to maintain his control over the victims which we all minors and therefore he was known as Daddy Daycare.

Pimps are good at their game, they know when you are vulnerable and weak, they very smartly and cautiously lay the trap and once the poor girl in fully under their control, they shut all doors of exit. Severe techniques of mind manipulation are opted by pimps. They create an environment where as time goes by you give up and accept the constant torment as your fate. Threats, violence, isolation and starvation along with 24/7 sexual exploitation, mentally drain and derange the victim. Death threats Contrary to popular belief, there is no business partnership between the trafficker and the victim. These girls are forced to work all day and night, and all the money made goes to the pimp. Pimps have full autonomy over the finances. Most girls are subjected to extremely gruesome beatings if they do not make enough money as they are expected to. According to a former sex-slave s revealed that she had been arrested more than 50 times and never once was she offered help or asked if she needed a way out. This industry runs solely on the exploitation of vulnerabilities (Tricked, 2013).

American jails are the number one hunting grounds for pimps these days. Pimps use jails as recruitment centers for trafficking. As soon as a girl or women is incarcerated, her mugshot, home address, age, charges against her, bail bond information and release date are immediately available online. Traffickers use these profiles to cherry-pick girls to traffic. After they have selected a target, the grooming begins. Anyone can write prisoners letters. Traffickers write letters to girls, who are already in emotional jeopardy. They prey on these very susceptible girls who easily fall for the lies fed to them as they are in dire need of love and human bonding. These new-found pen-pals soon become potential love interests for these women. The care and tender love and the idea of new-found romance helps these depression-struck girls develop infatuations and loyalties to these pimps. The second step that ultimately solidifies this arrangement is money. Prison bank accounts are a key vehicle for recruitment (The Guardian, 2018) This recruitment pattern is not confined to one state but is prevalent all over America. When these women are released from prison these men eagerly await them and traffic them straight out of prison. The same exact pattern causes revictimization.

When a victim is arrested on prostitution charges, a repugnant social stigma gets attached to her. She can no longer find a decent job as all the ills of the society are placed and blamed on her. As long as, victims are being treated as criminals pimps will keep revictimizing these girls. The tainted record comes with traumatizing baggage which is a huge hurdle in the way of starting over. These women cannot get jobs or rent apartments. There are no safety nets for such victims. Fault lines in the criminal justice system mean that women are being released from prison straight into the arms of traffickers (The Guardian, 2018). Revictimization is a wide-spread phenomenon, according to United Nations office on Drugs and Crime. It is of immense need and importance to understand and view human trafficking as a human rights violation and help protect victims to prevent revictimization. A human rights approach focuses on the victim of a crime as a person whose rights have been violated as opposed to a criminal justice approach, which focuses on punishing the perpetrator of the crime. (Adams, 2011)

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