Human Trafficking and Sexual Slavery
Human Trafficking and Sexual Slavery
Samantha Kimble
09/30/2017 SOCW 510
Sexual slavery and human trafficking is the modern-day form of slavery. These are both severe human rights violations. Human trafficking in terms of international law means the act of recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons for exploitation purposes by threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of authority or position of vulnerability or the giving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person. Exploitation includes, at least, the exploitation of prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs (Aronowitz, 2009; Winterdyk & Reichel, 2010). Human trafficking and sexual slavery can and do go hand in hand. Therefore, most human trafficking involves forcing the victim to be some sort of sexual slave, whether it is prostitution or being sold on the sex trade.
“Megan Stephens” was a 14-year-old girl from England when she went on vacation in Greece. “Megan” was young and vulnerable while in Greece, she was trafficked into the sex industry and spent six years as a prostitute (Day, 2015). At the age of 14 “Megan” was desperate to be loved by someone. So, when she was at a local bar, in Greece, she met a man from Albanian. It only took a couple days and she was in love, or at least thought she was. “Megan” begged her mother to let her stay and live with her new boyfriend. Her mother decided to let her move in with her new-found love, while she moved in with hers. Eventually, her new boyfriend turned into someone else. He moved her to another area with the hopes of making more money working in a “café”. “Megan’s” new boyfriend had sent her out to be a prostitute. Very rapidly she was engulfed in this dark, tragic life with no way out. She had become a sexual slave within a human trafficking ring. After many years in this life style she suffered a psychotic break, it landed her in a mental hospital and that was the beginning of the end. It only took a few weeks and “Megan” was a slave, was completely under someone’s control, and being forced to have up to 110 men a day just so that she could live. A similar story was the story of Irena. She was a young woman from Ukraine who was tricked by someone online. They offered her a better life and more money if she would just move with them. She soon found herself in Croatia an being forced to be a prostitute in a brothel for soldiers. It was not until she told some of the soldiers what had happened to her did she finally get to leave the brothel and gain her freedom (Reichert, 2006). These types of stories are something that happen every day, every hour, and every minute of the day.
When considering human rights violations human trafficking and sexual slavery are at the very top of the list. Forcing woman, men, and children to engage in sex with people they are not willing to engage in sex with violates everything sacred to each individual. Too often, the phrase “human rights” gets tossed around like a verbal football, as if everyone automatically knows what human rights mean and can instinctively play the game without any practice. In reality, understanding human rights takes a lot more effort than simply referring to countries like China, Cuba, or Iran and their seemingly obvious human rights violations. Human rights include a wide variety of concepts and cover many areas of the human condition. While no single definition could possibly cover the entire gamut of what human rights involve, the idea of human rights can generally be defined as those rights, which are inherent in our nature and without which we cannot live as human beings. Human rights and fundamental freedoms allow us to