samerica8

WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN SLAVERY: THE HUMAN COST
Most women who engage in prostitution do so through family, friends or through newspaper
or Internet ads that promise jobs as secretaries, salesperson, waitresses and other jobs.
However, these women soon find out that these jobs do not exist. They are subsequently
taken prisoners and forced into prostitution or other forms of servitude in order to pay off
the debts that they have incurred in order to get to their destination. Quite often they are
sold to brothels for profit and cannot fight for themselves because they are illegal in the
country and lack freedom of action. This type of criminal activity has proven to be quite
profitable. According to Amy O?Neil Richard in ?International Trafficking in Women to the
United States: A Contemporary Manifestation of Slavery and Organized Crime,? a report
written in 1999 for the Center for the Study of Intelligence, in recent cases traffickers have
made US$1 million to US$8 million over a one- to six-year period.21 Further, she states
that in Latin America, profitability is just as lucrative as in other parts of the world. She
cites the example of a Mexican crime family that forced deaf Mexicans to peddle trinkets,
making an astonishing US$8 million in four and a half years. Other Mexicans made US$2.5
million in two and a half years by forcing women into prostitution, with an average client
paying US$22 per 15 minutes.22 Moreover, the United Nations Office of Drug Control and
Crime Prevention states that trafficking of human cargo currently represents a US$5 to
US$7 billion industry.23
The opportunity for such lucrative business has kept criminal networks very much involved
in trafficking, which enables them to capitalize on this form of human slavery. Trafficking,
as opposed to alien smuggling,24 which is structured around short-term profits, relies on
long-term exploitation for monetary gain. The victims, which have invested a significant
amount of money to reach their destination and get set up, have to repay the traffickers
over time, thereby creating a owner-slave type relationship. As a result, they are already
indebted before they find out that the jobs that were promised to them never existed.
Sometimes, girls are talked into marriage under false pretenses and end up being sold as
prostitutes. Usually they are first approached by a friend or sister who is already in the
destination country. Typically there is a combination of local and foreign traffickers.
Women and girls are sold at the port upon arrival to another trafficker. The majority of
women are given false documents thereby erasing their identity and preventing them from
seeking legal action. Once taken, they are held in debt bondage for their travel expenses
and put to work immediately. The documents are taken away and the women are left as
slaves often enduring violence and forced drug consumption. In general, trafficking is
intertwined with other related criminal activities such as extortion, racketeering, money
laundering, bribery, and drug use. It can be part of an organized criminal organization as
was exemplified by the Mexican crime family, or it can be the result of an individual decision
as is so often the case of a parent selling a child?s sexual services for immediate profit.