Do you know statistics about human trafficking in the United States? The industry is worth 32 billion dollars globally, which makes it the third largest criminal industry, creating millions of victims every year.
Human trafficking is a global phenomenon affecting all countries – countries in political and economic transition, underdeveloped countries, and developing countries, war-torn and post-conflict countries, appearing as the country of origin and transit of victims, and economically more developed countries that appear as destination destinations. Did you know that the statistics are so in favor of human traffickers, so we wonder why every criminal doesn’t engage in it? According to the US Department of State, there are over 13 million victims globally, while only 418 cases were pursued about forced labor in 2014. As evidenced by the Cracked article we mentioned earlier, most of the human trafficking in the US pertains to sexual slavery. According to the same report mentioned previously by the US Department of Justice, more than half the victims of the suspected trafficking incidents were below the age of 18. Human trafficking means selling and buying. Keeping a person for its exploitation, as well as any other actions that may be part of that process. Exploitation is always exploited, and operation is always maintained by the use of force, threats, deceit, abuse of power or ill-treatment of an awkward position, abduction or in some other way. When it comes to child trafficking, it does not matter which means is used. We are talking about trafficking in human beings, although there were no elements of threat, coercion, abuse of position, and the like. Also, the victim’s consent to exploitation does not change the fact that it is a human trafficking and that it is a criminal offense. The goal of the human trafficking is to earn money, through exploitation, whether it is sexual exploitation, forced labor, forced begging, obliged to commit crimes, illegal adoption, forced marriages, organ trafficking or some other form. One of the common stereotypes is that traffickers expose their victims exclusively to sexual exploitation and that only women and girls are endangered, and other forms of exploitation, such as labor exploitation, whose victims are most commonly men, are neglected. Although women are most often trafficked and trafficked for sexual exploitation and forced prostitution, trafficking victims may also be men. Men are usually exposed to labor exploitation, but they can be victims and other forms of exploitation.
If you want to read more about statistics about human trafficking in the United States, check Insider’s Monkey list of 16 Statistics About Human Trafficking In The United States and find out more about this interesting topic.
