Dana Hoskins

Mrs. Little

English Comp 1

04/10/2019

Human Trafficking “Survivor Stories”

United States. “Sexual Exploitation and Sex Trafficking of Minors.” Youth.Gov, United States

Government; 04/08/2019. Https://Youth.gov/youth-topics/sexual-explotation-and

Sex-trafficking.

This article according to a recently released article by the institute of Medicine

(IOC), and The National Research Council (IRC). In the United States, the exploitation of

child sex trafficking is commonly over-looked, misunderstood, and under addressed forms

of child of child abuse. The IOC/NRC focused on a wide range, from individual to societal.

This article gives me a range of different views to identify risk factors, resources and

history of systems involvement (e.g., juvenile justice, child welfare).

The IOC/NRC report defines commercial sexual exploitation (i.e., survival sex) and

sex trafficking (i.e., prostitution) of minors as a range of crimes that includes

1, recruitment, enticing, harboring and transporting, providing, obtaining, and/or

maintaining (acts that constitute trafficking) a minor for the purpose of commercial sexual

exploitations;

2, exploiting a minor through prostitution;

3, exploiting a minor through survival sex (exchanging sex/sexual acts for money or

something of value, such as shelter, food, or drugs);

4, exploiting a minor through sex tourism; and

5, exploiting a minor by having her or him perform in sexual venues (e.g., peep shows, strip

clubs). The IOC/NRC have identified risk factors for young people’s involvement in sexual

exploitation and sex trafficking, some examples of individual risks are the history of child

abuse, neglect, and mistreatment, homeless, runaway, or “throwaway youth”. LGBT youth,

youth, who have had problems with the police: family conflict, peer pressure, social norms,

social isolation, and gang involvement. The lack of awareness, resources about the

sexualization of children society today is not well informed on the exploitation of children.

Many of us don’t take the time to even educate ourselves about this global issue that is

plaguing our society.

Human Trafficking Survivor Stories, http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/10/americas/

Freedom-project-Mexico-trafficking-survivors/index.html

Karla Jacinto by her own estimates, 43,200 is the number of times she was raped

after falling pray to traffickers. She endured up to 30 men a day, seven days a week, for the

best part of four years-43, 200. This story will highlight the brutal realities of human

trafficking in Mexico and the United States, an underworld that has destroyed the lives of

so many Mexican girls like Kara. Human Trafficking has become such a lucrative and

prevalent, that it knows no borders and links towns in Central Mexico with cities like

Atlanta and New York.

Tenancingo according to US and Mexican officials say that this town is the major

source of Human Trafficking ring, victims are forced in to prostitution. Tenanancingo,

Mexico has a population of about 13,000, Kara was abused for as long as she can remember

and rejected by her mother. At the age of 12 she was lured away by a trafficker, by using

kind words and a nice car. Even though it has a population of 13,000 it has an oversized
reputation when it comes to prostitution and pimping. This is what the town does. Karla

says that she was waiting for some friends near a subway station in Mexico City, when a

little boy selling sweets came up to her, telling her somebody was sending her a piece of

candy as a gift. The trafficker won her over by telling her he was abused as a boy; this

calmed her since she was abused as a young girl as well. He used a wooing method to win

her trust. Traffickers are very cunning and manipulative they will be patient most of the

time. Not all traffickers are the same some will just take you and not think twice. The red

flags were everywhere Karla said, but she just did not have the courage to ask. When she

finally did her Trafficker told her they were pimps a few days later he started telling her

everything she had to do; the positions, how much I need to charge, the things she had to

do with the clients and for how long, how she was to treat them and how she had to talk to

them so that they would give her more money. Her Trafficker pulled her trust in by treating

her as a girlfriend and when he felt he had her trustfully he ripped her heart out, and

started pimping her.

For four years she went through hell. The first time she was forced to work as a

prostitute she was taken to Guadalajara, one of Mexico’s largest cities. Kara would work the

streets from 10 am to midnight. In Guadalajara where they stayed for one week she was

forced to sleep with 20 men a day. Kara would be crying and had to close her eyes so they

wouldn’t see. She eventually wound up pregnant and gave birth to a baby girl at the age of

15, a baby fathered by the pimp and he used the child to tighten the noose around Kara, a

way to control her. Kara was rescued in 2008 during an anti-trafficking operation in Mexico

City. Her ordeal lasted four years, she was still a minor when she was rescued, only 16,

when the horror ended. Her testimony on what she went through was used as evidence in
support for H.R. 515 Megan’s Law that mandates U.S. authorities share information

pertaining to American child sex offenders when these convicts attempt to travel aboard.

http://www.antislavery.org/slavery-today/human-trafficking/

Human trafficking involves the recruitment, harboring or transporting people in to a

situation of exploitation through the use of violence, deception or coercion; they are forced

to work against their will. Human trafficking is a word that stands for enslavement, forced

to do awful things against their will such as forced labour, begging criminality, domestic

servitude, forced marriage, and organ removal. Contrary to a common miss conception,

people don’t necessarily have to be transported across borders for trafficking to take place.

In fact, transporting or moving the victim doesn’t necessarily define trafficking. When

children are trafficked, no violence or coercion needs to be involved. Simply bringing them

in to exploitative conditions constitutes as trafficking. Taking advantage of the insecurities

in young girls or girls or women in poverty is one of the easy ways a trafficker can get his

victim.

Smuggling or trafficking people often confuse human trafficking and people

smuggling. People smuggling is the illegal movement of people across international borders

for a fee. On arrival, the smuggled person is free. Human trafficking is different. The

trafficker is moving a person for exploitation. There is no need to cross an international

border. Human trafficking occurs at a national level, or even within one community. 51

percent of identified victims of trafficking are women, 28 percent children and 21 percent

men. 72 percent people exploited in the sex industry are women. 63 percent of traffickers

were men and 37 percent women. 43 percent of victims are trafficked domestically within

national borders, (Estimates by The United Nations Office For Drugs and Crime (UNODC)).
What these women and men go through is horrible and degrading. Most of these men or

women are taken at young ages and when I say young I mean young 4 and 5 years old, then

groomed for a life of slavery and prostitution, some of these girls will get pregnant before

the age of 15 and give birth. The United Nations is trying to find a resolution to human

trafficking. Spotting the signs of human trafficking and slavery, making the nation aware of

the signs is very important to helping to resolve the problem. Educate the public, if it would

not have been for writing this paper I would not have the knowledge I have now. Reading

what happens to these girls, organ removal really sticks out in my head. I can not even

imagine the sick twisted mind set that these traffickers, or abductors are in how they even

can do these horrible things to these young girls. Human Trafficking is not just limited to

forigen countries. No state or city is free of the problem Colorado has a major problem in

more than one city or town. Colorado Springs has the most trafficking rings in the state.

Awareness is key to saving these young girls and boys from a lifetime of pain and suffering

or even suicide. The scars that are caused by being degraded and used for sex toys, or slave

work are more powerful and harmful than someone who has not been through it will ever

know.