2. Hey, your Toyota is partly made by slaves

3. Human Trafficking: The Movie

4. Human Trafficking: A Reflection

5. What If Her Name Were ASCII? — comment.

I’m a little embarassed to say that while I thought human trafficking was a terrible, terrible thing–I didn’t really feel it. It’s kind of like one of those, “Oh, well, it’s not happening here or to me or to anyone I know so it’s terrible but it’s not something I’m going to dwell on.” I think a lot of people are like this.

After looking at articles upon articles of horrific stories about women and children being abused, trafficked and used as property, it’s a little disheartening to realize how evil humans are. This is not to say that all humans are evil but it’s hard to read one good thing (like women escaping from their captors) when there are so many more stories about how these people’s hopes are taken advantage of and they’re sold like cattle.

It’s interesting to note how my thoughts on anti-human trafficking campaigns started and ended. At the beginning, my thoughts on these campaigns were something along the lines of “Those people are cool” and “go them.” I mean to say that while I thought it was a noble effort and I applauded these individuals, there was a slim chance that I’d go join one and be a part of their organization. Sure, I thought they were doing an awesome job but it’s not something I wanted to run and join. In the middle of the semester, I think this this where I was truly at my lowest. It’s hard to imagine what these people are going through and I thought about how it seemed like when police shut down one human trafficking ring, three more sprang up. What was the use of these anti-human trafficking campaigns when they weren’t working because there’s STILL human trafficking. I almost, almost thought that they should give up.

This last part is important because it finally clicked. The reason that these campaigns weren’t working and that three more were popping up when one shut down is because people thought like I did. They’re so far removed that while they believe it’s a terrible thing, they’re not going to join because it doesn’t affect them personally. Another reasons these campaigns don’t work is because of how I felt at the middle of the semester–hopeless and compelled to give up. I think people need to wake up and realize that there are HORRIBLE people out there and if you sit back and let everyone else do the work, we won’t ever get rid of human trafficking. Until everyone does something about this, it won’t work and the only way to get everyone to do something is to campaign.

I get it now. So what are you waiting for? I joined a campaign. Did you?

Part 1 of Looking for the Indicators

(It’s actually kind of poor acting but whatever.)

800,000: Number of persons trafficked across international borders each year

17,500: Number of foreign nationals who are trafficked into the U.S. every year

200,000: Number of American children who are at high risk for commercial sexual exploitation

1: Percent of foreign national trafficked victims officially identified and assisted in the US

91: Number of cities in the United States with reported cases of trafficking

50: Percent of all victims are children

13: Average age of first being prostituted

$50 million: US Government budget for efforts against human trafficking

$19 billion: US Government budget for efforts against drug trafficking

If you didn’t catch that. It’s 50 MILLION versus 19 BILLION. Hello? Humans?

Source but he got it from a bunch of different sources and I looked at all of them and found the same statistics. His sources were from Anti-Slavery International, Department of State, Department of Justice, ECPAT USA, and Free the Slaves

There’s really not much to it because it’s mainly a search engine but! I’ll share with you something I found. It’s a 10 minute youtube video from… someone. It’s definitely NOT for the squeamish as it’s got some pretty gruesome pictures but it’s powerful nonetheless.

Maribel Rodriguez is accused of bringing 12 women, 3 of them minors, to America and using them as street prostitutes to pay off their smuggling fee. Their story is like all the other stories I’ve read. One person lures peope with the promise of starting over in a new country–usually the American dream–but before they can do that, they have to pay off their fee with their bodies.

Maribel Rodriguez is on the FBI’s wanted list and the FBI says,”The reason you want someone on the most wanted list is to get their name out to the public and have the public help in their capture.” The FBI is looking for the residence of the LA area to help them out and is offering a $10,000 reward.

Although this looks like a usual trafficking incident, there’s a little twist.

To keep the police and FBI off her trail, Rodriguez regularly would take the girls to local botanicas.

“She felt that going to individuals that practiced sanataria or witchcraft would help cleanse herself and cleanse her victims,” Loosie said.

The FBI also believes she had the so-called witches on her pay roll. After reading the smuggled girls tarot cards, Maribel would find out which girls were planning escape.

Interesting.

I think I’m on a video kick.

It’s 250 pages long and gives scenarios and talks about what we should do. It gives facts and explains in layman’s terms what’s happening and how we can prevent this.

I like the way it’s organized. It explains the roots, the consequences, the people involved, gray areas and numerous numbers and resources.

It’s basically a gigantic “how-to”.