Essay Sample on Sex Trafficking: Exploitation of Women & Girls on the Rise

Introduction

Over the past decade, the sexual abuse of women and underage girls has increased rampantly. Young women have been lured into forced prostitution in the name of better jobs. The form of misuse of women for financial gains is known as sex trafficking. It is a type of human trafficking where pimps benefit from commercial sexual abuse of women and underage girls. Traffickers and pimps identify, study, attract and trap their victims into commercial sex trafficking. In the United States, the traffickers exploit vulnerable women through abduction, lying to the victims, or by use of some other forms of psychological coercion. The paper examines key factors that promote sex trafficking.

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Various factors are promoting sex trafficking. One of these factors is corruption. Corruption creates a fertile ground for sex trafficking. It occurs at all stages of sex trafficking. For example, sex trafficking victims are usually transported from the area where they are recruited to the place for their exploitation, having crossed several police roadblocks and barriers. For traffickers and pimps to filter through these barriers, they must be working with corrupt officers. Nevertheless, the victims live in brothels that usually run legally. For this to happen, someone benefiting from trafficking must close an eye on what goes on in these brothels. According to the US National Human Trafficking reports, less than one out of every ten traffickers get prosecuted due to corruption (Walker, Gaviria, & Gopal, 2018). Therefore, corruption plays a critical role in facilitating sex trafficking by creating an opportunity for victims to be transported across states or countries without detection or required to provide legal documentation.

Economic hardship is another cause of human and sex trafficking. Many sex trafficking victims are young women, usually in their teenage age who are lured and trapped into forced prostitution following promises of better well-paying jobs. The women mostly come from the low-income family background. They also lack the education to help them obtain better jobs. As a result, they end up at the mercies of the pimps who introduce them into forced prostitution. According to the statistics of the State Department, about 15,000 to 50,000 young women and girls are victims of sex trafficking annually (Miller-Perrin, & Wurtele, 2017). Over sixty percent of these figures are women from low-income family backgrounds. Statistics also show that poor, uneducated girls from Mexico end up in Las Vegas, where they work as forced prostitutes.

Political instability, civil unrest, as well as weak administrations, contributes to the increased sex trafficking. Political instability and civil unrest create a refugee problem. Most of the refugees find it hard to survive in the destination countries. They end up engaging in illegal practices such as drugs and sex trafficking. Nevertheless, weak governments promote the growth of sex trafficking since the business is controlled by cartel organizations that weak governments cannot control (Clark, 2016). Lack of human rights advocates in some countries due to weak governments also promotes sex trafficking.

Social issues such as family disruption or dysfunction also contribute to sex trafficking. A good number of sex trafficking victims are young girls who grew up in unstable families. They tend to run away from abusive family relationships. For example, children growing up in families where their parents are always fighting. These children run away from home to the streets in pursuit of peace of mind. They end up in the hands of traffickers and pimps who promise them better housing and jobs only to end up into forced prostitution.

Conclusion

In conclusion, sex trafficking is the sexual exploitation of young girls and women for financial gain. The vice is a booming illegal business in various countries. Multiple factors contribute to the rampant increase in sex trafficking. These factors include corruption, poverty and lack of education, political instability and social issues among others.

References

Clark, J. (2016). Sex trafficking in Mexico: the Nexus between poverty, violence against women, and gender inequalities. In Borderline Slavery (pp. 109-124). Routledge.

Miller-Perrin, C., & Wurtele, S. K. (2017). Sex trafficking and the commercial sexual exploitation of children. Women & Therapy, 40(1-2), 123-151.

Walker, L., Gaviria, G., & Gopal, K. (Eds.). (2018). Handbook of Sex Trafficking: Feminist Transnational Perspectives. Springer.