Taken, is an action packed movie starring Liam Neeson, which was released in 2008. The story line is based on two young girls who travel to Paris on a trip. Upon arriving in Paris they are befriended by a man who leads them into the hands of traffickers. The girls are addicted to drugs and sexually exploited, in the web of make-shift brothels. Fictional as it may be, it depicts the vivid truth about young girls traveling on their own to other countries and being kidnapped. Although Hollywood has had its way with the manuscript, I feel the movie sheds light on how easy young woman can be compromised. The movie also shows how easy a person could vanish. Although this movie did have a happy ending for one of the girls, the other disappeared never to be heard from again. It is important to understand that there are many ways to define trafficking; this story line only depicts one. In this blog I will define the crime “Human Trafficking”, as well as discuss how trafficking varies. I will discuss details of the trafficking business, statistics regarding aspects of this crime and I will discuss this crime through the lens of different theories which will give meaning to the growth of this lucrative business.
Men, woman and children fall victim to traffickers each day. Every three seconds another victim is lost to the world of trafficking. Trafficking touches every corner of the earth from Taiwan to Georgia. In the hands of the trafficker, victims are sexually exploited, held captive and at times murdered, at times they are left to die at the hands of a sexually transmitted disease. Human right violations plague this lucrative, booming industry of people selling people. Although many activists spend their lives fighting to save at least one victim, we can’t help but wonder if we could do more. In a world in which trafficking occurs so frequently, the conviction rate illustrates how unrecognized this crime is. In 2006 the United Nations statistics report showed that only 3,160 convictions were reported throughout the world. Could it be that we as a society simply choose not to acknowledge the phenomena or is it so difficult to implement policies that we continue to minimize the issue at hand.
It is imperative to understand that victims of trafficking range from all walks of life. The victims of this crime include men, woman and children. According to the Polaris Project (2008), there were over 27 million people in some form of modern-day slavery. Of those people, 800,000 are trafficked over our world’s borders. Woman and children are the highest rated victims in human trafficking for sexual purposes. Woman are either lured into this business with promise for work, opportunities to live in the United States or some are simply taken in exchange for money. At times, children are even sold by their parents directly to the traffickers. According to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center, 80% of all trafficking victims are woman and children, among those are the one million children who are sexually exploited every year. In the next few months I will cover topics such as statistics, local and international trafficking, profiling of the offender and laws in place surrounding human trafficking. I hope that you are as intrigued by this phenomenon as I am.
Bienstock, R. E., & Golubev, F. (Producers), & Bienstock, R. E. (Director). (2005). Sex Slaves
[Video file]. Retrieved from
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The Fact of Tourism, 2005
Yea, S. (2010). Human Trafficking - A Geographical Perspective. Geodate, 23(3), 2-6. Retrieved
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