Running head: SEX TRAFFICKING: METHODS AND DRIVING FORCES 1
Sex Trafficking:
Methods and Driving Forces
Wayland Baptist University
SEX TRAFFICKING: METHODS AND DRIVING FORCES 2
Abstract
Human trafficking, also called trafficking in persons, is
affecting the world. From counties like Thailand, India, Africa,
to even the United Sates sex trafficking has grown tremendously
in the past decade. This multi-billion dollar industry deceives,
corrupts, and ruins the lives of every woman, man, and child
involved. Each victim may experience major health issues,
physical torture, and emotional abuse; but all victims lose their
freedom. They don’t have a choice of what they do, where they
go, or who they are with. They lose all right to make a decision
for themselves. Traffickers use different methods to find their
victims such as false front agencies, local sex industries,
abduction, or poverty. The risk of being caught is low, and the
profits are high. As long as the profits are high, sex
trafficking will continue. This paper will discuss the different
methods traffickers are using to find their victims, and the
driving forces that leads people to traffic.
SEX TRAFFICKING: METHODS AND DRIVING FORCES 3
Sex Trafficking: Methods and Driving Forces
In 1865 Congress passed the 13th amendment that states
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a
punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly
convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place
subject to their jurisdiction.” The exact opposite is happening
in the U.S. through human trafficking.
The practice of human trafficking has become a worldwide
epidemic. Human trafficking consists of the trade of human beings
who are used for their organs, labor, or services (Hodge, 2008).
Human trafficking is “the recruitment, harboring, transportation,
provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services,
through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of
subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or
slavery“(Department of State, 2010, p. 8; Batsyukova, 2007, p.
47; Moynihan, 2006, p. 100 Shelley, 2003, p. 120). It involves
the deceiving another for labor, or sex (Shirt & Webber, 2004).
What is the driving force of sex trafficking?
Background
Sex trafficking is nothing new though, since the nineteenth
century it has been a problem. Back then it was called “white
slave trade” (Shelley, 2003, p. 120), except now its illegal
(Arvanitidis, 2007). Human trafficking has grown significantly in
the past decade. According to the U.S. Department of State, over
SEX TRAFFICKING: METHODS AND DRIVING FORCES 4
12 million women and children are trafficked, and 18,000 are
trafficked into the US each year (2010; Shirk & Webber, 2004).
Throughout the world it is estimated that 27 million are involved
in slavery, and the human trafficking industry has become an
industry bringing in more than $12 billion a year (Moynihan,
2006).
Women who are victims of trafficking are in danger of being
raped, beaten, tortured, starved, and abused emotionally and
physically (Yen, 2008; Shirk & Webber, 2004). It also affects
their future, family, and life (Moynihan, 2006). Emotionally
they can experience depression, suicidal thoughts, anxiety and
