Abstract

Sex slaves have been prevalent since Greek times and today it continues to thrive. The kidnapping and selling of women and children is taking place all over the world to satisfy people’s sexual desires. The problem is that this issue lies on a lot of borders, be it other countries, government, poverty, economy, war, extortion, and demand. An estimated 20,000 people are trafficked into the United States each year. Other countries have strict laws against sex slavery while others do nothing and rather allow it. The reason people use sex slaves because they don't have to pay their people and it receives a lot of demand from other countries (helping the economy). In the past decade the Trafficking Victims Protection Act was created in the US. It was meant to protect these victims but instead it gives violators an advantage in the court since they have to prove that it happened. The other big problem is the laxness of the border. Some of the officials receive bribes from traffickers. It isn't considered a major crime or concern in the United States. There has been some progress with catching these people but there isn't enough work being done to catch them all.

What we need to do is fix the issue here in the US, so that other countries can follow us on getting rid of this barbaric tradition of human violation. There are ways like letting people know about the situation through movies, books, articles, and PSA but the best way to make an impact is to make laws in the United States that help the situation. We could change the TVPA Act to allow victim's responses as evidence against the smugglers rather than evidence of smuggling and prostitution. We could have more cases examined and have people screened thoroughly at the border. But the most helpful is people speaking up in their neighborhoods and reporting it. So the plan is to get people to do what they can to help these people.