Who Are Targeted and How?

This image shows all the women and children that have gone missing

and are suspected to be in the sex slave industry.

Image from arabsola.com

Human trafficking affects both men and women, but women and children seem to dominate the victimology demographics (Stoica). Stoica explains how infants are target because they are defenseless. They are kidnapped off the streets and taken into captivity most times smuggled out the country. They are manipulated to participate in child pornography, prostitution, or begging and theft (Stoica). According to Hepburn and Simon, women make up 98% of human trafficking victims forced into sex slaves while men make up only 2%. Children on the other hand make up between 40-50% of the sex slave industry. The International Labor Office and other organizations concluded that 12.3 million people fall victims of forced labor and commercial sex globally at any time which 32 % is for purely commercial sex (Hepburn & Simon).
           

This picture is a letter sent to young women offering them a summer job.
Which was later discovered that it was a trap to lure young girls to an empty office.
Image from Snopes.com

Victims are lured in various ways such as job offerings, modeling promises, by a lover or

even friend, and in some severe cases a family member (Miller 71). These women are most vulnerable mainly because of the situation on their countries or families. Traffickers or “recruiters” promise victims a better life at another place usually another country. They offer the victims marriage, domestic work, or any type of paid work to lure them out of their countries into another where they are forced into prostitution. Miller also claims that the use of cell phones can expand the reach of human trafficking by facilitating communication in a variety of ways (Miller 71-72). 

Works Cited:

Hepburn, Stephanie, and Rita J. Simon. "Hidden in Plain Sight: Human Trafficking in the United States."Gender Issues 27.1-2 (2010): 1-26. ProQuest. Web. 20 July 2015.

Stoica, Anghel. "Again about the Trafficking in Human Beings." Juridical Current 14.2 (2011): 121-31. Print.

Miller, John R. "Slave Trade." Harvard International Review 27.4 (2006): 70-3. ProQuest. Web. 15 July 2015.