Sex trafficking is human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. It has been called a form of modern slavery because of the way victims are forced into sexual acts non-consensually, in a form of sexual slavery. Perpetrators of the crime are called sex traffickers or pimps—people who manipulate victims to engage in various forms of commercial sex with paying customers. Sex traffickers use force, fraud, and coercion as they recruit, transport, and provide their victims as prostitutes. Sometimes victims are brought into a situation of dependency on their trafficker(s), financially or emotionally. Every aspect of sex trafficking is considered a crime, from acquisition to transportation and exploitation of victims. This includes any sexual exploitation of adults or minors, including child sex tourism (CST) and domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST).
Christian Care Foundation for Children with Disabilities (CCD) is a non-governmental organization in Thailand. It was established in 1986 by Christian Outreach for Relief & Development (CORD), UK. Located in Nonthaburi, north of Bangkok.
The Development and Education Programme for Daughters and Communities (DEPDC) is a non-profit, community-based NGO working in Thailand to prevent child exploitation and prostitution and defend the rights of minors. The DEP, later the DEPDC, was founded in 1988 by Sampop Jantraka, as a response to the practice of selling young children into the sex industry. Women and children of Thai nationality are being increasingly victimized, but additionally and especially vulnerable to this type of exploitation are children of refugee, or "stateless", status, who have no citizenship and therefore no access to education, health care or legitimate work opportunities. DEPDC offers free education, vocational training, and full-time accommodation for young girls and boys, and helps combat human trafficking in the Mekong sub-region.
Efforts to crack down on human trafficking in Russia focus not only on the men, women, and children who are illegally shipped out of Russia to undergo forced labor and sexual exploitation in other countries, but also those who are illegally brought into Russia from abroad. The Government of the Russian Federation has made significant progress in this area over the past decade, but a report commissioned by the United States Department of State in 2010 concluded that much more needed to be done before Russia could be taken off its Tier 3 watchlist. U.S. State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons placed the country in "Tier 3" in 2017.
Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST) is a Los Angeles-based anti-human trafficking organization. Through legal, social, and advocacy services, CAST helps rehabilitate survivors of human trafficking, raises awareness, and affects legislation and public policy surrounding human trafficking.
In the United States, human trafficking tends to occur around international travel hubs with large immigrant populations, notably in California, Texas, and Georgia. The U.S. Justice Department estimates that 35,500–170,500 people enter illegally into the country every year. The 2016 Global Slavery Index estimates that, including U.S. citizens and immigrants, 57,700 people worldwide are victims of human trafficking. Those trafficked include young children, teenagers, men, and women and can be domestic citizens or foreign nationals.
Shared Hope International (SHI) is a non-profit, non-governmental, Christian organization that exists to prevent sex trafficking and restore and bring justice to women and children who have been victimized through sex trafficking. SHI is part of a worldwide effort to prevent and eradicate sex trafficking and slavery. The organization operates programs in the United States, India, Nepal, and Jamaica. Shared Hope leads awareness and training, prevention strategies, restorative care, research, and policy initiatives to mobilize a national network of protection for victims.
Transnational efforts to prevent human trafficking are being made to prevent human trafficking in specific countries and around the world.
Sompop Jantraka is a Thai activist who has spent over twenty-three years rescuing children from exploitative labour or child trafficking.
Belgium is a source, destination, and transit country for men, women, and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced labor and forced prostitution. Victims originate in Eastern Europe, Africa, East Asia, as well as Brazil and India. Some victims are smuggled through Belgium to other European countries, where they are subjected to forced labor and forced prostitution. Male victims are subjected to forced labor and exploitation in restaurants, bars, sweatshops, horticulture sites, fruit farms, construction sites, and retail shops. There were reportedly seven Belgian women subjected to forced prostitution in Luxembourg in 2009. According to a 2009 ECPAT Report, the majority of girls and children subjected to forced prostitution in Belgium originate from Balkan and CIS countries, Eastern Europe, Asia and West Africa ; some young foreign boys are exploited in prostitution in major cities in the country. Local observers also report that a large portion of children trafficked in Belgium are unaccompanied, vulnerable asylum seekers and refugees. Criminal organizations from Thailand use Thai massage parlors in Belgium, which are run by Belgian managers, to sexually exploit young Thai women. These networks are involved in human smuggling and trafficking to exploit victims economically and sexually. Belgium is not only a destination country, but also a transit country for children to be transported to other European country destinations.
Nigeria is a source, transit, and destination country for women and children subjected to trafficking in persons including forced labour and forced prostitution. The U.S. State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons placed the country in "Tier 2 Watchlist" in 2017. Trafficked people, particularly women and children, are recruited from within and outside the country's borders – for involuntary domestic servitude, sexual exploitation, street hawking, domestic servitude, mining, begging etc. Some are taken from Nigeria to other West and Central African countries, primarily Gabon, Cameroon, Ghana, Chad, Benin, Togo, Niger, Burkina Faso, and the Gambia, for the same purposes. Children from other West African states like Benin, Togo, and Ghana – where Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) rules allow for easy entry – are also forced to work in Nigeria, and some are subjected to hazardous jobs in Nigeria's granite mines. Europe, especially Italy and Russia, the Middle East and North Africa, are prime destinations for forced prostitution.Nigerians accounted for 21% of the 181,000 migrants that arrived in Italy through the Mediterranean in 2016 and about 21,000 Nigerian women and girls have been trafficked to Italy since 2015.
Malaysia is a destination and a source and transit country for women and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically conditions of forced prostitution and for men, women, and children who are in conditions of forced labour.
Mauritius is not a major source for children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically conditions of forced prostitution within the country. Secondary school-age girls and, to a lesser extent, younger girls from all areas of the country, including from Rodrigues Island, are induced into prostitution, often by their peers, family members, or businessmen offering other forms of employment. Taxi drivers are known to provide transportation and introductions for both the girls and the clients. Girls and boys whose mothers engage in prostitution are reportedly forced into prostitution at a young age. Some drug-addicted women are forced into prostitution by their boyfriends, who serve as their pimps. In Great Britain, two Malagasy nationals were convicted in 2009 of holding a small number of Mauritian nationals, as well as citizens of other countries, in conditions of forced labor; this appears to be an isolated case of transnational human trafficking involving Mauritian citizens. Students from all over the world are forced into prostitution within the country.
Myanmar is a breeding ground for men, women, and children who are subjected to human trafficking, specifically forced labor, and for women and children, forced prostitution in other countries. Children of Myanmar are subjected to forced labour as sellers and beggars in Thailand. Many men, women, and children from Thailand, Malaysia, China, Bangladesh, India, and South Korea who migrate abroad for work are trafficked into conditions of forced or bonded labor or commercial sexual exploitation. Economic conditions within Myanmar have led to the increased legal and illegal migration of citizens regionally and internationally, often to destinations as far from Myanmar as the Middle East.
Sex trafficking is defined as the transportation of persons by means of coercion, deception and/or forced into exploitative and slavery-like conditions and is commonly associated with organized crime.
Unlikely Heroes is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that rescues, restores, and rehabilitates child victims of sex slavery around the world. Since its founding in 2011 by Erica Greve, Unlikely Heroes has rescued hundreds of children who are then placed in one of their seven residential facilities, each offering rescued children housing, safety, food, medical care, education, life skills training, and therapy.
Sex trafficking in China is human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation and slavery that occurs in the People's Republic of China. China, the world's most populous country, has the second highest number of human trafficking victims in the world. It is a country of origin, destination, and transit for sexually trafficked persons.
