Imagine a person going to their first day of work. But instead of going to work, they are kidnapped and forced to become sex slaves. This is exactly what happened to a young girl named Brittany. Brittany needed a job and a man told her he had one for her. On the first day of work, the man said he would take her to work. The man then took Brittany to a hotel and drugged her. She was then abused and forced to have sex with numerous men. Fortunately, she was able to escape and contact the authorities (“Survivor Stories”). Say no to plagiarism. Get a Custom Essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get Original Essay Brittany's story is one of thousands of others that victims of sex trafficking are forced to live with. She is one of the lucky few who were able to escape this terrible crime. Unfortunately, sex trafficking is a very real problem here in the United States and current laws and regulations do not adequately address the problem. The U.S. government must pass stronger laws and provide more awareness and training to help end sex trafficking. To fully uncover this problem, it is imperative to understand the extent of sex trafficking and current legislation regarding it. It's also crucial to convince those who don't believe sex trafficking is a problem just how wrong they are. According to the U.S. government, sex trafficking is defined as “the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act” (Weitzer 1337). Prostitution is the driving force behind sex trafficking, although some are not forced into prostitution. In sex trafficking, prostitution is forced. People who traffic are called traffickers, pimps, pimps and johns. Victims are threatened, mistreated and lied to by their trafficker. Traffickers often take advantage of desperate people. People experiencing poverty or runaways are generally targeted. Many are promised a job or relationship that appeals to them (“Sex Trafficking in the United States”). Some of the places where victims are taken or sold in the United States are neighborhood brothels, escort services, strip clubs, and truck stops. “The Internet,” according to the Polaris Project, an anti-trafficking organization, “has been identified as the number one platform that pimps, traffickers and johns currently use to buy and sell women and children for sexual purposes.” in the United States.” By having access to all of these resources, traffickers and pimps are able to network and transport their victims across the country (“Sex Trafficking in the United States”). Perhaps the most sickening truth about sex trafficking is the number of victims. According to a 2008 estimate by the International Labor Organization (ILO), there are 1.39 million sex slaves worldwide. Many experts say this is a low estimate and that the number increases by hundreds of thousands each year (Smith 274). This is obviously a global problem, but it is also very real here in the United States. According to a 2007 study, between 14,500 and 17,500 people are trafficked to the United States each year (George 563). This does not include those trafficked within the country. The reasons for this growth are quite shocking. Technological advancements and increasing globalization, despite their benefits, have significantly increased sex trafficking. With the world thus connected, traffickerscan take advantage of much more desperate people. Traffickers are able to buy these people for ridiculously low amounts and make huge profits. To put things into perspective, an average slave in America during the 1800s cost $40,000 and today people can be bought for less than a hundred (Smith 275). Another sickening reason for this increase is the very high demand. Even though prostitution is illegal almost everywhere in the United States, it is an industry that continues to grow. The traffickers only respond to this demand (George 563). For the most part, the general public is unaware of this problem. If people heard these statistics or the stories of trafficking victims, there would be a larger movement to end trafficking. This is the whole purpose of the “Stop traffic!” newsletter. Anti-Trafficking Bulletin.” They believe that by being educated on the subject, it will bring real change (George 563). Even President Obama recently addressed the problem of all types of trafficking, including sex trafficking. In his speech, he said: “When a little girl is sold by her poor family – girls my daughters’ age – runs away from home or is lured by false promises of a better life, then imprisoned in a brothel and tortured if she resists. — that’s slavery” (Keiner). One of the most difficult aspects of combating sex trafficking is identifying it. Often it is almost impossible to know what is happening. It is a crime that occurs in the shadows and must be investigated to be discovered. Victims generally do not seek help from authorities out of fear of their trafficker's actions or fear of revealing what they have done. They feel like there is no hope of changing their situation and they are trapped forever. Since traffickers are able to control their victims with their threats, there is often no physical connection. In most cases, the only way to find out something is to ask for information about a person, and even then, sometimes it's too late to find them. This makes it extremely difficult, even for law enforcement, to know what is happening (Cross 401). If there were more programs to raise awareness about this issue, more victims would find the help they need. Victims would know that there are people willing to help them. Groups like the Polaris Project offer many resources to help victims (“Sex Trafficking in the United States”). In order to combat this enormous increase, the United States government has responded in recent years with several laws. The law that started it all was the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act (TVPA), passed in 2000. This law helped define the many crimes related to sex trafficking (Farrel 1). It has been reauthorized four times, improving the law's ability to protect victims and prosecute criminals. This law even provides for the arrival of illegal immigrants here for sexual slavery by providing visas to the victims (Farrel 2). Although this law is a step in the right direction, it has failed to actually slow the problem. In 2009, only 1,300 of the tens of thousands of people smuggled into the United States for sexual slavery received visas under this law (George 563). Another positive that the TVPA brought was the increase in resources to combat sex trafficking. The U.S. Department of Justice created a unit to combat trafficking crimes and also received an increase in funding (Farrel 2). Even with this increase, funds dedicated toresolution of this problem are extremely weak and insufficient to resolve the problem. According to Karen Stauss, Director of Programs for Free the Slaves, says, “Only a tiny fraction of the nation's law enforcement resources are dedicated to slavery and trafficking in the United States” (Kiener). The reason for this low funding is mainly due to another major problem, the war on drugs. Siddharth Kara, a human trafficking expert at Harvard University, says that "the federal anti-trafficking budget, about $61 million a year since 2001, is 33 times less than the money the government spending to fight the war on drugs” (Kiener). It's obviously not realistic to expect the same amount of money to be spent to end trafficking, but any increase in funding would be a good start. with this problem on a daily basis. If training on trafficking is mandatory for officers, it would increase awareness and hopefully help reduce the problem. This would teach them the signs of sex trafficking and help them assist victims (George 563). Teaching officers to deliberately seek out trafficking and helping them provide victims with appropriate social services would be an essential part of the training (Cross 398). Using a current model of mandatory domestic violence training as an example, it would be easy to implement this new training (Cross 417). Perhaps the strangest part of the legislature and the part that causes the most headaches is that each state has different laws. regarding this issue. The Polaris Project, an anti-trafficking organization, ranks states based on their ability to handle the problem. They classify them from level 1, which is the best, to level 4, the worst. Surprisingly, there is only one Tier 4 state, South Dakota. But right next to South Dakota is Minnesota, which is a Tier 1 state, so traffickers are more likely to target South Dakota because there are far fewer anti-trafficking laws (“Sex Trafficking in the States -United"). If this problem is to be alleviated, each state must make an effort to improve its laws, as this is where the majority of court cases take place. According to the United States Census Bureau, “In 2008, approximately 80,000 criminal cases were filed in U.S. federal courts, compared to more than 21 million criminal cases filed in state courts” (Farrel 3). If state legislatures are unable to handle the situation, a national law may be necessary. The American government must crack down harder on prostitution. As previously stated, prostitution fuels the modern slavery of sex trafficking. Some will say that legalizing prostitution would improve the situation. Cari Mitchell, spokesperson for the English Prostitutes' Collective, says: "Prostitution has been pushed further underground and sex workers have become more vulnerable to abuse and violence, abusive working conditions, police illegality, rape and trafficking. » (Kiener). Mitchell believes prostitutes will be safer and better treated and will find it easier to leave. Even if this were the case, the disagreement arises from different peoples' views on prostitution. Norma Ramos, executive director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, says there is no such thing as "safer prostitution." People like Ramos believe prostitution is dehumanizing and turns women into commodities to be bought and sold. Ramos says: “The way to fight oppression is to end it – not to legalize it, regulate it, or make it more tolerable. » (Kiener)..