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Essay / Human Trafficking Essay - 918
According to the ILO (2012), 4.5 million people are victims of sexual exploitation worldwide, and women represent approximately 98 percent of these victims. The main reason is that traffickers have no difficulty recruiting female victims, who are vulnerable and easy to kidnap. In addition, they are mistreated and kept in captivity in conditions close to slavery. Cambodian sex trafficking victim Kolab was forced to sleep with 50 men a day; if she did not give money to the pimp, she was beaten mercilessly until she passed out (Equality Now, n.d.). In this case, victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation suffer not only physical suffering but also mental suffering. Chastity towards women and girls, especially Asian women, is crucial and somewhere considered a moral standard of women. So, they can be seriously shocked when they are forced to sleep with men. Additionally, they have to deal with sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS. It is difficult for us to calculate precise figures on HIV/AIDS victims, but it is estimated that “30% of sex workers aged 13 to 19 are infected with HIV” in Cambodia (United Nations, 2001). At this age, they are not aware of safe sex and the danger of HIV. Thus, trafficking for the purpose of prostitution constitutes a threat against the victims in particular and against society in general. It ruins their lives and confronts them with death from HIV.