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Causes and Effects of Sex Trafficking

Sex trafficking refers to the act of crime when children, women, and children are involved in forceful sex acts commercially. It is estimated that a total of 4.5million people in the world are victims of commercial sex, while any minor in the united states in any commercial activity is considered a victim of sex trafficking. The traffickers use false promises as bait worldwide, which enables the sex traffickers to enslave their victims (Kempadoo et al, 2015). The victims include people living in marginalized areas subjected to typical political and economic poverty. Thus, the indigenous population lacks essential services such as education, making them vulnerable to sex trafficking. This paper seeks to explore the various causes of sex trafficking and the effects it has on the individuals and the countries involved in the trade worldwide.

The primary cause of sex trafficking is traffickers. However, the environmental conditions, poverty, immigration policy, fractured families, lack of education, and excellent job opportunities are the significant vulnerabilities that enable the traffickers worldwide to exploit their victims. The traffickers will obtain profit by forcing people to work as prostitutes is a considerable challenge (Weitzer, 2007 pg447-475). The significant difficulties in sex trafficking vary from one country to another. However, political conditions, war, social and cultural practices, and leaving nations with poverty to gain wealth are some of the conditions that and circumstances that enable sex traffickers o prey their victims.

First, many of the victims are in situations they want to escape, hence risking everything in their lives to escape poverty. This factor creates a chance for the traffickers to lure them and transport to another country by promising to offer stability and jobs during the recruitment process. On arrival to a new state, the traffickers take charge and hold the victims against their wills in places they did not want to make their dwelling (Sethi, 2007 pg 225-244). In other circumstances, parents sell their children intending to better their lives by offering more opportunities. Secondly, political instability, civil unrest, militarism, and generalized violence in a country increase the chances of trafficking occurring. This condition destabilizes and scatters the entire population in the country, increasing the chances of vulnerability amongst the people to abuse through forced labor and trafficking or unfair treatments.

Furthermore, a war involving armed conflicts in a country can lead to a massive displacement of people forcefully. Through war, many children lose their families, rendering them orphans, which create vulnerability in them. Also, the cultural and social practices in different societies differ as others tend to abuse, devalue, and exploit girls and women through creating a hazardous living condition (Baker et al, 2014 pg 208-226). The modest opportunities and value placed on these women, it creates vulnerability in them, which makes them the right target for sex trafficking. Thus, these significant factors in society have been witnessed in many countries, and eradicating the matter is difficult since the rot lies in the entire community.

Sex trafficking has an enormous impact on the mental and physical well-being of many women all over the world. Most of the women and men involved in sex trafficking end up participating in forced prostitution in the pornography industry. Thus, research shows that physical assault and sexual violence are the norms for all the women involved in the different types of prostitution (Kotiswaran, 2014 pg 353). Furthermore, health problems include sleeplessness, a frequent illness caused by viruses, vaginal infections, stomach aches, STDs, depression, eating disorders, and backaches. Mood disorders such as depression and dissociation and post-traumatic stress are consequences of prostitution.

Furthermore, research has also revealed that women that have been inducted into the world of prostitution have a high risk of being murdered. In other cases, victims are tortured and subjected to psychological and physical illnesses and injuries, respectively. Stockholm syndrome is another mental disorder common among the victims of sex trafficking. This syndrome refers to the traumatic bonding where the victims experience difficulty in leaving the abuser. The victims use this syndrome as a survival mechanism in the process, attaching them to their abuser. Furthermore, the victims become paranoid about leaving their abusers with the fear of being killed or physically harmed (Bonthuys et al, 2012 pg 11-29). Also, other victims attach to their abuse for a sense of security, clothes, food, and shelter. Others display the act done by their abusers as receptive by demeaning their behavior by considering the worst situation they could have been subjected to and evaded.

In conclusion, sex trafficking is a menace that has profoundly affected women and children mainly across the world. The efforts to eradicate it has been fateful with traffickers forming new ways of trapping and transporting their victims.

Works Cited

Baker, Carrie N. “An intersectional analysis of sex trafficking films.” Meridians 12.1 (2014): 208-226.

Bonthuys, Elsje. “The 2010 football world cup and the regulation of sex work in South Africa.” Journal of Southern African Studies 38.1 (2012): 11-29.

Kempadoo, Kamala, Jyoti Sanghera, and Bandana Pattanaik. Trafficking and prostitution reconsidered: New perspectives on migration, sex work, and human rights. Routledge, 2015.

Kotiswaran, Prabha. “Beyond Sexual Humanitarianism: A Postcolonial Approach to Anti-Trafficking Law.” UC Irvine L. Rev. 4 (2014): 353.

Sethi, Anupriya. “Domestic sex trafficking of Aboriginal girls in Canada: Issues and implications.” First Peoples Child & Family Review 14.1 (2007): 225-244.

Weitzer, Ronald. “The social construction of sex trafficking: Ideology and institutionalization of a moral crusade.” Politics & Society 35.3 (2007): 447-475.