The following is a list of available statistics estimating the scope of Human
Trafficking around the world and within the United States. Actual statistics are
often unavailable, and some may be contradictory due to the covert nature of the
crime, the invisibility of victims and high levels of under-reporting. Further
obstacles include inconsistent definitions, reluctance to share data, and a lack
of funding for and standardization of data collection. Particularly lacking are
estimates on the number of American citizens trafficked within the U.S.
Human Trafficking Worldwide:
27 million
– Number of people in
modern-day slavery across the world.
o
Source:
Kevin Bales of
Free the Slaves.
According to the
U.S. Department of State’s 2007 Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP Report),
estimates vary from 4 to 27 million.
The
International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates 2.4 million people were victims
of human trafficking from 1995-2005. This estimate uses the UN Protocol
definition of human trafficking, and includes both transnational and internal
data.
800,000
– Number of people
trafficked across international borders every year.
o
Source:
U.S. Department of State, Trafficking in
Persons Report: 2007.
Note:
The TIP Report in 2001 and 2002 estimated this figure at 700,000;
The TIP Report of 2003 reported 800,000 to 900,000 victims;
The TIP Reports of 2004 through 2006 reported 600,000 to 800,000
victims.
1 million
– Number of children
exploited by the global commercial sex trade, every year.
o
Source:
U.S. Department of State, The Facts About Child
Sex Tourism: 2005.
50%
– Percent of transnational
victims who are children.
o
Source:
U.S. Department of
Justice,
Report to Congress from Attorney General John Ashcroft on U.S. Government
Efforts to Combat Trafficking in Persons in Fiscal Year 2003: 2004.
80%
– Percent of transnational
victims who are women and girls.
o
Source:
U.S. Department of State, Trafficking in
Persons Report: 2007.
70%
– Percent of female victims
who are trafficked into the commercial sex industry. This means that 30% of
female victims are victims of forced labor.
o
Source:
U.S. Department of Justice, Assessment of U.S.
Government Activities to Combat Trafficking in Persons: 2004.
161 –
Countries identified as affected by human trafficking:
o
127
countries of origin; 98 transit countries; 137 destination countries.
o
Note:
Countries may be counted multiple times and categories are not mutually
exclusive.
o
Source:
UN Office on Drugs and
Crime,
Trafficking in Persons: Global Patterns: April 2006.
32 billion
– Total
yearly profits generated by the human trafficking industry.
o
$15.5
billion is made in industrialized countries.
o
$9.7 billion
in Asia
o
$13,000 per
year generated on average by each "forced laborer." This number can be as
high as $67,200 per victim per year.
o
Source:
ILO, A global alliance
against forced labor: 2005.
Foreign Nationals Trafficked into the U.S.:
14,500 - 17,500
– Number of foreign
nationals trafficked into the United States every year.
o
This is the
most recent U.S. government statistic. However, it is constantly being
revisited, and a newer statistic is currently under study and review.
o
Source:
DOJ, HHS, DOS, DOL, DHS, and USAID. Assessment of U.S.
Government Efforts to Combat Trafficking in Persons: June, 2004
The TIP Report
in 2001 estimated this number at 45,000-50,0001
The TIP Report
in 2002 estimated 50,000
The TIP Report
in 2003 estimated 18,000 – 20,0002
1, 379
– Number of foreign national
victims of human trafficking certified by the Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) from October 2000 through FY 2007.
o
131 minors,
and 1,248 adults
o
These
victims originate from at least 77 different countries.
o
Source:
U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services Anti-trafficking in Persons Department; U.S.
Department of State Trafficking in
Persons Report: 2007.
1,318
– Number of T visas granted
by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from FY 2000 through November 1,
2008 to human trafficking survivors. 729 visas were issued between FY 2000 and
FY 2006.
o
Another
1,076 derivative T visas were granted to family members.
o
DHS is
authorized to issue up to 5,000 T-visas per year.
o
Source:
USCIS; U.S. Department of State, Trafficking in
Persons Report: 2007.
Human Trafficking of U.S. citizens within the U.S.:
244,000
– Number of American
children and youth estimated to be at risk of child sexual exploitation,
including commercial sexual exploitation, in 2000.
o
Source:
Estes, Richard J. and Neil A. Weiner. The Commercial Sexual
Exploitation of Children in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. The University
of Pennsylvania School of Social Work: 2001.
In a study funded by the Department of Justice.
38,600 –
Estimated number of an approximate 1.6 million runaway/thrownaway youth at risk
of sexual endangerment or exploitation in 1999.
o
Source:
U.S. Department of
Justice: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Runaway/Thrownaway
Children: National Estimates and Characteristics. NISMART Series: 2002.
12-14 – Average
age of entry into prostitution
o
Source:
Estes, Richard J. and
Neil A. Weiner.
The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in the U.S., Canada, and
Mexico. The University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work: 2001.
Not For Sale - Prostitution - Part 1 -Prostitution survivors explain
how prostitution harms and why it is violence against women, with or without a
pimp. Women in prostitution, former prostitutes explain how prostitution is
abuse and sexual exploitation and how they became sex slaves. Feminism. This
feminist CATW (Coalition Against Trafficking in Women) and EWL (European Women's
Lobby) documentary is available on their website
Each year an estimated 2 million women and children are tricked, beaten,
raped and forced by threat of death into the world’s growing sex industry.
This heartbreaking and visually breathtaking film follows women selling sex
from the cold, lonely streets of Europe to the blistering villages in Africa
they can never again call home. If you only watch one film this year, make
it this one.
“You can run, but you can’t hide” say the girls, who night after night sell
themselves to an endless stream of men. In filthy brothels or parked cars
they ply their soulless trade. Street fights are common, as desperate girls
steal money from clients to help pay their debts. This film captures first
hand the violence and eeriness of life working on the streets.
Michelle Mildwater specializes in trauma. Her exceptional sensitivity allows
two women - Anna and Joy – to tell their horrific stories. In the glaring
light of a refugee prison we meet Joy, trafficked to Europe where she was
imprisoned for fraud. When Joy gives up her hopeless quest for asylum and is
deported back to Nigeria, we follow her back to the steaming slums of Lagos.
Anna was trafficked from her village in Nigeria to Europe by trusted next
door neighbours. When she finally arrived she was locked in a flat with five
other Nigerian women under the control of a Madam, who stole her passport
and told her she owed 60,000 euros. Anna was forced into prostitution to
start repaying this debt, and when she tried to run away, Russian thugs
nearly beat her to death.
Through her tears Anna tells us “I went with one man to his place. When I
got there, it was eight of them. They all go round and sleep with me. I can
call that rape. But I was so scared to go to the police because if I went to
the police, they would send me back to Africa”.
Michelle travels to Africa to find out for herself why these women are so
scared to go back. Shockingly, in every village mothers try to give her
their young girls to take to back to Europe. One woman says her daughters
are in Europe doing “hairdressing, fashion design. Because they have gone to
the white man’s land, we are happy”. Michelle draws another conclusion:
“Here in the villages the truth is never told. Everyone wants to retain the
illusion, that Europe is a paradise. And that their daughters are earning
money doing some kind of really fancy job”.
Michelle meets up with Anna again. She is on the run. The traffickers have
beaten her mother poured boiling water on her father, saying they will kill
her parents if Anna doesn’t go back to prostitution in Europe. Anna is also
terrified by the voodoo rituals the traffickers forced her to take part in.
She had to eat live chicken and the voodoo priest took her hair and blood.
Women’s rights worker Bisi Olateru-olagbegi explains this powerful ritual:
“When somebody is holding your body parts that person has some connection
with you. It’s like poison. That makes the girls so afraid of renouncing the
traffickers, because the repercussions of oath breaking are death and
madness”.
The film ends with Anna pleading on the phone with her own mother not to
make her go back into prostitution. “Ten people will fuck you and at the end
you get no money. All the pain. “No” I say. I don’t want to work on the
street anymore. It’s not for me”.
The plight of child sex slaves has been well publicised but seldom do
we get to see inside their nasty world. Recently however, an undercover
film crew did just that. They gained rare access to Diana and Lina, two
teenage prostitutes at a brothel in Batam. Focusing on the girls’ plight
and the mission to save them, they filmed every event leading to the
girls’ rescue. It’s a confronting and harrowing expose of young children
lured into a life of prostitution.
A young girl cowers in fear outside a brothel. Diana is so traumatised
and crying so hard she can barely talk. She’s just been reunited with
her family after being sold as a sex slave. Now, she’s terrified of
their reaction. Inside the brothel, a Mafia don is negotiating with the
pimps for Diana - and her friend Lina’s - release. The girls’
enslavement is finally coming to an end.“Batam is a city built for
wealthy tourists from overseas,” states social worker Ramses scathingly.
“It’s only used for sex tourism and gambling.” His organisation, PRAI,
tries to rescue trafficked children. But it’s an endless task. There are
an estimated 7,500 child prostitutes here. The brothels are run by
gangsters and the government refuses to even acknowledge the problem.
But if politicians won’t help rescue children like Diana and Lina,
fellow prostitutes will. The rescue mission got underway three weeks ago
when Tia, another worker at the brothel, agreed to help. “I always
thought it was strange seeing those two there,” she explains. “They’re
too young.” She agreed to act as a link, passing on messages from PRAI
to Diana and Lina.Diana and Lina have been working at the brothel for
eight months. “When they were brought to Batam, they didn’t know how old
they were, whether they were ten or fifteen,” states Ruli, the PRAI
worker assigned to their case. “But what is clear is that they had not
begun menstruating.” She takes us to meet the girls and tries to
persuade them to escape. But while Lina is willing to go, Diana refuses.
“She’s afraid her father will kill her if he finds out she’s been doing
this kind of work.”Ramses is desperate to rescue the girls but they’re
too frightened to go. “They want their parents to come and get them.
They don’t trust anyone else,” Tia explains. Her information also
reinforces the urgent need to get the girls out. “They did something to
Lina to make her menstruate. Her period lasted a month,” she confides.
There is concern the repeated rapes have caused the girls serious
injury.Ramses locates the girls parents but now that things are moving
ahead, he’s increasingly worried about the rescue. “If we’re discovered,
they might be hidden away or even killed.” To minimise the risk, he’s
asked a businessmen from the girl’s home island with links to the Mafia
to help. Finally, the moment arrives and the men leave for the rescue.
The girls’ future hinges on the success of the mission. They know
nothing of the rescue plan and are shocked to see their family. While
they are consoled, the businessman negotiates their release. The pimp
continues to maintain the girls were never coerced. “They came of their
own free will. No one is being sold here. They came by themselves.” Free
at last, Diana and Lina are taken straight to hospital. They both test
positive for venereal diseases. They also start to tell their story. The
traffickers promised them jobs as street vendors in Java. It was only
when they arrived that they discovered what they would really be doing.
“They said we wouldn’t be selling snacks, rather we would be selling our
c*nts,” Lina recalls in shame. The girls return to their village but
Ramses remains concerned about their future. In the words of Lina:
“We’re damaged goods now.”
The Real Sex Traffic
A gripping documentary exposé inside the global
sex slave trade in women from the former Soviet Bloc.
An estimated half million women are trafficked
annually for the purpose of sexual slavery. They are "exported" to over
50 countries including Britain, Italy, Japan, Germany, Israel, Turkey,
China, Kosovo, Canada and the United States. Misunderstood and widely
tolerated, sex trafficking has become a multi- billion dollar
underground industry. According to the International Herald Tribune,
human trafficking is the fastest growing form of organized crime in
Eastern Europe. Kidnapped and/or lured by those who prey on their
dreams, their poverty, and their naiveté, Eastern European women are
trafficked to foreign lands -- often with falsified visas -- where they
become modern day sex slaves. Upon arrival, they are sold to pimps,
drugged, terrorized, caged in brothels and raped repeatedly. For these
women and young girls, there is no life, no liberty and no chance for a
happy and meaningful future.
The Real Sex Traffic takes us to “ground zero” of the
sex trade - Moldova and Ukraine - where traffickers effortlessly find
vulnerable women desperate to go abroad and earn some money. The film
focuses on the remarkable story of Viorel, a Ukrainian man on a mission
to find his pregnant, trafficked wife in Turkey. Our hidden cameras
follow Viorel as he travels to Turkey; his only lead the telephone
number of the pimp who, he believes, has Katia in his possession. To
secure his wife’s release, after days of desperate efforts, Viorel poses
as a trafficker and sets out to buy his wife back. We follow Viorel to
his meeting with Katia’s captor and from there into the world of
trafficked women.
Interwoven with Viorel’s story, we meet other victims,
traffickers and the families that have been torn apart by the trade in
human flesh. This film is the first film to have a convicted trafficker
talk openly about how trafficking works, and how women are coerced into
sexual slavery. With hidden cameras, we watch as traffickers move people
across borders with impunity and expose how easy it is to purchase a
modern day sex slave. Sex Traffic also takes us to England and Canada
where we find victims who tell harrowing tales of being repeatedly sold
from country to country. Hiding her identity to protect her life,
“Natasha” shares her heart wrenching story of being bought and sold from
Romania to Italy and on to Germany and Belgium. Her final stop was
Britain where she was put to work in a north London sauna. “Natasha” was
finally freed from her nightmare in a police raid, a year after her
abduction. For her part, “Eva” thought she was getting a job as a nanny
in Toronto until her handlers took her from the airport to a strip club
and forced her to work off her “debt”, i.e., her purchase price, before
she could be set free. Sex Traffic explores the global trafficking
problem through personal stories and unfettered access to traffickers
and the people they use as human chattel. The documentary captures both
the investigative story and the human story behind the headlines. From
the villages of Moldova and Ukraine, to underground brothels and
discotheques, we witness firsthand the brutal world of white sex
slavery.
If you would like to donate to the
Poppy Project, which helps victims of trafficking in the UK, you can do
so via
www.eaves.ik.com,
www.poppy.ik.com or
www.poppyproject.org.uk Apart from financial donations autumn and
winter clothing for the women (and their children) as well as toiletries
are needed.
