Describe the social problem of human trafficking. What do you think can be done to stop it? What ...

Internationally, human trafficking is increasingly recognized as a major social problem. Human trafficking is the recruitment, transportation, or receipt of people for the purposes of slavery, forced labor, or servitude. It is a multibillion-dollar-a-year industry. Trafficking victims typically are recruited using deception, fraud, coercion, the abuse of power, or outright abduction. Adult victims may be forced into prostitution or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor, or slavery. Child victims may be forced into prostitution, illicit international adoption, or trafficking for early marriage. They may also be recruited as child soldiers, beggars, or for membership in a religious cult. Human trafficking differs from people smuggling. With smuggling, people voluntarily request the smuggler's service for a fee. On arrival at their destination, the smuggled people are usually free. On the other hand, trafficking victims are enslaved. The trafficker takes away the basic human rights of the victim. Victims are sometimes tricked and lured by false promises or physically forced. Traffickers use both coercive and manipulative tactics such as deception, intimidation, feigned love, isolation, physical force, and even force-feeding with drugs.

In some areas such as Russia, Hong Kong, Japan, and Colombia, human trafficking is controlled by large criminal organizations. Trafficked victims are usually the most vulnerable and powerless minorities in a region. Women are particularly at risk for sex trafficking, that is, forced into prostitution. For example, traffickers in a foreign country may promise young women the prospect of job training and a better life in the United States, and then they are forced into prostitution when they arrive. Thousands of children are sold into the global sex trade every year-often they are kidnapped or even sold by their own families. Thousands of male (and sometimes female) children have also been forced to be child soldiers. Men are at risk of being trafficked for unskilled work-predominantly involving forced labor. An estimated 27 million people are currently thought to be victims of human trafficking worldwide. Human trafficking is modern-day slavery.