Human Trafficking

Last Sunday (Jan. 11th) was National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. I went, with my good friend Christine, to a rally in Whittier. It was different than anything I had ever done, but I really enjoyed it. I learned a bit more about what Human Trafficking is and got a very small glimpse of how to get involved in curing the disease. I've been interested in learning about Human Trafficking and Fair Trade causes for a while now, but I've kinda had a hard time knowing what I, personally, should be doing about it - other than read a lot of information about either. I'm still not completely sure how to get INVOLVED in curing this world wide epidemic, so for now, I will tell others about it and hope that someone will think of great things to do to help (and everyone else will pray for those victimized by it).

Accidentally, while doing research for a school culture report, I stumbled across the CIA World Factbook. Very interesting stuff, by the way. I thought I'd share with my ever so faithful friends and long-time blog fans (heehee... you do exist, right?) something I found.

From the CIA World Factbook (2008)

Regarding Trafficking of Persons - World Report
current situation:

• approximately 800,000 people, mostly women and children, are trafficked annually across national borders, not including millions trafficked within their own countries;
  
• at least 80% of the victims are female
  
• and up to 50% are minors;
  
• 75% of all victims are trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation;
  
• almost two-thirds of the global victims are trafficked intra-regionally within East Asia and the Pacific (260,000 to 280,000 people) and Europe and Eurasia (170,000 to 210,000 people)

Tier 2 Watch List: Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, China, Costa Rica, Cote d'Ivoire, Cyprus, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, The Gambia, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, India, Jordan, Libya, Malaysia, Montenegro, Mozambique, Niger, Panama, Republic of the Congo, Russia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Zambia, Zimbabwe
Tier 3: Algeria, Burma, Cuba, Fiji, Iran, Kuwait, Moldova, North Korea, Oman, Papua New Guinea, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria


By the way, it happens here too! This is not simply the issue of people we'll never meet. (read the story of a Guatemalan girl duped into coming to the U.S., forced sell herself and kept captive.)