Sex Trafficking

     Before coming to DaySpring, I had been exposed to the awful facts and information regarding sex trafficking, But, hearing about it and experiencing, first hand, the stories of women who have lived through it are two totally different things. Even though I cannot share these confidential stories with you, I can share the facts and statistics related to this issue. 

These statistics are directly quoted from a sex trafficking documentary called Nefarious - Merchant of Souls
http://nefariousdocumentary.com/learn-more/
I highly recommend this movie if you are interested in learning more about the various types and places of trafficking.

    Sex trafficking involves the act of recruiting, harboring, transporting, or obtaining a person for a commercial sex act through use of force, fraud, or coercion (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services). It is crime against humanity.
    Every year, thousands of women and children fall into the hands of traffickers in their own countries and abroad. Almost every country in the world is implicated by this injustice, whether as a country of origin, transit, or destination. Slavery is still alive and well in our contemporary society.

• On June 1, 2012, the International Labor Organization released its 2nd global estimate of forced labor (slavery) and trafficking in persons. The estimate is 20.9 million victims. The 2012 United States Trafficking in Persons Report used this estimate as the new global estimate of trafficking in persons. 
• A conservative estimate of the number of victims of sexual slavery/sex trafficking globally is 4,500,000 (International Labor Organization, 2012)
• 98% of all victims of sexual slavery/sex trafficking worldwide are women and girls (International Labor Organization, 2012) 
• Sexual exploitation makes up 79% of identified forms of international cross border human trafficking, including prostitution, forced stripping, massage services, and pornography. (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking, 2009)
• Approximately 600,000 to 800,000 human trafficking victims are trafficked across international borders worldwide every year. (U.S. State Department, Trafficking in Persons Report, 2011) 
• After drug trafficking, trafficking in humans ties with the illegal arms industry as the second largest criminal industry in the world today. It is the fastest growing criminal industry. (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2011)
• Most sex trafficking is regional or national and is perpetrated by traffickers who are the same nationality as their victims. (United Nations, Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, 2009)
• As many as 2 million children are subjected to prostitution in the global commercial sex trade. (U.S. State Department, Trafficking in Persons Report, 2011)
• At least 15,000 people are trafficking into the United States annually. (U.S. State Department, Trafficking in Persons Report, 2010)
• Estimates suggest as many as 300,000 children annually are at risk of commercial sexual exploitation. (Richard Estes and Neil Weiner for University of Pennsylvania, 2001)
• The average age of entry into prostitution in the United States is 13- to 14-years-old. (Sara Ann Friedman for ECPAT-USA, “Who Is There to Help Us?,” 2005)
• Nationwide there are fewer than thirty safe homes for victims of sex trafficking to receive treatment and services. This severe shortage regularly causes their inappropriate placement in juvenile detention facilities. (Streetlight Tuscon, 2012)

"You hear, O LORD, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry, defending the fatherless and the oppressed, in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more."

Psalm 10:17-18