be different...

"One person can make the difference and every person should try."

In the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 1), it states:

"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in the spirit of brotherhood".

This topic is dedicated to the third largest form of trafficking behind Drugs and Weapons Trafficking.

3 questions:

1. What is Human/Sex Trafficking?
2. Is it really a problem in our 21st century world?
3. Why? Why of all the things I could be doing, am I doing this?

Basically Human Trafficking (HT) is the buying and selling of men, women and children for the purpose of exploitation. It usually consists of three stages. In the first stage, the victims are recruited; in the second, they are transported; and in the third, they are exploited.

At the recruitment stage, criminals use many methods to force or trick people into being trafficked. In some cases, the people are abducted and assaulted. In other cases, however, the people are offered good jobs and attractive opportunities that do not actually exist or that force them into exploitative labour and living conditions.

At the transportation stage, victims may be moved by land, sea and/or air, openly or covertly, in groups or alone, using public or private means of transportation. People can be trafficked across legal or illegal border crossings, or, in cases when persons are trafficked inside the borders of a country no border crossing at all.

At the exploitation stage, victims may be obliged to do any of the following:

• Have sex or be sexually assaulted
• Work in places such as factories, restaurants, farms, plantations, mines or homes (as domestic helpers), without the right to rest or the option to leave
• Have an organ removed
• Beg
• Sell illegal drugs or fight as child soldiers
• Get married

Sex Trafficking (ST) is the buying and selling of mainly women and children, who are then forced into prostitution. If they refuse, they are often gang-raped, beaten, burnt, electrocuted and/or starved into submission.


• The ILO (International Labor Organization) estimates that at any given time, 2.4 million people are trafficked worldwide.
• The US State Department estimates that traffickers make in excess of between US$7million - US$29million annually through the buying and selling of human beings.
• The UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) estimates that in today's money, HT as industry is worth some US$32billion. 79% of that money is brought in through the prostitution of women and children.
• According to the UNODC, women and children make up 80% of detected trafficking victims.

If we all said that it was too hard, too horrific, too hopeless, then who will stand on behalf of these victims? Who will help them? Who will stand up for their rights as human beings?

The most powerful piece of media I can offer you is a TEDtalk by a lady called Sunitha Krishnan. She is a woman who works in India for and with trafficking victims. And that this is her story and the stories of those she helps. For the uninitiated, TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is a nonprofit foundation dedicated to "ideas worth spreading". Among their noted speakers are people such as Bill Gates, Sir Ken Robinson, Billy Graham, Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Arthur Benjamin, Jennifer Lin, Steven Pinker, Andrew Mwenda, Shaffi Mather, Cameron Sinclair and Peter Eigen. And off course, Sunitha Krishnan.

How much more if we ALL band together? If we ALL stand up, in one voice and say ENOUGH? 

It’s not about being the next Mandela or Gandhi. It’s about doing whatever you can - talking to people, donating your time or money, getting involved, helping to educate others, etc - to make a difference in your world.

Refuse to stay quiet any longer, because the question that remains is…

now that YOU know that HT/ST exists today, what are YOU going to do about it?