Stop Human Trafficking

DEFINITION OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING

The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.

UNITED NATIONS DEFINITION

Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs Put simply, human trafficking is the crime of using violence, lies, or mind control to exploit a person for your own gain..

Now more than ever, children need your protection from predatory criminals who turn the vulnerability and desperation of their victims into big business. Human trafficking — the buying and selling of people for exploitative purposes — is on the rise according to a new study of 142 countries just released by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

While the sexual exploitation of women and girls is widespread, there are changemakers and organizations working to combat the media objectification of girls:

Help us battle Human Trafficking and the exploitation of adolescent girls.

HUMAN TRAFFICKING STATISTICS

An estimated 45.8 million people are enslaved worldwide today (Global Slavery Index, 2016).

Human trafficking is the third largest criminal industry worldwide and the fastest growing (Do Something, 2006).

Human trafficking generates annual revenue of $150 billion with $99 billion coming from sex trafficking (International Labour Office, 2014).

In the United States, identified victims are from almost every region in the world, but the top three countries of origin are the United States, Mexico, and the Philippines (US Department of State, 2015).

Between 2010-2012, California task forces identified 1,277 labor and sex trafficking victims (CA Attorney General’s Office, 2012).

The National Human Trafficking Hotline reports that there were 1,323 reported cases in California in 2015 alone (Polaris Project, 2016).

3 out of 13 FBI identified high intensity child prostitution areas are in California: San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego (FBI, 2009).

A needs assessment in Santa Barbara County confirmed 45 victims of child sex trafficking between 2012-2014 (O’Brien, Larson, Felix, & Riker-Rheinschild, 2015).

At any given time, 60% of the female youth in Ventura County Juvenile Facility are estimated to have been sex trafficked in short or long-term situations (Forever Found, 2015).