I need help making it longer. What else could I write? It needs to be about twice as long.:(
Sex Trafficking
"Sex trafficking is defined as the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act." (Polaris Project) Sex trafficking is happening in the United States more than people truly know. "An estimated 293,000 children are in danger of being sexually trafficked in the U.S. (Sexual Trafficking) In the United States some women sell themselves for sex for their own benefits, but countless others are made to be slaves for the benefit of the "pimp" by threats, fraud, abuse, coercion, and many other reasons.
Sex trafficking victims can be men or women, child or adult, male or female, foreign or U.S. born. Most often the victims are females between the ages of five and twenty-five with the average age range being twelve to fourteen. (Crisis Aid) "In 2005, the Department of Justice reported that there has been an estimated 100,000 to 150,000 sex slaves in the United States since 2001. (Crisis Aid)
Pimps often look for victims that won't be missed, such as drug users or runaways, but sometimes victims are taken right out of a nice family and moved to a new location every night so they won't be found. Victims can be random or targeted; either way a pimp will force young girls to become sex traffickers. For example a young girl, from a nice family, gets a call from a friend that wants her to meet her outside her house to talk. The girl comes outside and her friend stuffs her into a car with two men who sexually assault her. Another girl is approached at a mall by a nicely dressed man and told she looks like a model and he could make her a model through his agency. When the girl meets with the man in a place where they can be alone he tell her to strip her clothes so he can get a good look with what he is working with; the man then snaps pictures to later put on a porn site, and sexually assaults her. (Teen Girls)
Another way a pimp can get their victims is by safely transporting a person from a foreign country with the false promises of a better life, whether that is through marriage, a job, or money. The pimp will tell the women that they now have a debt to pay and they must work it off by being a sex trafficking victim.
Once a pimp has a victim they have to, as they call it "season", the victim. The pimps aim to achieve complete control over someone by using physical, emotional, and mental means. Seasoning often involves beating, whipping, burning, gang rape, confinement, threats, mind control, renaming, confiscation of documents, and forced sexual education. With physical abuse hands and feet are used, but so are objects such as bats, and chains. Victims are often confined to small spaces such as closets or trunks for long lengths of time, often being tied up, and being deprived of food and water. Renaming, and destroying documents are done to give the victim a new identity, while erasing the old one, also forced sexual education is done by forcing the victim to view pornography to teach them how to have sex. (Polaris Project)
"There is no one profile that encapsulates the "typical" client. Men who purchase women are both rich and poor, Eastern and Western. Often they are married and have children, and in some cases such as was reported the New York Times men have sex with trafficked girls instead of abusing their own young children."(Slavery's New Face) The sex trafficking industry is supported by men who remain in secret. No record is ever kept for who sexually assaults young females. Men pick up women off the streets and then bring them back to never be seen again. Men can go to brothels, massaging parlors, or the pimp's house to involuntarily have girls sell themselves for sex. The buyers don't have to fill paperwork of sign a contract. The pimp doesn't care who it is as long as they get their money.
It is obvious that money is the number one motivating factor for sex trafficking. Once a sex trafficking victim is trusted to go out and sell herself for sex she is will more than likely be given a nightly quota. The victim must use whatever she can to get the money that is required, which is normally around $500-$1000. The victim can sell herself for sex but often when they get desperate to get enough for money they turn to theft. Quotas must be met. If they don't get met the victim may be forced back on the streets, or denied food, water, and sleep. The victim must turn over 100% of the profits to their pimp. This makes the victim completely dependent on the pimp. To give an idea on how much a pimp makes in a year Polaris Project estimates "that if one girl was forced to meet quotas of $500 per night, seven days a week and gave all of her money to her pimp, and the pimp had three other victims in which he was gaining money from he would make an estimate yearly salary of $632,000."
Many wonder why the victims don't try to run once they are alone on the streets. Victims of sex trafficking are regularly brainwashed that the government and police are untrusting (U.S.DHS), or they have a fear of being deported. A pimp also uses threats of violence to the victims if they ever try to leave, they also tell the victims that they will abuse their families. Sex trafficking victims develop shame from what they have done, self-blame from bring brainwashed by the pimp, dependency on the pimp, and hopelessness. Since the pimp confiscates all personal documentation and moves the victims around the victims often have no idea where they are, or who they are anymore. Victims are sometimes seen as having a loyalty to the pimp called Stockholm syndrome: when victims have empathy or positive feelings towards their captors. The victims feel as though the pimp has given them food and water and let them live. The pimp can gain a fatherly, or boyfriend role to the victims. Victims begin to accept the life of being a sex trafficking victim, and are afraid of change. They don't want to leave the one person who has fed and housed them when they were scared of being around everything new, after being abducted or leaving the familiar surroundings.
Often times it is hard for someone to identify a sex trafficking victim. When authorities get a lead on the location of a pimp of a sex trafficking victim it is often too late by the time they get to the location, because a pimp moves himself and his victims around often so as to not get caught. When a person does come in contact with a suspected sex trafficking victim the victim normally has a well trained script. They are taught to tell authorities fake stories of their entire lives, including names, locations, social security numbers, and families. If they don't have a fake life to tell authorities they commonly are too afraid to tell the truth. They don't want to get in trouble by their pimp which could result in abuse to themselves or their families, and they don't want to leave what is familiar to them. If a victim is lucky enough to run away or get rescued by authorities they will never live their lives they once had. They will be haunted by their past in every part of their lives.
Sex trafficking is a serious issue and it needs to be well known to everyone. "Sex trafficking is a harsh reality for millions of people the world over who find themselves trapped in an exploitative and abusive system, bought and sold like objects, and treated with no dignity or human decency." (Slavery's New Face)
For example, a young girl, from a nice family
When the girl meets with the man in a place where they can be alone he tell her to strip her clothes, so he can get a good look with what he is working with
With physical abuse hands and feet are used, but so are objects such as bats, and chains.Hands and feet are used in physical abuse, as well as objects such as bats and chains.
My overall impression is good,your ideas are really good organised and developed, but I want to recommend you revise the punctuation, such as commas and quotation marks. I have posted some examples of this.
I hope it can help you.
