Sex Trafficking

Did you know that over half a million people a year are victims of human trafficking?

Resources

• North Carolina Human Trafficking Task Force (RIPPLE) Training Manual

The United States Government estimates that 600,000 to 800,000 individuals are trafficked across international borders each year and exploited through forced labor and commercial sex work.  Approximately 20,000 trafficking victims are trafficked into the US.  This does not include the numbers of people who are trafficked domestically, within a country but not across international borders.

The federal Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 addresses the problem of illegal trafficking of persons for the purposes of committing commercial sex acts, or to subject them to involuntary servitude or slavery.  The TVPA defines trafficking as follows:

 
“The transport, harboring, or sale of persons within national or across international borders through coercion, force, kidnapping, deception or fraud, for purposes of placing persons in situations of forced labor or services, such as forced prostitution, debt bondage or other slavery-like practices.”

Between 80 to 90 percent of victims trafficked across international borders are women and girls, trafficked for sexual exploitation.  North Carolina’s large military bases, its location on the I-95 corridor, and its large undocumented immigrant population, are just three factors that contribute to an environment hospitable to the trafficking of women and children. 

The Carolina Women’s Center works toward eradicating sex trafficking by generating knowledge about trafficking practices and raising public awareness about the human rights violations caused by trafficking, including the mental and physical effects on its victims, and the impact on communities.

 In April 2006, the Carolina Women’s Center hosted, in collaboration with many campus and community cosponsors, a highly successful international conference on sex trafficking.  The conference was organized in recognition of the fact that the trafficking of women and children is a profound global human rights violation and that human trafficking is the second largest criminal industry in the world.