How human trafficking goes unnoticed

It’s a Saturday afternoon, you and your friends decided to spend some quality time getting your nails done. When you enter the fluorescently lit studio full of chairs and walls decorated with every nail color imaginable, someone greets you and sets you up with an employee.

This situation is seemingly routine and natural; however, have you ever considered asking those women or men if this job was their choice?

Human trafficking is a complex issue that encompasses more jobs than solely sex trafficking.

It is a topic that is gaining attention all over the world, as many are working tirelessly to redefine and bring awareness to the issue of human trafficking outside of the realm of law enforcement.

While sex trafficking is one aspect of human trafficking, it is by no means the only form. Forced labor, servitude and slavery are all examples of human trafficking which can take the form of domestic work or even work within the restaurant industry.

After the illegal drug trade, human trafficking ties for second place with illegal arms dealing as the largest criminal industry in the world, collecting an estimated $32 billion in profit.   

Many people fall for the misconception that human trafficking looks like a stranger kidnapping a young girl or boy and selling them to foreign underground trafficking rings.

The reality is that human trafficking in some cases relies on psychological trauma and manipulation from people familiar to you. In fact, this psychological coercion is what keeps women and men from escaping the situations they are in.

If victims of human trafficking leave their captors, they face issues including housing insecurity and drug addiction. Many remain tied to their traffickers due to the children they have with them. They are trapped emotionally and physically, often with the safety of their loved ones and themselves in danger.

For victims of this crime who are not involved in sex trafficking, the risk they face is frequently the threat of deportation. Additionally if they run away, they are met with the challenge of being part of a mass of undocumented workers who are subjected to the whims of law enforcement if caught.

Law enforcement officers are supposed to identify victims and prosecute traffickers. However, it rarely works out this way.

The legal system in the U.S. addresses human trafficking as an issue that needs attention; however, many men and women who do make it out of these situations alive are faced with hundreds of charges against them for things such as prostitution. This inhibits their ability to then get jobs, loans, apartments, etc.

The men and women who emerge from these situations have experienced intense abuse and do not know where to turn. Being controlled is all they know, and their puppet masters know how to manipulate their submissives into returning to the familiar environment of their own trafficking.

Despite the brainwashing and abuse, survivors of this heinous crime repeatedly admit that there is a life worth living after. It is important to remember that the victims who return to their families or communities after a period of horrible maltreatment are not the same girls and boys they were before.

Families experience a period of grief in which they have to learn how to cope with these changes and understand the cycle of abuse.

As a society, we must realize the extent to which these men and women, boys and girls do not have a choice. Often, the rhetoric and attitude towards victims of human trafficking in general, revolves around questioning their strength.

We tend to ask why they do not just stop or take themselves out of the situation. Many women and men are introduced to this situation by people they grew to trust and who know the responsibilities each victim has, which removes the ability to leave.

Next time you see the woman at the gym cleaning the bathrooms or the man at the nail salon scrubbing down the tubs consider the possibility that they are not here by choice.