Human Trafficking

On November 16, 2009, the body of 5-year old Shaniya Davis was found along a roadside outside of Sanford, North Carolina. Authorities had acted on a tip and were searching a wide area in south central North Carolina when they discovered the body of the child.

On Friday, November 13, 2009, Mario Andrette McNeill, 29, was arrested and charged with first-degree kidnapping. Shaniya's mother, Antoinette Nicole Davis, 25, was later arrested for prostituting her daughter and human trafficking. Arrest warrants show that Davis "knowingly provide(d) Shaniya with the intent that she be held in sexual servitude" and she "permit(ted) an act of prostitution."

What is human trafficking?

Human trafficking is 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. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs (UNODC).

After drug dealing, trafficking of humans is tied with arms dealing as the second largest criminal industry in the world, and is the fastest growing. It is estimated that 14,500 to 17,500 people, primarily women and children, are trafficked to the U.S. annually (US Department of State). Cases of human trafficking have been reported in all 50 states, Washington D.C., and some U.S. territories.

Victims of human trafficking can be children or adults, U.S. citizens or foreign nationals, male or female. thousands of men, women, and children are trafficked to the United States for the purposes of sexual and labor exploitation. An unknown number of U.S. citizens and legal residents are trafficked within the country primarily for sexual servitude and, to a lesser extent, forced labor (ED.gov). Among them are hundreds of thousands of teenage girls, and others as young as 5, who fall victim to the sex trade. Young people are recruited into prostitution through forced abduction, pressure from parents, or through deceptive agreements between parents and traffickers

Those who profit from victimizing children and adults in the sex trade are only one half of the problem. The other half are those who patronize this exploitive industry (Department of Justice). Sex trafficking and sex tourism are heinous crimes that victimize the most vulnerable among us. Federal law gives prosecutors tools to bring those who commit these crimes to justice.

References:

Department of Justice. Avail: http://www.justice.gov/criminal/ceos/trafficking.html

ED.gov. Avail: http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/osdfs/factsheet.html

UNODC. (2009). Avail: http://www.blogger.com/postcreate.g?blogID=2502888716139617530

US Department of State Trafficking in Persons Report 2006. Avail:
http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2006/