Human Trafficking: The Billion Dollar Industry

It's not always chains. It's not always kidnapping. Sometimes it's seemingly consensual porn videos. Maybe that consensual porn video was uploaded without consent. Maybe a mother in Cambodia is selling her daughter's virginity. Human trafficking comes in many different forms. Sex is the primary reason for trafficking.

Trafficking is a modern epidemic, larger than any virus and deadlier than one, too. Our own countries are not safe; America is one of the worst countries in the world for human trafficking. In fact, it's in the top three, right alongside Mexico and the Philippines. This is a global issue, and we need to be  talking about it. Our silence doesn't stop the demand.

Supply and Demand

Like any enterprise, human trafficking is based on supply and demand. Porn increases the demand, and so does the sexual liberation movement. The more people view sex as a cheap, disposable solution to desire, the more children and adults will be forced to provide satisfaction to everyone but themselves.

Porn is a way of advertising and selling. Traffickers can upload videos to websites like Pornhub to show off their victims and create a demand. They can then slip through the borders of a country or smuggle their victims to big cities like New York or Los Angeles to be bought and used for sex. These same victims can be rented out for parties, guarded closely by their traffickers and the victims who've been trapped long enough to know that escape is futile.

Pornhub and other websites profit off of child sex, incest, rape, violent sex, bondage, gay sex, racist stereotypes, and group sex. All too often, there are silent victims in the 'consensual' videos, too afraid to say no because they've been told it's the only way to make more money. And for the victims who say no, who are raped for the pleasure of others, viewers "love" the tears, victims begging their rapists to stop, and the violence. Many wish for more violence. And despite pedophilia being portrayed as a smaller issue, the most searched porn is for children. Child porn ranges from newborn to the age of eighteen.

Children: The Most Common Victims

As a society, we've become desensitized to this issue. We view teenagers as simply "underage", forgetting that they're just kids whose lives are being destroyed through exploitation. They're children, and they're being robbed of their innocence. We push aside the damage of porn and how it fuels the demand for human trafficking because we're clinging to this idea of sexual freedom. We want to make the prostitution and exploitation okay so we can feel better about ourselves and our own addictions.
When newborns are being raped, when children are sold in mock orphanages to buyers, and when teenagers have consensual sex only to see a video of it uploaded online without consent for millions of people to see, there is no justification for prostitution or 'consensual porn'. You will never know if the porn you watch is actually consensual. You will never know if the prostitute waiting at street corners is living in fear of her life should she flee prostitution.
Acceptance of pedophilia and prostitution only helps traffickers. It doesn't help the victims. You don't take away their pain by saying, "Children can enjoy sex, too," or "Sex work is a personal choice." How do those words help the young girl trapped in a home with her abusers? How do they help the boy who is too scared to admit what's happening to him because people might think he's gay? How do they help the children sold on the black market to live as sex slaves to the elite?
We need to talk about what is happening to these kids and adults. We need to speak the hard truth about human trafficking so we can halt the demand. We need to take action to free human beings from modern slavery.

Be the Change

Today is World Day Against Trafficking In Persons. Because of this, I want to share ways you can help stop the demand for human trafficking. You can take action. You can make a difference. You can help them. Here's how:


1. Be a part of the conversation. 

Find articles and share them. Talk to your friends about human trafficking and its effects. Share the signs, the statistics, and the stories. Use your social media platform to speak out against trafficking and its contributors.
Blake Lively is one of the celebrities fighting for children and in this video she starts an important conversation.


2. Stop watching porn. 

Porn is the largest contributor to human trafficking, so we can stop the demand by making the choice not to consume porn. Porn doesn't just harm others; it also harms ourselves. https://fightthenewdrug.org/ shares information on the harmful effects of porn and encourages us to #stopthedemand during its July campaign.


3. Donate.

https://ourrescue.org - Operation Underground Railroad finds and rescues trafficking victims all over the world.
https://childrescuecoalition.org - Child Rescue Coalition uses technology to supply authorities with enough evidence to arrest and convict predators and traffickers.
https://exoduscry.com - Exodus Cry fights trafficking in many ways, but especially through their documentaries and Shut Down Pornhub campaign.

For more resources, check out this article: https://aleteia.org