Human trafficking is a modern-day form of slavery — an extraordinarily lucrative illegal enterprise that is going on right now in small towns and big cities across the United States and around the globe. Although this is not part of the essential minimum requirements of Prout, strictly speaking, it goes to the core of economic and social justice and public safety for every community.
Its most insidious form is sex trafficking, preying on children as young as ten and eleven, from every socio-economic sector. Economic upheaval tends to increase both supply and demand, with pimps increasingly scouting middle schools for ever-younger quarry.
The other side of human trafficking, indentured and forced labor, exists in every state of our country, targeting both manual laborers and domestic workers. A great many of these are undocumented workers, while others are simply lured into jobs under false pretenses, becoming entrapped by intimidation or outright incarceration.
The human costs of this vicious and degrading activity are enormous and easy to recognize. Economic costs are harder to quantify. But if a living wage is a goal that we as a society consider a basic need, and if freedom (of choice, of movement, of employment) is indeed a fundamental right in our society, then a person who’s been trafficked and held hostage for his or her labor has been egregiously wronged. This means that we, as a people, must do everything in our power to abolish the sex trade and help victims reintegrate into a safe and just society.
What motivates a trafficker of persons? Greed, of course, but what about the economic system that sets the context for that greed by encouraging and rewarding it? And what of a society that equates human life (particularly though not exclusively that of females) with merchandise to be bought and sold?
These are larger issues that will be dealt with through an overall, generational restructuring of our socio-economic system where greed and political expediency are replaced with a balanced economy which secures basic, material needs for all people, while providing circumstances for the development of mind and the nurturing of spirit.
A healthy society which recognizes the threefold nature of people (spiritual, psychic and physical) does not exploit them, their bodies, their labor, or their talents through trafficking of any kind. A healthy society nurtures the development of everyone within it for the good of all, protects them and recompenses them fairly and adequately for their contributions to the whole. Concerned citizens will ensure that appropriate laws exist to protect the well-being and guarantee the freedom of everyone, especially the most vulnerable in society.
Equally important is the will to equitably and consistently enforce those laws. In recent years, the US Congress has introduced an impressive number of bills on trafficking issues, though many are focused through the lens of national security rather than on human needs and human dignity. But many of these bills languish in committee, or are simply buried in the mound of pending legislation in Washington. A more effective strategy would be to focus on local and state legislators who are directly accountable to their constituents, and whose grassroots efforts tend to be more impactful.
Though there has been a great deal of work done by many individuals and organizations in recent years on this topic, much remains to be done. Some have estimated there are as many as 400,000 sexually trafficked children (those under the age of 18) in the US alone. There are indications that gangs and organized crime in the US have been moving their focus from illicit drug to sex trafficking, since there is less law enforcement attention on these issues and more money to be made. After all, you can sell a person over and over again, often for many years running, where drugs can only be sold once.
Human trafficking is a significant humanitarian issue that society must address. Boys and girls, women and men are being brutally exploited; and their physical and emotional health, their financial well-being, their self-respect, their very freedom as human beings are denied them. This is work that must begin at the local, block level up through the state, through education, legislation and coordination with concerned groups of all descriptions.