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Factors of Human Trafficking

Economics
economics of traffickingWomen and children trafficked are considered commodities that are essentially used and then reused. Particularly, in Asian cultures where women are deemed second-class citizens, women are considered cheap laborers for the slave trade industry because the sale of a woman is viewed as an insignificant loss to society.
The sex industry not only provides direct economic benefits to those involved in the actual trafficking but it also benefits the country as a whole. Some argue that it is a mechanism to redistribute income because income is transferred from urban sex workers to their families living in the countryside. Second, the sex industry is supported by politicians, police, armed forces, and other corrupt officials who receive bribes supplementing their own incomes. Finally, business for hotels, air carriers, and tour operators are increased as a result of the business supplied to them by the sex industry.

Supply Of Victims
supply of trafficked victimsAccording to the 2005 TIP, of the estimated 600,000 to 800,000 people trafficked across international borders annually, eighty percent of the victims are female, and up to up to fifty percent are children. According to a 2003 study in the Journal of Trauma Practice, eighty-nine percent of women in prostitution want to escape prostitution.
Recruitment of victims comes in many forms. Traffickers take advantage of the poverty levels of many women and children in recruiting and luring victims into the traffic industry. For instance, women may enter voluntarily but be deceived as to the conditions under which they would be forced to work—forced to work twenty four hours a day, receiving little pay, not being able to leave, and being forced to endure physical abuse.
Second, women may be recruited through DEBT BONDAGE. Parents, friends, or other close acquaintances may sell a child or woman for employment in return for cash. In Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where the most prevalent brothel villages are located, the current price for a women or girl is 500-700 US dollars, and 100-200 US dollars in rural areas.
However, the women and children rarely ever see any of the profits and are required to work until the debt is paid off. Most often it takes women and children years to pay off their debts because extra expenses are added to their debt, including cost of room and board, clothing, make-up, laundry, and medical supplies. Even if a child or woman pays the entirety of her debt, she often has no other choice but to stay because she lacks skills for any other kind of work.
Third, women and children are LURED, DECEIVED, KIDNAPPED, OR TRICKED in other ways into prostitution. Women and children are deceived by recruiters who gain their trust and promise a higher paying job somewhere else. Particularly in Southeast Asia, where women have additional responsibility to support their own families, lack of employment opportunity coupled with extreme poverty makes them easy targets for deception.

Harsh Realities

harsh conditions of victims of traffickingSome victims of trafficking are taken to brothels where they live in windowless rooms that are filthy, dark, and cramped. There is usually only enough room to sleep, which is virtually pointless being that she is not able to sleep through the night or day because clients arrive at all hours. Food is provided but is given irregularly and eating habits are at best unhealthy. They are forced to receive as many as twenty clients per day regardless of whether they are sick or menstruating. They will suffer from physical injuries including: injuries from physical abuse, skin irritations, headaches, fevers, all forms of sexually transmitted diseases, and HIV/AIDS. Most victims do not have access to condoms and even if they do have one, many victims are forced to have sex without condoms because their clients refuse to use one. As a result, one study found that almost forty percent of victims in Cambodia alone test for HIV POSITIVE.
Traffickers threaten their victims claiming that their families will be murdered if she tries to escape or leave, forcing women to adhere to the demands of traffickers.

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