1.0 INTRODUCTION
Human trafficking destroys a person’s dignity and strips away an individual’s humanity. According The White House President Barack Obama (n.d), human traffickers hold men, women, and children against their will and, through force, fraud or coercion, make them work many times in the sex industry for little or no income. Severe and constant abuse in some cases leading to death and brain washing are used to destroy the captive’s self-worth and erode the value of human life. At its core, human trafficking reduces humans to property. Human trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transporting, or procurement of a person for labor or services for the purpose of involuntary servitude, slavery, or forced commercial sex acts. Simply, trafficking is modern day slavery. Human trafficking is not smuggling. Human smuggling occurs when a person pays another to be brought across an international border. The crime of trafficking of a person can certainly include the offense of smuggling or even kidnapping, but it is critical for criminal justice professionals to understand the difference. For example, if, after being smuggled across an international border, a person is subject to “debt bondage”, “peonage”, or forced to provide labor or services, then the individual has become a human trafficking victim (Walters &Davis, 2011). Whereas human smuggling is a crime against a country’s sovereignty, human trafficking is a crime against a person. It is happening in bars, hotels, sexually-oriented businesses, poor and wealthy neighborhoods, at home and on the Internet or even right under our noses.
According to Seattle & County, K. (2013), The National Human Trafficking Resource Center recorded 19,427 calls placed to its hotline in 2011. With its long international border, large population, busy ports of entry, numerous urban centers, diverse supply and demand, and its vast interstate highway system. As a criminal justice professional, the front lines are more...