“Trade” A Movie on Sex Trafficking

I just watched this movie last night depicting the sex trade of children and women from Mexico into the United States. The movie does a relatively good job in illustrating how sex trafficking encompasses a network of actors not only on a local but international level. Aside from the heartache and sympathy that you may feel for the characters, the movie illustrates the reality of the torturous, cruel environments and situations that victims are placed in on the sex trade. It is an accurate depiction of what sex trafficking has manifested itself into…even in the 21st century.

http://www.tradethemovie.com/

Three arrested on slave labor charges in Las Vegas

 I came across another article in the Washington Post that caught my attention today. Three individuals were charged with enslaving more than 20 members of a Chinese acrobat team in Las Vegas. Individuals were held captive against their will, while working for little or no pay, having their passports and identification confiscated, and living under harsh conditions. This story, although independent in itself from other stories of human trafficking and forced labor, is not different in the subject of human rights. Some cannot fathom or even begin to believe how individuals could take it upon themselves to intentionally exploit and coerce others for their own gain and benefit. In this case, the members were forced to work as a legitimate show acrobat team, but also as maids and gardners. The individuals who worked in charge of them were basically pimps, who allotted the members small portions of income each month; money that was not sustainable for anyone to live off of, but it is not as if these individuals had a choice to live the way that they might have wanted to. It’s a frustrating and sad truth to realize and be aware that these types of occurrances do happen around the globe and that as long as there are such demands for individuals, there will always be the coercion, force, and expliotation of those in the most vulnurable situations to be trafficked into some type of slave labor.