Sex Trafficking is Modern-Day Slavery
                               Facts and Statistics

Slavery exists in the world today for 27 million held in some form of captivity. 80% of them are women; 50% are underage children and 70% of the females are trafficked for sexual exploitation purposes.

These are not prostitutes. These are women and girls that are being prostituted.

Sex-Trafficking is a modern-day form of slavery in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act is under the age of 18 years.

Victims of sex trafficking can be women or men, girls or boys, but the majority are women and girls. There are a number of common patterns for luring victims into situations of sex trafficking, including:

     - A promise of a good job in another country
     - A false marriage proposal turned into a bondage situation
     - Being sold into the sex trade by parents, husbands, boyfriends
     - Being kidnapped by traffickers

Traffickers use psychological as well as physical coercion and bondage. Coercion is defined as: threats of serious harm to or physical restraint against any person; any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause a person to believe that failure to perform an act would result in serious harm to or physical restraint against any person; or the abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process.

Sex traffickers frequently subject their victims to debt-bondage, an illegal practice in which the traffickers tell their victims that they owe money (often relating to the victims’ living expenses and transport into the country) and that they must pledge their personal services to repay the debt.

Sex traffickers use a variety of methods to “condition” their victims including starvation, confinement, beatings, physical abuse, gang rape, threats of violence to the victims and the victims’ families, forced drug use and threat of shaming their victims by revealing their activities to their family and their family’s friends.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
According to the Trafficking in Persons Report, 2004 www.state.gov/tip/tls/tiprpt/2004/

Every year:

     - 200,000 American children are at risk for trafficking into the sex industry
     - 14,500-17,500 people are trafficked into the United States
     - 5,000-7,000 people are trafficked into the United States from East Asia and the Pacific
     - 3,500-5,500 people are trafficked into the United States from each of the following regions:

Latin America, Europe, and Eurasia
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Coalition Against Human Trafficking, Houston tells us the following:

The FBI says that there are 127 active brothels in Houston, with 2 new ones opening each month.
The scope of human trafficking in Texas:
Texas is a major hub for human trafficking, ranking second only to California.
Interstate 10 has been designated as the main route for traffickers by the Department of Justice.
Houston is considered a main trafficking hub city and a major destination. In 2001, around 3,600 victims were located in Texas. The second largest trafficking bust in U.S. history occurred in Houston in 2007.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
An estimated 18,000 foreign nationals are trafficked into the U.S. each year. According to the Polaris Project, the number of U.S. citizens trafficked within our own borders are even higher, with an estimate of more than 200,000 American children at high risk for trafficking into the sex industry each year.

ICE “Operation Predator” estimates that 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 10 boys in the U.S. are sexually exploited before they reach adulthood. Child trafficking, child pornography, and international sex tourism now generates billions of dollars a year worldwide.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Human Trafficking, A Growing Criminal Market in the U.S. by James Finckenauer and Jennifer Schrock of the International Center, National Institute of Justice.

Texas and the Southwest border continue to serve as the biggest point of illegal entry into the U.S., largely because traffickers are able to get aliens across without documents. The major points of entry into the U.S. are located in southern (Houston) and central Texas, southern California, Tucson, Arizona and areas of New Mexico. While the southwest border is often used as the main portal into the U.S., the emerging ports of entry in the region include Atlanta, Houston, Orlando, and Washington, D.C.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Like many other states, Texas has and continues to experience incidents of human trafficking in forms of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation. Three main factors contribute to trafficking in Texas and Houston: Proximity, demographics, and a large migrant labor force. Houston’s proximity to the Mexican border and I-10, along with its port, make it a popular point of entry for international trafficking.

At the Department of Justice Trafficking Conference, the I-10 corridor was identified as one of the main routes for human traffickers in the U.S.

Additionally, Texas’ huge geographic size and large Hispanic population create optimal conditions for trafficking because of the ability to blend in with the community.

As of January 2006, of all human trafficking victims certified in the U.S., 25% of them were in Texas, the majority of who were in Houston

                                       -U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other interesting facts:

The number one obstacle that law enforcement and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) face is the identification of victims. The ease with which victims are hidden, since trafficking may look like a traditional crime such as prostitution, domestic violence, or unpaid wages contributes to the lack of a correct response on the part of the local community, where human trafficking may be occurring. Additionally, many of the victims are unaware that they receive protection under U.S. and Texas law, therefore they rarely self-identify.

Despite the legal innovations of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, the number of people who have actually received protection under the law is relatively low, especially when compared to estimates of how many trafficking victims are in the U.S.

According to the Department of Health and Human Services: After drug dealing, human trafficking is tied with the illegal arms industry as the second largest criminal industry in the world today and it is the fastest growing.

According to the FBI:  Human trafficking recently became the number 1 criminal industry in the world. 

According to the Department of Justice Study: “Needs Assessment for Service Providers and Trafficking Victims” the need for appropriate shelter is the top priority (among 98% of those interviewed). Victims face many barriers that prevent them from accessing services that meet their special needs. Traditional shelters for homeless or victims of domestic violence are neither ready nor are appropriate for victims of human trafficking.

Dr. Condoleezza Rice, former United States Secretary of State says: “This kind of modern-day slavery is hard to imagine in the United States. I think these cases are so painful to see, and it’s often hard even for the victims to recognize that they are victims. It’s disgusting. These organizations are run by some of the very worst criminals in our society. They treat human beings as cargo, as commodities to prey upon for a simple profit.”

Kathi West, Assistant United States Attorney says: “A lot of people assume that human trafficking only happens in other countries; that this couldn’t possibly happen here in the U.S. I think they would be very surprised to find how much it is happening, and it is probably happening in their town.”