The connections between racism, poverty, and human trafficking [View all]
These connections seem to be understudied and otherwise fly under the radar - which makes it all the more urgent that they are investigated, understood, and that serious action is taken to address these horrifying injustices and cruelties. And it's especially urgent because marginalized peoples and communities everywhere are under direct, systemic assault from the Trump administration and the federal government (especially law enforcement) over which the new administration is increasingly exerting its power, along with all the state and local governments and law enforcement agencies under racist, reactionary/right-wing control.
The horrifying injustices and cruelties are so pervasive and all too often, go unchallenged largely because their victims are essentially powerless - socially, economically, and politically. The power imbalances are about to becoming more systemic, more institutionalized, more extreme, and more devastating; the Trump administration and the right-wingers who now control the federal government and most state and local governments will make sure of it, and they will be aggressive about it. The damage and trauma that will be inflicted - that is already being inflicted - on marginalized, vulnerable social groups is and will be unprecedented in modern American history. We must stand in solidarity with each other, regardless of our place in the social hierarchy of the country or the world. Our very survival depends on it.
The Polaris Project, who does outstanding work in combating human trafficking, stated the majority of trafficked persons come from vulnerable populations, including undocumented migrants, runaways and at-risk youth, oppressed or marginalized groups, and the poor; specifically because they are easiest to recruit and control. In the U.S., statistically speaking, people of color more than fit this criterion.
A large majority of trafficked persons in the U.S. for the purposes of labor and sexual exploitation are people of color. Domestically, 50 percent of trafficked victims are children and an overwhelmingly are girls, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Most foreign nationals are women, children and men from Mexico and East Asia, as well as from South Asia, Central America, Africa, and Europe, about 17,500 each year, according to statistics compiled by Polaris Project and 2009 TIP report.
Seventy-seven percent of victims in alleged human trafficking incidents reported in the U.S. were people of color, according to a Bureau of Justice Statistics Report. An example of BJS’s ambiguity is that 747 out of 1,442 reported incidents recorded no racial or ethnic origin.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jamaal-bell/race-and-human-traffickin_b_569795.html
(Article is from 2010, but obviously as relevant now as it's ever been - if not more so.)
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