HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND PROSTITUTION

Texas Southern University

Darrell Blacklock

Human Trafficking and Prostitution in Texas

Human Trafficking and Prostitution in Texas

Introduction

In Texas it is common where older men target young girls, only to rape the girls. This starts of a form of slavery all on its own. The shame the young girl feels and the betrayal of her family, because she was raped and is considered dirty. The families will have the young girls married to the rapist to save face. (Hawley, 2003) The promise of a great job is another tactic used to start the trafficking process. Half a century has gone by only to find all nations are still trying to understand what human trafficking is. Humanity has evolved enormous strides only to still practice some of the earliest crimes known to man. There is no excuse for this to be even happening in this day and age. There are still scores of issues with human trafficking that violate the very articles of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.

In Texas Today trafficking is one of the most profitable industrys, back to back with the illegal arms trade. It usualy affects women and children. The total annual revenue for trafficking is estimated to be between 5 to 9 billion USD in Texas.

The United Nations estimate that 2.7 million people from 127 different countries are being trafficked around the world. (FLOWE, 2010) There is alot of confusion around the term trafficking. (UNODC, 2009)

People tend to confuse it with smuggling. While smuggling requires travel, trafficking doesn't. The term itself can be responsible for the confusion because it includes the word „traffic“ which is often related with transportation or travel.

Human trafficking does not require the physical movement of a person it only requires the explotation of a person for labor or commercial sex. Victims of human trafficking are not permited to leave once they reach the destination. They are held against their will and are forced to provide services to the trafficker or others. The work or services may include anything from bonded or forced labor to commercialized sexual exploitation. (Kennel-Shank, 2006)

In Texas the arrangement may be structured as a work contract, but with no or low payment or on terms which are highly exploitative. Sometimes the arrangement is structured as debt bondage, with the victim not being permitted or able to pay off the debt and that is very common in Texas.

The use of sex in the exchange of money has been cited as the Texas oldest and the most controversial professions. Prostitution is believed to have been first developed in Mesopotamia. From there it slowly spread into surrounding cultures in United States Egypt, and India, there were some counties that developed it independently. Prostitution is a complex profession because it has to be learned, anthropologists believe that it is spread through cultural diffusion. Prostitution was and has always been a private matter. It isn't talked about openly and took place away from the tribal areas. It was and has always ...