Women’s Trafficking in the United States

1. Women’s Trafficking in the United States By: Elizabeth Rimsky D- Band Mr. Diedrich

2. Introduction • Although women’s trafficking within the United States has been less visible as a site of transnational and domestic trafficking in compairsion to nations in Euope and Asia, in recent years and studies it has been estimated at roughly 50,000 women and children annually. • Trafficking occurs in a variety of areas from urban communities to suburban and rural areas as well as areas surrounding U.S military bases.

3. Sex Businesses • Sex business are often means of covering up the act of trafficking women. • Several cases have been reported in the Northeast region of street protitution, escort services, message parlors, health clubs, brothels in hotels, rented houses and apartments and even sometimes legitimate fron businesses. • In areas such as New York, after-hours clubs, warehouses and even sometimes beauty parlors. • In the Northern Midwest escort services known as “chicken shacks” and saunas as well as street prostiution are mostly used. • And in the Southeast trailers in isolated and rural farm work camps are used for these purposes as well.

4. Military Bases • U.S military bases in the South are surrounded by areas known as R&R which stands for rest and recreation. • These areas include a multitude of brothels and massage parlors and sex clubs which have been known to be filled with Asian women that have been trafficked and exploited in the sexual industry.

5. Background of Women • Women in the sex industry that have been studied; 80% of these women enter this business before the age of 25 that had entered from other nations and 83% of women that were from the U.S. • 73% of women that were being trafficked within the U.S had little or no understanding of the English language. • 53% had been using fake travel papers (this is the percentage that were trafficked to the U.S from other nations such as the former Soviet Union).

6. Recruiters Recruiters of such women had often been known as “biker gangs” and of course the mafia that had been known to recruit 60% of the international women and 40% which were composed of U.S women. Often servicemen would marry women abroad that were near military bases and then would travel back to the U.S with them only to pressure them into prostitution upon arrival. A horrific number of these women were later realized to have been prior victims of homeless or displaced homes as well as domestic violence.

7. Controlling Factors • These women of the trafficking industry are not free to leave their controllers by their own free will. • These women are indimiated by sexual exploitation from their rulers as well as violence ( many women from recent studies report that the assault was usually on a daily basis) • Drugs are also used to control the women from behavioral misconduct that can threaten their legal status as well as their economic stability with customers. • Money is also not given to the women in order to make and keep them increasingly depended on their pimps so that they have no choice but to stay in their custody.

8. Means of Coping • These women that were being continually trafficked and later freed were not merely releasing into the free world. • They found it increasing difficult to follow a normal lifestyle and many cases found them dependent on drugs and alcohol as means of coping with the previous exploitation. (87% were using alcohol or drugs within the study of Sex Trafficking of Women in the United States www. Uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/sex_traff_us.pdf)

9. Means of Trafficking • International traffickers very often use tourist and educational visas to grant access of their prostitutes into the U.S. • Russian traffickers featured in a video and report produced by the Global Survival Network explained that the best entry strategy was a 3 month visa for education for women stating that they were coming to the U.S to be trained. • Many women are also brought to the U.S and indentured to working for the pimps or masters until they pay of their trip which may take several years or may result in sooner come death from disease and violence.

10. Conclusion • Although the number of cases of trafficking of women and children have severally decreased within the U.S in the recent years in comparison to other nations, it is sad to say that it still exists within our nation. • We must do everything to prevent women of our nation to feel obligated by any means to provide such services for the betterment of their opportunity and status within a foreign or even worse native nation.