The Crime That Circles The Globe

This is troubling and not for the faint of heart...
It's a lot, and reading through this was an emotional roller coaster for me. I would go from angry, to sad in under sixty seconds. Consequently, I will be sharing my newly gleaned knowledge of this act on each Friday for the remainder of the month of September. There's far too much information for one blog, and in all honesty, I needed a break. As many of you know, I have a daughter and she has girls. So with that said, perhaps I can drop some knowledge you may be unaware of, to make you more aware as you traverse your daily lives. Because knowledge is power after all, and these are perilous times.

  How many times do we scroll through Face book and are inundated with photographs of some one's missing daughter, mother, niece, cousin or friend. Every single day my timeline has at the minimum of five or six women or girls being waited for at their homes.

  What's become of all these full of life, smiling faced, mostly black women, floating around social media. Let me back up for a moment. One of my melanin challenged Face book friends shared a picture of someone who shares the same hue as he. Face book and the algorithms apparently decide who we see on our pages. If you think about it, that's messed up! We should all be on the look out for all these missing women and girls. Law enforcement in conjunction with broadcasters, transportation agencies and the wireless industry sound the alarm for children, in the form of Amber Alerts. What I'm trying to understand is why this cannot be done for women as well, once her family reports her missing. This shouldn't be terribly hard to accomplish. Technology has all type of capabilities, but nothing to help thwart thousands of snatched up people??? Really?

   Personally, the ones that do not turn up in a few hours or even days I think have probably fallen prey to Human Trafficking. This is reaching epidemic proportions all over the globe, and the U.S. has not escaped this travesty. Human Trafficking is the trade of humans for the purpose of forced labor, and sexual or commercial slavery(exploitation for the trafficker, i.e. pimp). This may encompass providing a spouse in the context of a forced marriage, or the extraction of organs/tissues, including ova(eggs) removal and surrogacy.

  According to the International Labor Organization, there are 40.3 million victims of human trafficking globally. 81% are trapped in forced labor(including slavery, YES SLAVERY), 25% are children and 75% are women and girls.

  The National Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC) reported roughly 979K cases reported by the state of California, and is the most in the United States. After Cali, the states that round out the top ten are Texas, Florida, Ohio, New York, Georgia, Michigan, Illinois, New Jersey and North Carolina. Indiana is number 23, and Vermont is dead last.

  Some states are fighting the good fight in trying to eliminate this scourge on society. Shared Hope International states Louisiana, Tennessee, Florida, Texas, Washington, Montana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Georgia and Kansas are in the forefront of fighting trafficking, although some of these states report the most victims.

  Pakistan, Thailand, China, India and Bangladesh are the top five countries with the largest number of victims worldwide. Human rights issues are not the focus of such countries and in under developed countries, there's really no one combating this in earnest.

Random stats.

  Women and kids are the fastest growing crime and pull in 99B per year.

More than 50% are sexually exploited.

  Sexual trafficking is NOT most common form of human trafficking.

Men also are victims of trafficking in Western and Southern Europe and the Americas.

  Traffickers are not solely men. Women make up large percentages of traffickers and recruiters.

In 2016 there was a 13% jump in trafficking in the U.S.. According to the group Polaris, a non-profit organization to combat trafficking and modern day slavery, it's on the rise in America.

  Many in escort services are trafficked.

Most common forms are sex and forced labor. Many occurrences transpire at illicit massage parlors, bars, strip clubs or cantinas.

PROSECUTION RATES ARE ALARMINGLY LOW. 

  Most of us are familiar with trafficking for sexual purposes. It's absolutely abhorrent the way the trafficker abducts women and girls, beat and rape them, give them highly addictive drugs so their minds are so addled they can barely function. At this point many will do just about anything for the drugs, to keep up the with the demand for their trade so they can keep the pimp(trafficker) flush with cash. In order to keep his pockets full, to ward off subsequent beating and to keep the drugs flowing, they become willing participants. This is standard MO. This is not covered as much as it should be on the evening news, but what isn't reported there, the television show that brags on ripping from the headlines, Law & Order SVU have covered it in numerous episodes. I am NOT trying to make light of it, but it's shameful that a television show is more informative than the evening news. Until this is addressed with any consistency, the Jeffrey Epstein's and the R Kelly's of the world will go on. Business as usual. Ladies we have to be aware. Not fearful, aware. Days of traipsing off to WalMart,  meeting up with your friends to club, or even attending a class alone nowadays is a no no. There is safety in numbers. I've not read of any group of women snatched. A young woman was pulled off the street after getting off a school bus was assaulted the other day in Chicago. This was probably the most traumatic day of her young life and probably one of the best. It could have been so much worse. Her family brought her home from the hospital. Many, if ever found are collected in body bags.  Be alert. Constantly survey your surroundings. Buy a miniature night stick. They're made now to go on your key ring. Get some mace. A stun gun. A real gun. Again, I'm not trying to be humorous and I'm not trying to frighten you. We must live our lives.  Let carefulness rule the day. The life you save may be you own.

With that said, next Friday, I will delve into organ trafficking.