18. April 2010 by student.

Human trafficking is a social problem which gets few and far apart news coverage. This is unfortunate because human trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery, and is practiced in many countries including the United States. In fact, the USA is one of the top destination countries for human trafficking. It is remarkable that this brutal industry racks in over $23 billion annually (UNDOC 2008), making it one of the top three international crimes. They are five main forms:

– prostitution and sex services – 46%;

– domestic service – 27%;

– agriculture – 10%;

– sweatshops or factories – 5%;

– restaurant and hotel work – 4%; with the remainder coming from:

– sexual exploitation of children, entertainment, and mail-order brides.

How Do Trafficker obtain Victims?

Traffickers often prey on individuals who are poor, frequently unemployed or underemployed, and who may lack access to social safety nets, predominantly women and children in certain countries. Victims are often lured with false promises of good jobs and better lives, and then forced to work under brutal and inhumane conditions. Victims either do not consent to their situations, or if they initially consented, that consent in most cases, is with-drawn when they realized the true intent of their so called recruiters.

Force:  involves the use of rape, beatings and confinement to control victims. Forceful violence is used especially during the early stages of victimization, known as the ‘seasoning process’, which is used to break victim’s resistance to make them easier to control. Victims of trafficking are often subjected to debt-bondage, usually in the context of paying off transportation fees from their native countries. Traffickers often threaten victims with injury or death, or the safety of the victims’ family back home. Traffickers commonly take away the victims’ travel documents and isolate them to make escape more difficult. Many victims trafficked into the United States do not speak or understand English and are therefore isolated and unable to communicate with service providers, law enforcement and others who might be able to help them.

What Causes Trafficking?

• Poverty and global disparities like HIV/AIDS and other killers of the poor, thrives in some of these countries, so victims search for opportunities to leave.
• In poorer regions of the world where education and employment opportunities are limited the most vulnerable in society — runaways, refugees, or other displaced persons– are the most common victims of human trafficking.
• In a nutshell, there is a demand for it. Men around the world profit in pleasure and in price from the exploitation of women and children.

What is Being Done For these Victims Here in the US?

In October 2000, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) (Public Law 106-386) was enacted. Prior to that, no comprehensive Federal law existed to protect victims of trafficking or to prosecute their traffickers.

• The TVPA is intended to prevent human trafficking overseas, to increase prosecution of human traffickers in the United States, and to protect victims and provide Federal and state assistance to certain victims so that they can rebuild their lives in the United States.
• Victims of human trafficking who are not U.S. citizens are eligible for a special visa and can receive benefits and services through the TVPA to the same extent as refugees.
• Victims of trafficking who are U.S. citizens may already be eligible for many benefits due to their citizenship.

There is an ongoing Campaign to Rescue and assist victims of Human Trafficking:

• On February 19, 2008, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced $1,298,000 in grants to five organizations to expand efforts to identify and serve victims of human trafficking.
• WASHINGTON, D.C. 10/06 — The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today announced four awards totaling $1,784,083 to help victims of human trafficking in key regions throughout the United States.
• September, 2006, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced $1,571,721 in 18 grants to strengthen outreach services that help identify and assist victims of human trafficking.

In Conclusion

America being the most powerful country on earth, we have to use that power to protect the weakest among us. People in our great nation are being beaten, starved, and forced to work as prostitutes or to take grueling jobs as migrant, domestic, or factory workers with little or no pay. This unacceptable, this is not what our founding fathers fought for. In words of Abraham Lincoln “, neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist in the United States”

Reference

UNODC - ROSA - Trafficking in human beings http://www.unodc.org/india/trafficking_human_beings.html

US Department of Education

http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/osdfs/factsheet.html

Modern Slavery in America

http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/03/modern-slavery-in-america/

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18. April 2010 by Mr. Andoscia.

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18. April 2010 by student.

With the greatly rising rates of teenage pregnancies in the U.S. it is hard to imagine that some parents are still opposed to sexual education in schools.  Approximately 1 million teenage girls become pregnant each year in the U.S, about 13% of U.S. births involve teen mothers and about 25% of teen mothers who give birth have another baby within 2 years.  Clearly adolescents need to be better educated about sex.

Next the question becomes, abstinence only sex ed or comprehensive sex ed?

The abstinence-based approach focuses on teaching young people that abstaining from sex until marriage is the best means of ensuring that they avoid infection with HIV or other STDs and unintended pregnancy.  Supporters of this approach also find sex before marriage to be morally wrong. The comprehensive approach does not teach kids to wait till marriage to have sex, however it does encourage them to wait until they are physically and emotionally ready.  It displays the benefits of delaying sex, but also teaches how to protect themselves from infections and pregnancy for when they do decide to have sex.  

Since so many teenage girls are getting pregnant it is clear that abstinence is not the route many teens take. Approximately 75% of parents don’t think their teens are sexually active. Yet about 4 in 10 young women get pregnant at least once before turning 20, and a great number more become sexually active before this age.  Most parents want to think that it’s not their kids that make up these statistics, but to be ignorant about the problem and turn a blind eye will not make it go away. 

I believe schools should use the comprehensive approach to sex education, or at least a combination of both approaches.  This way the students will be informed about sex, contraceptives, and STDs, and they will be encouraged to wait to have sex until marriage, or at least until they are ready in every way possible.        

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18. April 2010 by student.

Animal testing is when animals are used for scientific experiments, generally experiments involving products to be used on humans. An estimated seventy-five million animals are used for animal testing every year. These animals can be anything from fish to primates, however invertebrates are not included in that statistic. The majority of animals used in experiments get euthanized shortly after being used. Most of the animals used in are bred solely for the use of experiments, although  others may be caught in the wild or supplied by dealers who obtain them from auctions and pounds. The research is conducted inside universities, medical schools, pharmaceutical companies, farms, defense establishments, and facilities that provide animal-testing services. Experiments that animals are used for include genetics, developmental biology, behavioural studies, drug testing and toxicology tests, including cosmetics testing. Animals are also used for education, breeding, and defense research. This topic is highly controversial. Supporters of the animal testing, for example, the British Royal Society, state that almost all medical achievements in the 20th century relied on the use of animals in some way. While it may be argued that animals should be used for testing because the have no moral judgement, animals still deserve the right to live a happy life. As humans, we are obligated to give these animals the best life they can have. Killing an animal such as a dog, cat or primate is frowned upon, just as killing a human is. Animals should not be used for animal testing for so many reasons. By testing products on animals, we are taking advantage of these beautiful, vulnerable animals and their rights! As Mahatma Ghandi once said, “To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. The more helpless the creature, the more that it is entitled to protection by man from the cruelty of man.”

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18. April 2010 by student.

Critics of legalization and decriminalization say it does not discourage prostitution of lessen its harmfulness.  In fact they say legalization and decriminalization actually encourages prostitution.  They maintain that such policies send the message that society condones prostitution, making it harder for anyone to criticize it. They also reinforce abusive practices in the industry.  In other words removing the penalties against violent pimps and men who purchase sex acts will not cause them to be less violent.  Critics say that even under a system of legal prostitution, prostitutes are treated poorly and tend to have little power. They point to research conducted by anti-prostitution activist Melissa Farley on legal brothels in Nevada.  In her book “Prostitution and Trafficking in Nevada” Farley writes that the Nevada prostitutes featured in her book are required to work extremely long shifts at the brothels, often must give half their earnings to management and can be fined for various infractions, such as not greeting newly  arrived customers quickly enough.  She also reports that the vast majority of prostitutes she interviewed did not want to be doing what they were doing.  Many of them had post-traumatic stress disorder due to sexual harassment, sexual exploitation and sometimes rape.  

Prostitution also harms society more generally, critics say.  Permitting prostitution to occur undisturbed demonstrates a fundamental lack of respect for women.  When the legal barriers disappear, so do the social and ethical barriers to treating women as sexual commodities and encourages the demeaning treatment of women.  Legalization of prostitution sends the message to new generations of men and boys that women are indeed sexual commodities and that prostitution is harmless fun. 

Many prostitutes are actually foreign women and girls who have been trafficked from poor countries.  Thousands of women are estimated to be trafficked into some European countries each year.  What appears to a man as a very young girl who is seductive and seems to really want to be with him, is in reality a child who is simple scared into acting seductive for fear of the torture room underneath the building.  Men need to think of these women as if  they were their mother, sisters, wife etc., then it might bring some reality to the harm done.

“Legalizing Prostitution.”  Issues  Controversies on File: n. pag. Issues & Controversies.  Facts of file News Services, 23 Jan.  2009. Web  17 April 2010.

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