Women under the age of 25 are the majority of victims of women sex trafficking, which is considered a form of enslavement and is a type of human trafficking. It is a type of criminal offense, so concentrating on it will actually enhance the criminal justice system. It has a greater effect if it is reduced to a greater extent so that justice is served to the affected people because this type of crime is considered to be the third most common type of crime, after weapons and drugs.
Inclusion in society, poverty, and other developmental problems are all impacted by the trafficking problem. justice and the rule of law hence it is relevant for practitioners in the development community (Blake, 2011).
Human trafficking is the process where people are recruited from their communities or countries of origin and taken to a destination where they are exploited for domestic servitude, labor, and prostitution among other forms of being exploited by others. The conventional definition of trafficking is set to prevent, minimize and punish trafficking in persons especially women and children as stated in the Palermo protocol. From the protocol, trafficking is defined as the recruitment, transfer, and receipt of persons by means of force, deception, threat or coercion or abuse of a position of influence to give or receive benefits or financial proceeds in order to achieve the consent of a person having control over another for purposes of exploitation. Traffickers use certain methods to create unsafe conditions of victims who do not have any other choice other than to obey the traffickers. The victims are kept in a state of bondage, starvation, imprisonment, rape, beatings, removal of a person’s identification documents, verbal threats to victims or their families and forced drug use (Hua, 2011).
The United Nations office on drugs and crime (UNODC) EXPLAINS THAT TRAFFICKING is a combination of three elements which are used to identify trafficking. These are the process of transfer, the means of acquisition and the purpose of the person being trafficked. Sex trafficking of women is the most prevalent form of human trafficking, and it impacts on women and children prevention approaches need to focus more on the vulnerabilities of individual women and girls (Kara, 2010). Prevention mechanisms should consider social norms and policy factors to empower women and girls. Reducing demand for commercial sex and goods produced from exploitative labor helps in reducing human trafficking. It is hard to quantify trafficking due to the diversity of the trafficking situations and the difficulty in accessing the affected women and girls contributing to the gap of solving trafficking (Scarpa, 2011).
Objectives
To determine the age group that is most common in Trafficking of women and girls. The study question in this project is finding out what age in women is involved in sex trafficking. The study involves finding out how this kind of slavery affects Criminal Justice as a field and afterwards look for a way to control this crime that has hit a record of being third among the top crimes. Finding a way forward on this research question will be of great benefit to the field of criminal justice since it affects millions of women across the world each year. Besides the women being used in forced labor and prostitution they are used in other forms of private sex which involves being locked up by individuals, hence preventing the hand of justice from reaching these individuals. Professional training, community awareness programs and early identification of human trafficking increase the opportunities that women will receive service and be able to avoid the trafficking situation. The first stage of reducing incidences of trafficking is prevention. By ensuring awareness and educational campaigns are necessary to lessen the vulnerability of women and girls to trafficking (Gerdes, 2006).
Empowerment programs such as counseling, education and addressing risk factored like unavailability of support build protective factors for the vulnerable women. Policy efforts at all levels of society also aid in addressing prevention as the legislation focus in the prosecution of traffickers and service for the affected. Programs to change social norms about commercial sex would also aid in the prevention of trafficking (Newman, 2000).
The second stage of reducing trafficking of women and girls is protection which ensures that victims of trafficking have access to healthcare, shelter, counseling services by psychologists and access to legal services (Scarpa, 2011). On governmental organizations assume most of the responsibility for protection and care of trafficking victims. Professionals such as psychologists can play vital roles in criminal justice systems by assisting evaluations and questioning of trafficking victims.
Literature review
The society is designed for men to dominate over women and children and their masculinity usually revolves around sex. .global estimated show that 30 to 50% of all trafficking victims are under 18 years. The children are sexually exploited and made to work on untangling fishing nets, begging among other things. The children may be lured to leave home with the promise of a better life while at other occasions parents sell their children to have fewer mouths to feed. Forceful conscription of children into armed conflict as child soldiers is also a mode of trafficking (Gerdes, 2006).
Sex trafficking occurs when an adult engages in commercial sex as a result of force, that coercion, or by fraud. Sex trafficking also may take place within the bond of debt where an individual is compelled into prostitution as unlawful debt purported to be incurred from either transportation, recruitment or even sale as slaves where exploiters insist on being paid off before they can be freed (Friman, 2007). This is prevalent in women and girls who are perceived to be the easier targets. Years of research show the sexualization and objectification of women and girls. Sex trafficking occurs due to the spread objectification of the female body that perceives women and girls as commodities in economies where they have little power. Labor trafficking does not distinguish between adults and children. In both labor and sex trafficking there is an imbalance in power where the traffickers have the authority to treat another human as good and keep all the profits (Bryfonski, 2013).
Varying on the type of trafficking, different victims of women sex trafficking get affected in various ways. This includes psychologically, physically and mentally. The victims have been reported to have physical impacts due to the force used on them by the traffickers and also contract sexually transmitted infections such as HIV which is mostly transmitted sexually. The individuals also get mental health disorders such as having fear, always having anxiety, trauma and insecurity (Barlay, 1975).
Most of the reports show that the affected persons may feel so isolated since most of them are transported to areas that are so far away from their homes hence due to change in race and language cannot communicate, furthermore given freedom, they seem to be in another world in which they recognize no one as either a friend or relative (Blake, 2011).
Research design
A quasi-experimental design was chosen for this research as the research was solely focused on sex trafficking on a specific target group which is girls and women.
Subjects for study
Following the purpose of the research, the information to be gathered was to understand better the experiences of the trafficking victims and the target sample was 8-10 participants. This number is efficient as the research was meant for a qualitative study. Participants were citizens above 18 years and had been previously rescued from trafficking and now live in safe houses. .the sampling design for this research project is a non-probability sampling design as the sample for the study were determined by the researcher.
Restate research question
This study will seek to answer the primary question of which age group of women and girls are more prevalent to sex trafficking.
Measurement of variables
Resources refer to the programs, social workers, and fund that help with the job, education, family, health care, shelters among other things.
Human trafficking is the harboring, recruitment, transportation or taking a person to provide labor or a service through fraud, threats, force or coercion to be subjected to involuntary servitude or slavery (Aronowitz, 2009).
Sex trafficking is a commercial sex act which is initiated by fraud, coercion, force or where a person enticed by money to perform illegal immoral acts and has not attained the legal age of 18 years.
Sex trafficking is greatly influenced by the socio-economic background of the victims. Poor victims would opt for a better life by submitting to trafficking.
Data collection will consist of interviewing participant for five minutes with a set of interview guide questions. The interview questions are formulated from the information obtained from the literature review and also the primary research question.
Analysis
Participants will be asked to state their current age and also at what age they were exposed to sex trafficking. Results will be tabulated and grouped according to the number of years the participant has been in sex trafficking.
In this area, the age that will be focused on will greatly look at a specific age and that is mostly the age of women below 25 years and not past 16 years and in some situations 18 years. Larger populations will be found in places such as India and mostly the already industrialized countries such as the United States where the industry is more profitable and booming. More travelling and exploration will be needed since the abusive business is done by people who do not want their names to be unfolded lest they be pointed out by the Criminal Justice department.
The analysis will also be done by drawing pie charts that state the person who introduced the women and girls to sex trafficking, a friend, family member, associate or partner. The information gathered from the interview will be saved in the secure computer.
Conclusions
After the research interviews, it would be easier to see the experience of the victims with sex trafficking and which were the factors that put the role into one's entry or exit from the practice.it would also be easier to know how the victims were introduced to the practice by family members , partners, associates or strangers.
From this study, it would also be easier to make resources available to the victims and also potential areas with a high risk of sex trafficking.
This will be helpful in providing more useful information, to educate the public in general, create better access to resources and aid in fighting sex trafficking.
Through introducing methods of reaching the victims, the affected individuals will be able to get justice and their families compensated. The traffickers will also face the law severely since the act is seen as inhuman and crime as a whole. The department of Criminal Justice will also have enough proof against those involved and a head start on how to tackle the whole problem hence reduce the percentages from these peak levels.
The report will help improve on the security sector and Criminal Justice as a whole since it comes third among the most reported criminal activities around the world.
This will be helpful in providing more useful information, to educate the public in general, create better access to resources and aid in fighting sex trafficking.
References
Aronowitz, A. (2009). Human trafficking, human misery. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Bales, K., Trodd, Z., & Williamson, A. (2011). Modern slavery. Oxford: Oneworld.
Barlay, S. (1975). Sex slavery. London: Coronet.
Blake, W. (2011). The history of slavery and the slave trade, ancient and modern. [Charleston, S.C.]: Nabu Press.
Bryfonski, D. (2013). Human trafficking. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, A part of Gale, Cengage Learning.
Friman, H. (2007). Human trafficking, human security, and the Balkans. Pittsburgh, PA: Univ. of Pittsburgh Press.
Gerdes, L. (2006). Prostitution and sex trafficking. Detroit (etc.): Thomson Gale.
Hua, J. (2011). Trafficking women's human rights. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Kara, S. (2010). Sex trafficking. New York: Columbia University Press.
Kara, S. (2010). Sex trafficking. New York: Columbia University Press.
Newman, S. (2000). Child slavery in modern times. New York: Franklin Watts.
Scarpa, S. (2011). Trafficking in human beings. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
