Sunday, September 21, 2014

60 percent of the 14.2 million people in forced labour are male.

Ryan Beck Turner writes about human trafficking:
The United States is a significant destination, origin and transit country for human trafficking. As such, Americans have an obligation to confront and be accountable for the human trafficking occurring within their borders. The myopic focus on sex trafficking of girls in Southeast Asia or Eastern Europe draws attention away from the fact that the tomatoes we eat may be the product of forced labor in Florida or that the person selling magazines at our door may be a homeless youth being trafficked state to state.

According to the ILO’s 2012 estimates, 60 percent of the 14.2 million people in forced labour are male. Yet male victims of human trafficking are rarely discussed. The lack of public attention on the trafficking of men and boys is reflected in the absence of services for male survivors of human trafficking. According to a 2012 study conducted by the Polaris Project, there are 529 shelter beds available specifically for trafficking survivors in the United States. Of those 529 shelter beds, 125 are available to men, and a mere two are reserved for men only.
Read more here.

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