Last week I graduated from The University of Tennessee. I spent much of my final semester on campus researching and writing a thesis about human trafficking in Tennessee.
In this post I am taking a break from World Race updates (In case you don’t know, I’m leaving on an 11-month mission trip in October. You can find more information here.)
Instead, I want to tell you some of the information that I discovered while writing my thesis.
Before beginning my research, I knew very little about human trafficking, especially in our hometowns. In case you are in the same boat that I was, here are the facts:
- Slavery takes place to this day. It is called human trafficking. Human trafficking exploits people through the use of force, fraud, or coercion. In essence, human trafficking is modern-day slavery.
- This modern-day slavery does not only take place in far-away developing lands like the countries I will serve on the World Race. It occurs in the United States too. In fact, some estimate that hundreds of thousands of people are victims of human trafficking right here in the United States.
- Human trafficking takes place not only in large urban areas like New York City and Los Angeles. It is a problem in Tennessee too. In 2013 the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation reported that there were instances of minor sex trafficking in 76 counties. In my home of Marshall County, between 16 and 25 cases of minor sex trafficking cases were reported in 2013, while more than 100 were reported in Knox County where I attended college (you can find the full TBI report here).
- About 80% of human trafficking that takes place in the United States is sex trafficking in which women are forced to commit sexual acts for the commercial gain of another. In Tennessee, victims of sex trafficking are most often women who are American citizens. They are often underage.
- These women often become trapped in human trafficking due to a technique called boyfriending. In boyfriending a trafficker poses as an unsuspecting victim’s boyfriend and convinces her that he loves her. Once she is convinced of his love, he begins to exploit her.
- Women who are victims of boyfriending often have similar vulnerabilities. For example, more than 50 percent of sex trafficking victims in the United States have been in the foster care system and more than 90 percent have a history of sexual abuse. These past traumas leave women with an increased desire to feel loved, which traffickers take advantage of.
- While being trafficked, women are subject to domestic, sexual, emotional, and verbal abuse. The level of post-traumatic stress that trafficking victims develop due to repeated trauma is paralleled only by that experienced by returning war veterans.
- Sex trafficking victims also often struggle with addiction, depression, anxiety, self-harm, eating disorders, and other psychological disorders as well as sexually transmitted infections and diseases, chronic dental issues, untreated broken bones, malnourishment, hair loss, and more.
- Moreover, because victims most often enter trafficking during their teenage years, they often lack education and job skills, making victims feel as if they have no options beyond trafficking.
Luckily, there are non-profit organizations across Tennessee that are working to combat human trafficking and to rehabilitate victims. Information can be found on their websites at: secondlifechattanooga.org, endslaverytn.org, and ccaht.org.
YOU too can help end human trafficking in Tennessee. Here’s how:
- Pray. Pray that God would deliver and heal trafficking victims. Also pray that traffickers would see the evil in their ways and repent.
- Volunteer. The non-profits whose websites are listed above rely on volunteers to help educate the community about trafficking and to help rehabilitate victims. Contact them to inquire about opportunities.
- Donate. The above non-profits also rely upon financial support from the community. Go to their websites and give to help support their operating costs.
- Educate. Talk about the problem of human trafficking. Help make sure that it is not an overlooked issue in our communities.
- Stop. Human trafficking is a demand-driven issue that must be stopped at its roots. The demand for pornography must be curbed in order to end human trafficking. As a community, we must put a stop to its consumption to stop the exploitation of women in turn.
For more information, you may also view my full thesis here. Thank you for taking the time to read this post!
