Through research and statistics the first path our world needs to take to end this horrific epidemic is awareness. Before I started this project, very few people in my school community knew that such a thing as this was going on. I personally first learned of this from a lifetime movie, it was so terrible I thought it was 99.9% fictional, after research though, I found this not to be true. But wanna here one of the most scary facts of all? In 2000 the U.S. Department of State passed an act called the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000. The United States Department of Justice spoke out about this on July 25th of 2008. This is as follows:
"On October 28th of 2009 the President signed into law the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000. This new law, which was passed virtually unanimously by both houses of Congress, addresses issues of worker exploitation resulting from trafficking in persons. This law is the culmination of the federal government's efforts through the Trafficking in Persons and Worker Exploitation Task Force , an interagency group that brings the FBI, INS, Department of Labor and other agencies together to remedy a problem with both domestic and global dimensions, primarily involving women and children as victims.
The Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division, which enforces slavery and peonage statutes that were initially enacted over 100 years ago, was highly involved in drafting this new legislation. The new law expands the definition of forced labor to reach the more insidious forms of coercion occurring in contemporary times, thus enabling the Section to come to the aid of more victims and to bring more cases than allowed under prior laws.
Here are some highlights of the new statute as they affect the Criminal Section's enforcement responsibilities:
- -creates new laws that criminalize trafficking with respect to slavery, involuntary servitude, peonage or forced labor
- -permits prosecution where nonviolent coercion is used to force victims to work in the belief they would be subject to serious harm
- -permits prosecution where the victim's service was compelled by confiscation of documents such as passports or birth certificates
- -increases prison terms for all slavery violations from 10 years to 20 years and adds life imprisonment where the -violation involves the death, kidnaping, or sexual abuse of the victim
- -requires courts to order restitution and forfeiture of assets upon conviction
- -enables victims to seek witness protection and other types of assistance
- -gives prosecutors and agents new tools to get legal immigration status for victims of trafficking during investigation and prosecution"
Sounds pretty wonderful right? But three out of every five goverment officials and police men don't know about this.
So this is my step, towards awareness. I may not be able to aware the world, but that is not my goal. Rather my object is to create an awareness brochure that talks about sex trafficking, not only in the United States but also in the world. The brochure will also contain statistics, photographs, and ways people can help. I can first put these up around my school, but in the end I hope to have them spread around my town of Damariscotta and neighboring cities. I seriously can not wait to show my community what is going on across our state, country, and world. As a teen I need to start taking a stand for my passions and telling the world what I believe in. Will YOU listen?
This is my first step... now the question is- what will yours be?
