Information.

i have just spent a while trawling through the information i have got about the sex trafficking trade in order to focus on what i will actually be using to promote awareness of sex trafficking in the UK and globally. I have taken extracts from the interview with Jacinta, who is my most reliable source of information and the  some basic statistics that i have found out.

BASIC STATS:

 - gangs buy and sell the women for between £2,000 to £8,000

 - worldwide there are nearly 2 million children in the commercial sex trade

 - human trafficking is tied with the illegal arms industry as the secound largest criminal industry in the world today

 - he total market value for human trafficking is $32 billion

OTHER INFO:

LAST: We started officially in the spring of 2009. But we’ve been working together as a core collective against trafficking for the last 5 years, prior to this we worked for a campaign called ‘The Truth isn’t sexy’That was for the Yorkshire branch of a national campaign, and that came out of London.

We have no real way of knowing other than to look at the referrals project such as ‘The Poppy Project’

The objective of the organisation is to act as an auxiliary arm to existing charities and campaigns.

PROCESS: So the initial process happens in what we call the filter country, the country of origin. through deception, coercion, kidnapping.Sometimes the trafficker of the trafficking accomplice will pretend to be a boyfriend and groom the woman until she will do anything he says.

And sometimes between destination/ source countries they’ll stop in a transit country and sometimes this is for the trafficker to lay low for a little while or to forge some papers, or to change means of transportation.

When they get to their destination country, say for example they’re coming from Lithuania to the UK, on arrival there could be a number of different ways they’re handled. So it could be that they are taken immediately to a brothel, where the madam or the owner of the brothel is waiting for them.

t could be that they are taken immediately to a private residence such as a flat, house, apartment. It could be that they are taken to a slave auction, these aren't as common but they have happened, where especially virgins are auctioned off to the highest bidder. It could be a number of different ways that they are transported up and around the country to different establishments, to saunas, massage parlous etc. When they reach that establishment more often than not they are locked into a room or apartment and raped and beaten and the reason the traffickers will do this is to create a climate of fear and instability. They have to implement that immediately. So that the young women know that they can’t mess around with that person or they will be killed, and generally trying to enforce control, over the woman. Quite frequently threats are made on that woman's family.

Quite frequently something called a debt bondage is created, the debt bondage is where the trafficker outlines a number of different payments that they have made on behalf of the woman, therefore the woman has to work X amount of hours/ days/weeks/ years in order to pay off that debt, and that debt is for the transport, passports, accommodation, all of these expensive things.

Quite frequently they will need to sleep with somewhere between 10 and 40 clients a day, or perform sexual acts for that number. Obviously thats rape time and time and time again. So the woman is being constantly violated, physically abused and physiologically abused. For the main part women will transported to a variety of different locations in order to keep it underground.

So if you can imagine being brought to this country, not being able to speak the language even if you did escape, what would you do? who would you talk to for help? where would you go? So there’s this constant disorientation, that these women experience

600 to 800 thousand people trafficked across international borders every year. And about 80% of those are women. However the UN estimated there’s about 2.4/ 2.5 million people trafficked every year, now thats internally as well. This includes men women and children. The statistics vary but what it does indicate is that the problem is huge. and it is the fastest growing criminal industry in the world. One trafficker can net at least £68,000 with one woman.