When 14-year-old Manna ran away from her abusive home in South Asia, she met a woman who offered her job selling fabric. She accepted the position, and the woman provided her a place to sleep for the night. When Manna awoke in the morning, the woman was gone, and Manna discovered that she was in a brothel.
Manna attempted to refuse the first three men who had paid to rape her. She was physically assaulted by the brothel keepers until she lacked the strength to resist.
For the next two years, she was held in the brothel and raped by customers for the profit of the brothel owners. She was freed when IJM investigators discovered her captivity and alerted local authorities, working with them to release her and three other young girls from the brothel. The brothel owners each received five-year sentences.
from INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE MISSION
Sex trafficking is a massive global enterprise based upon force, coercion and deception. Traffickers transport or detain their victims for the purpose of exploitation and profit through acts of sexual violence. This trade in rape for profit victimizes thousands of women and children every year.
THE FACTS
• Human trafficking is the world’s third largest criminal
enterprise, after drugs and weapons. (U.S. Department of State)
• Worldwide, there are nearly two million children in the
commercial sex trade. (UNICEF)
• There are an estimated 600,000 to 800,000 children, women
and men trafficked across international borders annually.
(U.S. Department of State)
• Approximately 80 percent of human trafficking victims are women
and girls, and up to 50 percent are minors. (U.S. Department of State)
• The total market value of illicit human trafficking is estimated to
be in excess of $32 billion. (U.N.)
• Sex trafficking is an engine of the global AIDS epidemic.
(U.S. Department of State)
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