Holly Austin Smith is a survivor of human trafficking. At the mere age of fourteen, she ran away from home with a man she had met at a mall in Ocean County, New Jersey. He took his time convincing her to runaway with him. A very tactical and sneaky plan that was well thought out by him was to analyze her troubles and ask her about her dreams. Holly was severely depressed and as the pressures of a fourteen-year-old-world boiled to the surface, she fled. However, in reality, she ran right into the clutches of a sex trafficking ring. The following day she was already working Pacific Avenue in Atlantic City, NJ. Luckily, an officer on the street recognized her as underage and her journey toward healing began. At the time, though, there were no …show more content…
As seen earlier, America has come further in their quest to put an end to both forms of human trafficking, but they are not even close to reaching that goal. Currently, human trafficking generates $9.5 billion yearly in the United Sates alone. Approximately 300,000 children are at risk of being prostituted in America, and the average age of entry into prostitution for a child victim is 13-14 years old. The Department of Justice identified the top twenty human trafficking jurisdictions in the country, this included: New York, Los Angeles, Long Island, Washington D.C., and San Francisco. A “pimp” can make up to $200,000 per child each year and the average “pimp” has 6 girls. As of recently, the United States stands as one of the highest countries of destinations in the world for human trafficking. East Asia/Pacific is the region that is the largest source of people who are trafficked into the U.S. each year. Also, an estimated 15 times per day a trafficked minor is sold for sex. There is no reasoning behind why these injustices are still occurring and why these numbers are so ridiculously high. It’s going to take a lot more than a few acts passed my America’s government to put a halt to human trafficking in the United States and eventually the