Modern Day Slavery: The Issue Of Human Trafficking In The United States

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People have a right to live their lives free and in a way that they desire. No one person should be oppressed by someone or fear for their safety because of another human being. However, many individuals of all races, genders and ages are not free. Up to 20.9 million people are enslaved around the world because of issue called human trafficking (Polaris Project, n.d.) Human trafficking is stated as “modern-day slavery and involves the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act” (Department of Homeland Security , n.d.). It is estimated that somewhere between 14,500 and 17,500 individuals are trafficked in the United States each and every year. This problem is increasing and is a basic violation against …show more content…

Before coming to Mars Hill University, I had no idea what human trafficking was, or at least I do not recall any such memory or terminology like this. Although, I do remember seeing something like this on a T.V. show but, I did not know it was human trafficking. This is part of the problem, people do not know what it is. I live in Lakeland, Florida. It has around 100,000 people living in the city and it is in-between Tampa and Orlando, which both these cities are known for human trafficking. I had no idea this issue really existed and I was living so close to the issue. When I learned about this during my time at Mars Hill, I was stunned and in shock. It was saddening to know something like this was happening. Since I had no idea this issue was happening, I wanted to spread awareness about this issue around Mars Hill University. If I had no idea about this problem and I lived in-between two huge cities that is infested with the problem then maybe other college students or even faculty/staff did not know about this issue. I figured students would not respond well to a meeting or a demonstration if they did not care much about the subject/issue which is why my partner (Whitney Ramey) and I wanted to make brochures and fliers. We figured that if we were to hang up fliers about this issue then maybe it would grab someone’s attention and then they would pick up the brochure and read more about this

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