Trigger Warning: Mention of substance abuse, physical abuse, sexual violence
The buying and selling of sex are generally associated with sex trafficking, regulating worldwide, especially in countries like Bangladesh, which has the highest rate of human trafficking. There are approximately 800 legally operating recruitment agencies in Bangladesh which later on forces the citizens into free labour by overcharging them and pushing them to indebtedness.
The monetary gains are the key reasons why people engage themselves in commercial sexual activities. Some choose it for the short term or some continue it, in the long run, depending upon the circumstances of an individual like to pay off a debt, a meal for their children, etc. So it is quite a possibility that the countries with low per capita income practice it the most. According to the Child Hub organization, eleven countries that have the biggest number of illegal human trafficking are Thailand, China, Ghana, Uganda, Nepal, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Haiti, Brazil.
It is the money-oriented sexual ill-treatment and the rapidly expanding criminal undertaking in the world where about 2 million children get exploited by the hands of global sex industries every year. This industry solely constitutes 98% of women and girls.
Further resulted in drug and alcohol addicts, physical and sexual violence, verbal abuses, teenage pregnancy, STDs, abortions, delinquencies, and lawlessness at large. Furthermore, it infringes an individual’s foundational rights including the rights to bodily integrity, equality, dignity, health, security, and freedom from violence and torture which are superciliously guaranteed in the written documents of all sovereign states.
According to The Shared Hope International, the common age a child enters in sex trafficking is 14-16 years, too young and naive to realize what’s happening to them. Society may call it ‘Prostitution’ but the Federal Laws call it ‘Sex Trafficking’. The 2000 UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, ratified by 154 countries but how saddening it is that the same countries are practising trafficking at liberty.
According to a recently released report by the State Department, the top three nations of origin for victims of human trafficking in 2018 were the United States, Mexico, and the Philippines. Moreover, The data collected for the 2020 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons shows that in 2018 about 50,000 human trafficking victims were detected and reported by 148 countries.
Undoubtedly, the whole market runs on the doctrine of demand and supply, where demand is raised by a man who will pay for sex, and the supply is ensured by the racket runners. The sex seller and buyer generate profit from this while a victim continues to be degraded physically and mentally. To eradicate this cluster the chain needs to be broken.
The ban on preserving and transporting can work just like Sweden did in 1999 by adopting the ‘Nordic Model’ which made the demand for commercial sex punishable and contemporaneously started decriminalizing the workers in prostitution. It also promotes the healthy notion of masculinity while continue to empower women as sex trafficking is the major cause behind gender discrimination and abridgement of the rights of mortals stated by CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women).
Today every country practices human trafficking in some or another form. It originates from one place and destinates to another. It is easy to put forward the statistics in general but what’s hard is to look for solutions. The worldwide campaigning, the establishment of National and International Hotlines and protocols, free hands of anti-trafficking agencies, security enforcement laws, media outbreaks, awareness among young ones, financial strength, standard employment, and educative environment can change society enormously.