Carly Clendening ENC 3331 Analysis Rough Draft Sex trafficking has been around for centuries.

Demeaning human beings has been in our culture for generations, we just seem to find worse ways of doing it: sex trafficking being one of them. Slavery has been known to exist long before the 1400s, but this era marked the start of human trafficking internationally, which later formed into sexually exploiting humans. (Yong 2011) Yet this issue has only become political in the United States during early 1900s when the International Agreement for Suppression of White Slave Traffic was adopted to prevent white women and children being used for immoral purposes. Later, in 1910, the Mann Act was passed to disallow the transportation of people across borders for prostitution. Since the problem has grown internationally, the U.N. addressed sex trafficking at the 1949 Convention for the Suppression of Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others. (Sex Trafficking Women and Human Rights) Two million children are forced into the sex trafficking industry annually and over 50,000 women are trafficked into the United States each year. Financial reasons and lack of self-worth are among the majority of the reasons women and children enter into the industry in the first place. Pimps who are money and power hungry see these vulnerable people as an opportunity for exploitation. These pimps can also resort to forceful tactics that seek to chain people into the business, per say.

They turn these victims into prostitutes for personal gain and those victims feel that there is no outlet for relief. (Sex Trafficking Women and Human Rights) However, initiatives and organizations have been launched to help these victims. The Polaris Project, Not for Sale Campaign, and the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) are among those seeking to rescue victims forced into sex trafficking. They offer helpful services to these people, such as counseling and job placement. CATW is a global organization that launches projects and campaigns against sex trafficking all over the world. They offer financial aid to victims, victim protection planning, and shelter management. (Coalitions Against Trafficking in Women) CATW and other large organizations partner with smaller coalitions to create national awareness of this issue and attempt to mobilize government agencies on behalf of victims. They help instill access to education programs and create independent commercial activities in support of victims by implementing local, national, and global chapters. (Not for Sale Campaign) There is still a growing need for providing help and awareness to the public. The United States does not pay enough attention to this issue, brushing it off as if it were happening everywhere else besides our home country. This is a myth. Public awareness is a crucial component to ending this horrendous industry. The more the public knows about sex trafficking and how to stop it, the quicker the industry will dwindle down into nothing. Garnering activists through this way will help the second goal of this initiative, which is to provide accessible help to those victimized by sex trafficking.

Involving the public sphere would be one of the best forms of targeting awareness to engage in. Since my goal is to inform the public on this issue while also providing helpful information to victims of sex trafficking, being able to access and convey the information to the public is key. A second rhetorical concept to include in my project would be to develop signs so the public can learn to associate these iconic, indexical, and symbolic signs with the information I make available to them. For instance, an example of this would be how the red equal sign has become an icon people use to display their support for gay rights. With the public taking notice of these signs, it may make it easier to connect and get the public to understand and be aware of the sex-trafficking issue. I also have to be wary of negative appropriation. I don't want my information to be perceived the wrong way. Victims have to be approached in a way that does not scare them off or threaten them. The public has to understand that there is a solution to the problem. There must be careful wording and re-checking of the concepts and facts of the information I am trying to give to the public.

Works Cited Aiding Victims of Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation. Coalition Against Trafficking in Women. 2011. Web. 2 April 2013. http://www.catwinternational.org/ProjectsCampaigns/Aiding Sex Trafficking. Women and Global Human Rights. Web. 5 April 2013. http://www2.webster.edu/~woolflm/trafficking.html Take Action. Not for Sale Campaign. 2009. Web. 4 April 2013. http://www.notforsalecampaign.org/action/ Yong, Patricia. Timeline of Human Trafficking. Rutgers University Campus Coalition Against Trafficking. 2011. Web. 4 April 2013. http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~yongpatr/425/final/timeline.htm