Human Trafficking Hits Terrifying New Highs, Worth $32 Billion
You may not be able to put a price tag on a human life, but you can definitely estimate the cost of smuggling it.
According to a French organization that provides support to asylum seekers, global human trafficking is now a $32 billion industry.
That number was estimated by Pierre Henry, the director general of Terre d’Asile. The group seeks to aid refugees in Europe, and recently admitted that the worldwide human trafficking issue is getting worse.
“It is absolutely necessary to crack these various networks that thrive on the misery and credulity of a certain number of people and it is to be hoped that the victims will be protected,” Henry said, according to a report from Breitbart News that was based on a French-language FranceInfo interview.
As the illegal movement of human beings increases, so do the problems facing nations that deal with it. Terre d’Asile is focused on issues affecting France, but the horrors of trafficking can be found all over the world.
Some people pay large sums of money to have themselves smuggled, mostly in hopes of reaching a first-world country like the U.S. or France. But underworld organizations aren’t trustworthy, and people who hire smugglers can find themselves in dangerous or deadly situations.
Other people are trafficked against their will. Some are put into sexual slavery, while other victims are literally chopped up for their organs once they reach their destination.
“Exploitation today includes, in addition to sexual exploitation, labour, forced services, slavery, servitude and even organ harvesting,” Henry said.
It’s common to envision drug dealers when talking about smuggling, but illegally moving people may actually be more profitable for criminals.
“The thing to keep in mind is that it is very lucrative,” the Terre d’Asile director explained. “The cost of a passage is relatively expensive.”
In America, liberals and the media have popularized the term “war on women” to describe almost any type of discrimination, real or imagined. However, a much more brutal type of war is harming women around the globe, but is receiving far less attention.
“I recall that it is mostly women who are victims of trafficking. The UN estimates that 84 percent of the victims of trafficking in the world are women,” Henry said.
This dark, $32 billion dollar industry is yet another reason why border security and immigration issues are so important in the United States.
While Democrats are calling for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be disbanded, that very agency and others like it play a major role in combating sex trafficking and human smuggling on an everyday basis.
As just one example, U.S. immigration investigators recently saved a young girl from sex slavery after they realized that she wasn’t actually related to the man claiming to be her father. At the same time, hundreds or even thousands of other girls and women are stuck in the same nightmare.
Now is not the time to attack or abolish the agencies working to fight human trafficking and enforcing America’s border.
It’s dangerous to ignore the reality about crimes happening here and abroad … and while the left will never admit it, it’s not particularly compassionate to let human smuggling go unchecked.
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