by Raúl Antonio Capote, Granma
Each year, between 14,500 and 17,000 people from some 59 countries are trafficked into the U.S.; however, experts in the field point out that these figures reflect only a negligible part of the reality.
In 2020, a report by the Human Trafficking Institute revealed that 41 percent of the people trafficked to the United States by human traffickers come from Mexico and other Latin American countries; another source is Southeast Asia.
It is estimated that, during 2023, more than one million people were victims of this scourge in the U.S. Fifty-nine percent were U.S. citizens, 90 percent of them women, according to the Anti-Trafficking Data Collaborative.
But it is immigrants who are most at risk of human trafficking. A high number of the cases are young women, who are not fluent in English and are tricked by criminals with promises of jobs, have their passports taken away, and in many cases are forced to use drugs that make them addicted and dependent.
An unknown number of predators operate independently or through organized crime networks. They mostly use the Internet to lure people, with promises of living the “American dream.”
Another method is deception through close friends, trusted relatives or family friends, especially when minors are involved. Victims end up being forced into prostitution, domestic servitude, factory, farm, ranch or other types of forced labor.
The state of Florida has been at the top of the national trafficking statistics for years in terms of the number of cases reported.
According to the Children’s Report Card, published by the Florida Department of Children and Families, there were nearly 2,100 reported cases in 2023, of which 1,627 involved minors.
In that vein, one in six of the more than 26,500 cases of children reported missing to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children is likely to be a victim of child sexual exploitation. In 2020, the center received more than 17,000 reports of child sex trafficking.
The hunters camouflage themselves. Today, mainly on social networks, they carefully set the trap and wait for the next “dreamer” or desperate person looking to escape from misery.
We are talking about a cruel business that moves hundreds of millions of dollars in the U.S. Organ trafficking, child prostitution and slave labor alone bring great wealth to traffickers.
Meanwhile, the government pretends not to see what is happening in its own house, and places others on lists that should be headed by the U.S., given the records it exhibits in this and other inhumane matters.
