Human Trafficking
In 2022, we began community education to increase awareness of this world-wide problem. There are many reasons for concern: the communities in the jungle are in isolation and there is a lack of awareness; there is poor communication between people when they leave the villages; there are not many resources or money to find or help loved ones; and there is not a police presence. We will continue to focus on this issue in the upcoming years.
Human Trafficking is considered modern-day slavery involving the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act. Often it is women and girls, but not exclusively, also boys and homosexuals.
The Business of Trafficking
“Traffickers choose to trade in humans … because there are low start-up costs, minimal risks, high profits and large demand. For organized crime groups, human beings have one added advantage over drugs: they can be sold repeatedly.”
Human trafficking is the second largest criminal enterprise in the world, earning exploiters more than $150 billion each year. With the potential of high monetary rewards with very low risk of punishment, the business of human trafficking has been steadily growing. Profits from human trafficking have more than tripled over the past decade alone.
Traffickers range from small-time, solo operators to loose networks of criminals, to highly sophisticated criminal organizations that operate internationally.
According to trafficking experts, “Traffickers choose to trade in humans … because there are low start-up costs, minimal risks, high profits and large demand. For organized crime groups, human beings have one added advantage over drugs: they can be sold repeatedly.”