Editor: I am contacting you at this time regarding the write-up that was published in your paper of February 10, 2011, about a presentation I am to make on Human Trafficking next week.
Please note that the statistics presented in the second paragraph were not submitted by myself. Human trafficking exists as an underground criminal activity, and there are no reliable estimates on the number of men, women and children affected by this crime. The ILO suggests that there may be 12.3 million victims of forced labor worldwide, half of which may be children.
Literature also indicates that there may be at least 17,500 foreign national victims of human trafficking in the United States, and that up to 300,000 of our own US children are at risk for sex trafficking. The Dutch National Rapporteur on Trafficking in Human Beings suggests that only 5 percent of the trafficking cases may ever be reported. While these numbers may thus only represent the tip of the iceberg, it is critical to remember that one victim of human trafficking is one victim too many!
For anyone interested to learn more about this topic, the following links provide a start:
polarisproject.org
ecpatusa.org
eharedhope.org
state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt
acf.hhs.gov/trafficking
Kathy Hargitt
Sonoma
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