Project Meridian Foundation

Sex Trafficking

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"Sexual Trafficking "is the recruitment, transportation (within national or across international borders), transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation. Sexual trafficking is accomplished by means of fraud, deception, threat of or use of force, abuse of a position of vulnerability, and other forms of coercion.

What you don't know can hurt you and your children!

Young women and children forced into the sex slave trade every year. Now nearly 1,000,000 American children in the United States alone between the . have been victimized and trafficked across state lines to include Richmond, Northern Virginia as major hubs.

Yes this is across the land of the free?

It is often thought that human trafficking is mainly an international problem; however the statistics sadly show that the human trafficking industry is firmly rooted in the United States.
Why don't you know this?
Don't hide your head in the Sand, Make a difference!

Trafficking of persons exists in two distinct types: labor trafficking and sexual trafficking. "This new distinction avoids the problem of combining into a single category both labor violations and violations that are more akin to a forcible sexual assault." U.N. Definition: (from Protocol to Prevent Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Person, Especially Women and Children, Supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime)

(a) "Trafficking in persons" shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.

Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution (rape for profit)of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery of practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs;

(b) The consent of a victim of trafficking in persons to the intended exploitation set forth in subparagraph (a) of this article shall be irrelevant where any of the means set forth in subparagraph (a) have been used;

(c) The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of a child for the purpose of exploitation shall be considered "trafficking in persons" even if this does not involve any of the means set forth in subparagraph (a) of this article;

(d) "Child" shall mean any person under eighteen years of age.

Scope of the Problem: Worldwide, it is estimated that somewhere between 700,000 and more than four million women, children and men are trafficked each year, and no region is unaffected.

FBI's Most Wanted List

FBI's Kidnapping and Missing Persons List

United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) partners with individuals, businesses and state, local and federal agencies in order to offer the most powerful protection within our homeland. Law enforcers, private industry, the financial community and the legal community collaborate with ICE, sharing resources to combat a variety of criminal activities. Report Suspicious Activity to Homeland Security DHS/ICE: 1-866-DHS-2-ICE
1-866-347-2423