$200 Million Budget to Fight Illegal Human Trafficking Trade

Shutting down the human smuggling industry has become a top priority of the U.S. government. . . . Just last month, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson announced that more than $200 million was being added to the fight against a trade that smuggles an estimated 18,000 to 20,000 undocumented sex workers into the United States each year."--San Francisco Chronicle, January 24, 2004

(PRWEB) January 31, 2004 --From Himalayan villages to Eastern European cities, people -- especially women and girls -- are attracted by the prospect of a well-paid job as a domestic servant, waitress or factory worker. Traffickers recruit victims through fake advertisements, mail-order bride catalogues and casual acquaintances."

Upon arrival at their destination, victims are placed in conditions controlled by traffickers while they are exploited to earn illicit revenues. Many are physically confined, their travel or identity documents are taken away and they or their families are threatened if they do not cooperate. Women and girls forced to work as prostitutes are blackmailed by the threat that traffickers will tell their families. Trafficked children are dependent on their traffickers for food, shelter and other basic necessities. Traffickers also play on victims fears that authorities in a strange country will prosecute or deport them if they ask for help." -- United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, January 25, 2004

In an effort to expose this illegal trafficking, a three-day TV-mini series entitled Traffic aired January 26-28 on the USA-Network. In addition, a concerned author has written a book, Human Traffickers, published by American Book Publishing and available at a discount online at the Publisher Direct Bookstore, which tells the story of three people trying to outwit a management team bent on cornering the ten billion-dollar human trafficking industry and changing the rules of border enforcement. The primary purpose of this book is to educate the public on behalf of these helpless women and children.

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