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The dark side of the "beacon" (II) | Facts about human trafficking in the US

The US has long prided itself on being a "beacon of democracy" and a "protector of human rights," but little did it know that under the "beacon" was downright dark. According to the US National Human Trafficking Hotline, from 2016 to 2020, 49,500 human trafficking cases were reported to the organization, with sex trafficking leading the way at 35,677 cases, accounting for 72% of the total. Labor trafficking, with 5,866 cases, was the second highest. The majority of victims were women and people of color, of whom minors also constitute a significant part.

In 2020 alone, for example, 1,052 labor trafficking cases in the US were reported to the Trafficking Hotline. Out of those victims whose nationality was known, more than 88 percent of them were non-Americans and mostly came from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and the Philippines.

In one case of labor trafficking released on the website of US Department of Justice in November 2021, dozens of workers from Mexico and Central America were smuggled to US farms in South Georgia, where they were illegally imprisoned and forced to work under inhumane conditions, becoming victims of modern-day slavery.

The workers were lured to the farms with the promise of 12 US dollars per hour for their labor and then coerced at gunpoint into digging onions with their bare hands for 20 cents per barrel. They were held “in cramped, unsanitary quarters and fenced work camps with little or no food, limited plumbing and without safe water.” The workers could even be sold or traded to other farm owners. At least two of the workers died as a result of workplace conditions, and one suffered from sexual assault multiple times.

The following set of posters will offer you a close look at the current state of human trafficking in the US.


Poster | Zhang Xiao (intern)

Text | Peter (intern), Lydia Liu

Editors | Wing, Steven, Jerry

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