I am deeply concerned about about this corrupt and exploitative practice of human trafficking that flourishes so prosperously around the world, without even being raised in our in home discussions, or making the regular headlines of the TV news.

Women and children from around the world are being kidnapped, tricked, manipulated, coerced into leaving their home and being smuggled to another country illegally, usually to be worked as a sex slave on little or no money. These people are usually forced to become addicted to hard drugs like heroin which keeps them dependent to their owners and unable to break free.

I would just like to raise awareness of this issue, and see if you guys have insights as to why this is happening, and how we can go about breaking this kind of corruption. Please contribute to this thread below.

Here's a few statistics on the subject for you: 

* It has been estimated that at least 200,000 to 225,000 women and children are trafficked from Southeast Asia annually.

* In Asia, Japan is the major destination country for trafficked women, especially from the Philippines and Thailand.

* By the late 1990s, UNICEF estimated that there are 60,000 child prostitutes in the Philippines

* According to a new United Nations estimate, there may be as many as 270,000 victims of human trafficking in the European Union.^[50] Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, former Eastern bloc countries such as Albania, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine have become the major source countries for trafficking of women and children

* Interpol estimates that 35,000 women are trafficked out of Colombia every year, with estimated profits of $500 million.

This is happening to real people. What can we do about this, really? Please enlighten me. I certainly struggle to accept kids like this being stolen away to meet the needs of sick individuals who need therapy or prison.

image source: http://www.retas.de/thomas/travel/vietnam2004/index.html

References: 

wikipedia.org -

I also found this confronting poster on google search. This pretty much tells it as it is.

 A COURT has ordered two young girls to spend weekends with their sex offender father provided he puts a door on their bedroom they can lock.

Judge Robert Benjamin, in the Family Court's Hobart branch, ruled that the girls "need some protection from (their father), particularly at night".

However, the risk of sexual abuse was "diminished when they are awake and alert".

Judge Benjamin said that the father, who was convicted of downloading child pornography, must have an "adult friend" stay with him when the girls stayed overnight.

He added that until the youngest turned 14, the girls must "share the same room so they can have the mutual support of one another".

A Family Court counsellor said that the girls, aged ten and eight, "are at an age and maturity when awake, dressed and together it would be unlikely the father would act inappropriately toward them".

The case has outraged women's groups, who say it puts the girls at risk to satisfy the father's desire to see them."However, at night, when they were asleep or partly asleep and not aware of each other's whereabouts, they would be less secure."

The eldest girl has told counsellors that she was afraid to stay overnight with her father.

The father was convicted in 2007 of three child pornography offences, including filming images of child pornography on his computer. He also created links and shortcuts to child porn sites.

In sentencing the man for the offences, a judge in Tasmania said he was "far from convinced" he posed no risk to children and put his name on the sex offenders register for five years.

His wife left him, and has since been fighting to restrict his access to their two daughters.

The Family Court found the father had invited one of the girls into his bed, and had "demonstrated affection toward her in a way that was, in all the circumstances, inappropriate for a child of that age".

The eldest girl told counsellors she "did not want to spend time alone with her father".

www.news.com.au/national/girls-ordered-to-spend-weekends-with-sex-offender-father/story-e6frfkvr-1225840653601

I pity those children AND their mother.