Unbelievable

Every once in a while there is an issue I learn about in such detail that I am horrified to be a part of the human race. I look around thinking: How could any person ever even think about doing something like this to another? How greedy does someone have to be to put their own well being and wealth over that of the life of a child? How horrible does a person have to be to exploit a child or a woman or a man to such an extent that it leaves them physically and psychologically scarred beyond recognition? How horrible are the people that do this? And how could there possibly be so many? Oh, there can be.

Human Trafficking in particular is a crime I just can't wrap my head around. With an annual profit of $32 Billion, this money is made by exploiting innocent men women and children so completely it baffles me. 29.9 million people are trafficked that can mean a variety of things:
-4.5 million people are being sexually exploited, sold to the highest perverted bidder that will do with them what they like, such as beat them, rape them, or whatever else pleases their sick selves.
-14.2 million people are in forced labour which means they are forced to work extreme hours, in extreme conditions, trapped from leaving or voicing out, and with very little or sometimes no pay.
-40% of forced labourers are men while many are children and women as well.
- About 10% of sexually exploited trafficking victims are men, which means the most highly exploited in the sex industry are women and children.
-Shockingly, 5.7 million children are being trafficked for all sorts of reasons, including forced labour, domestic servitude, forced marriage, and sexual exploitation. Others may be trafficked for benefit fraud, theft and crime exploitation, and organ harvesting.

Trafficking in persons is a fundamental violation of any person's human rights and is a major issue in every country, whether it is considered a source country (where victims are recruited), a transit country (a country they travel through), or a destination country (where they stay and work).

According to the Palermo protocol from 2000 anything that involves the following is trafficking and is a horrible thing to do to any human being:
the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring, or receipt of a child or person for the purpose of exploitation of work and money.
This means trafficking includes elements of force, deception, abduction, coersion, violence, abuse of power, vulnerability, and threats.

Victims are often forced into a country where they do not understand the language, they may not even know where they are. They may be locked into a home or a room and become completely isolated from teh outside world, making them very vulnerable. Victims may be exploited by as many as ten people a day for sexual favours which may pay badly but is even worse knowing that the money will go directly to the traffickers who are collecting a supposed debt owed to them. Many victims are debt bonded to the traffickers, meaning they will always have to pay them back for something (privilege of having been smuggled to a new country etc.). Victims may work 12 hours a day only to be forced to work somewhere else for several more hours with as little as one meal a day and perhaps two hours of sleep. If victims attempt to run away they may be beaten, killed, or forced to watch as another is killed because of them. Can you imagine living in such conditions?

How on earth could anyone do such a thing?!?! I just don't understand and I never ever will.