¶ … benefit individuals and/or communities and create positive social change. Then explain how these findings might impact practice, program development, program evaluation, advocacy, and/or policy development. Be specific, and provide examples.
Social change: Philosophical perspectives
Despite the lurid press that it sometimes generates, human trafficking is often an unrecognized crime. Because the victims are afraid of coming forward, because they entered the country illegally and fear deportation, the worst abuses are hidden in the shadows. The fact that a prostitute might be underage and working for nothing is easy to ignore by both the 'pimp' who exploits her and the client she services. The fact that the individuals who pick our fruits and vegetables might receive nothing for their work makes us uncomfortable as a society. The people next door who employ a nanny or a maid and pay...
On a very basic level, human trafficking is a difficult crime to keep track of, due to the resistance of victims from coming forward. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime itself stated that keeping exact figures on how many persons are trafficked "may prove to be unachievable" (Loring, Engstrom, Hillard & Dias 2007:1). The fact that the majority of the victims are women further causes many to look the other way -- its victims are the most vulnerable members of society. Furthermore, because victims are often minorities in the nations from which they are expelled -- the poor, the nonwhite, the undesirable -- there is a further incentive…
