A college student interning with the Polaris Project (www.polarisproject.org)  in Washington, D.C., has written a powerful eyewitness account about confronting the ugly reality of human trafficking in the Nation’s Capital.

The intern, Christy Pelton, worked with Polaris last fall and, alongside other interns, walked downtown streets where prostitutes and pimps solicit business with little police interference.

Is prostitution a form of trafficking or, as some argue, contemporary slavery?  It’s an emotion-charged, highly volatile issue with some observers contending that selling one’s body for money should be considered a legitimate (albeit distasteful) form of work.  Others argue that prostitutes work largely against their will, controlled by violence-prone pimps who keep those under their direction in constant fear of beatings, oppression and emotional deprivation.

Pelton’s article focuses on the human dimension of trafficking.  She writes:

Many of us have been exposed to the issue, or at least the term; perhaps you’ve noted its recurrence in world news headlines, or maybe you’ve learned of it in a political science course.  But with many of our first impressions, myself included, we vastly underscore its prevalence, misconstrue its definition and naively presume its occupation outside of our borders in the land of the ‘free’.

Human trafficking is the second-largest and fastest growing criminal industry in the world. According to Free the Slaves, another prominent anti-trafficking NGO, “there are 27 million slaves in the world today.” The documentary “Call+Response” reports that in 2007 alone “slave traders made more money than Google, Nike and Starbucks combined.”

Human trafficking victims in the United States are estimated in the hundreds of thousands. This includes the estimates of “Over 200,000 children are at high risk for sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation every year” (University of Pennsylvania).

Here is a link to the full article.  What’s your opinion?  Is prostitution a form of slavery?  Prostitution has existed since the earliest times; what can be done about it now?