CAST On Immigrant Exploitation: The Price Of Human Trafficking

images via CASTLA.org

Human trafficking and slavery shouldn't be issues in 2010, but unfortunately they are. These heinous crimes are the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the 21st century — a nine billion dollar industry.

The Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST) works tirelessly to end human rights violations. They will host their Annual Gala From Freedom To Slavery today (June 3) at the House Of Blues in LA.

Their cause is especially relevant to the struggle for immigration rights, as 48% percent of CAST’s clients are Latino.

Immigration agents estimate that 10,000 women are being held in Los Angeles' underground brothels; this does not include the thousands of victims in domestic work, sweatshops or other informal industries. CAST hopes to change these statistics and make everyone aware of the current slavery issues at hand.

According to CIA estimates, as many as 50,000 men, women and children are trafficked into the US every year and Los Angeles is one of the top three points of entry. The majority of victims are women and children; however 14% of CAST’s clients in 2008 were male.

Human trafficking ranks second, after drug smuggling and tying with arms dealing, in organized crime activities. An estimated 27 million people are enslaved around the world today – that’s more than the population of 18 States!

States such as California, Florida, New York Nevada and Ohio are particularly vulnerable to human trafficking because of their proximity to international borders and significant immigrant populations.

CAST's mission is to assist persons trafficked for the purpose of forced labor and to work toward ending all instances of such human rights violations.

Each 2nd and 4th Sunday of the month at 2pm, members of CAST's survivor caucus will be sharing their story at the Museum of Tolerance, as part of their Survivor Speaker Series.

The Museum of Tolerance
Simon Wiesenthal Plaza
9786 West Pico Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90035

For more information, log on to CASTLA.org.

How can we help CAST prevent human trafficking? Sound off in the comments or @MTV3!

Tags CAST, human rights, human trafficking, Immigration, Los-Angeles