An estimated 100,000 women and children are trafficked into the United States each year, said Charles Ray, the former U.S. ambassador to Cambodia.
“Slavery didn’t end with Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation,” Ray said, “(Human trafficking) is nothing less than modern-day slavery. I’ve seen children be intentionally maimed and blinded to be commercial beggars.”
Ray spoke in the Memorial Student Center Wednesday evening at a sex slavery panel hosted by the Aggie International Ambassadors, and said no country is immune to human trafficking. A recent discovery showed that approximately 1,000 girls from parts of the southern U.S. had been trafficked to Houston to be prostitutes, he said.
Ray described efforts to combat sex slavery in Cambodia, including an operation to shut down a brothel, where two of the prostitutes were five-year-old girls forced to continually have sex with adult men.
The organization chose to run the forum to help students understand that the issue is prevalent and affects a broad spectrum of people, said Brandon Krueger, president of Aggie International Ambassadors.
“It’s just a topic that a lot of people don’t know about, but it influences everyone, even in the U.S.,” Krueger said.
Mexican Consul Adolfo Ayuso and Consul Rusman Utomo, the consulate general of the Republic of Indonesia, also spoke at the forum.
Utomo said he believes that enlightening students to the issue of human trafficking sets the stage for future action.
“At least now the listener here, the student, knows what’s going on around the world … it will be a great contribution to the cause,” Utomo said.
Sophomore sociology major Carrie McAnally said she was encouraged to hear that the United States is taking action to stop human trafficking, both domestically and in other nations.
“I think it’s a serious issue that we need to be aware of,” McAnally said. “For one thing, I got a little hope that our country is taking a few steps, even if they are baby steps.”