Borderline [On hold for major revision]

Some words about human trafficking-IMPORTANT

I should just say right off the bat that this isn't a part of the story, so if you want to read that then please skip to the prologue. Though if you must choose between either reading just this or reading the actual story, I would rather you read just this.Thank you!

 By the way, if you don't feel like reading this whole thing I made a video of me reading it, which you can view off to the side. Just a warning though, I talk really fast at some parts. Whenever I slowed down I started getting emotional. :P

"It’s sad but true: here in this country, people are being bought, sold, and smuggled like modern-day slaves. They are trapped in lives of misery—often beaten, starved, and forced to work as prostitutes or to take grueling jobs as migrant, domestic, restaurant, or factory workers with little or no pay. We’re working hard to stop human trafficking—not only because of the personal and psychological toll it takes on society, but also because it facilitates the illegal movement of immigrants across borders and provides a ready source of income for organized crime groups and even terrorists." --FBI.gov

When I started writing Borderline, I did it because I thought it would be fun. After all, what other reason is there to write fiction? At first it was a great stress reliever, and I had a great time crafting my characters and turning my random plot idea into a full-blown story. I made the settting on the Mexico-America border and threw in the topic of immigration because I thought it was original, not because I really cared about the politics or any of that. But the more I researched and read about some of the things in my story, the more I realized that this is a much bigger issue than I ever would have imagined. I made my main character a nice human smuggler looking out for the welfare of other people, but I never realized how horrible the bad ones really were. How common human traficking actually is.

Human trafficking is different from slavery, and in many ways worse. While slavery is simply forced laber or servitude because of weakness, human trafficking is psychological as well as physical. The victims of this crime  put their trust in the very people whom they are often running from in the first place. They turn to these people and offer up everything to them, desperate for freedom from whatever hell they've lived in for their entire lives, just to move from one metaphorical prison to another. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once said, "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." This statement perfectly reflects the victims of human trafficking; they believe that they will finally find freedom, but they become more enslaved by their false hope than they ever were before.

Right now, there are at least 12.3 million enslaved human beings worldwide, though recent estimates say that the numbers may be closer to 21 million. Of those, 56% of forced labor vicitims are women and children and 12% are victims of continuous sexual servitude and abuse. There are over 100,000 enslaved children just within US borders, and that's not even counting adults. Reports of identified incidents of human trafficking show that the average age of sex slaves both internationally and here in America are 10-13 year-old children, both boys and girls. So you see, this isn't some obscure thing that doesn't have anything to do with you. This is happening here and now, and barely anyone seems to care enough to try and stop it.

So, if you're curious exactly how it works, let me explain a little bit about what human traficking is (and I'm getting this from CBP.gov, the official website of the US Customs and Border Protection). It's defined as when a person is induced by force, fraud, or coersion to

1)Work under the total or near-total control of another person or organization.

2)Forced to pay off a loan by working instead of money, often for an unclear period of time (I'll talk more about that one later)