Montreal police broke up a juvenile prostitution ring in 2003, where minor girls were forced to engage in nude dancing and prostitution. After the crack down in Montreal, the sex trafficking and prostitution rings moved to Quebec City and Niagara Falls, Ontario to keep their "business" alive.

Though this is only one example, it hints at the scale of the industry and also how sexual exploitation is driven by significant profits. I thought this paragraph was particularly salient.

It's a low risk "enterprise" for criminals that brings in high profits, and is considered a form of slavery of the modern era. Victims are of any race or gender, including transgender. Those targeted have "histories of being marginalized, abused or isolated." This is often the case with children who are in the foster care system.

Anyone who's taken the time to investigate child abuse and sexual exploitation of children becomes all to aware of the cycle of abuse that children in the foster care system suffer under.

Human trafficking may be 'low risk' for traffickers but the human cost to those forced into this situation is incalculable. Once again, thank you @krnel for another high quality piece of research. If you haven't done so, please GO READ this article!

Second Place (13 SBD)

Cobalt Battery Slavery

@bifilarcoil

Connecting child slavery in Africa to the increasingly ravenous demand for minerals and precious metals needed to power our western lives is at the center of the outstanding research done by @bifilarcoil.

Though at times this piece seems to expand in all directions it keeps coming back to the notion that what creates the conditions for slavery and exploitation is corporate greed. Keen insights are extrapolated through this exploration of dozens of Wikileaks government emails. The mining of Cobalt, a mineral essential in the production of cell phones and cutting edge batteries, indicates where current and future conflicts will materialize as powerful nations compete to plunder the African continent with disastrous results for the native populations.

Fascinating and original, thanks for this unique entry @bifilarcoil!

Third Place (8 SBD)

Human Trafficking - The Chinese Connection

@angryman

In the same vein as @krnel's piece, this article is a journey into human trafficking from the local perspective, this time - New York City. As the title suggests, @angryman explores the various Chinese criminal gangs of New York and their connections to human trafficking in the city. With a refreshing to the point style, @angryman reveals the top three 'base of operations' where criminal gangs connected to human trafficking operate which includes Queens, NY.

I think @angryman sums up the article nicely and all of us would probably agree with this assessment:

In closing, I wish that I had some solutions to offer beyond which those that have already been proposed by numerous professionals, either never acted upon or failed to help abet the problem of human trafficking.

As long as there is a market for the services of human traffickers, the atrocities perpetrated by them upon vulnerable and unfortunate victims will continue.

Welcome to Deep Dives @angryman and thank you for your stimulating post!


Before we conclude, I'd like to say that @thoughts-in-time also had a great entry on the topic of the use of prison slave labour and it's a very important topic that does not get the attention that it deserves. Check it out here!

Forced Labor in America's Prison Industrial Complex

Transfers

Next Deep Dives - Wikileaks

As is tradition, we'll be returning to Wikileaks for the next instalment of Deep Dives. Keep an eye out for the announcement. Feel free to express your opinion in the comments as to any specific topics you would like to see covered or if you prefer the open ended variety.

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