Panchal 1
Reneta Panchal
Professor Refaei
English 1001
October 30, 2012
Analyze & Synthesis
As I was listening to her speak all I could think of was how bored I was, but she continued
speaking and I continued to lose interest. The nun that was standing before me had used two hours
talking to only me about the awareness of human trafficking, and how often this crime occurs in
America. As an employee of a hotel, she was asking for me to report suspicion of any human traffickers
checking-in young women, and she was giving me examples of how I could detect it, but somewhere
along the speech I had stopped paying attention. As I was day dreaming, she started to remove the
cloth she wore around her face, and as soon as I saw the scars, I felt tears welt in my eyes. She was not
giving a useless speech; she was trying to prevent human trafficking because she had been a victim of it.
The following day, I had to select a topic of research and I felt as though my choice was already made
for me, I knew I had to research human trafficking. I could not decide exactly what to choose so I left
my topic a little on the broader side and I decided to research the question of “what is human
trafficking?” To answer this question I used Academic Search Complete and found two helpful articles.
Melby and Moldovan are the authors of those two sources and they created articles that describe the
severity of human trafficking and what America is doing to reduce it.
In the article “U.S Targets Sexual Slavery Worldwide and within its own Borders”, Todd Melby
explores how foreigners are defrauded to come to America, and once they are here they get turned
into sex slave victims. On page 6, he includes a box labeled “Help stop human trafficking” which
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describes how to identify these victims. Melby tries to show his readers that as this gruesome crime
increases so does America’s effort to stop it. He discusses the opinion of America’s former president by
inserting a quote, and also talks about new and adjusted laws that he made and changed to target the
sex-slave aspect of human trafficking. He also gives many different incidents when immigrants come to
America, promised citizenship through marriage, but forced to have sex daily with numerous people
instead. The facts and statistics that he chose to include are very eye-opening to the readers and were
proven through a critique of the numbers. They help readers to realize how much sex-slavery happens
in our country. After informing the readers about how people become victims of human trafficking and
what America is trying to do to reduce it, he goes on to speaking about identifying victims. In the box on
page six he goes into depth about how to recognize them. They are easily identifiable due to how shy
they are, they often look scared and are underweight. The victims of this crime seek medical assistance
at least once through their forced careers, and thus Melby concludes by going into depth about the
symptoms of the victims and common injuries.
In Ramon M. Moldovan’s article, “Human Trafficking in Cyber Space”, she goes in depth about
how human trafficking has conquered the cyber world and how the traffickers meet their sales and
profits through their online connects. She explores the evolution of the internet starting when it was
barely used to present days, where almost anything can be achieved through the internet. Human
traffickers need to be kept secret but also sell their product, better known as battered females that are
forced to prostitute. The biggest way to secretly advertise is through websites that create the ability for
their location or identity to be kept an absolute secret. Moldovan also discusses the laws that would
help wipe the market off the internet, resulting in a large reduction of it in America. She proceeds by
letting her readers know that portions of online human-trafficking is tracked and caught by the judicial
system automatically. Although a lot of tracings do not lead to a direct conviction, but they are a
perfect first step and lead to an eventual conviction. Many people enter the cyber world and do
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business like sex-slaving ,but it is so disguised that it becomes hard to recognize, therefore, as the
problem increases so will internet security.
Human trafficking is a crime that could consume any of us, at any point. There is no
discrimination of its victims and its becoming an increasingly large crime in the USA. Todd Melby does a
good job with explaining human trafficking when writing this article, which should be evident by the end
of this analysis. Through the article it is obvious that Melby views sex slaving as a crime that needs
justice, and he effectively shows that to his audience through his purpose, his angle of vision, his
evidence, and, his use of evidence.
Melby’s intended audience, who are most likely the subscribers of Contemporary Sexuality,
would likely be those who are mature because it contains some disturbing information, and those
who are interested in stopping this heinous crime. He begins his article with an anecdote that explains
the inhumanity of human trafficking and then proceeds with stating his main purpose. He uses the
article to focus on immigrants brought to America under false pretenses, but turned into sex-slaves or
prostitutes through human trafficking. His angle of view is based on the perspective that America is
doing its best to implement and tighten-up on relevant laws. The evidence that he provides to show his
readers that America is working to lessen the crime is stating the laws that America already has, some of
the convictions, and quotes. He quotes President Bush very effectively when he includes the quote
“‘trafficking is nothing less than a modern form of slavery…’” (3). This quote shows that America is on
board, this also establishes ethos, because what better credible source is there for this country. Melby
also includes evidence such as the convictions of human traffickers in Austin, Texas and Chicago, Illinois.
After he states the evidence of what America is doing to improve the rate of this crime he goes into
detail about their laws. His tone and genre remain informative as he continually references back to the
stories he began with telling. The stories were about different females who were promised marriage,
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and once they got to America they were forced to live in deplorable circumstances. Although they had
to live in these circumstances the worst part was the fact they had to have sex with a certain amount
daily or they would be punished. We know this about these females because they are part of the very
view that will come out and tell what happened. Melby explains that they need to talk in order for
America to convict these criminals. As he concludes, he uses the informative tone to another aspect by
telling his audience the symptoms of people victimized by human trafficking.
The crime of human trafficking is being committed every day, and very often. The misconception
that this crime happens in bad neighborhoods or scattered upon bad streets at night is highly incorrect.
Not only does human trafficking happen everywhere it also happens over the internet in the cyber
world. Moldovan explores how much of human trafficking is set up and pursued through the internet
and how active a participant the internet is for human traffickers to make their full potential profit. She
names the different type of cyber human trafficking and gives an example and definition of each, at that
point she established her most credit because all knowledge was secure and backed up by facts or
quotes or examples. She also kept a consistent informative tone throughout the entire article for her
audience. The audiences, which would be the internet users that are familiar with laws against human
trafficking and higher intellect, have an easy read with this article. The easy read is created because
she defines all terms so that a person, with an already established foundation on the topic, can
understand every word. She also uses the evidence she establishes, like all the many sites that human
traffickers can sell their illegal services on, and talks about the laws that coincide with them. At the
bottom of each page, especially the ones with the laws, she includes all sources. Because there are so
many, her logic and her evidence become very believable due to the fact that majority of them are well
known credible sites. Another attribute that lets her article be as factual as it, is the fact she never strays
off topic and that she adds no bias although the crimes she talks about are done against ones of the
same gender as her.
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Moldovan uses her informative tone to begin educating about how human traffickers can use
the internet, but she also uses the tone to discuss laws that have caused complications in online human
trafficking. She doesn’t add her opinion on what laws should be made or changed, but she just notifies
the readers strictly about the laws that are already there and what role they play in this illegal cyber
world.
Although the topic is the same in each article, there are still evident differences. In article one,
Todd Melby focuses on the physical damage and aspect of human trafficking. However, in article two by
Ramona Moldovan, she focuses on the role the cyber world plays when it comes to human trafficking.
Melby states that human trafficking is mostly immigrants that Americans lure to America and once they
arrive, instead of getting what is promised to them, they get placed in sex slaving. Moldovan exclaims
that human traffickers reach their full profit potential through the business they obtain online, which is
just as important as conning females into sex-slavery in the first place. Melby focuses on the American
laws such as “The Trafficking Victims Protection Act”, but Moldovan targets more of the laws that have
less to do with human trafficking in itself, and more to do with internet crime. Another main difference
would be that although, they both serve an informative purpose Melby informs more about the victims
of human trafficking, and how to save or protect them. However, Moldovan informs more about the
human traffickers and how they use the internet as an important tool in getting clients, or buyers of
their “services” and “products”. She also focuses on laws and regulations that were needed over the
internet to target and stop human trafficking. Both authors acknowledge America’s effort on reducing
human trafficking however they do it in two different ways. Melby has created a focus around America
eliminating this crime, but not only in America. He also goes into detail about what America has done
and is doing to try and reduce this crime in other countries that have worse rates of human trafficking.
Moldovan talks about America’s progress, along with many other countries, but does not focus on just
that, she creates focus around the laws themselves, and what they have been able to prevent so far.
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Although Moldovan’s article is longer than Melby’s, she used subheadings, and with this method she
was able to separate all her main ideas and include more of a factual body for each. Melby does include
many good facts, but on certain ideas, such as the human trafficking rates in other countries, he could
have benefited himself and the readers by adding either more statistics or facts. Last but not least, they
differ on the credibility that they establish with their readers, Melby includes 2 or 3 sites throughout his
article, but Moldovan included more than that per page of her article. This shows on each piece of
information Moldovan used a collaboration of facts and opinions, because she drew information from
many cites.
My articles of choice may have had some distinct differences, but they also share similarities as
well. Although they focus on two different aspects of human trafficking they both share the most
important thing in common, they are against human trafficking. A second important similarity is that
they both have faith in America and its ability to adjust and decrease this crime. It is a hope that one day
human trafficking will be prevented all together, but it is reality that it will never happen that way and
both authors do well in acknowledging that. They don not write about the extinction of the crime but
instead, about what American laws are already active in reducing human trafficking; whether it is on the
streets or through the internet. Melby goes into detail about America’s effort to reduce the crime in
other countries, and in doing so he mentions the United Nations. When Moldovan talks about Article 3
and its effort to punish persons involved with trafficking she too, mentions the United Nations. Another
obvious similarity is that at various places in both articles, Melby and Moldovan mention females being
brought to America under false pretenses. They both list these pretenses, but the one that they both
example, is that these juvenile women are promised marriage that will lead to citizenship, but come and
end up sexually enslaved. Through the statistics that Melby and Moldovan provide in each article, the
readers can easily realize that these authors are trying to portray that human trafficking is an increasing
crime in the world. Even though Moldovan goes in depth about it, Melby and Moldovan, both mention
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the fact that these sex-slaves, or immigrants are sometimes sold to make the trafficker some money.
Another connection in both these articles would be both authors recognition that the laws in place do
not in fact lead to direct convictions but each law plays a role or is a first step into the final conviction.
Although these laws are not reducing crime that fast, Melby and Moldovan display that they are content
with the laws in place and neither of them suggest changes in the laws. Finally, they both effectively
portray the same image of human trafficking, and that it is horrible and should be stopped. They do this
best by showing that the rates of this crime, in more than just the country America, is high and only
getting higher.
Melby and Moldovan may have taken two different approaches through their articles but they
came out with the same conclusion. Their articles did not compete with each other nor run against each
other. Every aforementioned similarity answers my main research question, “what is human
trafficking?” Melby’s article could have served as an outline or foreshadow to Moldovan’s article,
because he brushes over all the topics that she goes heavily in depth with. Had they had the chance to
meet and talk, I believe Moldovan could advise Melby on information he might want to add. All in all I
believe my authors agreed and could even merge their articles to make one amazing one.
Through the articles I have already read, I have added to my knowledge about human trafficking
and have agreed with nearly all information. All my articles have shared my same view point which is
being against human trafficking and thus I have not had much room to disagree. The only disagreement
I have is that America is not doing all it can to reduce this crime, like anything the more people that
know about something, the harder it is for that something to happen unrecognizably. Therefore, this
crime needs to be made more main stream so that every person knows how to detect it and what to
do if they witness it. The crime needs to be nationally recognized so citizens can learn how to identify
victims of this heinous crime or possible human traffickers. The fact that this crime is kept secret,
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meaning that the news and schools would rather discuss about less harmful things as marijuana, is an
added factor of its progression and America’s social media needs to publicize it more. When I chose
this topic of research I truly thought America was not implementing the laws, I thought human
trafficking was just sex slavery, and I thought human trafficking was 99% physical. I now know that
America has gotten stricter on these laws and have begun to try and get strict on these laws in other
countries. America also has made many convictions and does not overlook this crime as I had thought.
Through my readings I have also learned that sex slavery may be the biggest form of human trafficking,
but it also occurs by forcing people to work in sweat shops and get paid unlawful amounts while they
work in deplorable places. Another concept I learned was how the cyber world connect human
traffickers to big bidders and potential customers, I always thought it was all physical and that the
traffickers sold to customers they met personally. Additional to my research question “What is human
trafficking?” my research has aroused other relevant questions like “What rights does human trafficking
deprive of its victims?” and “How much does the general public know about human trafficking in
America?” and “Why is human trafficking the 3rd largest crime in the world?” Some controversies that I
have come across while doing research are things such as if America is doing all it can in order to reduce
this crime, or not. I recognize the controversy of if, what if America publicizes human trafficking more,
and its increasing rate, will that increase the rate of human traffickers or not? My position between
the authors of the articles I chose is a positive one because all the authors have information that
coincides with one another. The information is either an adding factor to answer “What is human
trafficking?” or just irrelevant information. All my authors created a similar but different perspective
that answered the same question and thus I thought none were greater than the other.
As I started this research I just wanted to elaborate on the definition of human trafficking, but
the articles helped form new questions , like “why is it kept secret?”, that I want the answers to. They
helped solidify the present one by showing that America is doing more than I thought to stop this crime.
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I had originally thought of human trafficking as just sex slaving, but now I know there are other forms
like forcing people to work in sweat shops. Through these articles the only factor I was unhappy with
was the lack of spot-light that this crime gets in America. It needs to be more mainstream so that in can
become common knowledge and thus easily detectable. The articles brought me to believe this crime
thrives and increases because it is almost kept secret.
Works Cited
Melby, Todd. "U.S. Targets Sexual Slavery Worldwide And Within Its Own Borders." Contemporary
Sexuality 38.5 (2004): 1-6. Academic Search Complete. Web. 18 Oct. 2012.
MOLDOVAN, Ramona Mihaela. "Human Trafficking In Cyberspace." Juridical Current 14.3 (2011): 86-92.
Academic Search Complete. Web. 18 Oct. 2012.