Chapter 5: SOCIAL WORK STUDENTS REFLECT ON LEARNING ABOUT SEX TRAFFICKING

My journey in becoming an advocate for survivors of human trafficking, started during my time in the United States Peace Corps in Kyrgyzstan. During my service in the Peace Corps, I became aware of the problem of human trafficking in Central Asia. While human trafficking was a well-known problem in Eastern Europe, the problem was not well understood in the rest of the former Soviet states in Central Asia. As a result of the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the subsequent economic collapse, many of the Central Asian countries were left with few employment opportunities—despite having high levels of literacy and educational attainment. Those with means left, causing a major brain-drain in the region. In a state of desperation many individuals in Kyrgyzstan are lured by fraudulent means into sex trafficking in the Middle East, and labor trafficking in Russia and other countries. In neighboring Uzbekistan, every year the government forces the population to harvest cotton without paying them. Exploitation is rife in a region where few opportunities exist for the local population.