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Pornography is one of the most profitable industries, with almost $100,000 million annually, according to the US finance website Business Pundit.
In a classic porn scene, there is a whole team behind people in the roles of producers, make-up artists, cameramen and directors; with the aim of recording one or several sexual scenes so that hundreds of users can play it from their homes over and over again.
And what happens when the cameras turn off? What's behind the screen that consumers can't see? Quite possibly there is an “actress” with a smile stitched to her mouth, her senses completely numb and threatening or violent words replaying over and over in her brain like a repeating song on the radio.
No one can see that situation: users, when they finish playing a video, close their computer or put down their phone and continue with their routine activities and life.
But… what about them? Do they really have that option?
Pornography creates a climate in which women, adolescents, boys and girls are sexually exploited and treated with violence. In many cases, such basic and necessary rights as freedom and identity are taken away from them. And the most serious thing about this whole situation is that it is accepted or completely ignored.
Women, adolescents, boys and girls who are sexually exploited are trafficked for the sole purpose of producing pornography. Our mother, our sister or our friend closest can become one more victim of trafficking to take her against her will to star in a scene that will later be reproduced by hundreds of users around the world.
$32,000 billion dollars generates trafficking for sexual and labor exploitation in the world. It is an illegal business that produces millionaire profits and that is located below the sale of weapons and drugs.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has documented the cases of up to 225,000 victims of human trafficking that occurred between 2003 and 2016. Three quarters of them were women and girls, and the majority were for the purpose of sexual exploitation.
And the figure does not decrease; Human trafficking continues to occur around the world. There are women who wake up one day in their homes surrounded by their family or loved ones and, after a few hours, find themselves unconscious being dragged into a vehicle of strangers who drive her further and further away from her home and end up becoming a ghost of what they once were.
Human trafficking and sexual exploitation are everywhere. Even in a very serious situation like a war, the only thing left is to deal with possible cases of trafficking. In this sense, Joung-ah Ghedini. Williams, UNHCR's head of global communications, expressed concern about Russia's attack on Ukraine: “You have to worry about the potential risks of trafficking, but also sexual exploitation and abuse. These are the types of situations that people like traffickers seek to take advantage of.”
All the refugees who are in a very vulnerable situation in Ukraine are women and children. And they are the ones who are most targeted by people, who are involved in human trafficking. “When you suddenly have a huge mass of really vulnerable people who need money and assistance right away, it's kind of a breeding ground for situations of sexual exploitation,” said Tamara Barnett, Director of Operations of the Human Trafficking Foundation.
In many cases, users may not be aware of what may be going on behind a pornographic video. They cannot imagine that there is a female prisoner who was violated of her basic rights as a human being and sexually abused with the in order to entertain other people and earn hundreds of dollars for the porn industries.
Even so, this industry is gigantic and is one of the most profitable in the entire world. It is important to clarify that the only purpose it has is entertainment. It is not intended for educational or informational purposes, although it may appear so. Children as young as 10 years old consume pornographic videos to learn about sex or because another child encouraged them to do so.
Thousands of teenagers watch a pornographic video at least once a day to learn or to entertain themselves in their spare time.
At their young age, all of them begin to get incorrect information about what sex is or the role of women in it. In most of the pornographic videos, the woman is treated with violence and without any kind of respect, and all this treatment is accepted. The only thing that is limited to doing the woman is to feel pleasure or not show any kind of discomfort. And that is what children internalize as their source of information, and it is the treatment that they will reproduce towards their female partners, friends or family members.
Porn has not only become a very incorrect source of information that defends women as a person and encourages macho attitudes. Also, it's a multi-million dollar industry around the world that deprives the protagonists of their scenes of their freedom and their rights.
The woman or girl who participates in a pornographic scene is a person who could have been snatched from her home, deprived of all her freedom, threatened and even drugged in order to numb all her senses, to place her in front of a camera and record for a few minutes his own sexual abuse. And her life ends up being a loop of that situation. Doesn't that woman lose something in this whole process besides her rights? The answer is that she does: she loses her soul and her will to live.
Pornography is the largest and most disgusting manifestation of hatred, disrespect and violence towards hundreds of women, adolescents, boys and girls.
As a society and as individuals belonging to it, we need to raise awareness and make others aware of what the porn industry really does and encourages: human trafficking. We must collaborate on a global level so that, soon, this hell that already exists throughout the world ends.