The abuse of human trafficking victims comes in many forms, not the least of which is forced abortions.
One woman who managed to escape from her abusers reported having 17 abortions while she was being trafficked, The Shreveport Times reports. Her experience is just one of many in the United States and abroad.
Human trafficking, especially sex trafficking of young girls, has increasingly become a problem in the United States. The Department of State estimates that between 14,500 and 17,500 people are trafficked to the U.S. annually. A survey by the U.S. Department of State found that 55 percent of sex trafficking victims had at least one abortion, with 30 percent having multiple abortions. More than half said they did not choose to abort their unborn child; their traffickers ordered them to, according to the survey.
These harrowing facts are prompting a wide variety of service organizations to help victims escape and heal. In Louisiana, pro-life pregnancy resource centers are reaching out to victims of sexual abuse and offering them resources and counseling.
Cindy Collins, who works for a pro-life center in Slidell, Louisiana, has heard many sickening stories from the human trafficking victims. She told the newspaper that trafficking victims are expected to have sex with anywhere between five to 35 men a day. Because many victims do not use contraception, pregnancies and abortions are common, she said.
“That is a deep trauma, not only the abortion experience, but the deep feelings of regret because this is a life she never intended to live, and now it’s taken the life of herself and her child, a second victim,” Collins said.
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The news report explains more about the pro-life center’s experiences with sex trafficking victims:
Traffickers who allow women to have children often do so as another form of control, Collins said.
Several trafficking victims she’s worked with were allowed to keep one child — an “anchor baby”— that the trafficker then used to give the woman a false sense of family, or which the trafficker used as a hostage to keep the woman compliant.
Collins said the mothers she’s worked with have demonstrated a range of emotions. Women forced to have an abortion can seem unattached or unemotional, but those who carry full term desperately want their children.
“They love their children,” Collins said. “They see their children as something to live for, as a way out.”
Regardless of outcome, the journey into motherhood for trafficking victims is traumatic. .
Fortunately, Collins said some women are beginning to heal. She said they help sex trafficking victims realize their value as human beings and pursue their dreams.
Vednita Carter, who survived sexual abuse and later founded a Minnesota shelter called Breaking Free, also shared how abortions are just another way that human trafficking victims are abused. Carter testified to U.S. Congress in 2014 and shared the story of one woman who she helped: “I got pregnant six times and had six abortions during this time. I had severe scar tissue from these abortions, because there was no follow up care. In a couple of cases I had bad infections—so bad that I eventually had to have a hysterectomy.”
Despite the evidence of forced abortions being used as a double abuse of sex trafficking victims, abortion activists continuously push these victims in the direction of abortion. They claim an abortion will help sexual abuse victims, rather than recognize how it can further traumatize them and kill their unborn child.
Last March, pro-abortion Democrats in the U.S. Senate even blocked a bill to help human trafficking victims, simply because it would not pay for their abortions, LifeNews reported. Their objection was offensive to victims of human trafficking and millions of girls and young women around the world who are victimized by it, putting abortion ahead of meeting their needs.
The Obama Administration put abortion ahead of human trafficking twice — by denying a grant to the Catholic bishops to help victims because they wouldn’t promote abortion and by refusing to investigate how the Planned Parenthood abortion business covered up potential cases of sex trafficking.
While the Obama administration extended the contract briefly, the bishops were notified that it would not be renewed. Instead, Obama officials awarded the grant to three other groups (Tapestri of Atlanta, Heartland Human Care Services of Chicago and the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants of Washington) — even though the bishops have helped more than 2,700 victims with the funding.
