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Mya Weldy

Professor Kelco

Rhetorical Analysis

24 October 2019

Human Trafficking

When I started looking for a hashtag to use, I kept thinking, “What is something

important that people don’t talk about often?” and “What’s something that I can bring awareness

to?” So I got on Twitter after I seen a news post sent to my phone about 39 people found dead

from human trafficking and that’s when I decided to use #humantrafficking. Human trafficking

is the act of gathering, moving, receiving, or keeping human beings by threat, force, coercion, or

deception, for exploitative purposes. Human trafficking is a very import issue that people need

to worry about. It seems like people are trying to ignore what is going on unless something

happens right in front of them.

Most people know what human trafficking is and know that’s bad. But what they don’t

know is how bad it actually is. I’m going to tell you some history on human trafficking.“Just

dating back to 2012, the latest available data back then, 40,177 cases of trafficking were reported

in the 2010-2012 period—and these are only the known cases. Broken down, it is a total of

13,392 persons trafficked a year; 36 trafficked every day; an average of one person trafficked an

hour. 152 nationalities have been trafficked to 124 nations. 49% of the trafficking victims are

women, and 33% are children. 21% of total trafficking victims, or 8,437 victims, are young

girls.” That right there alone shocked me. Not many people know the statistics and it’s scary to

think it was that bad back in 2012 but even scarier to know that it is now worse. Human
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trafficking goes all the way back to The African Slave Trade, which lasted from the 15th centry

to the 19th centry. There was also White Slavery that happened after the African slave trade,

World War 1 and trafficking in woman and children.

In the past three years in the United States, “Human Services received 651 reports of

child sexual exploitation and child sex trafficking from May 2017 through December 2018 from

across the state. This includes reports from 60 counties and 5 tribes. About 30% of the cases

concerned children under 12 years old. About 50% concerned cases where parents or caregivers

were alleged to be offenders.” The text that I got this information on talks about a lot of

information and statistics in the last few years in the USA. Their audience is whoever reads their

website to gain information on human trafficking or whoever is effected by their way of pathos.

One of the two tweets I found on twitter talks about how “children of all ages need to know and

understand the hazards of human trafficking and how to protect themselves from dangerous

predators." It also attached a link to the tweet and the headline says, “Flordia set to require

schools to teach human trafficking prevention.” They are using pathos when they posted this

tweet. They are trying to connect to parents on an emotional level and get them to notice that

human trafficking is getting so bad that schools are teaching their children on how to prevent it.

This hashtag is really important because human trafficking itself is very important and

needs to be paid attention to more. It’s also a very serious thing that happens and it’s getting

worse every year. Every time this hashtag, #humantrafficking, is used, it really brings out

emotions from people if they click on the hashtag and see what is all going on with human

trafficking. It needs more attention brought to it and I feel like the more people that use it, the

more attention it will get from people. The people who have money, for example, rich people,

can do the most with this hashtag and get more people to notice it. The way for them to do this is
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to post about it, talk about it with other rich people, get their fans or family to raise money to

help put a stop to #humanntrafficking. They could also start programs for victims who have

escaped human trafficking and they need a place to live. The programs that they could start can

also help victims get back on their feet and start a life of their own.

It’s very important to use #humantrafficking and get as many people to notice as you

can. The longer that #humantrafficking goes without the attention it needs, like I mentioned

before, the worse it will get. These girls and boys that go through this need help. As most people

know, sex trafficking plays into human trafficking as well. Sex trafficking itself is a whole

hashtag in of itself. People who are taken into the sex trafficking ring are in the same boat as

human trafficking and they both need more attention brought to them.

The more that this hashtag is used, the more pathos that it uses, and the more awareness

brought to #humantrafficking, will help bring a stop to it or at least stop it in some countries.

This hashtag needs to be more effective because the longer #humantrafficking goes without the

attention it needs, the worse it will get. The worse that human trafficking gets, the harder it will

be to put a stop to it and help the victims of human trafficking. The audience that is affected by

#humantrafficking is mostly people, more women than men, that really pay attention to what is

going on round the world. Most people know the jist of the problems that the world is going

through and don’t believe they can do anything to stop them so they stop paying attention to

them. But the people who do actually pay attention, try to get others to know more than the ‘jist’

of what the world is going through and let the other people know that you don’t have to use

money to do something about it. You can use your voice because that speaks louder than any

amount of money can. I feel like that is how it is with human trafficking. People know what it is

and know that it’s a problem that the world is dealing with but believe they can’t do anything
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about it because they think they need money to do so. There are many other ways to bring

awareness to #humantrafficking. For example you can learn more about major organizations,

advocate for both male and female victims, host a speaker or event, attend an event or participate

in an awareness week, share personal stories on social media, get involved on a local level, start

a club, read book and articles or watch documentaries, and learn to spot signs. All these don’t

cost any money to do and you can still do so much without spending a bunch of money. If you

would want to spend money, you could purchase merchandise or donate.

This hashtag really aligns with the rhetorical triangle more than the rhetorical canons and

rhetorical appeals. I say this because it is all in the way the rhetor words the text that they know

the audience will see. It is also all in the time that you post about #humantrafficking. That is

called kairos. It’s very important to consider kairos while doing anything. The exigence,

motivation, for posting about human trafficking is the relization of how bad it is getting and how

it needes to come to an end before it gets worse. The logos of the text is all the evidence you see

around you in the world. You also have to think about the way you arrange the texts that you

send out or post and who you deliver it. Also something important to think about is the

constraints you have on your text.

In conclusion, #humantrafficking is very important and needs more attention than it is

currently getting. I listed a lot of ways that you can give attention or raise awareness to human

trafficking and they should be used. Human trafficking is a very import issue that people need to

worry about. It seems like people are trying to ignore what is going on unless something happens

right in front of them. Using all the options I mentioned, there is so many ways you can bring

awareness to human trafficking and many ways you can attempt to put an end to it.
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Works Cited:

Hodge, Graeme. “This Devastating Loss of Life Is Another Horrific Reminder of Why We

Need to Stop #HumanTrafficking & Tackle the Core Reasons That Cause People to Be

Enslaved. Thinking Tonight of the Family & Friends of All 39 Who Have Lost Their
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Lives so Tragically. Https://T.co/Cs3XDrwyf1.” Twitter, Twitter, 23 Oct. 2019,

https://twitter.com/graemehodge/status/1187112611357306888.

Kubiak, Jehn. “11 Ways To Contribute During Human Trafficking Awareness Month.” The

Odyssey Online, The Odyssey Online, 15 Oct. 2019,

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/human-trafficking-awareness.

News, CBN. “‘Tragically, #HumanTrafficking Is an Epidemic in Our Country. Children of

All Ages Need to Know and Understand the Hazards of Human Trafficking and How to

Protect Themselves from Dangerous Predators." Https://T.co/kkBUNU31Hn.” Twitter,

Twitter, 19 Oct. 2019, https://twitter.com/CBNNews/status/1185395142577942528.

Oster, Grant, and Esther Elizabeth Suson. “The History of Human Trafficking.” Hankering

for History, 29 Apr. 2016, https://hankeringforhistory.com/the-history-of-human-

trafficking/.

“USA.” ECPAT,

https://www.ecpatusa.org/statistics?gclid=CjwKCAjwusrtBRBmEiwAGBPgE-

3aylzat6k1A6ReKb7jekWKxNrNPLBPT6vGiDeisPvzL2BCL6bzDhoCq3QQAvD_BwE.
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