Human trafficking is a phenomenon that is nothing short of modern-day slavery, and one of the hardest-hit industries in the US is the massage business. Illicit human trafficking massage parlors are so ubiquitous in this country that most Americans have at least one located within a short driving distance. In this article, we'll cover the definition of human trafficking, how it manifests specifically in massage businesses, and how to spot the most common tell-tale signs of illicit massage parlors all around us.
Your business email. A Sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age; or. B The recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.
Forced labor and sexual exploitation can sometimes overlap in the commercial sex industry and the massage parlor industry. In those sectors, it is common to see human beings forced into labor against their will or for too little pay and exploited or abused sexually. It is estimated that the erotic massage parlor economy in the US brings in at least 2. In addition to offering regular, legally sanctioned massages, illicit massage parlors also provide a range of illegal sex acts to the customers for extra charge.
The term "happy ending" is often used for the type of service they provide to the clients and typically refers to manual erotic stimulation or oral sex performed at the end of the massage. Many women employed in such establishments are victims of human trafficking: they have been coerced with false promises, threatened with violence, or physically trapped into this situation without understanding what they were getting into. Recent high-profile instances of massage parlor busts include the case when the Miami Beach Police raided four Miami Beach spas , finding signs that trafficked women were living on the premises, as well as the infamous sting operation that implicated the New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft in human trafficking at the Orchids of Asia Day Spa in Florida.
Unlike medical facilities that involve physical touch-work as part of diagnosis or treatment, massage parlors are not subject to strict government regulation. Therefore, even though massage therapy is a legitimate practice and there are plenty of professionally trained massage therapists, this profession's uniquely private and intimate nature lends itself to all sorts of boundary-crossing from "therapy" into "pleasure.
