Human Trafficking

is the illegal trade of human beings, mainly for the purposes of forced labor or the commercial sex industry. For years now, human trafficking has been considered the number one growing organized crime worldwide. It is estimated 27 - 36 million men, women and children are in bondage globally. According to the A21 Campaign, only 1-2% of victims are ever rescued.

There are a vast number of websites you can visit that will give you a snap-shot of the global problem. One of my favorites is Free The Slaves. Their website includes an interactive map which enables you to select which region of the world you want to investigate. Some of the more text-driven sites include HumanTrafficking.org,  FBI.gov & unodc.org. Other great resources are Polaris Project,  Not For Sale Campaign & A21 Campaign to name a few. (If you have resources you trust, please comment below so I can add them to my ever-growing resource list.)

According to Free The Slaves there could much more than that. The data from Free the Slaves suggests that over 24 million live as slaves in the Asia & Pacific area of the world. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) 79% of these slaves are sexually exploited. I found out from multiple sources that the average cost of $90. One of the most specific documents I found, and the most current information (from 2014), is from UNODC. Click here to read the UNODC 2014 "Executive Summary: Global Report on Human Trafficking" 

If you have already visited some of the sites I shared, you'll notice the statistics vary from site to site. The truth is, that slavery is illegal everywhere. This means the exact number of victims is not known exactly. What we do know, is that human trafficking is the modern-day slave-trade.

What is known, is that slavery is prevalent all over the world.

What does slavery look like?

Interpol lists several forms of slavery: forced labor, for sexual exploitation, trafficking in organs and the commercial exploitation of children and tourism.

Each of these forms of human trafficking deserve to have their 15 minutes. Besides, I don't want to overwhelm this post, so I will dedicate one post for each of these form of trafficking.

If you have any comments, questions or suggestions for me, please leave them in the comments below.