Child Trafficking

Human Trafficking ~ Modern-day Slavery

Although owning slaves has been forbidden for many years, modern-day slavery still exists worldwide in the form of human trafficking.

Human rights organizations are saying that human trafficking has become a huge global problem. The number of victims is staggering – National Geographic estimates that all forms of human trafficking combined victimize about 27 million people in slavery. There is actually more people in slavery in our world today than there were extracted from Africa during 400 years of transatlantic slave trade.

Sex trafficking is the most brutal form of trafficking, and UNICEF reports that about one million children are sold or otherwise recruited into this criminal business every year.

Sex trafficking is believed to be fastest growing in Central and Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union. In Asia, girls from villages in Nepal and Bangladesh – the majority of whom are under 18 – are sold to brothels in India for $1,000. The European Policy Agency estimates that this industry is now worth several billion dollars a year. This does not mean though that other countries are exempt from trafficking – no country is immune to human trafficking!

Worldwide human trafficking is the third largest criminal industry, outranked only by arms and drug dealing, and the United Nations estimates that human trafficking generates $7 - $10 billion for traffickers every year.

The number of people trafficked each year is estimated by most experts to be in the millions. Due to its current growth rate, which is fuelled by its high profitability, low investigation rate and low prosecution rate, human trafficking is expected to take over drug trafficking as the second largest criminal industry worldwide within the next decades.

~ Author: Ella from HFMC ~