Who links to me?Human trafficking (trafficking) is modern day slavery. It comprises 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 subjecting that person to involuntary servitude, sexual exploitation, peonage, debt bondage, slavery, or other kinds of exploitation.
Trafficking can take various forms including:
• Forced prostitution
• Forced labor (factories, sweatshops)
• Domestic servitude
• Soldiering
• Organ trade
• Commercial or illegal adoption
According to the U.S. State Department up to 800,000 people are trafficked around the world each year for the purpose of prostitution, forced labor, and other forms of exploitation. This number does not include trafficking within a country's borders. An estimated 17,000 victims are trafficked into the United States each year. The International Organization for Migration estimates there are around 200,000 to 250,000 women and children trafficked every year in Asia. An estimated 27 million slaves still exist today, more than at the height of the Transatlantic slave trade.
Trafficking is the product of many factors including: poverty, lack of education, unemployment, underemployment, feminization of migration, organized crime syndicates, government corruption, and low awareness of trafficking at all levels of society.
