Human Trafficking - The Hidden Epidemic in America

Human trafficking is a form of modern slavery where people profit from the control and exploitation of others.

Although slavery is commonly thought to be a thing of the past, human trafficking still exists today throughout the United States and globally when traffickers use force, fraud, or coercion to control other people for the purpose of engaging in commercial sex or forcing them to provide labor services against their will. Traffickers use violence, threats, deception, debt bondage, and other manipulative tactics to trap victims in horrific situations every day in America. All trafficking victims share one essential experience – the loss of freedom.

Some stats are:

• There are 20.9 million victims of human trafficking globally, including 5.5 million children. 55% are women and girls.
• In 2013, the National Human Trafficking Resource Center hotline, received multiple reports of human trafficking cases in all 50 states and D.C.
• Human trafficking is a $150 billion industry worldwide.
• There is no official estimate of the total number of human trafficking victims in the U.S. With 100,000 children estimated to be in the sex trade in the United States each year, it is clear that the total number of victims nationally reaches into the hundreds of thousands when estimates of both adults and minors and sex trafficking and labor trafficking are aggregated.
• The number of human trafficking cases increases every year.

Let's talk about this horrific issue in our communities.