Slavery still exists, and is on the rise

Like most people I assumed slavery existed only in history books, that we had abolished it more than a hundred and fifty years ago. To my horror, I was very wrong. Human trafficking is the fastest growing criminal industry in the world and one of our most urgent human rights issues. It is occurring in our midst, in our communities, and yet it is largely a secret. A despicable secret.

Human trafficking is our modern-day slave trade.

Am I exaggerating by calling it a "slave trade"? Unfortunately, I am not. Dr. Laura Lederer, former State Department Advisor on Human Trafficking and Vice President of Global Centurion, an organization designed to fight world slavery, has stated that, "Over the last 10 years, the numbers of women and children [who] have been trafficked have multiplied so that they are now on par with estimates of the numbers of Africans who were enslaved in the 16th and 17th centuries."

Over the past decade, the trafficking of human beings has reached epidemic proportions, with 1.2 million children becoming new victims of human trafficking every year. In the U.S., the average victim of abduction is an 11-year-old girl.

- Dr. Ana Nogales