“A 15-year-old Vietnamese boy found during a police raid on a house in Doncaster [United Kingdom], along with £85,000-worth of cannabis, had been working since he was 12, trafficked via France with the promise of a factory job. Having been beaten, he was too scared to leave.”
(Emily Dugan, “Think slavery is a thing of the past? Think again,” The Independent UK 17 October 2010).
This is just one of the millions of stories about human trafficking victims. Despite international attention and awareness to the problem of human trafficking over the last decade, this modern day slave trade has grown to be the second largest criminal industry in the world (after the drug trade). The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimates conservatively that approximately 2.5 million people are victims of trafficking at any given time.
Human trafficking is the illegal trade of persons through force, fraud, coercion, or violence for purposes of sexual exploitation, forced labor, and other slavery-like practices. Most victims are women and children that are kidnapped or seduced through fraud to seek financial opportunities outside of their hometowns or countries; however, any person of any age and gender can be a victim. Upon arrival at their destination, they are forced into labor and/or prostitution. “Bonded labor” or “debt bondage”, when a worker is exploited to pay off a debt, like their travel costs, is one prevalent type of slavery into which people are trafficked. The trafficking and enslavement of children is often linked to war where children are used as combatants, porters, cooks, guards, servants, messengers or spies. In these situations, boys and girls are also forced to marry or have sex with male combatants. Children are subjected to prostitution in the global commercial trade although it is prohibited by legislation in countries around the world.
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