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Lesson 13 min 20 XP

Human Trafficking

How modern slavery persists through forced labor, sexual exploitation, and organ trafficking, and what the international community is doing to combat it.

Modern Slavery

The International Labour Organization estimates that 50 million people are in situations of modern slavery on any given day. This includes 28 million in forced labor and 22 million in forced marriage. Human trafficking, the recruitment, transport, or harboring of people through force, fraud, or coercion for exploitation, generates an estimated $150 billion in annual profits for traffickers. It is one of the world's most lucrative criminal enterprises, after drug trafficking.

Trafficking takes many forms. Forced labor occurs in agriculture, construction, manufacturing, domestic work, and fishing. Sex trafficking exploits women and girls (primarily) through forced prostitution. Child soldiers in armed conflicts in Africa and the Middle East are trafficking victims. Organ trafficking, while smaller in scale, targets desperate people in developing countries. Debt bondage, where workers are trapped by debts they cannot repay, affects millions across South Asia, the Middle East, and elsewhere.