The United Nations on Wednesday released a report in which they claim 2.4 million people around the world are traded into slavery every single year while 80% of those victims or nearly 1.9 million people are traded into sexual slavery.
Speaking to a General Assembly the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime revealed that 17% of those people trafficked are used for forced labor in homes and sweat shops around the world. It was also revealed that of those 2.4 million people traded on the black market two out of every three victims are women.
Human trafficking has become such a big business that it not brings in more than $32 billion annually according to best guesses by analysts.
As one law professor points out to the Associated Press:
“At the end of 10 years you will have a significantly larger number who have gone through the experience.”
One of the biggest problems with the human trafficking trade is that most countries laws criminalize the victims activities but hardly ever goes after the true perpetrators which according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime are the true people “without whom that crime could not be performed.”
In what might be the most scary statistic from the UN, only one in 100 victims are ever rescued from their forced life of hard labor or prostitution.
If you’ve ever watched the various TV specials regarding human trafficking it isn’t just a practice that exists in third world countries, many women and men are traded into forced labor and sex trades right here in the United States.