Human trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery.
Traffickers use force, fraud, or coercion to control victims for the purpose of forced labor or sexual services against their will.
The realities of human trafficking.
There are more people trapped in slavery today than at any other point in human history.
Modern slavery is an umbrella term covering forced labor, debt bondage, forced marriage, and human trafficking — situations of exploitation a person cannot refuse or leave because of threats, violence, coercion, or deception.
Trafficking happens every day, in every country — including the United States.
It affects individuals of every age, ethnicity, gender, and socio-economic background.
Daniela’s story
At any given time, an estimated
are living in modern slavery.
Forced labor generates 236 billion dollars in illegal profits every year — wages effectively stolen from workers through coercion.
Traffickers prey on the vulnerable for their own profit.
Extreme poverty and a lack of job opportunities are chief factors for most individuals who find themselves exploited.
Nearly four in five of those in forced commercial sexual exploitation are women or girls.
One in four people in modern slavery is a child — including 3.3 million children in forced labor.
One of every 150 people on Earth.
That is what 50 million means. Not a distant statistic — a neighbor, a classmate, a worker behind the products we buy. Each dot here is roughly 333,000 people. One of them could be anyone.
More people were in modern slavery in 2021 than in 2016. The crisis is growing, not shrinking.
Detected child victims of trafficking have risen 31 percent since 2019 — increasingly recruited online.
More than half of all forced labor happens in upper-middle and high-income countries — not somewhere else.
Trafficking occurs in every country in the world.
This is how we disrupt human trafficking.
From covert operations alongside law enforcement to prevention education and survivor aftercare — see how our programs light the road out of modern slavery.
Explore our programs
