What Is Human Trafficking?

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Human trafficking is the illegal transnational and international trade in people for the purpose of servitude. Human rights organizations and different people are calling it the modern form of slavery. People are trafficked for a number of reasons: prostitution, sexual exploitation, forced labor, slavery, organ harvesting, forced marriage, military service, and even selling babies to couples who can’t have children.

In the U.S. alone, about 600,000-820,000 men, women and children are trafficked. About 70 percent of those victims are women and girls, and 50 percent are minors. The most common form of trafficking is sexual exploitation, where 36-62% of 20.9 million people are forced into prostitution, sold as sex slaves, and forced into marriage.