Sex trafficking is a form of modern slavery that exists throughout the United States. Traffickers use violence, threats, lies, debt bondage and other forms of coercion to compel adults and children to engage in commercial sex acts against their will. Young people who run away from home are particularly vulnerable to sexual exploitation by traffickers: the Department of Justice estimates that 293,000 youth are at risk. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) estimates that “1 in 5 of the 11,800 runways reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in 2015 were likely sex trafficking victims. Barbara Amaya ran away from an abusive home in North Virginia at 12 years old. By the age of 16 in 1972 she had been sent to three detention centres and lived on the streets of Washington DC and New York City. She spent over 10 years as a victim of commercial sexual exploitation where she was forced to work as a prostitute and hooked on heroin. Today Barbara works to bring awareness of the adversity that survivors of violence and trauma have overcome and trains law enforcement, health care professionals, teachers and counsellors how to interact with victims.

The UK National Crime Agency estimates 3,309 potential victims of human trafficking came into contact with the State or an NGO in 2014. The latest government statistics derived from the UK National Referral Mechanism in 2014 reveal 2,340 potential victims of trafficking from 96 countries of origin, of whom 61 percent were female and 29 percent were children. Of those identified through the NRM, the majority were adults classified as victims of sexual exploitation followed by adults exploited in the domestic service sector and other types of labour exploitation. The largest proportion of victims was from Albania, followed by Nigeria, Vietnam, Romania and Slovakia. Ada moved to the London with her boyfriend 'Paul' hoping to start a new life and go back to school. Paul's uncle picked them up from the airport, and they were to stay at his for a while. However, upon arrival Paul left. His uncle raped Ada and told her Paul had gone back to Sierra Leone and she had to work as a prostitute. Locked up at all times and subjected to physical abuse daily, Ada was finally able to escape on New Year when she ran out the back door.

The Global Slavery Index estimates that approximately 248,700 people live in conditions of modern slavery in South Africa. 43% of victims in forced labour were identified by the Walk Free survey to be subjected to commercial sexual exploitation. Though the purchasing of sex is criminalised, the sex industry thrives on the street, in brothers and in private residences. South African women, women from neighbouring states and Thai, Chinese, Russian and Brazilian women have been identified as victims of commercial sexual exploitation in South Africa. South African women have also been trafficked abroad, predominantly to Europe.  Elanie was abused and neglected from a very young age. She was sexually molested until the age of 14 years old by both her mother’s boyfriends, teachers and her brother. Alcohol featured at an early age during her life, being given it to keep her quiet from the age of 6. After she left school Elanie was looking for work when she was sold to an escort agency and subjected to sexual abuse by numerous men for 8 months.

Child victims of trafficking can be lured into the United States through the promise of education or work and the opportunity to send money back to their families. Children are vulnerable to kidnappers, pimps and professional brokers, with some even being sold by their families who may or may not have an understanding of what will happen to their child. US children are also trafficked within the US with cases of human trafficking reported in all 50 US states. It is estimated that 10 000 forced labourers in the US are trapped in domestic servitude. At 11 years old Jamelia was sold to a woman by her mother in Belize. She was taken to the US to live with her trafficker and two other adopted children. Jamelia regularly went without food, was beaten when she disobeyed and wasn’t allowed access to phones or computers. She and the other children were moved around constantly by her trafficker and when not in school were forced to work for her trafficker’s business without pay. Jamelia had to do all the housework, yardwork and take care of five children. At the age of 23 Jamelia finally found someone who could help when she found a number for Fresno Economic Opportunities Commission. She was rescued in 2010 and became the first identified victim of human trafficking in Fresno County.

At least one child a day is trafficked into Britain according the to the Human Trafficking Foundation, with children forced to work in the sex industry, domestic service, cannabis cultivation or as criminal on the streets.  Child victims of human trafficking primarily originate from Romania, Vietnam, Nigeria, and from within the UK itself. UK children continue to be subjected to sex trafficking within the country. Children in the care system and unaccompanied migrant children are particularly vulnerable to trafficking.  Jenny was 13 when her 70-year-old neighbour Keith began giving her lifts to school and buying her gifts. After a while Keith began to demand Jenny repay him for her generosity, forcing her to have sex with him. As months passed Keith began inviting other men to the house and forcing Jenny to have sex with them to pay off his debts. At the age of 17 Jenny left home and found a place at a women’s refuge, it was the first of many attempts to get help and escape, but had developed an addiction to drugs. She kept going back as she felt that is all she was worth. One day the police put her in touch with Victim Support who referred Jenny to the Salvation Army who took her to a safe house.

Egypt is a source, transit and destination country for women and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labour and sexual exploitation. Egyptian children are recruited for domestic and agricultural labour with some of these children facing conditions indicative of involuntary servitude such as restrictions on movement, non-payment of wages, threats and physical or sexual abuse. Families in remote villages across Africa send their children to work in cities for extra money, a custom that has led to the spread of trafficking as wealthy Africans accustomed to employing children immigrate to the US. It is estimated that 10 000 forced labourers in the US are trapped in domestic servitude. Shyima was just 8 years old when her family sold her into slavery to settle a debt. She was then smuggled into the US and held as a domestic slave in California. She was denied medical care, proper nutrition, an education, and her childhood

Minority children and those from very poor families are extremely vulnerable to trafficking in China. A highly organised practice exists where couples have children for the very purpose of selling them. Children from minorities are also deceived into trafficking under the false promise of work in hospitality, construction and manufacturing but are instead forced to engage in criminal activity or prostitution. There are also an estimated 1.5 million children currently enslaved as forced beggars in China. Xiaoxiang, a young Chinese boy was playing with his brother in his front garden when he was abducted for illegal adoption domestically. Xiaoxiang was rescued by police working on another child abduction and reunited with his family.

China remains a source, transit and destination country for the sexual exploitation of women and children.  Women are lured through false promises of legitimate employment and trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation from countries such as Mongolia, Burma, North Korea, Russia, Vietnam, Romania and Ghana. Thien was trafficked in to forced prostitution after a friend stole her bicycle and told her she would have to work to earn money to retrieve it. Thien was taken by boat from Vietnam to China where she was forced to work in multiple prostitution dens. Subjected to physical violence and food deprivation, Thien attempted to escape on numerous occasions. After a year she was finally able to escape when she stole a customer’s phone and wallet and ran to a nearby bus station.

Mexico has one of the largest child labour forces in Latin America with 3.6 million children between the ages of 5 and 17 currently employed in some way. This has made children one of the most vulnerable groups of people subjected to labour exploitation in the country. 42.5 percent of children working in Mexico do not receive any income for their labour. The current prevalence of poverty in the country has meant that many families require children to contribute to the household income in order to survive. Moreover Mexico is home to thousands of street children who constitute a particularly vulnerable group often subjected to forced labour and sexual exploitation. Jose was just 7 years old when he ran away from a neglectful home environment and began living on the streets of Mexico. One day he was approached by a boy who offered him a place to stay. When he arrived at the house he was told that he would have to work to earn his keep. Jose was exploited for his labour, became addicted to drugs and was recruited by a gang who made him sell in exchange for feeding his addiction. Jose was rescued by a woman from an NGO and is now an ‘older brother’ in the organisation, working to help children like himself.

Trisha became more vocal in speaking out about the abuses of the sex industry after writing about the 2006-2007 murder trial of convicted serial killer Robert Pickton—most of whose victims were women in prostitution and many of whom were known to Trisha. In 2009 she founded EVE (formerly Exploited Voices now Educating), a volunteer, non-governmental, non-profit organization composed of former sex-industry women dedicated to abolishing prostitution as a form of violence against women. She is a leading activist in the campaign calling on the Canadian government to reform its prostitution laws so that women in prostitution are decriminalized and provided with much-needed services, while sex buyers, pimps and brothel owners are criminalized.

In the Philippines, women and children are subjected to sexual exploitation in brothels, bars, and massage parlours, online, as well as in the production of pornography. The Philippines is an international hub for prostitution and commercial sex tourism – a highly profitable businesses for organised criminal syndicates. The demand for sex with children among both local and foreign men has continued to fuel child sex tourism. Rising internet usage rates, the availability of mobile phones and poverty has fostered online child sexual exploitation.

Rowena’s account of her route into sexual exploitation highlights that family problems of abuse and poverty make children vulnerable to coercion into the sex industry.

UK children continue to be subjected to sex trafficking within the country. Children in the care system and unaccompanied migrant children are particularly vulnerable to trafficking. Rebecca was sexually abused and exploited as a child and only left her situation as an adult when she experienced such violence that she ended up in hospital. Here she discusses how societal gender norms contribute to and justify abuse to women and girls.

Particularly vulnerable populations in the United States include: children in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems; runaway and homeless youth; unaccompanied children. In 2015, the most reported venues/industries for sex trafficking included commercial-front brothels, hotel/motel-based trafficking, online advertisements with unknown locations, residential brothels, and street-based sex trafficking. Marheaux was exploited sexually as a child in the United States, but is now an activist and advocate for other survivors of slavery. She argues for better support for those leaving situations of enslavement.

Observers estimate 40 percent of identified Lithuanian trafficking victims are women and girls subjected to sex trafficking within the country. Lithuanian women are also subjected to sex trafficking in Western Europe and Scandinavia. Having grown up in a state-run children’s home, Loreta was prostituted from age 15 to age 19 by a man who claimed to be her Godfather. After escaping her abusers, she lived at the Klaipeda Social and Psychological Services Center in Lithuania for a year, where she was provided with holistic survivor-oriented services to help her regain control of her life.

Kolab does not know who her real parents are. She studied to grade 5, then was forced to worked as a family servant, in a karaoke bar, and to sell drugs and sex. After eventually escaping successfully she tried to find work outside of the sex industry but could find no work, and so began work in a massage parlor brothel. Later she was able to leave the industry with the help of an NGO named AFESIP Cambodia. Names have been changed to protect the survivors' privacy.

When K.’s pimp took her for the first time to “work” in a brothel in Bremen, K. began crying and refused to cooperate, and he took her back to their hometown in Bavaria. However, after continued abuse paired with affection, he soon succeeded in prostituting K. in apartments and various legal brothels throughout Germany. During her time in prostitution, spanning over 10 years, K. rarely had days off, sometimes had 20-40 buyers a day, and lived inside the brothels and apartments. Her pimp took all of her money, and repeatedly raped and beat her inside the brothels. When K. was 20, her pimp pressured her to get breast implants. Though K.’s pimp had previously been convicted of pimping in 1970 and had a long criminal record for other crimes including fraud and bodily harm, he was able to become the manager of a legal brothel in 2001, and to get K. “employed” in various legal brothels throughout the country—in at least two of these brothels while she was still a minor. He also signed a contract on her behalf making her a manager of one of the brothels, during which time K. continued to be prostituted in the very same brothel, with her pimp taking all of her earnings.

Despite having the lowest regional prevalence of modern slavery in the world, Europe remains a destination, and to a lesser extent, a source region for the exploitation of men, women and children in forced labour and commercial sexual exploitation. According to the most recent Eurostat findings, European Union (EU) citizens account for 65 percent of identified trafficked victims within Europe. These individuals mostly originate from Eastern Europe, including Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania and Slovakia. In Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the European Parliament has identified corruption and the judicial system as reform challenges towards accession talks within the EU. In Greece, the turbulent economic situation has increased vulnerability for populations seeking employment and livelihood opportunities. In Greece, unemployment reached 24.4 percent in January 2016 with a youth unemployment rate of 51.9 percent. Daria describes multiple instances in which she was exploited or enslaved as a child, and the failure of the police to stop the situation.

There are an estimated 403,000 people living in conditions of modern slavery in the United States (GSI 2018). The US attracts migrants and refugees who are particularly at risk of vulnerability to human trafficking. Trafficking victims often responding to fraudulent offers of employment in the US migrate willingly and are subsequently subjected to conditions of involuntary servitude in industries such as forced labour and commercial sexual exploitation.“Daniela” (not her real name) was trafficked to the US from Mexico. She was sold by her sister and “bought” by a US man who took her and her baby to Alaska. She told her story in 2012 while living at Las Memorias, the only residential free of charge programme for those living with HIV/AIDS in the city of Tijuana.

In the United States, slavery occurs in both legal and illicit industries, including in commercial sex, hospitality, traveling sales crews, agriculture, seafood, manufacturing, janitorial services, construction, restaurants, health care, care for persons with disabilities, salon services, fairs and carnivals, peddling and begging, drug smuggling and distribution, and child care and domestic work. Individuals who entered the United States with and without legal status have been identified as trafficking victims. Victims originate from almost every region of the world; the top three countries of origin of federally identified victims in FY 2016 were the United States, Mexico, and the Philippines. Those at particular risk of being enslaved include: children in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems, runaway and homeless youth, unaccompanied children, migrant laborers, persons with limited English proficiency; persons with low literacy; persons with disabilities; and LGBTI individuals. NGOs noted an increase in cases of street gangs engaging in human trafficking.

“Dai’s” story demonstrates the process by which those who have been exploited can be coerced or forced to become exploiters themselves. “Dai” escaped her situation initially by being “bought” by a wealthy customer. She eventually left him after becoming disgusted with her role as a female pimp.

In war-torn Uganda, the abduction of boys to become child soldiers has been widely reported on. However, the fate of thousands of Ugandan girls, who were abducted and sexually exploited, forced to become sex slaves for rebels and soldiers during Uganda’s civil war, has received less attention.

Concy was one of these Ugandan girls who were abducted and forced to serve the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) through sexual slavery, fighting, and forced labour. Her story emphasizes how the stigma around those who manage to escape back to their families and communities makes it difficult to reintegrate, and can lead back into a situation of slavery.

According to the United States Department of State Trafficking in Persons report 2017, some Ugandans abducted by the LRA prior to 2006 remain unaccounted for, and may remain captive with LRA elements in the DRC, Central African Republic, and the disputed area of Kafia Kingi, which is claimed by both Sudan and South Sudan.