Sex Trafficking: The Stats

The U.S. Department of State estimates 600,000 to 800,000 people—mostly women and children—are trafficked across international borders annually for commercial sex, forced labor, and other forms of exploitation. (This number doesn't account for those trafficked within national borders.) Between 14,500 and 17,500 of these victims are trafficked into the U.S.

Methods used to "condition" sex trafficking victims include starvation, confinement, physical abuse, rape, gang rape, threats of violence to the victims' families, and forced drug use.

Common patterns used to lure victims into the sex trade include the promise of a good job in another country; a false marriage proposal turned into a debt-bondage situation; sale into the sex trade by parents, husband, or boyfriend; kidnap by traffickers.

An estimated $9.5 billion is generated annually from all trafficking activities, which includes at least $4 billion from the worldwide brothel industry.

After drug dealing, human trafficking is the second-largest criminal industry in the world today—and the fastest growing.