Human trafficking is forced bondage (i.e., slavery) that exists in modern times, including slavery aimed at forced labor, sex slavery, forced organ removal, benefit fraud, and forced begging — with the daily money being brought back to the slave-master, much like prostitutes bringing back money to their pimps or handlers.
With the hot topic of Jeffery Epstein — which may be more complex than surface inspection reveals — the issue of human trafficking is on the minds of a lot of people, and for good reason. While organized crime rings are often involved, individuals engage in it it also. In the EU, the known instances of human trafficking doubled from 2009:
And these known instances might be akin to the known instances of shoplifting, where at least a dozen criminals get away with the crime, for every single criminal caught. If that is the case — and there a very good reasons to believe it to be the case — then these numbers above are only, at the most, one-thirteenth of the actual numbers.
A report by the U.S. government reveals that 28 million people are victims of human trafficking worldwide (3.5 per 1,000):
Out of the 193 countries recognized by the U.N., the average country would have well over 100,000 victims of human trafficking in it. Large countries like the USA would be expected to have a heck of a lot more than just 100,000 victims of human trafficking. The “3.5 out of every 1,000” figure translates to 350 per 100,000.
To gain perspective on that, here it is, superimposed on a graph of yearly death rates by cause:
As you can see, a random person is much more likely to be a victim of human trafficking than to die by cardiovascular disease in a given year — although the 3-year risk of cardiovascular death would be similar to the risk of being a victim of human trafficking. The evidence suggests there are over 100,000 victims inside of the USA.
Reference
[In the EU, the number of “known victims” has more than doubled] — https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Trafficking_in_human_beings_statistics
[prevalence rate of human trafficking victims is 3.5 per 1,000 persons] — https://www.transportation.gov/stop-human-trafficking/human-trafficking-101
[OWID chart of death rate by cause] — https://ourworldindata.org/causes-of-death
Love what you are doing on this stack. Numbers tell us so much and you do a incredible job of bringing that to us. Keep up the great and invaluable information.