The global slave trade today
1. Slavery today is defined as forced labour without pay under threat of violence.
2. 600,000-800,000 people are trafficked internationally every year; about 80 per cent are women and children.
3. Slavery was officially abolished worldwide at the 1972 Slavery Convention, yet it continues to thrive because of the complicity of some governments and ignorance of much of the world.
4. In the 2000 Refugee Report, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright calls human trafficking ‘the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world’.
5. Slavery is an extremely profitable, international industry. Experts estimate trafficking in the US yields $9 billion every year. Around the world, the trafficking of women for commercial sex purposes nets $6 billion per year.
6. The four most common types of slavery are: chattel, debt bondage, forced labour, and sexual slavery.
7. The US State Department estimates that about 700,000 women and children are trafficked annually across international borders.
8. UNICEF estimates there are 10 million child prostitutes worldwide.
10. There are at least 30 million victims of modern-day slavery in the world today (US Trafficking in Persons Report).
11. In the US, $10 billion is derived from the initial ‘sale’ of individuals (Stop the Traffick).
12. India is said to have 2.3 million females in the slave flesh industry, and according to a UN report 40 per cent of those are under the age of eighteen.
Please pray with ACTION for many additional missionaries to work among the 160 million street children throughout the world with the gospel and compassionate care. There are over 1.5 million children on the streets in the Philippines, up to 40 million in Latin America, and an estimated 143 million orphans in the world.
ACTION needs an additional 100 missionaries now for street children and other children in crisis (many in slavery, for example in Haiti).’Pure and lasting religion in the sight of God our Father means that we must care for orphans . . . in their troubles’ (James 1:27).
Doug Nichols
(ACTION Children in Crisis)
www.actioninternational.org
Footnotes:
Statistics 1-6 (above) from The American Anti-Slavery Group at iAbolish.org
Statistics 7-12 (above) from People in slavery — global trafficking of women and children (edited from an article by Dr Diane Landberg and personal research)
