A $32 billion annual industry, modern day trafficking is a type of slavery that involves the transport or trade of people for the purpose of work. According to the U.N., about 2.5 million people around the world are ensnared in the web of human trafficking at any given time.

Human trafficking impacts people of all backgrounds, and people are trafficked for a variety of purposes. Men are often trafficked into hard labor jobs, while children are trafficked into labor positions in textile, agriculture and fishing industries. Women and girls are typically trafficked into the commercial sex industry, i.e. prostitution or other forms of sexual exploitation

Organized crime is largely responsible for the spread of international human trafficking. Sex trafficking—along with its correlative elements, kidnapping, rape, prostitution and physical abuse—is illegal in nearly every country in the world. However, widespread corruption and greed make it possible for sex trafficking to quickly and easily proliferate. Though national and international institutions may attempt to regulate and enforce anti-trafficking legislation, local governments and police forces may in fact be participating in sex trafficking rings.

Why do traffickers traffic? Because sex trafficking can be extremely lucrative, especially in areas where opportunities for education and legitimate employment may be limited. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the greatest numbers of traffickers are from Asia, followed by Central and Southeastern Europe, and Western Europe. Crime groups involved in the sex trafficking of women and girls are also often involved in the transnational trafficking of drugs and firearms, and frequently use violence as a means of carrying out their activities.

One overriding factor in the proliferation of trafficking is the fundamental belief that the lives of women and girls are expendable. In societies where women and girls are undervalued or not valued at all, women are at greater risk for being abused, trafficked, and coerced into sex slavery. If women experienced improved economic and social status, trafficking would in large part be eradicated. (Source: Soroptomist http://www.soroptimist.org/trafficking/faq.html#3)

But not all abuse is perpetrated by traffickers. Predators and abusers may be ordinary people or even super stars lurking in our societies.

Graphic Photos That Got Adrian Peterson Indicted for Child Abuse

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/09/177641-see-photos-got-star-rb-adrian-peterson-indicted-child-abuse-decide-went-far/

 Across the world everyday, in every country, hidden from view or maybe even out in the open

"At the request of the Indonesian government and with the generous support of the Australian government through the Australian High Commission in Jakarta, IOM has identified, assisted and repatriated more than 1,200 victims of trafficking from eastern Indonesia since a series of media revelations in late March 2015 lifted the veil on labour abuses at the Benjina fisheries facility in the remote Aru Islands 3,000km east of Jakarta. IOM strongly suspects an additional 800 foreign nationals repatriated by fishing companies and through other means were also victims of trafficking.

A court in eastern Indonesia recently sentenced eight men including five boat captains to jail terms of up to three years and fines totaling over USD 80,000 for human trafficking offences. The judges earmarked most of the fines as compensation for the victims." (International Organization for Migration, Posted: 03/22/16 Region-Country: Asia / Indonesia)

"More than 900 Mauritanian women have been trafficked to Saudi Arabia in 2015, where they are trapped working in jobs they did not sign up for, a local activist has told Middle East Eye.

The women believed they were going to be employed as nurses or teachers, but on arrival in Saudi Arabia they were forced to work as domestic workers in homes across the kingdom, Elmehdi Ould Lemrabott, who is based in Mauritania’s capital Nouakchott, told MEE.

“Some of these women who objected were subjected to rape attempts, sexual harassment, physical abuse and starvation – as well as being confined to tiny rooms,” Lemrabott said." Rori DonaghyLinah AlsaafinWednesday 30 September 2015 15:43 UTCLast update: Wednesday 7 October 2015, Middle East Eye)

"La, Baba,” a young woman, pleads in Arabic, as she stands in a tidy kitchen trying to escape the attention of her cajoling Saudi boss, seconds before he gropes and sexually molests her. “No, father. It is nothing.”

The heart-breaking scene, filmed secretly as part of a grainy half-minute clip, shot around the world this week after a courageous—and angry—wife apparently posted it to the Internet from Saudi Arabia, shocking viewers and inspiring a social media campaign, #SaudiWomanCatchesHusbandCheating. The case, which thegovernment of Indonesia says it is investigating and trying to confirm, became even more outrageous when media accounts reported the wife faces jail time for allegedly “defaming her husband in line with the law on information technology crimes.” 

But the clip of the Saudi man stalking and sexually harassing his family’s “maid servant” is more than just an Internet meme. It is emblematic of the de facto slave subculture that thrives in modern day Saudi Arabia, supported by fatwas from Saudi clerics from the country’s dogmatic Wahhabi and Salafi schools of Islam, which argue that the Quran gives owners—most usually men—rights over “those whom your right hand possess,” or, in Arabic, “ma malakat aymanukum“ (4:3, 4:24, 4:24, 16:71, 23:5-6, 24:33, 24:58, 33:50).

One verse reads: “And if you fear that you will not be fair to the orphans, then marry whomever you like from the women, two or three, or four but if you fear that you won’t be fair to them, then marry only one or the slaves that your right hands possess. That is the closest way to prevent injustice.” (Quran, Surat Al-Nisa, “The Women,” 4:3)

For sure, abuse of power is global and universal. But to progressive Muslim thinkers, the notion of power over “those whom your right hand possess” is the theological underpinning of a cultural mindset that sanctions acts of brutality, like the media reports this week of a Saudi employer in New Delhi raping two “maids” from Nepal and, then, an employer in Saudi Arabia cutting off the arm of a woman worker from India, after she filed a complaint of torture." (Inside the World of Gulf State Slavery, Faisal Al Nasser/Reuters, ASRA Q. NOMANI and HALA ARAFA)"

Women and children have far less rights than men and are less valuable than oil, corporate and political interests, war is a far better investment than stopping slavers and abusers.  Many of the nations engaging in slavery are economic and defence allies to Western nations including United Kingdom, Australia and USA.

Are these statements true in some or all respects?  Is it too dramatic and over stated?  Can you be shocked?http://kevinrbeckmosaicportal.com/womennopower.htm