Trafficking Statistics
As many as 12.3 million victims are trafficked globally (Smith, 2011). Although many people associate trafficking with something that occurs overseas, an estimated 1.5 million people are victims of trafficking in North America. The U.S. Justice Department estimates that between 1,500 and 17,500 people are trafficked into the United States annually. The Global Slavery Index (2016) estimates that number to be much higher, at around 57,000 people. The U.S. National Human Trafficking Resource Center (n.d.) had 8,524 cases reported to them in 2017, with most cases occurring in California, Texas, and Florida. Most of the cases were sex trafficking, with the majority of those taking place in illegal massage businesses (71.4 percent). According to Cone (2017), in 2016 trafficking increased 35.7 percent over 2015.
Sex trafficking is extremely profitable. Dank et al. (2014) estimated that in the eight largest cities in the United States, the average pimp and trafficker earned between $5,000 and $32,000 a week. Most traffickers use manipulation as the best way to get sex workers to work for pay. Child pornography, which is also considered trafficking because children are not capable of giving consent, has also increased over the past five years.
Of course, one of the greatest issues in understanding the true scope of trafficking is that the victims are silenced through fear and intimidation (Alvarez, 2016); thus, the ability to track modern trafficking is difficult at best. Victims are told that if they report, they will be arrested for criminal behaviors themselves or that their families or their friends who have been trafficked with them might be hurt. Traffickers often strictly control the movements of their victims to reduce victims’ ability to contact anyone, let alone the police. They can be taken far from where they grew up, which creates social isolation and reduces the chances of running into someone they might know that they can ask for help (Alvarez, 2016). There is also the very real potential that local law enforcement will not believe the victim had been trafficked and will arrest and charge them with a crime (Alvarez, 2016).