Summary
Despite the fact that the United Nations officially abolished slavery and the slave trade almost 60 years ago, millions of human beings live in slavery today. Human trafficking—the official term for modern-day slavery—consists of buying and selling people with the intent of exploiting them through forced labor or sexual acts.
Human Trafficking provides a thorough and much-needed examination of this controversial and timely topic. It describes the suffering caused by human trafficking as well as the financial, cultural, and other conditions that make trafficking within national borders and between far-flung "origin" and "destination" countries possible. The efforts of the United Nations, national governments, and non-governmental organizations to combat human trafficking are thoroughly discussed, as are efforts to provide direct aid to the individual victims of human trafficking. This new title examines how human trafficking is conducted in the United States, the Netherlands, Nigeria, India, and Belize. Each case study analyzes the patterns of trade and types of exploitation, the reasons countries have failed to halt human trafficking, and the steps taken by governments and organizations to reduce trafficking.