2002 Trafficking in Persons Report

Over the past year, at least 700,000, and possibly as many as four million men women and children worldwide were bought, sold, transported and held against their will in slave-like conditions. In this modern form of slavery, known as “trafficking in persons,” traffickers use threats, intimidation and violence to force victims to engage in sex acts or to labor under conditions comparable to slavery for the traffickers’ financial gain. Women, children and men are trafficked into the international sex trade for the purposes of prostitution, sex tourism and other commercial sexual services and into forced labor situations in sweatshops, construction sites and agricultural settings. The practice may take other forms as well, including the abduction of children and their conscription into government forces or rebel armies, the sale of women and children into domestic servitude, and the use of children as street beggars and camel jockeys