Sex and Human Trafficking Statistics
Sex Trafficking Statistics
Human trafficking is one of the primary and most devastating human rights violations in today’s world, and there are over 40.3 million individuals living in slavery, according to the global slavery index, and many of those people are victims of sex trafficking and sexual violence.
Understanding the statistics around sex trafficking can help us end it.
In this webinar we will cover
Currently, there are more slaves in the world than the population of London, New York, and Los Angeles combined.
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According to the ILO, 6.3 million individuals are exploited for sex yearly.
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Sex trafficking makes up more than 75% of human trafficking victims in the United States
Women and children get stuck in forced labor.
Women and children are the most common victims found to be trafficked for sex, but men and boys are also trafficked for sex.
LGBT identifying individuals, especially transgender individuals, have increasingly been found to be victims of sexual exploitation.
Over half of all children in forced labour are in commercial sexual exploitation
The main form of exploitation and trafficking is sexual exploitation in North America, Central America and the Caribbean, South America, Central and Southeastern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, and Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
How do People Enter Sex Trafficking?
The rise of the internet has opened new ways for traffickers to target vulnerable individuals as well. Traffickers use social media to advertise work opportunities that falsely promise better wages and living conditions. They also can use fun and colorful websites targeted to kids to manipulate and blackmail children into performing sex acts.
Victims of human trafficking often do not recognize they are being exploited, especially when they are being extorted by promises of a better life.
Types of Sexual Exploitation
During reported instances of exploitation and sex trafficking, the highest percentage was in escort services, pornography, and illicit massage.
Other types of sex trafficking include personal sex servitude, commercial sex, outdoor solicitation, domestic work, and sex work in bars, strip clubs, and cantinas.
These methods of exploitation almost exclusively target women, minors, and foreign nationals.
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Protecting Potential Victims
There was a 125% increase in reports of recruitment on Facebook over the previous years and a 95% increase on Instagram.
Situations of sex trafficking or sex and labor trafficking combined, of the 2,448 victims whose recruitment was known:
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42% were brought into trafficking by a member of their own families.
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39% were recruited via an intimate partner or a marriage proposition.
In 2020, friends and family were the access point for help for 40% of identified victims (4,098).
If you know someone who is in danger, or suspect you know something about a potential trafficking situation, SAY SOMETHING. You can call the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888
Written in partnership with Reach The Lost.
Joy to the World Thailand
Preventative programs like Joy to the World’s Breanna’s House of Joy or The Radiant Project help end human trafficking and modern day slavery in Thailand and all over the world.