Human Slavery, Trafficking, Hidden in Plain Sight

Human slavery, and the trafficking that makes it possible across international borders, is not an ancient problem but now greater than ever. Traffickers trick young women, children, sometimes men too, into traveling internationally to get a job, only to discover when they arrive that they are enslaved, coerced into prostitution, forced labor, and held sometimes for years against their will. Virtually any real moral code recognizes the evil in this, yet it continues because there is money to be had and power to be gained. Recently, human trafficking has gone hand in hand with mass immigration, because the shear numbers involved makes it easier to smuggle children. Most countries, certainly the U.S., have sufficient laws on the books. The problem is not laws but enforcement. Catching the bad guys is difficult and dangerous. Needless to say, this is another human rights challenge of our era and it's getting worse. For more Christian commentary, see my website at www.rexmrogers.com, or check my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers for more podcasts and video. #slavery #trafficking #humanrights #prostitution

Transcript

It’s not a pleasant thought, but do you realize that no matter where you live, human slavery and trafficking are nearby?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #201 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

Slavery isn’t a relic of pre-Civil War America. As of 2025, the most recent comprehensive estimate indicates that approximately 49.6 million individuals are subjected to modern slavery globally, encompassing both forced labor and forced marriage. 

“An estimated 80 percent of trafficking victims worldwide are women and children. In the United States, victims of trafficking are almost exclusively immigrants, and mostly immigrant women. The average age of trafficking victims in the U.S. is 20. In the U.S., immigrant women and children are particularly vulnerable to the deceptive and coercive tactics of traffickers because of their lower levels of education, inability to speak English, immigration status, and lack of familiarity with U.S. employment protections. 

Further, they are vulnerable because they often work in jobs that are hidden from the public view and unregulated by the government.”

“Sophisticated transnational syndicates are notorious for using children to get single, adult males not just across the border, but through Border Patrol processing. Once these men are granted a stay, they smuggle the children back across the border where they will continue to be trafficked.” So, the human trafficking issue and the illegal immigrant issue go hand in hand.

Human bondage is daily life for millions of people worldwide. And it’s getting worse. “Many trafficking victims are lured into the system with the promise of legitimate jobs, while others are kidnapped or entrapped in a myriad of ways. They are enslaved and faced with violence and torture, including threats of death. Their lives become less their own and they are bought and sold as a commodity.”

For example, a young woman is tricked into traveling abroad for a job, but upon arrival, she’s forced into prostitution. This is human trafficking, and if she's not allowed to leave or is forced to work under threat, it's also slavery. Both are an affront to Christian values and to human rights. 

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported a 25% increase in detected trafficking victims in 2022 compared to pre-pandemic figures from 2019. Notably, children accounted for 38% of all detected victims, with a significant rise in cases of forced labor and forced criminality. 

“Human trafficking, also known as trafficking in persons, is a crime that involves compelling or coercing a person to provide labor or services, or to engage in commercial sex acts. The coercion can be subtle or overt, physical or psychological. Exploitation of a minor for commercial sex is human trafficking, regardless of whether any form of force, fraud, or coercion was used.”

“There is no single profile of a trafficking victim. Victims of human trafficking can be anyone—regardless of race, color, national origin, disability, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, socioeconomic status, education level, or citizenship status.”

In my 70s, there are times when I think that I understand “man’s inhumanity to man.” That I’ve lived long enough to have grasped the capacity for sin in my own human nature. That I comprehend the depths of depravity to which humankind stoops in a world where Sodom and Gomorrah would feel no shame. But then discovery shocks me. I understand I don’t understand.  

I’ve been blessedly sheltered from levels of evil like Eisenhower and the Allies found in Nazi death camps in 1945. Sinner saved by grace though I am, I’ve never been to a brothel. I’ve never walked in killing fields. I don’t consort with murderers, violent psychopaths, pedophiles, or other sexual deviants.  

Yet I recognize right from wrong. I know it is sickeningly wrong to coerce, kidnap, hold captive, buy and sell, or otherwise force human beings made in the image to God to do anything against their will. I don’t want to think about it but to be a responsible Christian I must.  

Slavery in all its worst forms hasn’t gone away: child labor and pornography, child soldiers, debt bondage and forced labor, sex tourism, genital mutilation, prostitution and other forms of sexploitation, commercialized human organs, trafficking, more.        

Sexploitation is exponentially profitable because one slave can be forced to offer repeatable experiences over many years, multiplying the abusive damage to the victim.

In sum, 21st Century slavery isn’t much different from any other. It’s not ultimately about sex or power. It’s about treating human beings as cheap, disposable commodities in order to make money.

Worldwide, about 800,000 are bought and sold annually in sex trafficking according to the US Department of State.  

·      1 in 4 victims of modern slavery are children.

·      29% of trafficking victims around the world are men and boys and 71% account for women and girls. 

·      75% (30.2 million) victims are aged 18 or older, while the number of trafficked children under the age of 18 is estimated at 25% (10.1 million). 

·      The United States is a source, transit, and destination country for human trafficking. 

·      79% of all human trafficking is identified as sexual exploitation. 

Some 2 million girls and boys kept in the commercial sex trade according to UNICEF, with 100,000 teens trafficked annually in the States according to the FBI.  

An estimated 40,000 to 50,000 trafficked into the US each year estimated by the CIA. This is just sex trafficking.  Figures for forced labor are equally egregious.  

Among the leading agencies focused upon Christian social and spiritual action:  The Salvation Army’s Initiative Against Sexual Trafficking (www.iast.net/), based at national headquarters Alexandria, Virginia; the International Justice Mission, (www.ijm.org), Washington, D.C.; Sisters in Service (www.sistersinservice.org), Rowell, Georgia; and Women At Risk, International—WAR (www.warinternational.org/), founded in Rockford, Michigan by Rebecca McDonald, who serves as president.   

These organizations and others like them are working against “gendercide” in what’s now being termed the new “abolition movement” to rescue victims, bring traffickers to justice, and eradicate sex trafficking. They’re urgently trying to save women, girls and boys, physically, psychologically/emotionally, spiritually, and economically. Or as WAR puts it: “Rescue, Restore, Redeem, and Empower.”

Internationally, rescued women usually can’t go home. The sad truth is that some global religions, and thus cultures, devalue, suppress, or oppress women. Girls are liabilities, a source of labor and income, sex or reproductive objects.  Nothing more. If they’re rescued and sent home, they’re rejected as damaged goods or even killed. In some cultures, daughters are expected to support the family any way they can. Prostitution is a frequent result.  

Sexploitation is globally endemic, but in Christ there is hope. When enslaved women ask, “Why do you care,” Christian rescue workers have an answer.  

“Because we serve a God who values women and we want you to know him.” It is the most powerful and poignant thing these women have ever heard in their lives. Somebody respects them.  Some One values them. 

In the Letter of James, we’re reminded “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this:  to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world” (1:27).  

Surely human slavery and trafficking are forms of distress we must look after.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. Or check my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers for more podcasts and video.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm. 

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2025     

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/ or my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers or https://x.com/RexMRogers.