We’re used to think of human trafficking in relation to sex, but a new report from World Vision issues an alert on labor trafficking. People particularly in East Asia are being sold into slavery in several industries, but most commonly the fishing, food processing and domestic work ones. The report estimates that in the region there is an estimated 3 people being trafficked for every 1,000 inhabitants. Globally nine people are forced to work for every person forced into the sex trade. Among the facts cited by the report is that men and boys are often imprisoned on fishing boars, that legal recruitment agencies are sometimes complicit in trafficking, that some factories hold workers against their will with no pay, that some victims of labor trafficking are exploited in their home countries.
I read about this and my heart sank. But then I realized that not only did organizations such as World Vision work to combat such evils, that the report itself is a sign of hope—how else could we know about the problem and begin to redress it?
Skip to content