What Is The Fastest-Growing Criminal Industry Today?

I had no clue to the answer to this question that came to my email yesterday. My first guess was identity theft, I mean, you hear about that a whole lot.

According to the email, I was incorrect.

Human trafficking. It’s a worldwide epidemic, and a national shame.

Experts put the number of victims around the globe at 27 million people; their average age is only 12 years old. It is estimated that more people, especially children, are enslaved today than at any other time in history.

Modern-day slavery is fueled by a variety of circumstances: poverty, war, natural disasters, abductions, immigrant labor, and false adoptions. Human sex trafficking is big business—global profits are estimated at $32 billion and climbing.

Wikipedia had this to say:

Trafficking is a lucrative industry. It has been identified as the fastest growing criminal industry in the world. It is second only to drug trafficking as the most profitable illegal industry in the world. In 2004, the total annual revenue for trafficking in persons were estimated to be between USD$5 billion and $9 billion.

In 2005, Patrick Belser of ILO estimated a global annual profit of $31.6 billion. In 2008, the United Nations estimated nearly 2.5 million people from 127 different countries are being trafficked into 137 countries around the world.

Of course, in the article it added this:

However, it is argued that many of these statistics are grossly inflated to aid advocacy of anti-trafficking NGOs and the anti-trafficking policies of governments. Due to the definition of trafficking being a process (not a singly defined act) and the fact that it is a dynamic phenomenon with constantly shifting patterns relating to economic circumstances, much of the statistical evaluation is flawed.

At Catholic Online, it gave the following statistics:

NUMBER OF VICTIMS AT ANY GIVEN TIME ….2.4 MILLION

PERCENTAGE OF VICTIMS EXPLOITED FOR SEXUAL SLAVERY ….80 PERCENT

NUMBER OF VICTIMS EXPLOITED AS FORCED LABOR (SLAVES) ….17 PERCENT

RATIO OF FEMALE TO MALE SLAVES (Including Children) …. TWO OF THREE

ANNUAL VALUE OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN DOLLARS ….$32 BILLION

AVERAGE COST OF ONE HUMAN SLAVE ….$90 USD

ODDS OF RESCUE ….ONE CHANCE IN ONE HUNDRED

Most victims of human trafficking unknowingly enter the market after being lured by promises of work and opportunities by predatory individuals and organizations. Others are children that are literally sold into slavery by parents as a means to pay debt or to reduce the number of children they must feed. A minority of the victims are bound as slaves after entering agreements to be smuggled across borders or as a means of covering personal debts under threat of violence.

And the problem isn’t isolated to the third world. Human trafficking goes on in industrialized countries and can be found right on Main Street, USA. For example, hundreds of American children, many fleeing destructive homes, are forced into prostitution on an annual basis. That’s the conservative estimate.

In London, England it is believed that most of the marijuana cultivated in the city is produced by forced child labor.

The industrialized world is also a party to third world slavery. For example, child slaves initially cultivate much of the chocolate produced in Cote d’Ivorie which is later consumed worldwide.

Women tend to be the most frequent victims. This may be because they are fleeing gender inequality, forced marriages, or other misogynistic practices back home. In so doing, they get caught up in a cure that is worse than the disease. And sex appears to be the predominant use of females slaves.

Despite the prevalence of women as slaves, men are also trafficked, and occasionally pressed into sexual slavery. It is common for young girls and boys to become prostitutes.

Despite the numbers, which appear to be growing, Michelle Banchelet the head of UN Women says, “it’s difficult to think of a crime more hideous and shocking than human trafficking. Yet, it is one of the fastest growing and lucrative crimes.” At $32 billion per year, it’s easy to understand why.

LIFE EXPECTANCY OF A CHILD PROSTITUTE …..7 YEARS

Even though I was surprised, when I spoke to my daughter about it, she was not. She had seen a CNN report on the subject.

So apparently CNN has done a lot of reporting on this issue and so has FOXNEWS.

I have to wonder where these stories get buried because it sure isn’t the headlines and the front page news it ought to be?