Sex trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person forced to perform such an act is under the age of 18 years. How does this happen? Many women and girls, as young as seven years old, are sold by family members or friends without their consent. Drugged and unaware of what's happening, they wake up to find themselves in a brothel. Others are tricked into it by people who have promised them a better life, or by false ads enticing them with jobs like dressmaking or caring for children. Then what happens? Once these women are sold into prostitution, their papers are taken from them — they have nothing and no one to depend on. They are held in inhumane living conditions and forced to have sex on call, often up to 20 times a day. The risk of contracting HIV is high among these women.

An estimated 2 million children, the majority of them girls, are sexually exploited in the multibillion dollar commercial sex industry. (UNICEF)
An estimated 1.2 million children are trafficked each year. (UNICEF)
Around the world between 50 and 60 percent of the children who are trafficked into sexual slavery are under age 16.

a problem here at home, too.

25 percent of all child sex tourists around the world are U.S. citizens.
An estimated 50,000 women and children are trafficked into the U.S. every year.
12 brothels within one mile of the White House.