TRAFFICKING MODERN

TRAFFICKING MODERN-DAY SLAVERY

There is a modern day slavery, and it is called: "Trafficking". Human beings, particularly women and children have become a hot commodity in a world that has buyers who want slave labor and prostitutes; and the world is beginning to notice just how rampant this illegal and underground trade has grown.

According to the United Nations, "The smuggling of migrants and the trafficking of human beings for prostitution and slave labor have become two of the fastest growing, worldwide problems in recent years."

Others have termed this new trend a "modern-day slavery." Some experts have estimated that at least 700,000 people worldwide, most of them women and children, are removed from their homes each year by abduction, coercion and deception. They are sold, bought and held captive and brutalized for the purpose of exploitation. An estimated 50,000 women and children are brought into the United States each year in this "trade." People are just beginning to take notice of this growing global problem.

Aside from public education, the Dominicans in the United States have addressed the trafficking issue through their NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) status in the United Nations in New York by Sister Eileen Gannon, OP. Gannon is a member of the United Nation's NGO Committee on the Status of Women, which is studying the issue of trafficking. Source Dominican Life magazine