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FEATURED REPORT

Child Trafficking

- April 16, 2021
Can the world reduce a growing scourge?
Photo of child trafficking victims in Côte d'Ivoire on March 25, 2021. (AFP/Getty Images/Sia Kambou)
The worldwide trafficking of children for commercial sex and forced labor is rising rapidly, despite more than a century of laws, treaties and protocols banning the practice. Some 10 million children are trafficked each year, the majority of them girls forced into the underground sex trade. Poverty, natural disasters and now the COVID-19 pandemic have left destitute families and their children vulnerable to traffickers.
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Why do you think child trafficking is still proliferating, despite a century of efforts to ban it through laws and treaties?

What do you think would best solve the problem of child trafficking?

Read Discussion Questions
 
1900s–1950sInternational organizations and treaties outlaw slavery and trafficking.
1990s–2000sThe Soviet collapse spurs an increase in human trafficking, leading to a global response.
2010–PresentDespite multiple efforts to curb human trafficking and sexual exploitation of children, the number of victims keeps rising, aided by the internet.
   
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Does the U.S. law against child sex trafficking online endanger its victims?

Pro

Robert Winterton
Director of Public Affairs, NetChoice.

Con

Yiota Souras
Senior Vice President, General Counsel, National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
Read the Pro/Con Debate

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