INCREDIBLY, the current issue of Foreign Policy says: "Most people imagine that slavery died in the 19th century. Since 1817, more than a dozen international conventions have been signed banning the slave trade. Yet, today there are more slaves than at any time in human history."

More human slaves now than before the Civil War? It boggles the mind. But various U.S. and world studies confirm it.

Today's slaves aren't Africans captured at gunpoint. They're mostly village children sold by their impoverished parents, on false promises that they will be trained in big cities for good careers - or poor teen-age girls lured by phony job offers, who find themselves trapped in bordellos - or unlucky recruits sold into sweatshops they cannot leave.

The Foreign Policy report says "300,000 children are in domestic bondage in Haiti" - and any foreign visitor can venture into a side street and buy a child.

A U.S. State Department publication says an "estimated 600,000 to 820,000 men, women and children are trafficked across international borders each year. Approximately 80 percent are women and girls, and up to 50 percent are minors. The data also illustrates that the majority of transnational victims are trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation."

A Wikipedia article says "traficking in human beings" is "estimated to be a $5 billion to $9 billion-a-year industry." It continues:

"Many women are forced into the sex trade after answering false advertisements, and others are simply kidnapped. Thousands of children from Asia, Africa and South America are sold into the global sex trade every year. Often they are kidnapped or orphaned, and sometimes they are actually sold by their own families. ...

"Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, the impoverished former Eastern bloc countries such as Albania, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine have been identified as major trafficking source countries for women and children. Young women and girls are often lured to wealthier countries by promises of money and work, and then reduced to sexual slavery."

Four years ago, a New York Times magazine report titled "The Girls Next Door" said thousands of such victims are in America, controlled by criminal bosses. "I was surprised by really how large a subculture this is in the United States," writer Peter Landesman commented. "It's really enormous."

Now a fictional movie, Trade, is based on the newspaper study. It tells of a 17-year-old Mexican boy who crosses the border to search for his 13-year-old sister after she was abducted by sex traffickers in Mexico City.

The evil side of the human species is glaringly evident in these horrifying reports. Conscientious people everywhere - and especially U.S. political leaders - should vow to do whatever is possible to oppose this cruelty.

More human slaves now than before the Civil War? It boggles the mind. But various U.S. and world studies confirm it.

Today's slaves aren't Africans captured at gunpoint. They're mostly village children sold by their impoverished parents, on false promises that they will be trained in big cities for good careers - or poor teen-age girls lured by phony job offers, who find themselves trapped in bordellos - or unlucky recruits sold into sweatshops they cannot leave.

The Foreign Policy report says "300,000 children are in domestic bondage in Haiti" - and any foreign visitor can venture into a side street and buy a child.

A U.S. State Department publication says an "estimated 600,000 to 820,000 men, women and children are trafficked across international borders each year. Approximately 80 percent are women and girls, and up to 50 percent are minors. The data also illustrates that the majority of transnational victims are trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation."

A Wikipedia article says "traficking in human beings" is "estimated to be a $5 billion to $9 billion-a-year industry." It continues:

"Many women are forced into the sex trade after answering false advertisements, and others are simply kidnapped. Thousands of children from Asia, Africa and South America are sold into the global sex trade every year. Often they are kidnapped or orphaned, and sometimes they are actually sold by their own families. ...

"Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, the impoverished former Eastern bloc countries such as Albania, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine have been identified as major trafficking source countries for women and children. Young women and girls are often lured to wealthier countries by promises of money and work, and then reduced to sexual slavery."

Four years ago, a New York Times magazine report titled "The Girls Next Door" said thousands of such victims are in America, controlled by criminal bosses. "I was surprised by really how large a subculture this is in the United States," writer Peter Landesman commented. "It's really enormous."

Now a fictional movie, Trade, is based on the newspaper study. It tells of a 17-year-old Mexican boy who crosses the border to search for his 13-year-old sister after she was abducted by sex traffickers in Mexico City.

The evil side of the human species is glaringly evident in these horrifying reports. Conscientious people everywhere - and especially U.S. political leaders - should vow to do whatever is possible to oppose this cruelty.