I have been racking my brain trying to find the right words to describe human trafficking to you all. I wanted this article to really reach out and touch your lives so that you might be informed.

These statistics are not just numbers – they represent human beings. All the facts and statistics in this article come from The A 21 campaign.

The type of human trafficking A 21 emphasizes is is women basically being forced to work as prostitutes. These women are tricked into thinking that they have an awesome job opportunity in another country. However, when they arrive, they are told that they are now “owned” and must do what the owner wishes.

Most of the time, there is no escape.

These women are beat, told they are worthless and forced to have abortions. Once a woman is in the life of trafficking, she is forced to “service” 40-110 customers a day.

Every year, human trafficking brings in $31.6 billion to the global economy. Twenty-five percent of trafficked victims are taken from Southern and Eastern Europe.

Of all these victims, only 1-2 percent are ever rescued. To make matters even worse, only 1 in 100,000 Europeans involved in trafficking are ever convicted. Although this problem occurs mainly in other countries, it is on the rise in America.

There are about 17,500 victims trafficked into the U.S. annually, and 33 percent of those are American citizens. I understand this is a lot of information, but this is only scratching the surface.

I know I cannot make you all care about this problem. However, I can try to appeal to all of your hearts.

We live in a country where we are free to practice our religion, sexuality and be ourselves. Women who are trapped in trafficking have all of this and more taken from them.

Today is the A 21 Campaign’s Anti-Slavery day. There are many things you can do to help end human trafficking, but the main thing is to be informed and spread the word.

We are the key to freedom. I encourage you all to get informed and visit www.thea21campaign.org.