Child Trafficking

Child trafficking is often defined as a process that entails the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, and control of a child through various [Page 345]methods of deception, threat, use of force, or coercion for the purposes of labor or sexual exploitation, forced labor, or slavery. Children are also trafficked for the purposes of adoption or arranged marriages, to serve as child soldiers in conflict zones, and for their organs. It is estimated that roughly 1.2 million children are trafficked annually, with approximately 5.5 million to 13.5 million trafficked children in existence worldwide. Additionally, projections suggest that the global human-trafficking industry generates yearly profits of $32 billion. Most of the victims are children from Third World countries or newly independent states; statistics also reveal that children are ...