Sex trafficking is human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Perpetrators of the crime are called sex traffickers or pimps—people who manipulate victims to engage in various forms of commercial sex with paying customers. Sex traffickers use force, fraud, and coercion as they recruit, transport, and provide their victims as prostitutes. Sometimes victims are brought into a situation of dependency on their trafficker(s), financially or emotionally. Every aspect of sex trafficking is considered a crime, from acquisition to transportation and exploitation of victims. This includes any sexual exploitation of adults or minors, including child sex tourism (CST) and domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST). It has been called a form of modern slavery because of the way victims are forced into sexual acts non-consensually, in a form of sexual slavery.
Kevin Brian Bales is Professor of Contemporary Slavery at the University of Nottingham, co-author of the Global Slavery Index, and was a co-founder and previously president of Free the Slaves, the US sister organization of Anti-Slavery International.
Prajwala is a non-governmental organization based in Hyderabad, India, devoted exclusively to eradicating prostitution and sex trafficking. Founded in 1996 by Ms. Sunitha Krishnan and Brother Jose Vetticatil, the organization actively works in the areas of prevention, rescue, rehabilitation, re-integration, and advocacy to combat trafficking in every dimension and restore dignity to victims of commercial sexual exploitation.
Laura J. Lederer is a pioneer in the work to stop human trafficking. She is a legal scholar and former Senior Advisor on Trafficking in Persons in the Office for Democracy and Global Affairs of the United States Department of State. She has also been an activist against human trafficking, prostitution, pornography, and hate speech. Lederer is founder of The Protection Project, a legal research institute at Johns Hopkins University devoted to combating trafficking in persons.
Lisa Kristine is an American humanitarian photographer, activist, and speaker. Her photography has documented indigenous cultures and social causes, such as modern slavery, in more than 100 countries. Through her work, Kristine has supported charities and humanitarian organizations. She is a member of the Explorer's Club.
Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST) is a Los Angeles-based anti-human trafficking organization. Through legal, social, and advocacy services, CAST helps rehabilitate survivors of human trafficking, raises awareness, and affects legislation and public policy surrounding human trafficking.
Siddharth Kara is an Indian author. He is a Pulitzer Prize finalist, a British Academy Global Professor, and an associate professor at the University of Nottingham. He is best known for his book Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives (2023). He has also published a trilogy on modern slavery: Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery (2009), Bonded Labor: Tackling the System of Slavery in South Asia (2012), and Modern Slavery: A Global Perspective (2017).
Timea Nagy is a Canadian activist who has spoken on behalf of victims of human trafficking. She founded Walk With Me, a Toronto-based organization that aids survivors of trafficking. Nagy was featured in an anti-trafficking campaign by the Salvation Army in 2009. Her activism has drawn upon her own experience of forced prostitution in Canada.
Sheila White is an African-American anti–sex trafficking activist, and a former human trafficking victim herself, from The Bronx, New York City.
Theresa Flores is an American survivor of and campaigner against sex trafficking, and the creator of Save Our Adolescents from Prostitution (S.O.A.P.), a nonprofit organization that aims to help prevent sex trafficking. She is a devout Catholic and has attributed her faith in God to sustaining her through her ordeal.
Human trafficking in New York is the illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of reproductive slavery, commercial sexual exploitation, and forced labor. It occurs in the state of New York and is widely recognized as a modern-day form of slavery. It includes, "the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power, or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs."
Nadia Murad Basee Taha is an Iraqi-born Yazidi human rights activist based in Germany. In 2014, during the Yazidi genocide by the Islamic State, she was abducted from her hometown of Kocho in Iraq. Much of her community was massacred. After losing most of her family, Murad was held as an Islamic State sex slave for three months, alongside thousands of other Yazidi women and girls.
Unlikely Heroes is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that rescues, restores, and rehabilitates child victims of sex slavery around the world. Since its founding in 2011 by Erica Greve, Unlikely Heroes has rescued hundreds of children who are then placed in one of their seven residential facilities, each offering rescued children housing, safety, food, medical care, education, life skills training, and therapy.
Vithika Yadav is an Indian human rights activist who has worked in the aspect of human trafficking, slavery, gender rights, sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and future of education. She is currently the Managing Director of Designathon Works, a Global foundation on a mission to enable children to design a better world for themselves and for the planet. She is also a child protection expert in South Asia under Purple Foundation. She is known for her work with Love Matters India which is India's leading digital initiative on sexual and reproductive health for all genders and sexualities. She also founded TeenBook, India's comprehensive life skills education resource for adolescents, parents and educators. She is an alumnus of Lady Shri Ram College and THNK School of Creative Leadership in Amsterdam. She is also a TedX Speaker and has delivered talks at IIT Roorkee, TEDxJIET, SIMS Pune Hague Academy. and TEDx Dubai
Kate Garbers is a founder and former managing director of the Bristol, UK-based anti-slavery organisation and charity Unseen. She has developed projects to support survivors of slavery, and assists and advises survivors. She also works with law enforcement agencies and governments on how to tackle trafficking, including contributing to the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and the National Referral Mechanism Review.
Martha Mendoza is an Associated Press journalist whose reporting has helped free over 2,000 enslaved fishermen and prompted action by the U.S. Congress and the White House.
California's Forgotten Children is an American feature documentary directed by Melody C. Miller. Winning Best Documentary at the 2018 Soho International Film Festival, the film follows a diverse group of resilient survivors who have overcome commercial sexual exploitation of children and are changing the world by ensuring no child is left behind. The film features stories from Time 100 Most Influential People Withelma "T" Ortiz Walker Pettigrew, attorney Carissa Phelps, academic scholar Minh Dang, activist Leah Albright-Byrd, therapist Nikolaos Al-Khadra, and educator Rachel Thomas, M. Ed.
Parosha Chandran is a Professor of Practice in Modern Slavery Law in The Dickson Poon School of Law, King's College London. She is also a human rights barrister at One Pump Court and an expert advisor on human trafficking law for the United Nations and the Council of Europe.
Annalisa Enrile is a Filipina-American clinical associate professor at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work. Her work focuses on combatting sex trafficking, interpersonal violence, and exploitative migrant labor. She is the President of the Los Angeles based non-profit Mariposa Center for Change. The Filipina Women’s Network named Enrile as one of the 100 Most Influential Filipina Women in the World (Global100) for her advocacy for the Filipino-American community. Her work has also been published in several peer-reviewed journals, including Pediatrics, Amerasia Journal the Global Studies Journal, and the Journal of Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Social Work.