While slavery has long been banned by most governments, the despicable practice continues today along with a form of the slave trade—the heinous crime of human trafficking. It involves the recruitment or capture, as well as harboring or transporting, of people into a condition of crushing control, abuse and exploitation—with victims often literally being bought and sold.

Today’s practice of heartless human bondage is a transnational criminal enterprise fueled by demand for cheap labor and commercial sex. Generating more than $150 billion profit annually, it’s a low-risk scheme for slavers and slaveholders due to minimal public concern, ineffective laws and social blame often directed towards the trafficked victims themselves. Such slavery is even advocated among Islamist extremists, and ISIS and Boko Haram have become notorious in recent years for enslaving women and girls.

In July 2023 the media company Angel Studios released the motion picture Sound of Freedom—based on a true story about a former U.S. government agent rescuing children from ruthless child traffickers. The film has heightened the public’s awareness of the worldwide impact of child sex slavery, even as the mainstream media maintains virtual silence on the topic and its evils.

Kevin Bales, a professor of Contemporary Slavery at the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation at the University of Hull in the United Kingdom, has authored 13 books on the subject.

In his first, Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy, Prof. Bales made this shocking statement: “Slavery is a booming business and the number of slaves is increasing. People get rich by using slaves. And when they’ve finished with their slaves, they just throw these people away. This is the new slavery, which focuses on big profits and cheap lives. It is not about owning people in the traditional sense of the old slavery, but about controlling them completely. People become completely disposable tools for making money” (2004, p. 4, emphasis added throughout).

The theft of an entire life

Trafficked individuals are often coerced to work for little or no financial compensation and are under constant threat of punishment. Bales made this significant point: “Slavery is an obscenity. It is not just stealing someone’s labor; it is the theft of an entire life. It is more closely related to the concentration camp than to questions of bad working conditions” (p. 7).

Whether hidden away or even working in plain sight, most subjugated victims cannot find a way to escape their captivity. They may be forced to work in agricultural jobs, in garment and textile factories, on construction sites and in domestic service in private homes under abusive conditions.

Many trafficking victims, both adults and children, suffer the horrors of sexual exploitation in prostitution businesses and forced marriage. For some, there might even be nightmarish compulsory organ removal in makeshift operating rooms in residences.

Human traffickers typically, though not exclusively, target people of low socioeconomic status—those with little income, wealth or opportunity. This includes people of cultural or ethnic minorities, those who are homeless, are immigrants, have suffered domestic violence or sexual abuse or have been subject to political or economic turmoil or armed conflict.

Traffickers may operate independently but are often part of criminal networks, such as smugglers, gangs and even seemingly legitimate business operators providing a front. Those involved in recruiting prey on unwary targets with bogus promises of lucrative employment, educational opportunities or even romance. Anti-Slavery International, the world’s oldest human rights organization, states on its website:

“Many people who fall victim of trafficking want to escape poverty, improve their lives, and support their families. Often they get an offer of a well-paid job abroad or in another region. Often they borrow money from their traffickers in advance to pay for arranging the job, travel and accommodation. When they arrive they find that the work they applied for does not exist, or the conditions are completely different. But it’s too late, their documents are often taken away and they are forced to work until their debt is paid off.”

According to a September 2017 report, Forced Labour, Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking, the Geneva-based International Labor Organization (ILO) explained that “an estimated 40.3 million people were victims of modern slavery in 2016 . . . One in four victims of modern slavery were children . . . Children represented 18 per cent of those subjected to forced labour exploitation” (pp. 9-10).

Further: “Women and girls are disproportionately affected by modern slavery, accounting for 28.7 million, or 71 per cent of the overall total. More precisely, women and girls represent 99 per cent of victims of forced labour in the commercial sex industry and 58 per cent in other sectors” (p. 10).

Victims of sex trafficking

A Focus on the Family website article, “How to Identify the Victims and Perpetrators of Sex Trafficking,” states: “Victims of sex trafficking are often young girls who have run away from abusive situations at home and are quickly picked up by traffickers who coerce them into prostitution by promising food, shelter or clothing. Other recruiting methods include befriending vulnerable-looking girls at malls, movie theaters and even schools.

“The recruiter could be a young man posing as a doting boyfriend or another girl who appears to be friendly. According to the FBI, traffickers use force, drugs, emotional tactics, and financial methods to control their victims. Often, recruiters may find ways to form a strong bond with young girls—for instance, they may promise marriage or a lifestyle the girls have not had in their families of origin” (Dawn McBane, Jan. 1, 2014).

While people often think of human trafficking in terms of victims being kidnapped and transported across state or national borders, as does happen, many victims remain in their home areas. Says Dr. Megan Letson, program director for the Child Abuse Pediatrics Fellowship at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio:

“Victims of trafficking don’t always look, act or think as you would expect. Not all victims of human sex trafficking are kidnapped and locked away. Many attend school but may have frequent absences. They may fear or ‘love’ their trafficker. And finally, they may feel shame. The shame is very powerful in keeping them quiet and preventing them from asking for help” (“Human Trafficking: What Parents Need to Know,” NationwideChildrens.org, Oct. 23, 2017).

In this regard, all parents need to cultivate a loving relationship with their adolescent children while educating and cautioning about these dangers. This is because traffickers can entice them via the Internet through social media and eventually move on to meeting them in person. Young people from any socioeconomic group in any country can be targets of these and other entrapment schemes. In fact, police raids of sex trafficking operations have rescued adolescent girls from affluent homes in supposedly “safe” neighborhoods.

A helpful article well worth reading is “How to Talk About Human Trafficking With Children and Adolescents,” available on the Baylor University School of Education’s online doctorate of education program website as a PDF.

There are organizations in many countries that inform citizens about the evils of human trafficking and actively work with law enforcement agencies to combat it. In the United States these groups encourage anyone who suspects this is occurring among people they are aware of to call the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888 or their local police. In Canada the hotline number is 1-833-900-1010. For many other countries, hotline phone numbers are available at the European Commission’s Together Against Trafficking in Human Beings website.

A world held captive

Through the evil of human trafficking, many people are callously brought to ruin and then discarded like useless trash. However, the absolute truth is that no human being is disposable! In the Bible, the Creator makes it abundantly clear that all people are precious since He made them in His own image and likeness (Genesis 1:26-27; 5:1-2). As a result, He commands everyone to love their neighbors as themselves (Leviticus 19:18) and to treat others as they themselves would like to be treated (Luke 6:31).

So why don’t people behave this way? Why is the world experiencing not only the criminal behavior of human trafficking but countless other forms of evil? What’s wrong with our world?

Part of the answer involves the fact that God created human beings with free will. Each person is granted moral liberty, which is the option to choose between good and evil. But it’s also critical to understand the sinister and yet unseen influence of Satan the devil, the powerful spirit being described in Scripture as “the ruler of this world” and “the god of this age” (John 12:31; 2 Corinthians 4:4). (For more on this important subject, read our free study guide Is There Really a Devil?)

The evil we witness in society is the result of Satan’s direct impact on the minds of human beings—on their thoughts, emotions and desires. The result of this constant influence is that “the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one” (1 John 5:19).

Simply put, human society is enslaved to the devil. He has effectively kidnapped mankind, the world having fallen into “the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will” (2 Timothy 2:26).

This is why the world is filled with so much iniquity, including that of human trafficking.

The influence of the slave master

Satan’s goal is to keep human beings separated from God in order to prevent them from developing a close relationship with Him and ultimately achieving their spiritual destiny of becoming divine children in His Kingdom (2 Corinthians 6:18). Satan also advances the erroneous notion that self-promotion, rivalry and retaliation against others are good and smart and should be pursued. He coaxes them to put satisfying their own needs and wants well above humbly caring about and helping others (Galatians 5:13; 6:2; Philippians 2:3).

The result of following the devil’s sinister campaign of elevating self-centeredness over self-sacrifice is that society has unceasingly experienced horrendous and monumental evils. These involve chronic poverty, war, chaos, immorality, disease and countless other dreadful traumas, including that of human trafficking (Isaiah 59:7-8).

Indeed, under the constant, dissolute influence of the devil as slave master, people are locked up in a barren, unfruitful, spiritual condition (Romans 3:10-13).

What does all this say about human beings as they try to determine how to live without the guidance of their Creator? The prophet Jeremiah explained that “it is not in man who walks to direct his own steps” (Jeremiah 10:23). Generation after generation, humanity has demonstrated the stark impact of those powerful words through crushing and unrelenting suffering and heartache.

The path to freedom

Is there a solution to this seemingly intractable situation? Yes, and interestingly Paul provides the answer by employing the analogy of slavery.

He writes: “Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin [disobedience to God’s law] leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness” (Romans 6:16-18).

To be liberated from the devil’s captivity to evil and corruption, people must effectively become—in a different, positive way—slaves to “holy conduct and godliness” (2 Peter 3:11). This is the one and only way forward.

Those God calls of out of this subjugated, despoiled society have the marvelous opportunity to escape the bondage to Satan’s enticement toward sin and rebellion. Although God is not calling everyone out of the devil’s captivity at this time, He may be calling you.

If so, what should you do? The first step in responding positively to God’s invitation is to allow Him to wash Satan’s influence from your mind and heart by recognizing and acknowledging your sins, repenting of them and striving diligently to obey His commandments.

When you surrender your life to God, exercising faith in Jesus Christ’s sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins and then receiving God’s gift of His Holy Spirit, you begin the spiritually enlightening process of conversion. (To learn much more, read our free study guide Transforming Your Life: The Process of Conversion.)

While some people will turn to God now, many others will not, since Satan’s deception is so dominant—being demonstrated by all the malevolent conduct plaguing society, including that of human trafficking.

Despite the best efforts of today’s governments and organizations to combat modern slavery, it will not only continue but actually grow worse in the years ahead. Bible prophecy warns that a powerful global empire will arise in the future that will utilize human bondage as one of various methods to maintain its supremacy. As Revelation 18:13 explains, it will traffic in the “bodies and souls of men.”

But we can be thankful that this evil, Satan-dominated empire will be short-lived since it will be utterly destroyed by Jesus Christ at His second coming when He installs the Kingdom of God on earth (see Revelation 11:15). Christ will then terminate the reprehensible influence of Satan and the demons, who will be banished.

After that great event occurs, the terrible scourge of human trafficking and all other evils will finally come to an end. May God bring about that awesome, spectacular day very soon!