The trafficking of children and sexual slavery world-wide is a global epidemic. Most of the public’s image of such horrific examples of modern-day slavery evoke images of poorer countries where this problem is well-documented.
However, a new government investigation confirms that the problem of trafficking children and modern-day child slavery is a very real problem right here within our own borders.
Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) recently published a six-month investigation [1] looking at 125,000 unaccompanied minors who have crossed the U.S. borders into the United States since 2011, reportedly fleeing violence and unrest in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
This U.S. Senate report [1]concluded that the Office of Refugee Resettlement, an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), has failed to protect these children from human trafficking, leaving them vulnerable to abuses at the hands of government-approved caretakers. U.S. law requires HHS to ensure that unaccompanied alien children (UAC) are protected from human trafficking and other forms of abuse. However, this is not happening.