The Scourge of Human Trafficking Demands Another Appomattox

The bloodiest war that the United States ever fought did not take place on a foreign battlefield but raged on American soil, as brother took up arms against brother over the issue of slavery. The war began with the bombardment of Fort Sumter, South Carolina on April 12, 1861, and ended in the Spring of 1865, when Robert E. Lee surrendered the Confederate Army to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse. The modest brick structure standing forlornly in a field in central Virginia belies the magnitude of the human tragedy, with an estimated 620,000 killed—almost as many as in all foreign wars combined.

The war led to the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment (Amendment XIII) to the United States Constitution, which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude. But while the facts of this violent conflict are familiar to students of American history, what is less-known is that the practice of slavery continues unabated. According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), every year millions of men, women, and children are the victims of trafficking, which involves the use of force, fraud, or coercion to compel an individual against their will to perform some type of labor or commercial sex act.  The DHS estimates that many billions of dollars per year are generated by human trafficking, which is second only to drug trafficking as the most profitable transnational crime.