Efforts to combat trafficking are diverse and growing. Businesses, NGOs, academics, politicians, governments and individuals all have a role to play.

So, instead of spending Thanksgiving weekend watching the Macy’s Parade, eating turkey and shopping (my usual Thanksgiving activities), I was in Amsterdam and London for meetings on fighting human trafficking. Human trafficking, or modern day slavery, is an enormous global criminal and human rights problem. It’s worth setting out the basics. “Human trafficking” is an umbrella term for the issues of forced labor, sex trafficking, bonded labor, debt bondage among migrant laborers, involuntary domestic servitude, forced child labor, child soldiers, and child sex trafficking. Human trafficking can happen anywhere, including the US. Estimates of how many people are trafficked each year vary from 2.4 million to 25 million, and it’s a business worth more than $50 billion a year. For more, see:

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