There are more slaves today than at any time in human history. There are an estimated 27 million slaves in the world. Most slaves are trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation and most (approximately 80 percent) are female. In New York City, women are forced to work in brothels and massage parlors in Flushing, Jackson Heights and Jamaica, Queens, Midtown Manhattan and Chinatown.

Sex trafficking operations can be found in visible venues such as street prostitution, as well as in more underground systems such as closed brothels that operate out of residential homes. Sex trafficking operations also use a variety of public and private locations serving as fronts for prostitution, such as massage parlors, spas and strip clubs.

The Process:

• Sex trafficking starts with the modern global slave trade. Although it was outlawed in Great Britain by 1807 and in the United States in 1863, this global phenomenon has re-emerged and now affects far more victims than when the practice was legal.

• Traffickers prey on the poor and vulnerable, luring victims into sexual slavery with false promises of a legitimate job or marriage proposals. Parents, husbands, boyfriends or kidnappers can be among those who play a role in selling victims into the sex trade.

• When internationally-trafficked victims arrive in the United States, they are forced to work in brothels or other public or private venues in order to pay off insurmountable debts. This starts a cycle of coercion that keeps them from escaping to freedom.

• When law enforcement enters and raids brothels, rather than view these women as victims, it arrests them on charges of prostitution. The women then enter a justice system that fails to properly acknowledge their state of sexual slavery.

• Most cases result in sentences to community service, but New York City judges aware of the signs of sex trafficking have begun referring suspected victims to social service organizations dedicated to restoring victims of sex trafficking, including Restore NYC.