Slavery, for most people, is a distant memory that reminds us of a barbaric and less civilized time in human history, and many people in developed countries, such as the United States, would say that slavery is no longer a part of our modern world, but they would be wrong. Slavery has survived and transformed into a multi-billion dollar black market industry in the form of kidnapping, extortion, trafficking, and sexual servitude that we know as sex slavery.

Slavery is Just like a disease fighting against antibiotics, the practice of slavery has adapted to the ever-changing world to still hold a presence in virtually every single country on earth due to the ever growing demand for commercial sex.

The Department of Homeland Security defines human trafficking as a “modern-day form of slavery involving the illegal trade of people for exploitation or commercial gain.” In 2012, the International Labor Organization estimated that there are 20.9 million human trafficking victims worldwide. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Global Report on Trafficking stated that sexual exploitation was noted as by far the most commonly identified form of human trafficking at 79 percent, and unfortunately the numbers are increasing.

The National Human Trafficking Hotline found that 7,500 cases of human trafficking were reported in 2016. This is up from 5,526 in the previous year, based on the group's data.

In the United States, the areas with the highest human trafficking rates have consistently been California and Texas.

"As a diverse cultural center and popular destination for immigrants with multiple international borders, California is one of the largest sites of human trafficking in the United States," said the California Attorney General's office in a report on human trafficking.

Texas, another border state, followed behind at 670 cases and Florida came in third at 550 cases, according to the hotline.

These numbers may seem high, but other countries harbor ports that are central to the sex trafficking epidemic.

Places like Haiti, Bangladesh, Brazil, China and many other countries struggle with kidnappings and open slave markets that generate the people that are forced into sexual or free servitude, and many of the times these victims are young children and women.

If you know of someone trapped in the endless cycle of abuse or know anything about a possible trafficking operation contact the National Human Trafficking Hotline.