Human trafficking is one of the hardest international relief and development causes to talk about. The crime has been documented in 148 countries, and includes forced sexual exploitation, labor, involuntary marriage, organ trade and more. An estimated 40.3 million people are trafficked each year, and roughly a third of those are children under the age of 18.
While some hoped that restricted travel during the COVID-19 pandemic would reduce trafficking, our charity partners fear the opposite – technology has helped move trafficking further underground, and limited government capacity makes it harder for local officials to reach and save victims.
The mistreatment of residents from Kukdaha was typical of Indian “brick belt” slavery. You might think that once freed, they would never want to make bricks again. But these survivors decided to do in freedom what they did in slavery. Except this time, they’d get paid and use the earnings to build new lives in freedom. Trapped by Vicious Slave Holders Kukdaha slavery survivor Sanjafi remembers the day that slave holders raided his village, and the constant mistreatment that followed. “I saw others’ thatched huts were being torched, and they threw my things in the fire, Sanjafi says. “When we were in slavery, people beat us and we didn’t tell anyone. One laborer in our group died from being beaten so badly at the brick kiln.”