ABSTRACT
Overview Human trafficking for the purposes of forced labor, commercial sexual exploitation, or reproductive slavery is often seen as a modern phenomenon. However, the trafficking and enslavement of men, women, and children is one of the most ubiquitous and pervasive features of all human civilizations, across time and space. While the nature and extent of slavery and the international trade of human beings, both legal and illegal, has changed dramatically over time, today’s global slave trade is by no means a novel or recent development. Acquiring trafficked individuals for labor or sexual exploitation has remained one of the principal concerns of human societies for centuries, and cases of severe exploitation continue to be found on every continent.
