The United Nations defines human trafficking as "the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring, or receipt of persons by improper means (such as force, abduction, fraud, or coercion) for an improper purpose including forced labor or sexual exploitation."

Human trafficking is the business of stealing freedom for profit. In some cases, traffickers trick, defraud or physically force victims into providing commercial sex. In others, victims are lied to, assaulted, threatened or manipulated into working under inhumane, illegal or otherwise unacceptable conditions. It is a multi-billion dollar criminal industry that denies freedom to millions of people around the world – Polaris Project

The sex industry today is a global system of violence and exploitation, primarily targeting women and children. It's made up of those who are coerced and forced into it—what we call "sex trafficking"—as well as those who have been compelled to sell their bodies in order to survive. It includes those who are exploited in prostitution, pornography, and stripping. The sex industry preys on our society’s most vulnerable ones, all to profit pimps, traffickers, and other predatory stakeholders. – Exodus Cry 

​The U.S. Department of Defence has characterized human trafficking as the world’s fastest growing crime.

​"Human Trafficking is an organized crime, and takes many forms, including forced prostitution, bonded labour, domestic servitude, forced marriage, and child soldiers." - Ally Global