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Human Trafficking: Our Contributions to the Billion Dollar Industry

  • Writer: Melina Olmo
    Melina Olmo
  • Nov 19, 2025
  • 7 min read


"When a poor person dies of hunger, it has not happened because God did not take care of him or her. It has happened because neither you nor I wanted to give that person what he or she needed." — Mother Teresa

For years, I studied human trafficking as a problem "out there"—in distant countries, in desperate circumstances. Today I want to turn that analytical mirror toward ourselves.


The question that haunts me now is more personal and urgent:


How am I—how are we—contributing to this industry every day without realizing it?


The uncomfortable truth is that human trafficking is not just a distant tragedy. It's woven into our daily consumption patterns, our lifestyle choices, and our willful ignorance in ways we rarely acknowledge.


This isn't about assigning blame or creating guilt. It's about creating space for the kind of uncomfortable dialogue that can lead to real change. Because if we're honest about our role in perpetuating this system, we might also discover our power to help dismantle it.

But before you continue reading, ask yourself this uncomfortable question:


When was the last time you bought something and truly asked yourself about the hands that produced it? And what did you do with that curiosity—did you follow it or ignore it because it was more comfortable not to know?

The Numbers That Should Disturb Us


The International Labour Organization estimated that human trafficking generated $31.5 billion when I first wrote about this topic. Today, that figure has skyrocketed to $236 billion annually according to the report "Profits and Poverty: The Economics of Forced Labour" published in March 2024. This isn't just growth—it's an explosion that reflects how deeply entrenched trafficking has become in our global economic system.

Regional figures tell a stark story: 89% of trafficking victims in Central America and the Caribbean are women and girls trafficked for sexual exploitation, according to UNODC data from April 2024.


And when the U.S. Department of Labor identifies 204 products from 82 countries as produced with forced labor, they're mapping a network of exploitation that reaches our tables, our devices, and our wardrobes.


The question becomes: What role do I play in creating the demand that sustains this $236 billion industry?


The Invisible Network: Where Trafficking Hides in Plain Sight


1. Textiles: The Clothes We Wear Every Day

Let's start with the most tangible: the clothes you're wearing right now.

In 2023, 80% of textile factories investigated in Southern California violated federal labor laws. Workers—primarily immigrant women—sewed garments for popular brands earning as little as $1.58 per hour in a state where the minimum wage was $15.

Imagine yourself in your favorite store, looking at two nearly identical shirts: one for $12.99 and another for $45.00. Both say "Made in USA." Which do you choose? Do you feel that small twinge of guilt when taking the cheaper one? Or do you rationalize that "surely the difference is in the brand, not in the labor conditions"?


Here's the dilemma: If you have $30 for clothing this month and an ethical shirt costs $45, what do you do? Do you go without a shirt to be ethical, or do you participate in the system because you have no real alternative?


2. Food: From Field to Our Table

The coffee you drink every morning connects directly with this reality. In Colombia, the world's third-largest producer, seasonal workers are recruited with promises of good wages but end up trapped when housing and food costs exceed their income, making it impossible to leave the job.


Sugar presents an even greater complexity. The Brazilian government maintains a public list of companies found using forced labor, where sugar producers regularly appear. That sugar is processed into the foods we consume daily.


The economic contradiction: If your family budget is tight, how do you justify spending an extra $4 on ethical coffee when those $4 could buy your child's lunch?

3. Technology: The Devices We Can't Let Go

Gold from Peru tells a devastating story. In 2024, illegal gold exports reached a record $6.84 billion. In La Rinconada—the world's highest city at 5,100 meters—authorities rescued at least 68 trafficking victims. Children work in unfortified tunnels, breathing toxic dust.


Cobalt from the Congo presents even more staggering numbers: 40,000 of the 255,000 Congolese who extract cobalt are children, some as young as six years old. They earn less than $2 per day using mainly their hands as tools.


That uncomfortable moment when you know your $800 phone probably contains gold extracted by Peruvian children and cobalt extracted by Congolese children, but you also know you "need" that upgrade because your work depends on technology.


But there is hope: Nikki Reed has demonstrated that it's possible to create alternatives. Her company BaYou with Love uses 100% recycled gold from old computer motherboards in collaboration with Dell, with 99% less environmental impact than extracting gold from the earth.


4. Domestic Services: The Most Invisible Exploitation

The most shocking case occurred in Washington DC: Three domestic workers from India sued Major Waleed Al-Saleh, attaché of the Kuwaiti embassy. The women worked more than 15 hours daily, with confiscated passports, and the wife beat them regularly. When one managed to escape, she ran down the street with "the fear of God on her face," according to neighborhood witnesses.


Diplomatic immunity protection turned this case into a symbol of impunity. More than 40 cases of domestic servitude have involved diplomatic employers in New York and Washington DC alone. None resulted in convictions.


Here arises a particularly complex question: when you purchase services—house cleaning, gardening, childcare—do you ask about the labor conditions of those providing them? Or do you prefer not to know because knowing would complicate your daily life?


The Psychology of Privilege: Why We Don't See What's in Front of Us


Why don't we see what's right in front of us? Psychologists call it "moral disengagement"—the mental processes we use to justify behaviors that contradict our values.


"Psychological distance" protects us. The workers who produce our goods are physically, socially, and temporally distant from us. We don't see them, we don't know their names, we don't confront the reality of their daily lives.


But there's another factor: the deliberate opacity of supply chains. Companies spend billions on advertising that creates emotional connections with products while carefully avoiding any mention of the human cost of production.


And here we arrive at the crux of the matter. You've been reading about exploitation and probably thinking: "I should shop more ethically." But let's be brutally honest: how much more can you really afford to pay?


The fundamental problem is that focusing solely on individual consumer decisions places the burden of solving systemic problems on individuals while leaving the systems themselves unchanged.


Have you noticed how "ethical consumption" often comes with a class price tag? The ability to "vote with your wallet" requires having enough money in that wallet to vote consciously.


The ethical poverty trap is real: When ethical products cost significantly more, "voting with your wallet" becomes a privilege rather than a universally accessible solution. If you're poor, you're trapped—participating in exploitative systems perpetuates the cycle, but opting out requires resources you don't have.


What happens when you know you should buy fair trade coffee, but that extra money means less money for your mother's medicine.


How do you navigate the guilt of being complicit out of economic necessity?


The question isn't just "How can I shop more ethically?" It's "How can we create systems where exploitation isn't profitable?"


Legal Hope: When Systems Begin to Change


The good news is that legislation is finally responding.


California implemented the Garment Worker Protection Act (SB 62) in January 2022, prohibiting piece-rate payment and establishing shared responsibility among brands, manufacturers, and contractors. The results: some workers now earn minimum wage—three times more than they received previously.


At the federal level, the FABRIC Act, led by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, seeks to bring these protections nationwide with a $50 million annual program to support ethical domestic manufacturing.


Courts are also acting:


Good Cash LLC (2024): The Department of Labor recovered $1.1 million for 165 textile workers in Los Angeles who had been forced to work 52 hours weekly without proper payment.


Satish Kartan (2019): Sentenced to 188 months in prison for domestic forced labor. He brought workers from India with false promises, then forced them to work up to 18 hours daily.


According to the 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report, 240 traffickers were sentenced, with 85% receiving sentences of five years or more.


Change is slow, but it's happening. And each successful case sets precedent for the next.


The Dialogue Continues


Mother Teresa's words about hunger apply equally to trafficking: "It has happened because neither you nor I wanted to give that person what he or she needed."

What trafficking victims need is not just our sympathy or our ethical consumption decisions. They need systemic change that makes exploitation unprofitable.

This change won't happen through individual actions alone, but neither will it happen without individual commitment. It requires us to sit with the discomfort of our complicity while working toward solutions that address root causes.


The conversation I hope to initiate isn't about finding the right answers. It's about staying engaged with the questions, remaining uncomfortable with our role in these systems, and committing to ongoing dialogue and action.


Because the moment we stop asking uncomfortable questions about our role in systems of exploitation is the moment we become truly complicit in their continuation.


For Reflection and Dialogue

This is the uncomfortable question I hope you take with you:

You don't need to have all the answers. But you can start this week:

Three Immediate Actions:


Research one brand. Before your next purchase, use resources like Good On You or Fashion Revolution to investigate the labor practices of a single brand you buy regularly. Just one.

Ask an uncomfortable question. The next time you hire a service—cleaning, childcare, gardening—ask directly about conditions and compensation. The discomfort of asking is the price of awareness.

Amplify this dialogue. Share this article with one person who plans to shop this month. Not to generate guilt, but to open conversation.


Systemic change begins with uncomfortable conversations.

What conversations are you willing to have?


Questions to Reflect On


  • What questions does this article raise about your own daily life?

  • What conversations are you willing to have with yourself—and with others—about our collective role in these systems?

  • How can we use our professions and positions to create systemic change?


Sources

© 2025 Cultura Diplomática. All rights reserved.


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