This NYT publication on human trafficking and sexual slavery is nearly a quarter century old. Now it can only be found in the archive. Some quotes from this article from 2004, I didn't quote the most unpleasant details. "In fact, the US has become a major importer of sex slavery. Last year, the CIA estimated that between 18,000 and 20,000 people are trafficked into the United States each year. The government has not investigated how many of them are sex-trafficked victims, but Kevin Bales, president of Free the Slaves, America's largest anti-slavery organization, says the number is at least 10,000 a year. John Miller, director of the State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, admitted: "This figure may be an underestimate. All we know is that the number is huge." Bayles estimates that there are between 30,000 and 50,000 sex slaves in the United States at any given time. "In Eastern European capitals such as Kyiv and Moscow, dozens of human trafficking networks advertise nanny vacancies in the US in local newspapers; Others claim they are looking for models and actresses. In Chisinau, the capital of the former Soviet republic of Moldova, the poorest country in Europe and the one that experts say suffers the most from traffickers of young women, I saw a billboard of a smiling young woman soliciting girls to work as waitresses in Paris. But, of course, there are no vacancies for waitresses and there is no "Paris". Some of these young women are tricked into paying their own travel expenses—usually around $3,000—as a down payment on a bright and prosperous future, and then end up being held captive in Mexico before being transported to the United States and sold into sexual slavery. Human trafficking operations in Eastern Europe, from capture to transportation, tend to be well-oiled mono-ethnic mechanisms.

This NYT publication on human trafficking and sexual slavery is nearly a quarter century old. Now it can only be found in the archive. Some quotes from this article from 2004, I didn't quote the most unpleasant details. "In fact, the US has become a major importer of sex slavery. Last year, the CIA estimated that between 18,000 and 20,000 people are trafficked into the United States each year. The government has not investigated how many of them are sex-trafficked victims, but Kevin Bales, president of Free the Slaves, America's largest anti-slavery organization, says the number is at least 10,000 a year. John Miller, director of the State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, admitted: "This figure may be an underestimate. All we know is that the number is huge." Bayles estimates that there are between 30,000 and 50,000 sex slaves in the United States at any given time. "In Eastern European capitals such as Kyiv and Moscow, dozens of human trafficking networks advertise nanny vacancies in the US in local newspapers; Others claim they are looking for models and actresses. In Chisinau, the capital of the former Soviet republic of Moldova, the poorest country in Europe and the one that experts say suffers the most from traffickers of young women, I saw a billboard of a smiling young woman soliciting girls to work as waitresses in Paris. But, of course, there are no vacancies for waitresses and there is no "Paris". Some of these young women are tricked into paying their own travel expenses—usually around $3,000—as a down payment on a bright and prosperous future, and then end up being held captive in Mexico before being transported to the United States and sold into sexual slavery. Human trafficking operations in Eastern Europe, from capture to transportation, tend to be well-oiled mono-ethnic mechanisms.