It is estimated that, globally, over 500,000 people are trafficked each year and that women and children make up the majority (Seager, 2002).  There is no universal definition of “Trafficking,” but the Commission on Human Rights in 2000 defined trafficking as follows:
“trafficking in persons may be defined as the recruitment, transportation, purchase, sale, transfer, harboring or receipts of persons by threat or use of violence, abduction, fraud , deception, or coercion (including abuse of authority) or debt bondage for the purpose of placing or holding such person, whether for pay or not, in forced labor or slavery-like practices in a community other than the one in which he person lived at the time of the original act” (Worlds Women/United Nations, 2000).  
There are over 3,000 displaced children in Freetown, Sierra Leone, who are used as sex slaves.  “Sierra Leone is a country of origin, destination, and transit for victims trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation and forced labor” http//:gvnet.com/humantrafficking/sierraLeone-2.htm). Victims are trafficked from and to the capital, which is Freetown, and then transported internally and to other western African countries.  Women are used for domestic servitude, street labor and commercial sexual exploitation.  Children are taken from rural areas and forced to work in the diamond mines and as sexual slaves.  The victims are also sent to other countries such as Europe, Lebanon, and the United States to be used as 21st century slaves. As of 2003, Sierra Leone was listed as a “Tier 2 country,” which means that they did not meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but that they were making significant progress.  At this point in time they have been reduced to a Tier 3 country as a result of their lack of progress on law enforcement, protection, and prevention. 

The Government realizes that there is a problem but has not done anything to change the circumstances.  “According to a survey in 1998, 63 percent of commercial sex workers in Freetown are girls between 12 to 20 years of age.  More than 300 children and 570 adults were reported missing as of January 1999.  The abductees were often subjected to hard labor, forcibly recruited into the military, and compelled to become sexual partners to male combatants.  Some 5000 child combatants serve among government opposition forces, and a further 5000 are estimated to have been recruited for labor among armed forces.” (http://www.ecpat.net/eng/).   There are no anti-trafficking laws, and the Family Support Unit within the police department is supposed to handle trafficking problems but spends most of its time fighting domestic abuse cases.  Another problem is that governmental corruption prevents changes and encourages such tragedies.  There is a lack of resources, personnel, and trafficking awareness that makes it difficult for law enforcement.  There are no screening or referral services for former combatants, and there is no governing body to gather all of the statistics to fully educate the world on how much of a problem we are dealing with as a result of the dark side of globalization.  Grass root organizations such as the Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender, and Children’s’ Affairs maintains and registers children separated from their parents as a result of the war, but many times they are trafficking victims, and, again, the lack of resources creates problems in prosecution, protection, and prevention due to the civil unrest that has resulted in Sierra Leone–ultimately, in part, the aftermath of colonization by the British without reparation.       

Information was obtained from Action for Children in Conflict, 2003, regarding one little girl named Mariatu Kamara who was only fifteen years old.  She was not only raped but brutally mutilated when they chopped off both of her hands.  She escaped from her rebel captors and was 6 months pregnant and is now living in a camp for amputees.  Her son is now eight months old, and it is extremely difficult to care for her son because of the loss of limbs and lack of skills.  Many girls end up as prostitutes because they don’t have any other skills.  It is the job of Action Children.org to ensure that this doesn’t happen.