More than 27 million individuals are the victims of human trafficking globally that’s according to the US State Department. The 2022 United Nations report on global trafficking suggests that 39 percent of trafficking is associated with sexual exploitation, while also noting that’s likely an underestimate. An initiative at the University of Alabama is working to develop methods for finding evidence of trafficking online, that’s the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Nickolas Freeman.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics the number of people prosecuted for human trafficking offenses has more than doubled between 2011 and 2021. The National Human Trafficking hotline reports that it has identified more than 82,000 instances of human trafficking involving close to 165,000 victims. Researching human trafficking is the focus of this episode of Stats+Stories with our guests Nancy Hagan and Margaret Henderson.