British model allegedly kidnapped for sex

“I’ve been through a terrifying experience,” Chloe Ayling told reporters outside her mother’s home on Sunday. “I feared for my life second by second.”

The experience began on July 11th, when Ayling landed in Milan. The 20-year-old glamour model had gone to Italy for what she thought was a photo shoot. At the designated venue, however, she was drugged and kidnapped.

Ayling says she was taken to a house, handcuffed to furniture and told that she would be sold to the Middle East “for sex”. But six days later, allegedly after her captors realised that she had a two-year-old child, she was delivered to the British consulate in Milan. The man who accompanied her, Polish national Lukasz Herba, was arrested on the spot.

This unusual case has captured the world’s attention. Since Ayling’s identity was made public on Sunday, inconsistencies in the story have emerged. For example, journalists are asking why she was spotted shoe shopping with Herba. Doubts aside, the kidnapping has shone a spotlight on the ongoing issue of human trafficking.

Many in the West think of slavery as a thing of the past. Yet it is still prevalent across the world, often in the form of human trafficking. This is when someone is forced or deceived into performing some kind of labour for someone else’s profit. They may be transported across borders, but not always. The value of the industry has been estimated at $32 billion per year.

Sex trafficking, mostly involving women and children, accounts for a large proportion of the trade. People from poor regions, who have few employment prospects at home, are particularly vulnerable. As Ayling’s case reminds us, however, trafficking affects all countries.

In the USA, the number of reported cases is steadily rising. Only last month, nine trafficked migrants died after being left in a trailer in San Antonio. The Trump administration has made a priority of tackling the issue; in February, the president issued an executive order aimed at ending the trade.

Tricks of the trade

“It’s time our leaders got serious about this,” say some. Several countries do not even have anti-trafficking laws; in those that do, corruption and incompetence allow the trade to continue anyway. Governments must create more thorough border checks, crack down on websites where traffickers ply their trade, and punish offenders very harshly.

“Public awareness is just as crucial,” reply others. One of the difficulties of tackling trafficking (and of measuring its scale) is that it operates in secret. But there are signs. If we learn to spot potential victims of sex trafficking, or find out which sectors tend to employ victims of trafficking, we can all help fight the practice.