WASHINGTON - There are thousands of modern-day "slaves" in America - girls and boys forced into the sex trade, and men and women held in debt bondage, Secretary of State Clinton said Monday.
"There are Americans, unfortunately, who are held in sexual slavery," Clinton said in releasing the State Department's annual "Trafficking in Persons" report that for the first time included the U.S. on the list of suspect nations.
The trafficking horror outlined by Clinton has for years been the focus of law enforcement in New York City, where police have waged an uphill battle against pimps and predators using massage parlors and strip joints as fronts to prey on young Americans and illegal immigrants.
Last month, Mayor Bloomberg launched a public education campaign on human trafficking with ads on bus shelters in all five boroughs to "raise awareness of the impact of this horrible crime."
Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes last week created a sex trafficking unit, and last December Queens District Attorney Richard Brown notched the first conviction under New York State's anti-trafficking law.
In the State Department report on 177 nations, the U.S. was singled out as "source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced labor, debt bondage and forced prostitution."
Thailand, Mexico, the Philippines, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and India were listed among the main source countries for forced labor.
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