There are slaves among us.
The Bay Area is "one of the highest-intensity markets for modern-day slaves," according to KQED, and that means that the region's law enforcement officials are trying to make sure that human-trafficking is on peoples' minds.
There is no data on exactly how many humans are bought and sold in the Bay Area, but "we know that it's large," according to San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón, who added that the problem is vastly "under-reported."
In other to change that, Gascon and other public officials are launching public-awareness campaigns to ensure the Bay Area public knows about it and to drive the issue "out of the shadows," KQED reported.
Only about 40,000 of the estimated 27 million "trafficking victims" worldwide have been identified, according to KQED.
Together, labor trafficking and sex trafficking -- in either case, forcing a person to work for little or no money, in sex or in the fields or factories -- are a $32 billion a year industry, the United Nations reported.
