WORLDFOCUS

Increasing unemployment and poverty are making people more vulnerable to human traffickers, according to the State Department’s annual report on human trafficking released Tuesday.

There are more than 12 million adults and children around the world in forced labor, including those forced to provide sex. The United States has put 52 countries on a watch list, suspected of not doing enough to combat human trafficking. These countries could face sanctions unless they improve their records.

E. Benjamin Skinner, a fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University, and author of “A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern Slavery,” joins Martin Savidge to discuss modern slavery and how the economic crisis is playing into the problem of human trafficking.