Human trafficking is universally regarded as one of the most repugnant violations of human right. In unstable economic times, there is an acknowledged added, direct effect on the vulnerability of individuals and their increased chance of falling prey to human traffickers.

The number of people trafficked each year is uncertain. As of May 6, 2021, the Migration Data Portal reported that there were 108,613 individual cases of human trafficking in 164 countries. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 8.7 provides that member states "take immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labor, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labor, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labor in all its forms." The Polaris Project, a leading nonprofit non-governmental organization that works to combat and prevent sex and labor trafficking in North America, estimated that 10,583 victims were trafficked in 2020 within the United States.

Human trafficking survives almost exclusively on its ability to exploit the vulnerability of others. Sadly, technological advances have created increasingly facilitated labor and sex trafficking. The widespread use of the Internet created a global new platform on which traffickers could recruit and showcase victims, as well as a space to conduct transactions. The technological leaps in smartphones even further opened this space, allowing any person immediate, worldwide access to this platform.