The13th amendment of the United States constitution made slavery illegal in the United States.

But slavery persists. Children, women and men are kidnapped, coerced and held against their will and sold into prostitution, pornography and forced labor camps.

"Every 30 seconds, someone in the world is a victim," of human trafficking, said Patrick Atkinson, founder of God's Child Project.

He spoke to students at the University of Mary about modern-day slavery during a presentation in Arno Gustin Hall. He displayed part of a collection of Central American slave documents. They watched a five-minute clip of "Amistad," a movie depicting an uprising on a slave ship headed for America.

Atkinson presented statistics on human trafficking in the United States. There are 17,000 people with U.S. passports entering the country and held against their will, he said. They are part of the sex trade.

He sees children in in New York, Chicago and Florida working in these trades. When he's talked with them, they have a similar story. They ran away from home. In North Dakota, it might have started by going to Bismarck, but they needed to get farther before being caught. So they go to Fargo, he said. Then they leave the state for the Twin Cities.

It is there they meet the professional predators, Atkinson said. It is the entry-point to the worldwide trade of people.

"They think they want to be a model or an actor, so they want to go to New York," Atkinson said.

At the bus stop or the mall, they meet the professional predator, and the net is cast with flattery.

"They ask what modeling agency you're with … and they say you should be selling jeans and T-shirts," he said.

But instead of the promise of modeling contracts, it's drugs, alcohol and sex. They shame the person into not wanting to go home.

People can be sold repeatedly, Atkinson said. This creates a tier of markets and prices, based on how worn a person has become in the sex or labor trade, he said. In the sex trade, people get sold overseas when they reach the lower prices.

"From there, they die and never come back," he said.

Atkinson wants to bring awareness to human trafficking in hopes of reducing how many people it affects. People can do this by not visiting child pornography sites, not buying goods that sexually exploit children, speaking up to businesses about how you feel if they use sexually explicit child models, discussing laws that affect human trafficking and offering support for organizations and hotlines that offer help for children who run away or want to stop human trafficking, Atkinson said.

"I hope to gain more knowledge," about the issue," junior social worker major Sara Salveson said. She came to the presentation to learn about it, she said.

"I was really surprised at the 17,000 (people) and it happening in North Dakota," senior occupational therapy student Heidi Krausz said.

(Reach reporter Sara Kincaid at 250-8251 or sara.kincaid@bismarcktribune.com.)