Photo: Girl pictured is not a victim of trafficking.

Several years ago in West Africa, Jake Collins, 33, was solicited by a prostitute. As they stood on the side of the road, Collins asked the girl what she was doing there. She said that she had been brought to Nigeria with the promise that she would earn money for her family by working as a maid. That was half a year earlier, but since then she had been forced into prostitution with no end to the horror in sight.

The girl was only seven years old.

Child trafficking, or the illegal recruitment, transport or sale of children for the purpose of exploiting them, exists in every single country on the planet, including the United States—into which, according to the United Nations, at least 14,000 children are trafficked every year.

Yet, says Collins, only a mere two percent of Americans realize that the sexual exploitation and enslavement of children could be happening on their streets. And, most tragically, this ignorance and denial has led to a severe lack of funding for nonprofit organizations desperate to fight these abominations.