Although Belle was born 25 years ago in Romania, a country with many impoverished areas where human trafficking is common, this story has implications for the realities that occur in America also.
After her birth, doctors in the hospital told Belle’s parents that she’d died, and she was given to a trafficking orphanage. She was adopted and then sent to the United States. Operation Underground Railroad has many teams that rescue people all around the world from human trafficking, and the nonprofit helped Belle fly to meet her birth family for the first time.
It’s a common misconception that sex trafficking is worse in other countries than in America. But statistics show that the U.S. was ranked as one of the world’s worst places for human trafficking in 2018, and over 49,000 cases have been reported to the National Human Trafficking Hotline since 2007.
To watch the emotional reunion between Belle and her family, click here.
