The Sound of Freedom has brought in more than $155 million since its release in early July. The movie tells the story of Tim Ballard, a former Department of Homeland Security agent who quits his job and goes on an epic quest through Latin America to free children who have fallen victim to human trafficking.

The film also offers viewers the unsettling reminder that the United States remains one of the worst countries in the world for human trafficking. The sad reality is that this problem is getting worse, not better. An estimated nearly 60,000 human trafficking victims are brought into the U.S. each year, and 2,198 people were referred to U.S. attorneys for human trafficking in 2020 alone, a 62% increase from just a decade earlier. Just last week, the FBI found 200 human trafficking victims and 126 human trafficking suspects in a two-week operation, including 59 children.

According to the State Department , human trafficking tends to fall under two main umbrellas: forced labor and sex trafficking. Two of the most common types of forced labor include domestic servitude, where victims are tightly controlled and forced to work in a private residence, and child labor, where traffickers force vulnerable children to work in various industries.

Sex trafficking (the focus of The Sound of Freedom), on the other hand, is understood by the government as "the range of activities involved when a trafficker uses force, fraud, or coercion to compel another person to engage in a commercial sex act or causes a child to engage in a commercial sex act." Of all the human trafficking cases filed in federal court , 92% are sex trafficking. Worldwide, an estimated 27.6 million people are victims of human trafficking at any given moment, making human trafficking one of the most egregious, yet understudied, human rights violations going on in the world today.

Human trafficking violates the fundamental principle that all human beings are made in the image and likeness of God. America should thus put its full might behind stemming the tide of human trafficking.

One solution involves simply securing the southern border. In 2021 alone, 147,000 unaccompanied migrant children entered the U.S., and 122,000 were taken into custody. The previous record high was 69,000. According to one study, almost 60% of these unaccompanied minors crossing the border are forced into child pornography and drug trafficking. With our current wide-open southern border, human trafficking and illegal immigration have exploded.

President Joe Biden’s policies have fueled illegal migration, particularly for unaccompanied children. At the same time, Biden eliminated child protections in place under former President Donald Trump, such as FBI fingerprint background checks for caregivers. Recently, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra struggled to explain to a House committee the whereabouts of an estimated 85,000 migrant children that were placed in sponsor homes under his watch.

Of course, border security is not the entire solution to the problem. Goya Cares , from Goya foods (led by one of the authors of this article), is one of many educational initiatives aimed at helping corporations, parents, and children identify that evil by providing education and access to anti-trafficking resources. Nonetheless, everyone should be dismayed that our homeland is one of the top contributors to the human trafficking tragedy. We must focus our efforts on speaking up for the voiceless.

We pray that The Sound of Freedom sparks a renewed national effort to end the scourge of human trafficking.

Dr. Ben Carson serves as the Founder and Chairman of the American Cornerstone Institute. Bob Unanue is the CEO of Goya Foods.