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Catholic Sister Clare Nolan stood before a packed audience at the City Club of Cleveland and asked her audience to think about some numbers: Somewhere between 700,000 and 2 million women and girls are taken beyond their national borders and forced into prostitution each year. One million children are channeled into the sex industry annually, starting as young as six. In Asia, pimps buy girls for about $300; virgins cost $3,000 to $5,000.

Churches in Europe are being urged to step up efforts against trafficking in women, a problem estimated to affect hundreds of thousands of women every year. “The trafficking of so many women and children is a human rights abuse that shames us all,” said Baroness Sarah Ludford, a member of the European Parliament who spoke in Brussels about a new publication offering guidance on the topic.