Last year, approximately 21 million people were trafficked worldwide.

While the number is staggering, the process of human trafficking is full of misconceptions.

About 12 years ago Five Omar Mualimmak — who says his unique numerical name is the subject of a whole other article — was arrested on drug trafficking, possession of an illegal weapon, money laundering and tax evasion charges and sent to Rikers Island. Those charges were changed and dropped and then a few reissued, Mualimmak, 38, said, keeping him in the system for 11 years.

Once he was put in prison, a fight landed the Bronx man in solitary confinement.

A Flushing pimp pleaded guilty to enterprise corruption on April 15, after being nabbed in an online sex and money laundering sting by Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

Wei Qu, 51, was part of a larger-scale takedown of Somad Enterprises, Inc., which created, monitored, facilitated and used online, print and cable ads to promote prostitution across the tri-state area, using outlets such as the Village Voice and Backpage.com to promote its illegal services.

A Brooklyn rabbi was arrested and charged last Thursday for allegedly trying to meet up in Queens with someone he believed to be a 14-year-old girl, to engage in sex, according to Queens District Attorney Richard Brown.

The defendant, Nathan David Rabinowich, 59, of Avenue R in Brooklyn, allegedly sent explicit online messages to what he thought would be his victim. But really it was Det. Sean Ryan of the Major Case Squad’s Vice Enforcement Division, conducting an Internet sex sting.

A St. Albans couple have been indicted on charges that they kidnapped two young women, beat them, forced them to take drugs and made them perform sex acts for money, according the Queens District Attorney’s Office.

Gov. Cuomo, a Hollis native and by his own recognition a “Queens man through and through,” received the biggest rounds of applause for his stance on stop and frisk and proposed women’s equality legislation, on Wednesday at LaGuardia Community College in Long Island City.

The governor spoke of job creation, taking his time on a decision about fracking upstate, education and gun control, but people were the most excited about equality for all.

(BPT) - In 2012, the world watched as women made historic gains in everything from Congress, with an all-time high of 20 women in the U.S. Senate – to the field, where they’ve won 100 total gold medals at the Olympics.

Dear Editor:

I was very touched by Shoeb Abulkalam’s Dec. 20 letter in response to the tragedy in Connecticut, “Unite in peace.” Racked with grief, Americans were once again reminded that Islam teaches that all life is sacred and to take innocent life is to kill mankind.

As an American, a non-Muslim and a non-gun owning human being, I’d like to remind readers that Major Nidal Hasan was a staunch Muslim, who, while shouting “Allah akbar,” raised his gun and blew away 13 innocent, unarmed people at Fort Hood in Texas. He was unfamiliar, it seems, with the teachings of Islam. He has yet to be tried for his crime. Attorney General Eric Holder, on investigating, determined that Hasan’s act was not one of terrorism but of workplace violence. The 13 murdered in Fort Hood were also somebody’s children.

Nor has anyone been held responsible for the trafficking of guns including assault weapons by the Justice Department to drug cartel leaders in Mexico, which killed an American border guard — another mother’s child.

Mass hysteria never solved anything. Before depriving American citizens of their constitutional right to bear arms, let’s give the laws already on the books, which aren’t being obeyed now, more serious consideration.

Let Holder investigate the Newtown killings. The boy Lanza was also a victim. Holder may find that Lanza suffered from sex deprivation, and a simple amendment to Obamacare that would provide all he needed would prevent such calamities in the future.

Eleven Queens residents were among 19 people indicted last week for their alleged connections to a prostitution-based money laundering operation.

New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly announced the indictments on Nov. 21, saying they are the result of a 16-month investigation that focused on an advertising firm that placed ads for prostitution services in print and online publications in New York City.

Two men each were sentenced to 3 to 9 years in prison for forcing a 14-year-old South Ozone Park girl to work as a prostitute for a week earlier this year and turn over 100 percent of her earnings to them.

Shaquan Gould, 21, of South Ozone Park, and Evan Harrington, 21, of the Bronx, were sentenced Tuesday, a few weeks after they plead guilty to charges of sex trafficking.

Misinformation. That’s the problem causing public misperception of the New York Police Department’s policies on issues such as stop and frisk, the monitoring of locations where some individuals could be fomenting terrorism and the clearing of protesters from Zuccotti Park, according to Commissioner Ray Kelly.

The department’s policy on detaining suspicious people and searching them for weapons or drugs is nothing new, Kelly says. Its investigations into potential terror hot spots, many in the Muslim community, is not blanket surveillance and is perfectly legal, he insists. Officers did not wantonly manhandle journalists as they emptied Zuccotti Park in Manhattan of the Occupy Wall Street protesters last November, he asserts.

We’re all used to the annual budget dance. The mayor proposes spending cuts, organizations that would suffer funding losses decry the cuts and lawmakers who oversee or are somehow affiliated with the groups vow to fight the cuts.

Sometimes the impact spending reductions would have is exaggerated, or the truth is bent just a little for political purposes. Take the Fire Department. Every year its defenders say Mayor Bloomberg wants to cut 20 “firehouses” citywide. But it’s not true — what he keeps proposing is the closure of 20 fire companies. Since you usually have two fire companies within one firehouse, you can’t say he wants to cut 20 firehouses.

Yesterday Assemblywoman Grace Meng skirted the issue of financially supporting a political consulting firm whose close affiliate both profits from and promotes the world's oldest profession.

There are some 27 million slaves in the world today, more than at any other time in human history. Most are trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation and 80 percent are female. About half of the world’s trafficking victims are under the age of 18.

While New York State’s sex trafficking laws are among the most comprehensive in the nation, promoting prostitution in the first degree, compelling prostitution and sex trafficking are all classified here as non-violent felonies.

Two lawmakers from western Queens are turning rapper Ice Cube’s misogynistic line about how “pimpin’ ain’t easy but it’s necessary” on its head, declaring that when it comes to sex trafficking, what’s really necessary is more prison time for pimps.

State Sen. Jose Peralta (D-Jackson Heights) and Assemblyman Francisco Moya (D-Jackson Heights) have introduced bills in their respective houses that would jack up the sentence for sex trafficking from three years to five and reclassify the crime as a violent felony.

Ten alleged members of the MS-13 gang from Flushing were indicted in federal court for racketeering, murder, assault, and conspiracy on Jan. 5.

The indictments were the result of a joint operation between Homeland Security Investigations and the NYPD which resulted with eight of the suspects being arrested in raids in Flushing. One other suspect was arrested in Virgina, and the 10th is already incarcerated in Oklahoma City on different charges.

Area politicians and residents are fighting the opening of a strip club called Gypsy Rose in Long Island City, located at 42-50 21 St.

The State Liquor Authority will approve or deny the club’s second liquor license application on Wednesday, Jan. 18. An earlier liquor license application made by the club was rejected, at least in part because of insider trading charges brought against one of the establishment’s principals, according to officials and published reports. That individual was not listed as a principal on the club’s most recent liquor license application.

Ten alleged members of the MS-13 gang from Flushing were indicted in federal court for racketeering, murder, assault, and conspiracy on Jan. 5.

The City Council overwhelmingly passed a bill last Thursday that will mostly end the city’s cooperation in a federal program that aims to deport incarcerated undocumented immigrants. Mayor Bloomberg plans to sign it into law.

Prior to the legislation, the Department of Correction voluntarily gave U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement access to information regarding the citizenship status of its inmates as part of the Criminal Alien Program.

The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund has filed a complaint in Brooklyn federal court against a Queens family for human trafficking and labor violations.

Oak-Jin Oh, 60, a Korean citizen, labored as a domestic worker for Soo Bok Choi, and members of his family, including Young Il Choi, Young Jin Choi, Young Mi Choi and Ki Soon Lee. In court papers, Oh charges them with bringing her to the United States illegally and under false pretenses, not paying her and forcing her to live in deplorable conditions for 12 years.

Highlighting the latest session in Albany for her constituents, Assemblywoman Grace Meng (D-Flushing) called it one of the most productive, during her third annual state of the Assembly address on Thursday at the Flushing Library.

“We made many reforms this year,” Meng said, pointing to bills passed and actions promoted by Gov. Cuomo.

   Many women are forced into sex work after being trafficked against their will from other countries, and part of that travel is done in the back of New York City cabs.

   At a press conference on Friday, state Sen. Jose Peralta (D-East Elmhurst) introduced a bill which would require the Taxi and Limousine Commission to develop a program to teach drivers about sex trafficking as a prerequisite for licensure and renewal.

A 25-year-old South Ozone Park man was sentenced this week to three to nine years in prison after pleading guilty to forcing teenage girls into prostitution in Queens, a borough that has become a gateway for sex and human trafficking, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said this week.

Even while handling a move to Manhattan, a monumental task in itself, Kaissa, a Cameroonian singer, songwriter and dancer, will always find the time to perform in the city where she has lived for 14 years.

The Center for the Women of New York has announced some success in its campaign to deter the sex trafficking trade that thrives in Queens.