It’s a trend afflicting countries across the world, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, which reported the number of child trafficking victims had tripled in the last 15 years and that COVID-19-induced recessions have made the situation decidedly worse.

Authorities in Bali, an island of 4.3 million residents roughly the size of Delaware, appear unprepared. The arrest and conviction of Aldi was one of only five cases of human trafficking successfully prosecuted by authorities in Bali since 2019. The actual number is believed to be much higher; the 2018 Global Slavery Index estimated there were 1.2 million Indonesians living in modern slavery, be it as laborers, fishermen or sex workers.

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