In September 2003, President George W. Bush started something of a sexual revolution.

Speaking to the U.N. General Assembly, the president, known by left-wing groups as the man who would "turn back the clock on women's rights," challenged his fellow leaders to crack down on the sex trade in their countries, promising to lead by example at home.

George W. Bush is waging a war on modern-day slavery. What was once under most of our radars is now a fight that so many are now involved in that it's impossible to give them all adequate credit for their work -- an excellent problem to have.

According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, investigations into trafficking "increased by more than 400 percent in the first six months of fiscal year 2005, compared to the total number of cases in fiscal year 2004." Although keeping true numbers on these effusive crimes is next to impossible, according to the Department of Justice, between 14,500 and 17,500 people are being traded within the United States. Internationally, the estimate is between 600,000 and 800,000, mostly women and children. But nations plagued with sex trafficking, who've enabled sex trafficking, are changing in part because, according to Congressman Chris Smith (R-N.J.), "they know we mean business."

On Jan. 10, President Bush signed the 2005 Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, providing $361 million over the next two years to combat trafficking domestically.

The bill renewed 2000 legislation that made human trafficking a federal crime. It was authored by Smith, who assisted in the rescue of Ukrainian girls in bondage in Montenegro long before trafficking was on most people's radars. Closer to home, he sees the fruits of his labor: In Smith's own New Jersey this November, one Xochil Nectalina Rosales Martinez, pleaded guilty to charges stemming from her role in running a trafficking ring that smuggled Honduran women -- some younger than 21 -- into the United States to be forced to work at Union City bars.

Of course, we have only begun to fight. The State Department's 2005 status report notes "the involvement of police and immigration officials in trafficking seriously hobbled efforts to free victims of their misery and prosecute those responsible for modern-day slavery. Too many law enforcement operations were unsuccessful as brothel-keepers, sweatshop owners, or traffickers were tipped off by corrupt officials."

Human trafficking is an evil web that ensnares too many, with too many enablers.

But abroad and at home, folks are at work, educating, investigating, enforcing and healing. This is a fight the United States is in to win because it is quintessentially what we're about as a nation. As one slave in North Korea wrote to a rescuer-pastor in South Korea: "I want to live like a human being for one day. I am a human being. How can I be sold like this? I need freedom."

(Lopez is the editor of National Review Online.)