TROY — More people are enslaved in the world than ever before in history, a journalist told a Troy congregation Sunday.

The Terra Nova Church at 425 River St. in Troy featured journalist and author E. Benjamin Skinner, who talked about slavery as it now exists in the world.

“There is more slavery in the world today than at any point in human history,” Skinner told the congregation. “Through fraud or under the threat of violence, millions of people in this world are enslaved.”

Skinner’s first book, “A Crime so Monstrous: Face to Face with Modern-Day Slavery,” was published earlier this year and chronicles his own experiences investigating human trafficking.

Approximately 150 people sat silently, some wiping tears, as Skinner recounted a visit he had made to an illegal brothel in Bucharest, the capital of Romania.

He said he was taken to the brothel by “protectors, convicted felons.”

“I said I wanted to buy a girl, outright. I was offered a girl who was perhaps 15. I said I wanted someone younger and I was taken to a room on the second floor,” Skinner said.

He said the girl had signs that she had been beaten when she was brought from a room with no light.

“She was offered to me in exchange for a used car,” he said.

Skinner spoke of similar experiences in Haiti where a man on a street offered a young girl for $100 and negotiated the price down to $50.

“Slavery in the world is more than sex slaves, although they account for a great percentage of the human trafficking,” Skinner said. “I met a man in northern India who was a slave in a quarry. He worked for a violent man that local police knew to be a serial killer.”

Skinner said the man was enslaved to pay a debt owed by his grandfather.

“The grandfather had no assets except himself. He was collateral. Three generations and three slave masters later, his grandson is still enslaved,” he said. “In the quarry, the only way to turn a profit is by turning humans into jack hammers to create hand-made sand.”

He said the United States is not without its own slave trade.

Often immigrants are brought to America with promises of education or employment, and when they arrive they are held captive and forced into prostitution or work without pay in sweatshops or on farms.

He said slave traders prey on vulnerable families and individuals and the best way to combat slavery in the world is by providing food and other hope for survival.

He said he spent more than six hours traveling to a remote area of Haiti where he found the family of a young woman who had been sold into slavery.

“The mother confessed her desperation. She asked, ‘What could we do? Should we watch our children die of diseases or starve to death?,’ ” Skinner said. “They knew they had made a mistake and they had enormous guilt.”

He said he crossed the line as a journalist and got involved. He met with the people holding the girl and paid for her release.

“I asked what it would cost to feed her and send her to school to keep her safe and the price was $84 a year,” he said.

Last Christmas, he received an e-mail message and photo of the girl who is now in school.

“Her message was, ‘It’s me, your child. Who you took out of misery.’ That was the only Christmas gift I received last year and the only one I needed,” he said. Skinner urged the congregation to use their freedom and resources to help people in the United States and around the world who are enslaved.

He said understanding that slavery exists, reading and talking about it and then contacting lawmakers to demand something be done are all within the powers of Americans.

“There are organizations that are addressing the vulnerabilities of populations around the world. Learn about them and give what you can,” he said.

Skinner appeared at the 10 a.m. and noon services at Terra Nova and signed copies of his book, saying a portion of the book sales would be donated to Love146, a not-for profit organization dedicated to ending child sex trafficking and exploitation around the world.

Rachel Gardner, 29, held her 7-month-old son Edmond as she listened to Skinner Sunday morning.

“I think we’re all kind of aware this is going on, but we don’t think about it,” she said. “I found the organization Love146 on Facebook and I’ve joined but I haven’t donated yet.”

Facebook is a social Web site that allows users to post interests and information that can be shared.