An estimated seventy-seven per cent of human-trafficking victims are coerced into labor.Illustration by Tracy ChahwanI first heard about Djena in January of 2019, when the Guinean couple who had enslaved her at their home in an affluent Dallas suburb were convicted in federal court. I learned that Djena had been brought from Guinea to the United States as a young child—she was barely ten when she arrived—meaning that the family had, in effect, stolen her childhood and adolescence. It was hard to imagine anybody growing up as a slave in modern-day America, let alone in an upscale neighborhood in a large metropolitan area. How could such a thing have happened here?I reached out to Djena through the federal agent who had investigated her case. But Djena was working on starting a new life and wasn’t ready to talk. A few years later, I shared with her a piece I had written for National Geographic on the sex trafficking of girls from the Indian state of West Bengal and neighboring Bangladesh. The two girls featured in that story had endured severe violence and brutality—different treatment, physically, than what Djena had suffered. Yet, there was a fundamental similarity between their experience and Djena’s: a lack of agency in determining their own fate.Djena agreed to speak with me. As we talked, I was struck by her quiet strength, which she had clearly needed to summon in order to escape her captors. She was teaching herself to read and write—and she seemed to be trying to catch up with the emotional and mental development that she’d missed out on, to finally arrive at a delayed adulthood. It was also evident from our conversation then, and from our subsequent exchanges, that Djena did not want to see herself as a victim, even though she had been one in the past. She was marching forward.Read or listen the story »Editor’s PickAs one league executive put it, “It’s amazing, the interest in what’s essentially a name being read from a paper.”Photographs by Alexander Coggin for The New YorkerThe Mystery and Mass Appeal of the N.F.L. DraftThe annual draft is watched by millions, and analyzed by a set of professional and amateur prognosticators. Still, it comes down to a crapshoot. Dan Greene reports how an off-season ritual became as thrilling as the games on the field. Read or listen to the story »More Top StoriesToday’s Republican contest in Kentucky has become the most expensive House primary of all time. Can Thomas Massie defy President Trump and keep his seat?In addition to the primaries in Kentucky, we’ll also be tracking live results in Georgia, where Republicans are picking candidates for governor and for the Senate.The number of new high-school graduates is dropping. That means that some colleges will close, some will merge, and others may change beyond recognition.Six months after the ceasefire, the Gaza peace plan has gone nowhere.Drake has used a trio of comeback albums to continue some long-running feuds. But, as the critic Kelefa Sanneh argues, he sounds better when he’s having fun.The most-clicked link in yesterday’s newsletter was about the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war at home.