US conservatives are crying foul over the hostile reception they say the media has shown for a blockbuster movie about child sex trafficking. But have they misconstrued legitimate criticism with yet another right-wing conspiracy theory?

The movie 'Sound of Freedom' has made waves in America. It's a thriller based on the real-life adventures of Tim Ballard, a former DHS agent who launched Operation Underground Railroad (OUR), a nonprofit organization devoted to rescuing children from sex trafficking rings.

'Sound of Freedom' is one of those groundbreaking films that almost dare audiences not to like it. The gut-wrenching production by Mexican director Alejandro Gomez Monteverde throws a haunting spotlight on the child sex trafficking industry. As far as criminal activities go, human trafficking is now second only to the illegal drug trade in terms of raw profits in the US. According to data collected by the International Labour Organization, there were 24.9 million victims of human trafficking in 2016, of which 3.3 million were children. To put that stark figure another way, there are more people enslaved now, whether for labor or sex, than there were when slavery was deemed a legal trade.