Dubbed “Operation Autumn Hope”, the sex-trafficking crackdown also led to 179 arrests, including 22 people who were charged for seeking sex with a minor — among them a pastor, Monday’s statement said.

“These predators shamelessly target the most innocent and defenceless members of our community,” said Dallas Baldwin, the sheriff of Franklin County, which lies in Ohio.

“Operation Autumn Hope is sending a loud and clear message: We are watching, we will catch you, and we will protect our children,” he added.

Seventy-six of the 109 victims were missing children who were referred to social services upon their rescue.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost hailed the operation’s success and “the lives that were rescued from this evil”.

An estimated 400,000 people are believed trapped in modern slavery in the US, from sex work to forced labour, according to the rights nonprofit Walk Free Foundation, and the Covid-19 pandemic has fueled fears of a surge in trafficking.

The number of people seeking emergency shelter to escape human trafficking surged in the month after lockdown curbs were put in place, anti-trafficking group Polaris found earlier this year.

As economic and social turmoil was unleashed by the pandemic, it created the conditions ripe for people to fall victim to trafficking, the group said.

The US was ranked Tier 1 this year by its annual report on the crime, the US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons’ analysis.

It evaluates countries based on how well they are tackling the problem, with Tier 1 being the best rating.

But the country also secured fewer prosecutions, issued fewer visas for victims, and did not do enough to evaluate vulnerable groups for trafficking red flags this year, the report said.

An estimated 20 million people globally are victims of forced labour while 4.8 million are being trafficked for sex, according to the Walk Free Foundation.