Spotlight on Human Trafficking: How to Join the Fight

In fact, an estimated 400,000 women, men, and children in the United States are forced, threatened, exploited, or induced into performing labor, services, or commercial sex acts against their will. Despite the alarming numbers, human trafficking can be a very challenging crime to identify. It impacts every social class, race, and gender, but with annual global profits of nearly $150 billion, perpetrators profit by using psychological and physical manipulation and abuse to keep victims from speaking out.

Fortunately, as awareness increases, so too does our ability to stop these heinous crimes. This guide aims to raise awareness by explaining the types and signs of human trafficking, discussing who is most at risk, shedding light on common myths and statistics, and showing how everyone can get involved and join the fight.

What Is Human Trafficking?

While human trafficking is nuanced and involves a wide variety of forms, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) defines it as:

1. “Sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age; or
2. The recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.”

Also widely called “trafficking in persons” and “modern slavery,” human trafficking is the practice of exploiting and enslaving victims to perform forced labor or sex acts for others’ financial or personal gain. Modern slavery is an umbrella term that refers to any exploitive situation where a person can’t leave because of violence, threats, coercion, abuse of power, or deception.

Contrary to popular belief, human trafficking doesn’t solely involve moving people from one state or country to another—many victims are born into servitude or become trafficked where they already reside.

Core Elements of Human Trafficking

The Action-Means-Purpose (AMP) Model can help identify and define trafficking. When a situation includes one element from each column, it’s classified as human trafficking. For instance, a trafficker takes one or more of the below Actions utilizing a Means for a particular Purpose:

Minors induced into commercial sex are considered victims of human trafficking, even without the presence of force, fraud, or coercion.

Force

Physical violence, including physical restraint, is used to control victims and break down their resistance. Examples of force include beatings, physical confinement, sexual assault, and rape.

Fraud

Traffickers make false, fraudulent promises about wages, employment, marriage, working and living conditions, and education. These promises lure and manipulate victims into forced labor and other trafficking situations.

Coercion

By threatening to harm victims or their loved ones, perpetrators coerce victims into trafficking situations. Traffickers use psychological manipulation, confiscate documents, or otherwise make people believe that failure to perform an act will result in harmful consequences.

Polaris, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fighting and preventing human trafficking, explains that there is no one method of force, fraud, and coercion. Traffickers can gain power and control by using a variety of methods on victims—including intimidation, isolation, denial, blaming, economic abuse, privilege, minimizing, and emotional abuse.

Types of Human Trafficking

Human trafficking falls into two main categories: sex trafficking and labor trafficking. Within those broad categories are subcategories and many specific types of trafficking.

Sex Trafficking

Sex trafficking is when a person—through force, fraud, or coercion—engages in a commercial sex act. In some cases, victims are forced into prostitution to pay off some sort of alleged debt incurred as a result of the individual’s recruitment, transportation, or sale. Even if an adult initially consents to prostitution, when traffickers force them to continue, it becomes human trafficking.

In 2016, 4.8 million people worldwide experienced forced sexual exploitation—comprising 19% of all trafficking victims—according to the ILO and the Walk Free Foundation’s Global Estimates of Modern Slavery report. A staggering 99% of sex trafficking victims around the world are women and girls.

Although there’s no official estimate of the number of sex trafficking victims in the U.S., in its 2019 Data Report, Polaris reports identifying 14,597 victims in 2019 from 8,248 sex trafficking situations. The top three types of sex trafficking were escort services; illicit massage, health, and beauty businesses; and pornography.

Child Sex Trafficking

Any time a child under 18 is recruited, induced, enticed, or solicited to perform a commercial sex act, they are victims of human trafficking. Force, fraud, and coercion do not need to be present to classify them as such, as the use of children in commercial sex is strictly prohibited under U.S. law and in most countries. Of the 4.8 million victims of forced sexual exploitation in the world, 1 million are children. In the U.S. alone, an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 girls and boys are at risk of becoming victims of sex trafficking each year.

Although a common misconception is that children are kidnapped into child sex trafficking, less than 10% who end up in sexually exploitive situations are taken by force. Children are much more likely to be trafficked by people they know and those who build trust with and manipulate them into sexual exploitation.

Labor Trafficking

Labor trafficking is when a person is forced, defrauded, or coerced into working or providing services. Some of the most common businesses and industries involved in labor trafficking include domestic work, agriculture, cleaning services, carnivals, and restaurants.

According to the ILO’s report, 21 million people worldwide were victims of labor trafficking in 2016. Polaris identified 4,934 labor trafficking victims in the U.S. in 2019 from 1,236 unique situations involving domestic work, agriculture and animal husbandry, and traveling sales crews.

Forced Labor

Forced labor includes using force, fraud, or coercion to induce a victim to work for an employer. Although the work situation often appears legitimate and lucrative at first, victims of forced labor may eventually:

• Feel pressured to stay in a job or situation
• Not be getting paid what they were promised
• Have no control over their identity documents
• Be living in dangerous or inhumane employer-provided conditions
• Be isolated and cut off from others
• Be working without proper equipment
• Seem to be constantly monitored
• Be threatened with deportation

Debt Bondage

Also known as bonded labor, debt bondage is when traffickers use debt as a means of control to keep individuals trapped. In this labor trafficking situation, traffickers tell victims they have to work to pay off the debt, which usually comes with unreasonable interest rates and other inflated terms. The debt often grows at such a rate that victims can’t ever catch up, making the debt—and bondage—last for generations.

Domestic Servitude

Domestic servitude often impacts people on temporary work visas who come to the U.S. to provide in-home cooking, cleaning, and caretaking services for a family. In this type of trafficking, victims have to work 12-18 hours per day with little to no pay while being isolated from the outside world. Victims may experience sexual harassment, physical abuse, debt bondage, and document confiscation. Some employers will allow a victim’s visa to expire and hold their undocumented status over them.

Forced Marriage

Forced marriage is when one or both parties are married without consent, usually because of financial and emotional threats, coercion, or pressure. Forced marriage can be a combination of sex trafficking and domestic servitude, depending on the specific circumstances. According to the ILO, 15.4 million people were forced into marriages in 2016, 13 million of whom were women and girls.

Child Marriage

Child marriage before the age of 18 is a particular problem around the world, including in the United States. According to Unchained At Last, an organization dedicated to ending child marriage in the U.S., nearly 300,000 minors became legally married between 2000 and 2018 in the United States—almost always (86%) a younger girl marrying an adult man.

Children forced into marriage face limited options when it comes to finding a shelter to escape abuse, retaining an attorney, or filing for divorce—which usually requires the cooperation of a legal guardian. And, although the federal criminal code prohibits sex with a child who is 12 to 15 years old, it specifically exempts people who marry the child first. “This incentivizes child marriage and implicitly endorses child rape,” explains Unchained At Last.

What’s more, federal immigration law doesn’t dictate a minimum age to petition for a foreign spouse or receive a spousal visa. This lack of regulations allows American girls to be trafficked for their citizenship and for children from other parts of the world to be trafficked to the U.S. under the appearance of marriage. Child marriage is legal in 44 states, and nine states don’t even specify a minimum age for marriage.

Did you know? The United States approved almost 9,000 marriage petitions involving a minor between 2007 and 2017.

Get Involved in the Fight Against Trafficking

The undeniable truth is that human trafficking is much more widespread than most people think—it’s in your state, your town, and, more than likely, your community. The good news is that everyone can get involved in the fight against modern slavery, no matter their job, age, or life circumstances. Here’s how.

Learn

Human trafficking is an incredibly complex and diverse crime with various cultural, economic, and social components. By far, one of the best ways to prevent human trafficking is to become educated about how it happens, who’s at risk, what common signs to look for, and what to do if you suspect it.

From taking an online course on human trafficking awareness and reading stories of modern-day slavery to knowing trafficking statistics in your state and facts about global prevalence, you have countless options for education. The more you know about human trafficking and its impact on your community and the world, the more motivated and ready you’ll be to help.

Share

With trafficking impacting so many different industries and communities around the world, the more people involved in the fight, the better. Take the time to share your knowledge however and whenever you can, via:

• Social media, using hashtags #endtrafficking and #freedomfirst
• Presentations for neighborhood associations and PTOs
• Talks with your local school district about how to help students
• Discussions in your workplace about providing trauma-informed services
• Teaching your children about the dangers of trafficking and how to be safe online
• Hosting awareness-raising events (e.g., documentary screenings or book clubs) in the community

Help

There is a myriad of ways to help victims and survivors of human trafficking. If you think someone is a victim of human trafficking, you can ask some of these Polaris-suggested questions to get a better feel for their situation:

• Do you keep your own money? If not, who does?
• Do your parents/siblings/relatives know where you are? If not, why not?
• When was the last time you saw your family?
• Is anyone hurting you?
• Are you or your family threatened? How?
• When answers indicate a potential trafficking situation, reach out to law enforcement and an anti-trafficking hotline to find support and resources. If your job involves working with clients who may be victims of trafficking, a comprehensive assessment can help determine your next steps.

You can also directly help victims by making it easier for them to find help. DoSomething.org suggests writing the human trafficking hotline number inside clothes you donate and posting hotline numbers and information on how to get help at truck stops, restaurants, and other trafficking hotspots. That chance encounter with a poster or sticker may just save someone’s life.

For survivors, your donated goods, job search help, or legal advice (depending on your profession) can help them find peace and justice and break the cycle of trauma.

Report

Whether you’re in your hometown or traveling abroad, know the resources and hotlines available to you should you encounter human trafficking—and be prepared to use them. After all, one phone call could save multiple lives and thwart the repercussions that can extend for generations.

If you need help or have information about a trafficking situation, contact the National Human Trafficking Hotline 24/7:

Call: 1-888-373-7888
Text: 233733 (BeFree)
Chat: https://humantraffickinghotline.org/chat
Online: Submit a tip to https://humantraffickinghotline.org/report-trafficking

Click here to keep reading about human trafficking and the organizations fighting against it. Original article by alltrucking.com.