“Human Trafficking is a crime that involves exploiting a person for labor, services, or commercial sex.”
- United States Department of Justice
DEFINITION
Defining human trafficking may not be as simple as it sounds, but it is a vital place to start in order to create a foundation of understanding of the issue.
VULNERABLE POPULATIONS
Vulnerability plays a major factor in the risk of trafficking victimization. Find out which populations have historically been most vulnerable to trafficking.
THREAT TO BASIC HUMANITY
The trafficking of any person threatens the dignity and value of human life for all people. We must protect the basic dignity in all humanity in our effort to stop trafficking.
TRAFFICKING AWARENESS
Spreading awareness and promoting education about trafficking is the first step in the fight to ending it. Learn more to contribute to the movement.
Shocking Statistics
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Each year, there are an estimated 17,500 people trafficked into the United States from foreign countries.
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The majority of people trafficked globally are women and children; out of an estimated 600,000-800,000 total people experiencing victimization each year, 70% of these victims are women and 50% of these victims are children.
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Each year 200,000 children already living in the United States are at-risk of becoming involved in the sex industry.
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The Ugly Truth:
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Despite these alarming statistics, sufficient attention has still not been brought to the severity and prevalence of human trafficking in the United States.
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These statistics significantly underestimate the population of people trafficked within the United States. Due to the secrecy surrounding trafficking and the hesitancy to report it, it is impossible to uncover the concrete numbers within these “hidden” activities.
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Classifications
Regardless of how it is referred to (peonage, slavery, forced labor, coercion, debt bondage, or involuntary servitude), trafficking in any of its form is a crime in every state in the United States. Under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), trafficking is classified into two main categories:
Sex Trafficking
Sex trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, obtaining, patronizing, or soliciting of a person for the purposes of a commercial sex act, in which the commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age (22 USC § 7102).
Labor Trafficking
Labor trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purposes of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery, (22 USC § 7102).
“Human trafficking, also known as trafficking in persons or modern-day slavery, is a crime that involves compelling or coercing a person to provide labor or services, or to engage in commercial sex acts.”
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- United States Department of Justice
Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 Definitions:
A condition of servitude induced by means of any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause a person to believe that, if the person did not enter into or continue in such condition, that person or another person would suffer serious harm or physical restraint; or the abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process (22 U.S.C. 7102 (6)).
The status or condition of a debtor arising from a pledge by the debtor of his or her personal services or of those of a person under his or her control as a security for debt, if the value of those services as reasonably assessed is not applied toward the liquidation of the debt or the length and nature of those services are not respectively limited and defined (22 U.S.C. 7102 (5)).
Coercion
(A) threats of serious harm to or physical restraint against any person;
(B) any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause a person to believe that failure to perform an act would result in serious harm to or physical restraint against any person; or
(C) the abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process (22 U.S.C. 7102 (3)).
Commercial Sex Act
The term “commercial sex act” means any sex act on account of which anything of value is given to or received by any person (22 U.S.C. 7102 (4)).
Involuntary servitude
Debt Bondage
VULNERABLE POPULATIONS
“Some of the most vulnerable populations for trafficking in the United States include American Indian/Alaska Native communities, lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender-questioning individuals, individuals with disabilities, undocumented migrants, runaway and homeless youth, temporary guest-workers and low-income individuals.”
-DOJ
Although vulnerable populations are at a higher risk of victimization, "victims of human trafficking can be anyone—regardless of race, color, national origin, disability, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, socioeconomic status, education level, or citizenship status.’"
TRAFFICKING AWARENESS
According to a study done by Claire M. Renzetti, even though human trafficking is internationally considered a crime against humanity, there has been “far less agreement in its prevalence in the USA,” as the estimated victims have continuously been understated in official reports. She concludes by stating that a major obstacle in effectively combating human trafficking is the societal perception of the problem. Thus, informational campaigns (such as this website), are an important tool in providing knowledge to shift this misconception and increase trafficking prevention efforts.
As highlighted by the Institute for the Study of International Migration, raising awareness can “target not only key policymakers and the public at-large, but also potential future victims.” Prevention is seen as training programs and informational platforms, which can help potential victims in vulnerable populations to identify trafficking techniques and rouses, such as force, coercion, or fraud. On the other hand, social perception shifts by garnering the interest of public officials and fostering “collaborative efforts between local government and the community to fight trafficking” (ISIM). It is important to readdress Renzetti’s statement of American perceptions of trafficking. Trafficking is not always a hidden or underground problem; rather, it is something that happens on a large scale, every day, and/or in broad daylight. Human trafficking is a widespread form of modern slavery that undermines the integrity and safety of our society.
Raising awareness, identifying the problem, and educating the community on pervasive issues such as trafficking is the first step in eliminating, preventing, and combating trafficking. In creating this website, we hope that the resources, information, and data we provide can become an effective awareness campaign that will be an asset for all visitors to help prevent human trafficking and shift the social perception to reflect the gravity of the issue.
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Resources:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0002764207302474
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/
Kant, Immanuel. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. DIGIREADS COM PUBLISHING, 2020.
Locke, John, and Crawford B. Macpherson. Second Treatise of Government. Hackett, 1980.
https://deliverfund.org/the-human-trafficking-problem-in-america/stories-from-survivors/
THREAT TO BASIC HUMANITY
As a society, we can come to a consensus that human trafficking is immoral, but it is important to go beyond that and understand why that is.
“Samantha” was homeless at the age of 12; with no job and no sense of security or permanence, she found solace in a man who told her that he would love her and take care of her. However, the relationship quickly turned into one of exploitation and violence, as her trafficker forced her to become addicted to heroin, made her have sex with other men for money hours on end, resulting in breakdowns, allowed her only a few hours of sleep, beat her to the brink of death, and completely isolated her from the outside world (DeliverFund).
Did Samantha deserve her fate? Was there something that made her any less human, justifying her to be treated as such?
The clear answer is no, but to have a deeper understanding of why, we must first define what it means to be “human.” In The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Immanuel Kant states that our identity lies in our rationality and autonomy and entitles us to dignity and respect from others. John Locke builds on this, defining the three inherent human rights as the right to “life, liberty and property.” In sum, humans are rational and autonomous beings that have the right to dignity, life, liberty, and property.
In Samantha’s case, the basic foundations of her humanity were violated, as through exploitation and abuse, her human identity was reduced to that of a commodity. Her autonomy and rationality were manipulated and controlled by the trafficker, first through creating a false sense of security, then through the calculated use of violence, drugs, and forced isolation. Her right to life and an independent existence was debauched by resorting her life to a means of enjoyment for others and a means of profit for her trafficker. Her liberty or freedom was invalidated as the trafficker assumed control over her way of life, rendering her unable to live and work wherever she wanted and unable to even consider what would give her meaning or happiness in her life. Finally, her right to property, especially in wages and earnings from forced labor, and the right to bodily autonomy, were deprived from her, as the trafficker took control of these rights as his own and for the use of others for profit. These are the rights that fundamentally structure nations, have been discussed and prioritized throughout history, and continue to be valued in modern society.
Unfortunately, there are many victims like Samantha who are stripped of their humanity and dignity through the brutality of human trafficking. Traffickers reduce the inherent worth of victims to that of objects, justifying the use of violence, inhumanity, and exploitation against them. Thus, human trafficking becomes the epitome of a human rights violation.
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The violation of one's “humanness” is a violation of everyone's "humanness," making trafficking one of the most heinous crimes against humanity.
