Who are the victims?

"So often cars would slow down and people would yell, "You are a whore. This is no job for a girl like you." But they never stopped to ask if they could help me."

- Stefa, a Moldovan teenager trafficked into Italy

"With four children between them and a 16-year relationship, Mari couldn’t imagine leaving Darrell. She didn’t see any viable options, even though he was physically abusive and forced her into commercial sex when money was tight."

- PolarisProject.org

"Sarah met a kind and generous older guy after running away from a broken home. But once she moved in with this new boyfriend, he forced her into commercial sex to pay his rent."

- PolarisProject.org

"There is not a consistent type or profile of a trafficking victim. Based on U.S. federal law, trafficked persons in the U.S. can be men or women, adults or children, and foreign nationals or U.S. citizens. Some are well-educated, while others have no formal education. Some immigrant victims are currently in the U.S. legally, and others are undocumented. Some form of vulnerability tends to be the common thread amongst all different trafficking victims.

Trafficking victims are forced to work or provide commercial sex against their will in legal and legitimate business settings as well as underground markets. Some victims are hidden behind locked doors in brothels and factories. In other cases, victims are in plain view and may interact with community members, but the widespread lack of awareness and understanding of trafficking leads to low levels of victim identification by the people who most often encounter them" (PolarisProject.org). 

U.S. Statistics

Victimization by the Numbers

There are 27 million victims of human trafficking worldwide (Not For Sale, 2010).

Approximately 80% of human trafficking victims are women and girls and up to 50% are minors (U.S. Department of State). 

The average age that a victim is first trafficked for sex in the U.S. is just 12-14 years old (U.S. Department of Justice). 

As many as 2.8 million children run away each year in the US. Within 48 hours of hitting the streets, one-third of these children are lured or recruited into the underground world of prostitution and pornography (The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children).

Vulnerability is Key

"Traffickers often prey on people who are hoping for a better life, lack employment opportunities, have an unstable home life, or have a history of sexual abuse - conditions that are present in all spheres of society. Certain populations are especially vulnerable. These may include: undocumented immigrants; runaway and homeless youth; victims of trauma and abuse; refugees and individuals fleeing conflict; and oppressed, marginalized, and/or impoverished groups and individuals. 

Undocumented immigrants in the U.S. are highly vulnerable due to a combination of factors, including: lack of legal status and protections, language barriers, limited employment options, poverty and immigration-related debts, and social isolation. They are often victimized by traffickers from a similar ethnic or national background, on whom they may be dependent for employment, shelter, and other means of support.

Runaways and at-risk youth are targeted by pimps and traffickers for exploitation in the commercial sex industry or different labor or services industries. Pimps and sex traffickers are skilled at manipulating child victims and maintaining control through a combination of deception, lies, feigned affection, threats, and violence" (PolarisProject.org).

Indicators of Victimization

"While no two experiences of human trafficking are exactly the same, many traffickers use similar methods to keep their victims enslaved. An understanding of common responses to trauma can also be used to determine whether an individual has been trafficked" (TIP Report, 2012).

Restriction of movement:

Confiscating passports, visas, and/or identification documents

Constantly accompanying the victim, insisting on answering questions on behalf of the victim, and/or translating all conversations
Isolating the victim by not disclosing his or her location or address
Requiring the victim to live and work in the same location

Harmful living conditions:
Restricting access to food and appropriate clothing
Forbidding access to appropriate medical care
Not allowing time off or sufficient time to sleep

Harmful working conditions:
In exchange for work opportunity, charging a large fee that is difficult or impossible to pay off
Requiring unusually long work hours with few or no breaks
Restricting the number of days off
Providing little to no pay or irregular pay

Physical Reactions:
Weakened physical state
Bruises, cuts, or other untreated medical ailments
Complaints of stomach pain
Heart palpitations
Extreme changes in eating patterns

Emotional Reactions:
Loss of memory related to the traumatic event
Frequent bouts of tearfulness
Detachment
Feelings of self-blame
Emotional numbing or emotional response that does not fit the situation
Flashbacks or nightmares
Anxiety and fear
Difficulty making decisions and/or concentrating
Avoidance of eye contact in a manner not related to culture

Where does trafficking occur?

"Trafficking thrives in the shadows. And it can be easy to dismiss it as something that happens to someone else, somewhere else. But that is not the case. Trafficking is a crime that involves every nation on earth, and that includes our own."

- Hillary Rodham Clinton, U.S. Secretary of State

Human trafficking is a global phenomenon. It includes sex trafficking, child sex trafficking, forced labor, bonded labor or debt bondage, involuntary domestic servitude, and the unlawful recruitment and use of child soldiers. The demand for people to perform cheap or free labor is present world-wide. In the name of exploitation, there are those who rise up to supply the bodies for this work. The cost of procuring bodies is relatively cheap, and there seems to be a never ending supply of human victims. As a result, victims of human trafficking are not considered human - they are considered to be commodities.

Movement of Victims

"Every country in the world is either an origin country, a transit country or a destination country for human trafficking. UNODC data shows human beings are trafficked from 127 countries and exploited in 137 countries" (TheFreedomProject.org). Typically, victims are from poor, rural, developing, or war-torn or conflict-ridden countries. Victims usually end up in wealthier countries, including the United States and Great Britain.

"Origin countries are Africa, Asia, Central and Eastern European countries, former Eastern bloc and Soviet Union countries, Latin America and the Caribbean. The Highest origin countries are Albania, Belarus, Bulgaria, China, Lithuania, Nigeria, Republic of Moldovia, Romania, Russian Federation, Thailand and Ukraine

Destination areas are Western Europe, Western Africa, Asia, Arab Nations and North America. The highest destination countries are Belgium, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Thailand, Turkey, USA" (TheFreedomProject.org).

Ranking Efforts to Combat Trafficking on a Global Scale
"The Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report is the U.S. Government’s principal diplomatic tool to engage foreign governments on human trafficking. It is also the world’s most comprehensive resource of governmental anti-human trafficking efforts and reflects the U.S. Government’s commitment to global leadership on this key human rights and law enforcement issue. It represents an updated, global look at the nature and scope of trafficking in persons and the broad range of government actions to confront and eliminate it. The U.S. Government uses the TIP Report to engage foreign governments in dialogues to advance anti-trafficking reforms and to combat trafficking and to target resources on prevention, protection and prosecution programs. Worldwide, the report is used by international organizations, foreign governments, and nongovernmental organizations alike as a tool to examine where resources are most needed. Freeing victims, preventing trafficking, and bringing traffickers to justice are the ultimate goals of the report and of the U.S Government's anti-human trafficking policy" (www.state.gov/j/tip).

The U.S. Department of State "places each country in the TIP Report onto one of four tiers, as mandated by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA). This placement is based more on the extent of government action to combat trafficking than on the size of the problem. The analyses are based on the extent of governments’ efforts to reach compliance with the TVPA’s minimum standards for the elimination of human trafficking, which are consistent with the Palermo Protocol" (Trafficking in Persons Report, 2012).

Tier 1
Countries whose governments fully comply with the TVPA minimum standards.

Tier 2
Countries whose governments do not fully comply with the TVPA’s minimum standards, but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards.

Tier 2 Watch List
Countries whose governments do not fully comply with the TVPA’s minimum standards, but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards AND:

• The absolute number of victims of severe forms of trafficking is very significant or is significantly increasing;
• There is a failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons from the previous year; or
• The determination that a country is making significant efforts to bring itself into compliance with minimum standards was based on commitments by the country to take additional future steps over the next year.

Tier 3
Countries whose governments do not fully comply with the minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so.

2012 Trafficking in Persons Report Rankings

To read the full report, you can visit http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/192587.pdf

Cuba was the only country to be rated as Tier 3 in the
Western Hemisphere in the 2012 TIP Report.

The number of prosecutions for human trafficking has
steadily increased since 2005.

Tier 1

Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Italy, Nicaragua, Poland, Spain, United States

Tier 2

Argentina, Bolivia, El Salvador, Guyana, Mali, Morocco, Singapore, Tunisia, Uganda

Tier 2WL

Bahrain, Belarus, Haiti, Iraq, Russia, South Sudan

Tier 3

Central African Republic, Cuba, Iran, Kuwait, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Zimbabwe 

What is Human Trafficking?

"Trafficking in persons is a serious crime and a grave violation of human rights. Every year, thousands of men, women and children fall into the hands of traffickers, in their own countries and abroad. Almost every country in the world is affected by trafficking, whether as a country of origin, transit or destination for victims" (UNODC.org). 

Trafficking Defined

"Article 3, paragraph (a) of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons defines Trafficking in Persons as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs" (UNODC.org). 

The Numbers

SafeHorizon.org estimates the number of people affected by human trafficking to be between 700,000 and 2 million per year (SafeHorizon.org, 2013). PolarisProject.org estimates the number of children involved in the sex trade in the United States to be about 100,000 per year (PolarisProject.org, 2013). Furthermore, according to a report published by the Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking, an estimated $31.6 billion (US currency) in profit is generated "from the exploitation of all trafficked forced labour" (UNGlobalCompact.org). 

Global sex trafficking statistics. 

Effectiveness of U.S. anti-trafficking policies by state. 

Elements of Human Trafficking

The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons maintains that there are three essential elements to the crime of human trafficking (UNODC.org). 

The Act: Recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons

The Means:  Threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person

The Purpose: Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs