Providers (April 2008) - This 20-minute film (NCJ 219179), produced with the assistance of Safe Horizon, addresses the need for the victim services field to work in partnership with those who provide services to immigrants and with other allied practitioners to better serve victims of human trafficking. It was designed to help traditional victim service providers expand their skills and resources to meet the needs of trafficking victims. A component of this film is a guide that provides resources for information about what defines human trafficking and the response to this crime by the U.S. Government, the international community, and nongovernmental entities.
Producer: Department of Justice. Creative Commons license: CC0 1.0 Universal
Trafficking in persons - also known as "human trafficking" - is a form of modern-day slavery. Traffickers often prey on individuals who are poor, frequently unemployed or underemployed, and who may lack access to social safety nets, predominantly women and children in certain countries. Victims are often lured with false promises of good jobs and better lives, and then forced to work under brutal and inhuman conditions.
Under federal law, the technical term for modern-day slavery or coerced labor is "severe forms of trafficking in persons." "Severe forms of trafficking in persons" is defined 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 an act is under 18; 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 subjecting that person to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery. Many trafficking victims are forced to work in the sex trade. However, trafficking can also take place in labor situations such as domestic servitude, labor in a prison-like factory, or migrant agricultural work. Whether or not an activity falls under the definition of trafficking depends not only on the type of work victims are made to do, but also on the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain or maintain that work. There is one exception, however. Trafficking covers the use of minors for commercial sexual activity even if there is no force, fraud, or coercion. Trafficking also covers people who are held against their will to pay off a debt; this is known as peonage. A victim's initial agreement to travel or perform the labor does not allow an employer to later restrict that person's freedom or to use force or threats to obtain repayment.
To report trafficking in persons call (888) 428-7581
The full dimensions of the problem of human trafficking are difficult to measure. We do know, however, that human trafficking is a major source of profit for organized crime syndicates, along with trafficking in drugs and guns. The scope of the problem in the United States is serious: the U.S. Government estimates that approximately 50,000 women and children are trafficked into the United States annually.
Victims are often lured into trafficking networks through false promises of good working conditions and high pay as domestic workers, factory and farm workers, nannies, waitresses, sales clerks, or models. Once in this country, many suffer extreme physical and mental abuse, including rape, sexual exploitation, torture, beatings, starvation, death threats, and threats to family members. It is believed that most victims who are trafficked are isolated and remain undetected by the public because 1) the strategies used by the perpetrators isolate victims and prevent them from coming forward, and 2) the public and the victim service providers have only recently become aware of this issue and may not be familiar with how to recognize or respond to trafficking victims.
Source: Documentary produced by the US Department of Justice
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