Human Trafficking
According to the Department of Justice, human trafficking is a crime involving the exploitation of a person for labor, services, or commercial sex.
The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 and its subsequent reauthorizations recognize and define two primary forms of human trafficking:
Sex trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, obtaining, patronizing, or soliciting of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act 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. (22 U.S.C. § 7102(11)(A)).
Forced labor 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 purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery. (22 U.S.C. § 7102(11)(B)).
Additional legal definitions are contained in 18 U.S.C. Chapter 77 (criminal definitions) and 19 U.S.C. § 1307 (includes definition of “forced labor” for purposes of implementing the federal prohibition on importation of goods produced with forced labor).
Hotlines
1-888-373-7888 (State Department)
text HELP to 233733 (BEFREE)
email: help@humantraffickinghotline.org
1-866-347-2423 (DHS)
1-802-872-6199 (ICE/HSI)