What Is Human Trafficking?
Human Trafficking
Human Trafficking is a crime against humanity. It involves an act of recruiting, transporting, transferring, harboring or receiving a person through a use of force, coercion, or other means, for the purpose of exploiting them. Every year, thousands of men, women, and children fall into the hands of traffickers, in their own countries and abroad. Every country in the world is affected by trafficking, whether as a country of origin, transit, or destination for victims.
Trafficking Victims
Approximately 600,000 to 800,000 victims annually are trafficked across international borders worldwide, and between 14,500 and 17,500 of those victims are trafficked into the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of State. These estimates include women, men, and children. Victims are generally trafficked into the U.S. from Asia, Central and South America, and Eastern Europe. Many victims trafficked into the United States do not speak and understand English and are therefore isolated and unable to communicate with service providers, law enforcement, and others who might be able to help them.
How Victims Are Trafficked
Many victims of trafficking are exploited for purposes of commercial sex, including prostitution, stripping, pornography, and live-sex shows. However, trafficking also takes place as labor exploitation, such as domestic servitude, sweatshop factories, or migrant agricultural work. Traffickers use force, fraud, and coercion to compel women, men, and children to engage in these activities.
Force
involves the use of rape, beatings, and confinement to control victims. Forceful violence is used especially during the early stages of victimization, known as the ‘seasoning process’, which is used to break victim’s resistance to make them easier to control.
Fraud
often involves false offers that induce people into trafficking situations. For example, women and children will reply to advertisements promising jobs as waitresses, maids, and dancers in other countries and are then trafficked for purposes of prostitution once they arrive at their destinations.
Coercion
involves threats of serious harm to, or physical restraint of, any person; 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 the abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process.
Information gathered from http://www.acf.hhs.gov/trafficking/about/fact_human2004.pdf
and http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oese/oshs/factsheet.html
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