What is Human Trafficking?
Human trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery. It involves the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain labor services or commercial sex acts against a person’s will. Human trafficking is legally defined in two ways:
- Sex trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining 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 (Trafficking Victims Protection Act, 22 USC §7102).
- 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 (Trafficking Victims Protection Act, 22 USC §7102).
What does "force, fraud, or coercion" mean?
Force |
Fraud |
Coercion |
|---|---|---|
| Physical restraint or abuse | Illegal contracts | Spoken or implied threats |
| Kidnapping | False promises | Control over loved ones |
| Sexual Assault | Fake businesses | Manipulation |
| False marriage | Climate of fear | |
| Confiscation of documents | ||
| Abuse of legal system | ||
| Fear-inducing threats to share information or pictures with others or report to authorities |
See something, say something
Educating yourself is the best way to know when and how to respond to a suspected trafficking situation. Please explore the links below to learn more.