Trgovina ljudima u Sjedinjenim Državama — разлика између измена

Један корисник управо ради на овом чланку. Молимо остале кориснике да му допусте да заврши са радом. Ако имате коментаре и питања у вези са чланком, користите страницу за разговор. Хвала на стрпљењу. Када радови буду завршени, овај шаблон ће бити уклоњен. Напомене Шаблон је застарео уколико је прошло дуже од 72 сата од последње измене на чланку. Последњу измену на овој страници начинио је корисник Dcirovic (разговор · доприноси), на датум 19. октобар 2024. у 05:42. Није препоручљиво да један корисник овим шаблоном обележи више од једног чланка. Молимо вас да између уређивачких сеанси уклоните овај шаблон са чланка, како бисте омогућили и другим корисницима да неометано уређују и исправљају чланак. Шаблон не ограничава друге уреднике да уређују означену страницу али необавезујућа препорука јесте да се чланак значајније не уређује док уредник који ради на чланку не уклони исти.

In the United States, human trafficking tends to occur around international travel hubs with large immigrant populations, notably in California, Texas, and Georgia. Those trafficked include young children, teenagers, men, and women; victims can be domestic citizens or foreign nationals.

Under federal law (18 USC § 1589), it is a crime to make people work by use of force, coercion, or fear. U.S. State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons placed the country in "Tier 1" in 2017.^[1]

On April 11, 2018, U.S. President Donald Trump signed the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act into law to close websites that enable crime and prosecute their owners and users.^[2] Beyond websites, tech companies have faced increasing challenges from the use of their social media applications as "human hunting fields" to find victims for human trafficking.^[3]

In 2023, the Organised Crime Index gave the country a score of 6 out of 10 for human trafficking,^[4] with most victims coming from Mexico, Honduras or within the U.S.

Human trafficking is a form of slavery, involving the illegal smuggling and trading of people for forced labor or sexual exploitation.

Trafficking is officially defined as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons through coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, or abuse of power from a position of vulnerability for the purpose of exploitation. With an estimated 27.6 million victims worldwide at any given time, human traffickers prey on people of all ages, backgrounds, and nationalities, exploiting them for their own profit.^[5][6][7] Human trafficking is not synonymous with forced migration or smuggling.^[8]

Human trafficking is defined by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring 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”.^[9] Human trafficking in the United States can be divided into the two major categories of labor and sex trafficking, with sex trafficking accounting for a majority of cases.^[10]

Slavery is a system which requires workers to work against their will for little to no compensation. The practices of slavery and human trafficking are still prevalent in modern America with estimated 17,500 foreign nationals and 400,000 Americans being trafficked into and within the United States ^[11] every year with 80% of those being women and children.^[12]

According to the Department of State 2011 Trafficking in Persons Report, the United States is a Tier 1 country for trafficking. Tier 1 means that the government is in compliance with the U.S. government's minimum standards of the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 to eliminate trafficking.^[13] The minimum standards as listed in section 108 of the legislation are

1. The government of the country should prohibit severe forms of trafficking in persons and punish acts of such trafficking.
2. For the knowing commission of any act of sex trafficking involving force, fraud, coercion, or in which the victim of sex trafficking is a child incapable of giving meaningful consent, or of trafficking which includes rape or kidnapping or which causes a death, the government of the country should prescribe punishment commensurate with that for grave crimes, such as forcible sexual assault.
3. For the knowing commission of any act of a severe form of trafficking in persons, the government of the country should prescribe punishment that is sufficiently stringent to deter and that adequately reflects the heinous nature of the offense.
4. The government of the country should make serious and sustained efforts to eliminate severe forms of trafficking in persons.^[14][15]

The U.S. is working to eliminate human trafficking in the U.S. and worldwide. Each year, the Department of State releases data compiled on the state of human trafficking in many different countries, including the U.S., in accordance with the Trafficking Victim Protection Act of 2000's standards.^[14] It also releases data on trafficking cases under federal prosecution and estimates of those trafficked; however, the report cautions that the data may not be representative of the number of individuals actually trafficked due to both the lack of cohesion between many states and agencies battling human trafficking and the inability to account for undiscovered victims.^[16] Below is a compilation of data from a variety of U.S. agencies and the United Nations.

According to the Attorney General's 2005 report, an estimated 14,500–17,500 victims are trafficked into the United States each year, although that figure may be overstated.^[17]

The findings of the U.S. Department of Justice's 2011 report, "Characteristics of Suspected Human Trafficking Incidents, 2008–2010", include:

1. From 2008 to 2010, Federal anti-trafficking task forces opened 2,515 suspected cases of human trafficking.
2. 82% of suspected incidents were classified as sex trafficking and nearly half of these involved victims under the age of 18.
3. Approximately 10% of the incidents were classified as labor trafficking.
4. 83% of victims in confirmed sex-trafficking incidents were identified as U.S. citizens, while most confirmed labor-trafficking victims were identified as undocumented immigrants (67%) or legal immigrants (28%).
5. 25% of the confirmed victims received a "T visa," part of a federal program designed to aid victims of trafficking.

While the findings represent the government's best estimate, the authors caution that "the data described in this report reflect the information that was available to, and entered by, these state and local law enforcement agencies", and such data systems are still being established and are likely not recording all incidents.^[18]

According to the Department of State, the U.S. was identified as a Tier 1 country with unspecified federal agencies charging 181 individuals with trafficking other humans and obtaining 141 convictions in 103 human trafficking prosecutions. Of the prosecutions reported by the Department of State, 32 were labor trafficking cases and 71 were sex trafficking cases.^[19]

In 2009, ICE initiated 566 cases. These investigations led to 388 criminal arrests, more than double the number of arrests from the previous fiscal year, resulting in 148 indictments and 165 convictions.^[20]

The San Diego division of the FBI announced in August 2022 agents rescued at least 17 potential victims as part of a nationwide operation.^[21]

The Human Smuggling and Trafficking Center is an inter-agency intelligence center that gathers information on illicit travel—including that of trafficking. The center coordinates with foreign agencies and diplomats to monitor and fight trafficking on an international basis. With the enactment of TVPRA 2008, the HSTC was also charged with the responsibility of compiling a comprehensive inter-agency database on persons identified as victims of human trafficking.^[20]

According to the 2011 Department of State report, victims are largely from Thailand, India, Mexico, Philippines, Haiti, Honduras, El Salvador, and the Dominican Republic.^[19] Relevant to people being trafficked from other countries, "[v]ulnerabilities are increasingly found in visa programs for legally documented students and temporary workers who typically fill labor needs in the hospitality, landscaping, construction, food service, and agricultural industries."^[22]

Human trafficking occurred consistently in high-population areas that serve as hubs for international travel and that have large immigrant populations. In the study, higher numbers of reported cases were found in California, New York, Texas, and Florida. This is consistent with the U.S. Department of Justice report that the largest concentrations of survivors of human trafficking were located in California, Oklahoma, New York, and Texas.^[23]

According to a 2007 Washington Post expose entitled "Human Trafficking Evokes Outrage, Little Evidence", human trafficking in the United States is described as essentially non-existent.^[24]

However, there are more victims than those who have applied for and been granted certification. First, certification requires that the victim be willing to cooperate with a police investigation. Following a police raid, some victims just want to go home, some victims do not cooperate with police and are deported, and some victims are afraid to testify against vicious traffickers. The application for certification requires support from law enforcement. If the victim is not seen as useful for a case, or if the police do not want to pursue a case, they have no support to stay in the U.S. and will not be counted as victims of trafficking.^[25]

Nevertheless, the number of identified victims (or convicted traffickers) is far less than the official estimate (by the U.S. State Department) that as many as 14,550–17,550 individuals are trafficked into the United States every year.^[26] A recent analysis by the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics showed a gap between the claimed number of victims and the number of confirmed cases of victimization.^[27]

A gap between the alleged number of victims and the number of confirmed cases also characterizes the situation worldwide. The U.S. Department of State recently reported that 0.4 percent of the estimated victims of trafficking internationally had been officially identified.^[28] The State Department report provided no source for the number of either estimated or identified victims. Some critics, like Markon in the Washington Post, note that all such estimates are deeply flawed.^[29]

Research conducted by University of California at Berkeley on behalf of the anti-trafficking organization Free the Slaves found that about 46% of people in slavery in the United States are forced into prostitution. The U.S. Department of Justice prosecuted 360 defendants for human trafficking from 2001 to 2007 and gained 238 convictions.^[30]

From January 2007 through September 2008, there were 1,229 alleged cases of human trafficking nationally; 1,018 of them, nearly 83 percent, were sex trafficking cases. Sex trafficking has a close relationship with migrant smuggling operations headed by Mexican, Eastern European, and Asian crime organizations.^[31] Domestic servitude claims 27% of people in slavery in the U.S., agriculture 10%, and other occupations 17%.^[23][32]

In the early 1900s, the “White Slave Traffic” became prevalent. It involved the movement of young white girls who were kidnapped or tricked into being involved in some form of prostitution. The Mann Act, passed in 1910, made it a felony to be involved in the transportation of any person across state or international lines for prostitution or other immoral purposes.

Children who are considered runaways are at particular risk of prostitution or of being trafficked into the sex industry. Of the 1,682,900 children who were considered runaways for a period of time in 1999, 71% were considered at risk for prostitution.^[30] 1,700 of those reported actually engaging in sexual activity in exchange for money. David Finkelhor, a University of New Hampshire professor who is director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center, said "I wouldn't put any stock in these figures as indicators of what is going on today".^[33] According to the United States Department of State an estimated 20,000 women and children are trafficked into the United States each year by crossing the Mexico–United States border.^[34]

This is a resolution of the UN General Assembly. The Preamble states: "Whereas prostitution and the accompanying evil of the traffic in persons for the purpose of prostitution are incompatible with the dignity and worth of the human person and endanger the welfare of the individual, the family and the community"^[35]

In 2003, 1,400 minors were arrested for prostitution, 14% of whom were younger than 14 years old. A study conducted by the International Labor Union indicated that boys are at a higher risk of being trafficked into agricultural work, the drug trade, and petty crime. Girls were at a higher risk of being forced into the sex industry and domestic work. In 2004, the Department of Labor found 1,087 minors employed in situations that violated hazardous occupation standards. In the same year, 5,480 children were employed violating child labor laws. Due to the secretive nature of trafficking, it is difficult to piece together an accurate picture of how widespread the problem is.^[30]

In 2001, the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work released a study on CSEC conducted in 17 cities across the United States. While they did not interview any of the adolescent subjects of the inquiry, they estimated through a secondary response that as many as 300,000 American youths may be at risk of commercial sexual exploitation at any time.^[36] The Center for Court Innovation in New York City had used Respondent Driven Sampling (RDS), Social Network Analysis, capture/recapture, and Markov based probability estimates in 2008 to generate a prevalence estimate for New York City alone and found that there were approximately 3800 children that were identified as commercial sexual exploitation victims. Researchers said this was an underestimate of the actual number as isolated sub-groups outside their sampling methodology exist and could not be estimated.^[37] An article by the Village Voice that reviewed arrest records in 37 large US cities over 10 years found only 827 cases a year had been reported to police departments.^[38]

Especially vulnerable are the homeless and runaways. The National Runaway Switchboard said in 2009 that one-third of runaway youths in America will be lured into prostitution within 48 hours on the streets.^[39] This view of adolescent prostitution in the United States as primarily driven by pimp-exploiters and other "sex traffickers" was challenged by SNRG-NYC in their 2008 New York City study which interviewed over 300 under-age prostitutes and found that only 10% reported having pimps. A 2012 study done in Atlantic City, New Jersey, by the same group incorporated an extended qualitative ethnographic component that looked specifically at the relationship between pimps and adolescents engaged in street-based sex markets.^[40][41] This study found the percentage of adolescents who had pimps to be only 14% and that those relationships were typically misidentified by youth as mutual, and non-exploitative.^[42] Various trauma responses, including trauma bonds, normalization and lack of information on the issue left only 1/3 of victims identifying their experience as commercial sexual exploitation.

The New York State Office of Children and Family Services estimated in 2007 that New York City is home to more than 2,000 sexually exploited children under 18. At least 85 percent of these youths statewide have had some contact with the child welfare system, mostly through abuse or neglect proceedings. In New York City, 75 percent have been in foster care.^[43] Mishi Faruqee, who is in charge of juvenile justice issues for the Correctional Association of New York, questioned the reliability of the estimate. "We believe that number is really an undercount."^[44] This is confirmed by SNRG-NYC's New York City population estimate of 2008 which was 3,946. Some researchers have estimated that there may be up to three million victims of domestic minor sex trafficking in the United States.^[45]

Law authorities have led sting operations in connection with Super Bowl games. During the Super Bowl XLVIII, authorities arrested 45 pimps and rescued 25 child victims of human trafficking. During Super Bowl XLIX, authorities led a sting operation called National Day of Johns and arrested almost 600 people and rescued 68 victims.^[46] Publicity surrounding the Super Bowl provides opportunities for public awareness of sex trafficking.^[47]

Labor trafficking is defined by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act as 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^[48] and is most frequently reported in domestic work, restaurants, peddling rings, and sales crews.^[49] With the influx of foreign nationals into the US in the past decade, labor trafficking has become a central issue for human rights groups.

According to the National Human Rights Center in Berkeley, California, there are currently about 10,000 forced laborers in the U.S., around one-third of whom are domestic servants and some portion of whom are children. In reality, this number could be far higher due to the difficulty in getting exact numbers of victims, due to the secretive nature of human trafficking. The U.S. government only keeps a count of survivors, defined as victims of severe instances of human trafficking, who have been assisted by the government in acquiring immigration benefits.^[23] Research at San Diego State University estimates that there are 2.4 million victims of human trafficking among illegal Mexican immigrants.^[50] Research by the Urban Institute says that law enforcement agencies do not prioritize labor trafficking cases, were reluctant to help victims obtain authorization to legally remain in the United States, and felt there was not enough evidence to corroborate victim statements.^[51]

In 2014, the National Human Trafficking Resource Center reported 990 cases of forced labor trafficking in the US, including 172 which also involved sex trafficking. The most common types of labor trafficking included domestic work, traveling sales crews, agriculture/farms, restaurant/food service, health & beauty services, begging, retail, landscaping, hospitality, construction, carnivals, elder care, forestry, manufacturing, and housekeeping.^[52]

In the United States, various industries have been known to take advantage of forced migrant labor. During the 2010 New York State Fair, 19 migrants who were in the country legally from Mexico to work in a food truck were essentially enslaved by their employer.^[53] The men were paid around ten percent of what they were promised, worked far longer days than they were contracted to, and would be deported if they had quit their job as this would be a violation of their visas.^[54] A 2021 multi-agency federal investigation dubbed "Operation Blooming Onion" revealed that a years long human trafficking ring forced migrant workers from Mexico and Central America into "modern day slavery" on various agricultural sites in southern Georgia. The indictment alleges that in the fields the migrant workers were forced at gunpoint to dig for onions with their bare hands for 20 cents per bucket. They were held in work camps surrounded by electrified fences and subjected to squalid and crammed living conditions, with no access to safe food or water.^[55]

Domestic servitude is the forced employment of someone as a maid or nanny, and victims are often migrant women who come from low-wage communities in their home countries.^[56] Domestic workers perform duties such as cleaning, cooking and childcare in their employers home. Domestic workers are commonly US citizens, undocumented workers or foreign nationals most commonly holding one of the following visa types: A-3, G-5, NATO-7 or B-1^[57] The most common victims of this type of trafficking are women. Similar means of control to Agricultural Work are common. Additionally, a lack of legislation regarding the duties and protection of these workers facilitates their exploitation. Employers commonly use the workers' lack of knowledge of the language or legal system as a means of control and intimidation. This is also commonly paired with various forms of abuse and/or passport revocation. Many domestic workers are brought to the United States on a promise of a better life or an education.^[58] Traffickers are usually married couples from the same country of origin as the trafficked person,^[59] and are usually not involved in organized criminal networks,^[60] making it more difficult to identify instances of this type of trafficking. Perpetrators of domestic servitude are often well-respected members of their communities and lead otherwise normal lives.^[60] Areas with large middle-class and upper-middle-class populations are commonly the destinations of this type of trafficking.^[56]

The Associated Press reports, based on interviews in California and Egypt, that trafficking of children for domestic labor in the U.S. includes an extension of an illegal but common practice in Africa. Families in remote villages send their daughters to work in cities for extra money and the opportunity to escape a dead-end life. Some girls work for free on the understanding that they at least will be better fed in the home of their employer. This custom has led to the spread of trafficking, as well-to-do Africans accustomed to employing children immigrate into the U.S.^[61]

Legally employed domestic workers are distinct from illegally employed domestic servants. While legally employed domestic house workers are fairly compensated for their work in accordance with national wage laws, domestic servants are typically forced to work extremely long hours for little to no monetary compensation, and psychological and physical means are employed to limit their mobility and freedom.^[56] In addition, deportation threats are often used to discourage internationally trafficked persons from seeking help.^[56]

Traveling sales crews have the highest rate of calls to human trafficking hotlines after domestic labor (counting from January 2008 to February 2015). The mobile nature makes it easier for traffickers to control their victims' sleeping arrangements and food and to alienate them from outside contact. Traffickers may withhold food or threaten to abandon their victims in unfamiliar locations without money if they do not comply. Unlike other professions, members of traveling sales crews are considered independent contractors even if they do not have any autonomy in their life outside of work. As independent contractors, they are not overseen by several laws meant to prevent abuse, such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Victims often incur debt from their traffickers, and enter into a form of debt slavery.^[62]

Malinda's Traveling Sales Crew Protection Act^[63] is a Wisconsin law that gives traveling sales crew members similar employment rights as part-time workers in Wisconsin are currently guaranteed by state law. It also requires all crews to register with the Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection before going door to door in state communities. By registering members of the crew, alerts for members with outstanding warrants in other states can be identified and criminals detained.^[64] It is the only law in the United States that regulates traveling sales crews.^[62] Wisconsin governor James E. Doyle says the intent of the law is to "stop companies from putting workers in dangerous and unfair conditions". The bill was passed in a form that applies only to sales workers who travel in groups of two or more.^[65] It was authored by Jon Erpenbach.^[64] Southwestern Advantage lobbied against the bill, arguing that their independent contractor business model nurtured the entrepreneurial spirit.^[66][67] During the hearings, former Southwestern student dealers testified on both sides of the issue.^[68]

In the agriculture sector, the most common victims of trafficking are U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents, undocumented immigrants, and foreign nationals with temporary H-2A visas.^[69] Due to the nature of agricultural work as being seasonal and transient, the ability of employers to exploit these workers is high. Such exploitation may take the form of threats of violence and playing on vulnerabilities (i.e. immigration status). In some cases, workers are held in a state of perpetual debt to the crew leaders who impose mandatory transportation, housing and communication fees upon the workers which are high in relation to pay received, therefore further indebting the worker. Crew leaders may also provide workers with H-2A visas and transportation to the place of work from a home country.

H-2A visa is a certification program, in which employers contract people from other countries, but first, the employers must try to recruit U.S. workers, before looking abroad.^[70] In attempts towards seeking employees, once they are hired they may encounter some difficulties such as:

1. May not be able to join a union or face legal challenges.
2. Requirements that farmers may not meet because of the program.^[70]

H-2A visas are temporary visas that allow people from other countries to work in the United States, with some benefits contractors need to provide to them. Examples include, "farmers are required to these workers with housing and pay for transportation to the job, pay them at least three-quarters of the season at a higher rate, than the average paid rate of that work".^[70] Yet, the circumstances of the law states for free housing, "prevailing practice in the area and occupation of intended employment".^[70] Farmers who are working and have families are not guaranteed housing situations. Farm workers are being controlled greatly, their lives are vulnerable in fear that they may be deported back to their homeland.^[70]

Due to the nature of agricultural work as being seasonal and transient, the ability of employers to exploit these workers is high. Such exploitation may take the form of threats of violence and play on vulnerabilities (i.e. immigration status). In some cases, workers are held in a state of perpetual debt to the crew leaders who impose mandatory transportation, housing, and communication fees upon the workers which are high in relation to payments received, therefore further indebting the worker. Crew leaders may also provide workers with H-2A visas and transportation to the place of work from a home country. Part of the H-2A visa is that it does not provide an adequate choice of their employment, how much would they be paid for their work, or even the hours, are not negotiable. Undocumented people who come without any visas have a greater chance to choose of where they wish to work and decide to leave the employment if they wish and have a better chance of not being exploited.^[71]

The United States Armed Forces has been alleged to hire contractors to conduct work on its overseas military bases that are engaged in what some auditors describe as potentially "forced labor and human trafficking." These contractors' workers are often foreign laborers that conduct their work in poor and sometimes dangerous conditions for low pay. Additionally, the contractors sometimes keep their workers' passports, which restricts their freedom of movement.^[72][73][74]

According to Polaris hotline statistics, people from Latin America make up almost one-third of the population of victims of human traffic in the United States.^[75] Most victims are from Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, and the Dominican Republic.^[75] Nearly 29 percent of victims enter the US through the Mexico-United States border by human smuggling while the majority come with work visas.^[76]

There are some circumstances or vulnerabilities that have led some Latin Americans to a higher susceptibility to victimization and human trafficking. The relationship between "push" factors that result in poverty (i.e. unemployment, natural disasters, drug abuse, etc.) and "pull" factors (i.e. risky job opportunities, deceitful romantic relationships, the American Dream that is fueled by mass media, etc.) encourages Latin Americans to accept risky job proposition in the US. Once the victims fall for deceitful labor recruiters, traffickers exploit vulnerabilities to keep victims under their control such as language barrier and illiteracy, fear of deportation due to lack of documentation, isolation from family, friends, and the public, unfamiliarity with surroundings and with the laws, indebtedness, drug dependence, and physical and psychological abuse. Deportation can often leave trafficked victims at the mercy of their traffickers once again or it may cause harm to their families through either punishment by the traffickers or a loss of remittances that the traffickers had been sending to the family.^[77] Furthermore, when natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes strike Latin American countries, traffickers often capitalize on impoverished families who cannot afford to support their kids. In 2013, three years after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake devastated Haiti, the United States government estimated that between 150,000 and 500,000 children in Haiti were involved in domestic servitude.^[78]

With the increase in U.S. border security, undocumented Latino immigrants have increasingly turned to smugglers to lead them through Mexico and across the U.S.-Mexican border. The colloquial term coyote refers to human smuggling along the Mexico-United States border. The term used to imply that the relationship between the smuggler and the migrant ended once they arrived in the US.^[79] However, it has become increasingly commonplace for coyotes to coerce migrants into exploitative labor arrangements upon reaching their destination in the U.S. (frequently a different one from that which they paid to be smuggled to).^[79] These smuggling routes have become more dangerous and therefore costlier, making some smugglers sell undocumented migrants into situations of forced labor or prostitution to recover their costs.^[79] Illegal immigrants transiting Mexico often fail to report abuses committed against them by criminals or officials in their home countries or along their journey because of fears of deportation. Unaccompanied minors are sometimes sold into prostitution by the trafficker, and their families are falsely led to believe that they died during transit.^[79]

According to cases reported to Polaris-operated hotlines, survivors of this type of labor trafficking are disproportionately Latino male migrant workers, mostly from Mexico and Central America, on seasonal H-2A visas. Despite the H-2A program requirement that employers supply workers with suitable housing, traffickers have also been known to subject victims to squalid living conditions, often denying them even necessities such as beds and indoor toilets.^[75] This type of labor trafficking occurs in places from orange orchards to corn fields, but some crops such as tobacco require much more intensive labor to harvest, making them more susceptible to forced labor or exploitation. By far the most common method of control in agriculture, as in many other types, is economic abuse, including wage theft, improper deductions, and payment at piece rates rather than hourly rates.^[75]

Data from Polaris has indicated that foreign national men and women from Mexico and Central America tend to be equally victimized. Victims can be confined at the restaurant around the clock or be isolated in a nearby home provided by the traffickers.^[75]

Having a legal work visa is not necessarily a protection against abuse; the Urban Institute estimated 82% of cases of domestic worker trafficking it reviewed had come to the US on legal visas.^[80] Labor trafficking victims in domestic work commonly work 12–18 hours a day (some as much as 24/7) for little to no pay. They may experience extreme isolation and confinement from the outside world, sexual harassment, high levels of monitoring, debt bondage, extreme wage theft, confiscation of critical documents such as passports, and restricted access to food and medical care.^[75]

Domestic workers perform duties such as cleaning, cooking and childcare in their employers home. Domestic workers are commonly US citizens, undocumented workers or foreign nationals most commonly holding one of the following visa types: A-3, G-5, NATO-7 or B-1^[81] The most common victims of this type of trafficking are women. Similar means of control to Agricultural Work are common. Additionally, a lack of legislation regarding the duties and protection of these workers facilitates their exploitation. Employers commonly use the workers lack of knowledge of the language or legal system as a means of control and intimidation. This is also commonly paired with various forms of abuse and/or passport revocation. Many domestic workers are brought to the United States on a promise of a better life or an education.

Most labor trafficking survivors in construction are men from Mexico and the Northern Triangle (El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala), most of whom have H-2B visas or are undocumented. Workers can enter their exploitative situations through formal job offers and misrepresented visa contracts. In some cases, workers may be charged illegal and exorbitant recruitment fees, which may be a method of control to keep workers in abusive situations. Recruitment may also begin through an abusive migration journey or through word-of-mouth referrals.^[75]

Most of the victims that suffer from sex trafficking come from Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean, and only 11% come from the United States.^[82][83] Severe brutality and abuse are the tactics used to control the victims, over half of who are minors.^[75] 96% of the potential victims are female from either Mexico or Central America and 63% of the victims are minors because the traffickers in the cantinas are eager to target young girls.^[75]

Women and girls ages 14–29 from the area demographics of Mexico and Central America are often victimized by bars and cantinas.^[84] The Latina woman and girls who are targeted by traffickers lack economic means, English fluency and legal status which makes the process easier for traffickers to manipulate them.^[75]

Latin American women and girls that are smuggled into the United States are also often exposed to the world of commercial sex trade better known as "escort services". There are two ways in which the operation can proceed: one is described as an "outcall", where the traffickers deliver victims to the buyer's hotel room or their homes. The second option is "incall" which is when the customers cycle in and out of a hotel room while the trafficker extends the victims' stay. Many of these interactions between the buyers, the traffickers, and the victims took place on the website backpage.com where Latinas had their own category. The website has been closed since January 2017.^[75]

Brothels catering exclusively to Latino males, referred to as "Latino Residential Brothels", are a major vehicle for sex trafficking, with the victims being almost exclusively women and children from Latin America.^[85][86] Trafficking of U.S. citizens within the U.S. occurs as well. They typically own informal underground businesses in urban, suburban, and rural areas.

Poverty can lead to increased trafficking in many different ways. Poverty affects the notion of individual choice and often drives families to make decisions out of desperation and lack of education.^[87] Poverty, in some countries, may influence parents to send their children to work in another urban country with a more stable economy, such as the U.S., without the knowledge that the child is then forced into slave labor or prostitution. Furthermore, once this kidnapping and trafficking of the child occur, the victim often accepts their situation and limits efforts to escape their imprisonment. Oftentimes, they wind up alone in a country where they do not speak the language, making it difficult to seek aid.^[88] In addition, victims often accept their positions because they feel that this is the only way that they may send some remittances to their family and their enslaved situations may in some cases still be better than their original impoverished and desperate state.^[87]

The rate of human trafficking has directly increased in correlation with globalization.^[89] Globalization has increased cross-border trade and the demand for cheap labor; however, migration policies of the U.S. and other countries have not changed with the level of demand for cheap labor, thus forcing people illegally to immigrate.^[87] Illegal immigration then creates ideal conditions for organized criminal operations to form trafficking circles.^[87] With increased trade of foreign goods to rural areas, import competition in the rural markets has also forced people in poor areas to migrate to industrialized economies for better livelihoods. Their desperate positions often make them subject to exploitation and trafficking into different forms of forced labor to support that economy.^[87] Lastly, the technological advances that go hand in hand with globalization have facilitated the ease with which organized crime circles may conduct trafficking operations.^[87]

Some feminists, such as Carole Pateman, believe that exploitation is in both prostitution and sex trafficking.^[90] They believe that even if the women agreed to be a sex worker in a foreign country that the worker was still trafficked because of the preceding conditions that lead her to believe that sex work was the only viable work option.^[90] Other feminists such as Kamala Kempadoo, on the other hand, believe that prostitution is a form of labor just like any other migrant labor; however, due to the criminalization of prostitution, prostitutes are then subject to coercion and exploitation and subsequent trafficking.^[77] In the US, each year 80,000 women are arrested for prostitution. Current debates about modifications to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 policy are based on these two arguments. In providing aid for victims of sex trafficking the government must take a stand on whether or not they believe the sex industry and sex trafficking are inherently linked.^[87] These people involved in prostitution have an 80% higher chance of sexually transmitted infections and many are never able to afford to seek treatment. This results in serious infections, lifelong diseases, and sometimes even death.^[91]

Even though the U.S. offers protection for trafficking victims, few victims seek the government's aid due to fear of corruption, fear of deportation, or fear of reprisals from their families.^[92] Victims of trafficking may be citizens of countries with corrupt governments that actually aid trafficking.^[92] Where victims' home countries lack reliable police systems, trafficking victims are hesitant to reach out to the law for aid. Jessa Dillow Crisp was one of many victims of human trafficking, who had encountered the police in her town to be corrupt and involved in the trafficking.^[93]

Шаблон:More citations needed section

Laws against trafficking exist at the federal and state levels. Government efforts focus on regulating the tourism industry to prevent the facilitation of sex tourism and regulate international marriage brokers to ensure criminal background checks and information on how to get help are given to potential brides.

Washington State and Texas were the first states to ban human trafficking as a specific offense in 2003. By 2015, all 50 states had such laws. Some states, such as California, actively prosecute such crimes, but in most states, these laws are seldom used, and most offenses are prosecuted at the federal level.^[94]

Human trafficking is a federal crime under Title 18 of the United States Code. Section 1584 makes it a crime to force a person to work against her or his will, or to sell a person into a condition of involuntary servitude.^[95]

Section 1581 similarly makes it illegal to force a person to work through "debt servitude".^[96] Human trafficking as it relates to involuntary servitude and slavery is prohibited by the 13th Amendment. Federal laws on human trafficking are enforced by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the United States Marshal Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division and Criminal Section, and other federal agencies.

The Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 allowed for greater statutory maximum sentences for traffickers, provided resources for the protection of and assistance for victims of trafficking, and created avenues for interagency cooperation. It also allows many trafficking victims to remain in the U.S. and apply for permanent residency under a T-1 Visa.^[97] Previously, trafficked individuals who were often in the country illegally were treated as criminals. According to the section on Severe Forms of Trafficking in Persons, the definition extends to include any "commercial sex act... in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age".^[98] This means that any minor engaged in prostitution is a victim of human trafficking, regardless of citizenship or whether or not movement has taken place.^[99]

The law defines trafficking as "the prohibition against any individual who provides or obtains labor or services for peonage, slavery, involuntary servitude, or forced labor." The law distinguishes trafficking, where victims are coerced into entering the U.S., from smuggling, where migrants enter the country without authorization.^[100] The act also attempted to encourage efforts to prevent human trafficking internationally, by creating annual country reports on trafficking and tying financial non-humanitarian assistance to foreign countries to real efforts in addressing human trafficking. The benefits of the law, however, are dependent on the survivor's cooperation in prosecuting the perpetrators. This can be complicated if the victim fears retribution from their trafficker or has a fear of authority that remains from their country of origin.^[23]

The original TVPA of 2000 has been reauthorized thrice, the most recent being the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008. These reauthorizations have clarified definitions of trafficking and forced labor in order both to aid in the prosecution of traffickers and to aid the victims of trafficking. The reauthorization versions have also required the federal government to terminate all contracts with overseas contractors involved in human trafficking or forced labor. Extraterritorial jurisdiction was also extended to cover all U.S. nationals and permanent residents who are living overseas.^[101]

In "October 2000, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) (Public Law 106-386) was enacted. Prior to that, no comprehensive Federal law existed to protect victims of trafficking or to prosecute their traffickers".^[20] In 2003, the Bush administration authorized more than $200 million (~$NaN in 2018) to combat human trafficking through the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2003 (TVPRA). TVPRA renews the U.S. government's commitment to identify and assist victims exploited through labor and sex trafficking in the U.S. The U.S. has also set up programs to help those who have been victims. The government can help victims, once identified, by stabilizing their immigrant status. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) enables victims who are non-U.S. citizens to receive federally funded benefits and services to the same extent as a refugee; as well, U.S. citizens who are victims are eligible for many benefits.^[102][103]

The U visa is available to individuals who have been victims of specific qualifying criminal acts, such as domestic violence, human trafficking, sexual assault, and hate crimes.^[104] Once granted, the U visa allows victims to remain and work legally in the United States for up to four years and can be extended in certain situations. Victims who meet specific requirements can apply for lawful permanent residency, also known as a Green Card. Eligibility for both T visas and U visas requires the victim to assist or cooperate with law enforcement in the detection, investigation, or prosecution of human trafficking or qualifying criminal activity. Some exceptions and exemptions apply for victims who were under 18 years of age or who have suffered physical or psychological trauma. Exceptions and special rules also exist for U visa applicants who are under 16 years of age or are incompetent or incapacitated.^[104]

The T visa provides T nonimmigrant status as a temporary immigration benefit to individuals who are victims of severe human trafficking and have complied with law enforcement requests or qualify for an exemption. Certain family members may also be eligible for derivative T nonimmigrant status. As a T nonimmigrant status holder, individuals can work and receive certain benefits, and may also be able to become lawful permanent residents if they meet specific requirements. Qualifying family members who may be eligible to apply for T nonimmigrant status include parents, unmarried siblings under 18 years of age, and children of any age or marital status of your qualifying family members who have been granted derivative T nonimmigrant status.^[105]

The federal government has set up a National Human Trafficking Resource Center Hotline (1-888-373-7888).^[106] The hotline answers questions and responds to crises in over 200 languages,^[107] and provides materials in over 20 languages.^[108] Since 2007, the hotline has received over 60,000 calls. Callers include victims of human trafficking seeking services, as well as individuals and organizations seeking information about human trafficking. Twenty-five states have mandated certain types of businesses to post a hotline.^[109] Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Tennessee have their own hotline while the others use the national hotline.^[110]

Safe harbor laws protect victims of human trafficking from legal prosecution of crimes committed while under the influence of the trafficker and provide services such as counseling and housing and protect them from their exploiters.^[111] Victims of trafficking are protected under federal law but may still be charged under state law.

The federal Stop Exploitation Through Trafficking Act of 2013 is a law that encourages states to pass safe harbor laws. It elevated the status of the National Human Trafficking Hotline and opened up the Job Corps program to sex trafficking victims.^[112]

The AMA and antislavery advocacy groups ask doctors and health professionals to look out for possible victims of human trafficking as most get to health care services at some time. Healthcare services have the chance to rescue them.^[113]

• Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW): influences shaping of U.S. policy against trafficking.^[114][115] Does not acknowledge a difference between prostitution and sex trafficking.^[116]
• Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW): influences shaping of U.S. policy against trafficking.^[114] Distinguishes between prostitution and sex trafficking.^[115][116]
• Real Women Real Stories is an international collection of filmed testimonies of women around the world, who submit, share and discuss different contents and topics about human trafficking. In the US alone, Real Women Real Stories and its founder Matan Uziel donated more than $5.5 million as of January 2022 to human trafficking victims.
• The Trafficking Education Network focuses on educating and training people, so they are better equipped to respond to human trafficking.^[117]
• Worthwhile Wear is an international organization that provides an escape for those forced into prostitution or human trafficking. Overseas, survivors are provided vocational training and employment where they can learn to make items such as clothing, bags, and jewelry, and earn up to five times more than their counterparts. This provides the women with a way to stay out of forced prostitution. In the US, Worthwhile Wear operates a program called, The Well, offering long-term housing (up to two years), restorative services, and employment to women, 18 years and older, who have been affected by human trafficking.^[118][119]

International NGOs such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have called on the U.S. to improve its measures aimed at reducing trafficking. They recommend that the U.S. more fully implement the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children and for immigration officers to improve their awareness of trafficking and support the victims of trafficking.^[120][121]

A number of authorities and critics of contemporary anti-prostitution activism have pointed out that the hysteria over human trafficking as conflated with voluntary adult prostitution has all the hallmarks of a moral panic, and indeed closely resembles the white slavery hysteria at the beginning of the 20th century. As is typical in such panics, broad claims are made with insufficient factual support, "horror stories" of victims take the place of research, and legislators rush to enact dangerously broad and vague legislation which infringes on civil rights.^[122]

Anthropologist Laura Agustín has written at great length about the way voluntary migration is purposefully conflated with involuntary trafficking, and how anti-trafficking laws tend to assume any foreign or underage prostitute is a "trafficking victim" even if she denies it. In a similar vein, ethnographers studying U.S.-born adolescents involved in street-based sex markets have argued that the relationships that these adolescents have with the adults in their lives who help facilitate their market activity typically have a far greater mutuality and equality than is understood by policy-makers, social service providers, and not-for-profit advocates who embrace the human trafficking model.^[122] Such critiques of this narrative have generally been dismissed by activists as evidence of Stockholm syndrome, thus denying the prostitute agency and treating her as mentally ill.^{[123][124][125][126]}

Ethnographers concerned with the validity of activists' impressions studied a federal anti-trafficking task force in a city that had been identified as a hub for domestic minor sex trafficking. In comparing local sex markets with the understandings of local social service providers, law enforcement officials, and anti-trafficking activists participating in the task force they found that many of the claims of widespread trafficking activity were either exaggerations or misinterpretations of anecdotal evidence; thus, calling into question activists' ability to understand the context of what they were seeing.^[127]

• "Sixteen Tons" is a song by Tennessee Ernie Ford about debt bondage under the truck system among coal miners in Kentucky in the early 1900s. The practice was since made illegal and is considered a form of labor trafficking.
• Mommie Dearest; "Joan Crawford['s]... Mommie Dearest daughter supposedly came from the Tennessee Children's Home Society."^[128][а]

• California's Forgotten Children is a feature documentary that follows a diverse group of resilient survivors of child sex trafficking who are now courageous leaders fighting for the rights of victims worldwide. The film supports the stories of survivors with current statistics and perspectives of sexual exploitation from professionals in social services, law enforcement, advocates, and child welfare. It focuses on those who were wrongfully criminalized in the judicial system; manipulated and coerced by family, friends, and caretakers; and exploited by multiple slavery industries.^{[129][130][131]}
• I am Jane Doe is a documentary chronicling the legal battle that several American mothers are waging on behalf of their middle-school daughters, who were trafficked for commercial sex on Backpage.com, the classified advertising website formerly owned by the Village Voice. The film is narrated by Jessica Chastain, directed by filmmaker Mary Mazzio, and produced by Mazzio along with Alec Sokolow.^[132]
• The Men of Atalissa is a documentary film by POV.org and The New York Times^[133] about 32 intellectually challenged people who were employed by Texas-based Henry's Turkey Service without proper compensation, and were abused physically and mentally, living in harsh conditions, at Atalissa, Iowa, for more than 30 years beginning in the 1970s. The men were paid a wage of $65 a month, sheltered in an old uphill schoolhouse, and were used for meat processing. Their conditions were made public in 2009, leading to a $240 million jury verdict, subsequently reduced to $50,000 per person. The documentary is based on court records and internal documents of the company and features first-time interviews with seven of the victims.^[134]

Trafficked workers often face permanent physical and psychological damage as a result of their ordeal such as post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other health problems. Child workers face especially serious consequences which may include a lack of education, illiteracy and stunted growth.^[135]

Although the surface economic impact of labor trafficking can be seen as positive due to the cheap labor and a subsequent drop in the price of products, the negative economic impacts are significant.^[136] The unseen costs of labor trafficking can include resources dedicated to its prevention, treatment of victims and apprehension of perpetrators. This type of trafficking also diverts earnings from workers and their families to employers. However, labor trafficking continues to be a primary source of income for criminal networks.^[137]

In 1865, the Civil War was ended and the Emancipation Proclamation took full effect, freeing the slaves in the formerly Confederate-held territory. Later that same year, the 13th Amendment was passed, therefore officially outlawing the practice of slavery.^[138] A second section of this amendment allowing the government to enforce and pass laws to ensure the 13th amendment was upheld, but the ultimate end to the practice of slavery as defined by the amendment took many years to become realized, with many alternative forms of slavery still being practiced (i.e. sharecropping, peonage, convict leasing).^[139]

There is currently little knowledge as to the causes of trafficking.^[140] In the United States, human trafficking is a criminal activity thought to exist because of high demand, high profit and low risks.^[141]

In Texas, Georgia, Alabama and Arkansas, prisoners are not paid at all for their work.^[142] In other states, prisoners are paid between $0.12 and $1.15 per hour.^[143] Federal Prison Industries paid inmates an average of $0.90 per hour in 2017.^[144] Inmates that refuse to work may be indefinitely remanded into solitary confinement,^[145] or have family visitation revoked.^[146] From 2010 to 2015^[147] and again in 2016^[148] and in 2018,^[149] some prisoners in the US refused to work, protesting for better pay, better conditions, and for the end of forced labor. Strike leaders were punished with indefinite solitary confinement.^[150][151]

• Human Trafficking Ring Dismantled (FBI)