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Human Trafficking

About 15,000 women and girls are trafficked into the United States each year for coerced labor and sexual exploitation.1
Trafficked women and girls may be forced into prostitution, the production of pornography, or other forms of commercial sexual activity—including exploitative marriages. They may be compelled by threat of violence to labor in sweatshops, households, agricultural fields, or other workplaces. Women and girls who are trafficked for exploitative labor are almost always subject to sexual violence.2 Yet they are virtually invisible in our communities—to neighbors, community groups and policymakers alike.
International trafficking is fueled by the extreme poverty face by so many women and children around the world.
Trafficked women come into the United States from desperately impoverished communities in Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa and Latin America. Severe economic hardship encourages women, girls and their families to believe traffickers’ false promises of jobs and opportunities in wealthy countries such as the United States.3
The federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act created a new federal criminal offense and provided protections for victims of trafficking.
Before the passage of the federal law in 2000, victims who came forward were often deported to their home countries because of their undocumented immigration status—a practice which frequently resulted in brutal retaliation from their traffickers and eventual re-trafficking into a new situation. The federal law created the T Nonimmigrant Visa (T Visa), which permits women and girls who have been trafficked and who are willing to assist local, state or federal law enforcement “in every reasonable way” to remain legally in the United States and be joined by their families. The law was reauthorized in 2003 and 2005.
Without additional state intervention, current laws are insufficient to prevent and penalize human trafficking.
Given the extent of the problem facing the United States, the federal anti-trafficking law is insufficient. There is a major role for state policy and a major need for strengthened state-federal partnerships. States can:
  • Criminalize the activities of traffickers without penalizing their victims.
  • Identify the elements of force, threat, deceit and fraud that characterize the traffickers’ ability to recruit and control victims.
  • Extend criminal penalties to all individuals who participate in the offense of human trafficking—recruiters, transporters and those who confine victims, as well as others who benefit from the trafficking of another person.
  • Prohibit traffickers’ use of the victims’ alleged “consent” as a defense.
  • Require restitution to help victims recover financially and allow them to sue traffickers for compensatory and punitive damages.
  • Allow law enforcement officials to seize assets resulting from the trafficking.
  • Ensure that state and local law enforcement personnel are trained to enforce anti-trafficking laws.
  • Provide funding to programs that offer services for victims of trafficking, including mental and physical health care, safe and secure housing, economic assistance, legal aid, education and job training.4
Twenty-five states have criminalized human trafficking.
AK, AZ, AR, CA, CO, CT, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, IA, KS, LA, MI, MN, MS, MO, NE, NJ, NC, PA, SC, TX and WA have enacted laws that criminalize human trafficking.5 Twelve states enacted their laws in 2006.

This policy summary relies in large part on information from the Center for Women Policy Studies.6

Endnotes
  1. U.S. Department of State, “Ambassador John R. Miller Briefing on the Fifth Annual Trafficking in Persons Report,” June 3, 2005.
  2. Center for Women Policy Studies, “Resource Guide for State Legislators: Model Provisions for State Anti-Trafficking Laws,” July 2005.
  3. U.S. Department of State, “The 2006 Trafficking in Persons Report,” June 2006.
  4. “Resource Guide for State Legislators.”
  5. Center for Women Policy Studies, “Fact Sheet on State Anti-Trafficking Laws,” October 2006.
  6. The Center for Women Policy Studies has a comprehensive model state anti-trafficking law.
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