Human Trafficking is defined as the recruitment, harboring, moving, or obtaining of a person by force, fraud or coercions for the purpose of involuntary servitude, debt bondage, slavery or commercial sex acts.
Minors under the age of 18 detained for commercial sex are not criminals, but sex trafficking victims, and are not subject to criminal prostitution charges.
Human trafficking is a crime against every person’s God-given basic human rights and dignity.
Labor & Sex Trafficking
Understanding recruitment methods and how trafficking occurs in a community will assist with the identification of potential victims.
Most victims are not kidnapped in the United States but the use of force can occur including physical restraint, physical harm, sexual assault, beatings and confinement and is often used to control victims, especially during early stages of victimization to break down the victim’s resistance.
Includes false promises regarding employment, wages, working conditions, love, marriage or a better life. Over time, there may be unexpected changes in work conditions, compensation or debt agreements or nature of relationship.
Includes threats of serious harm to or physical restraint against any person, psychological manipulation, document confiscation, and shame and fear-inducing threats to share information or pictures with others or report to authorities.
When we think of human trafficking, we may think of a child in India making rugs or working on family farms in another country or victims are forced to work for little or no pay, under the threat of violence, often manufacturing or harvesting the products we use and consume every day. What we may not realize is that this happens in the United States as well.
Women are held against their will, impregnated and give birth. Their babies are then taken from them and sold to couples or used in organ trafficking.
Women and children who are forced to marry another without their consent or against their will. Child marriage is still legal in many states in the U.S. and is still practiced here.
Do you recall the Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh where the building collapsed killing more than 1,100 garment workers? How many know there’s a FABRIC Act Coalition fighting for the rights and wages of workers here in the U.S. Labor exploitation also happens here in the U.S. You can learn more about this issue with the Catholic Purchasing Alliance.
Thousands of children are recruited and used in armed conflicts across the world.
Receipt of living or deceased persons or their organs using threat or use of force or other forms of coercion.
Trafficking is due in part to the greed of the perpetrators for wealth, control and power. It is also due to the demand of the consumer who wants to buy people for sex, view pornography and buy cheaper products of all types.
You may be enabling human trafficking when you buy products from these victims’ labor (these are not all inclusive).
Traffickers tend to prey on the most vulnerable. Those living in extreme poverty, who lost their livelihoods due to natural disasters or have a need to belong and feel loved, abused, poor and unemployed.
Traffickers can look like those we know and trust. They can be men and women, any age, those in authority, teachers, politicians, family members, celebrities, law enforcement, religious leaders, and teenagers.
Traffickers can prey anywhere, but the internet and social media are a major source for predator’s recruitment:
Traffickers meet the needs of love, belonging, and esteem through online grooming or by posing as a boyfriend (also known as the Romeo Trafficker or Boyfriend Pimp).
