Human Trafficking

What is the human trafficking problem?

Human trafficking is the most prevalent and painful injustice of our time. The children, women and men who are trafficked have a vulnerability (ranging from poverty to low self-esteem) that makes them a target for false recruitment promises, sexual grooming and other forms of coercion and fraud. Rather than treating these people as human beings, traffickers use them as products to be sold for personal profit. Today there are over 40 million people in forced labor (including commercial sexual exploitation) and forced marriage around the world, with women and girls disproportionally affected.¹ Contrary to poular belief, the majority of human trafficking in the U.S. is domestic trafficking: the U.S., Mexico and The Philippines were the top sources of federally-identified victims in 2018.² Colorado is a hub of human trafficking in the country (look up the statistics for your own state!).

This problem affects every one of us. People are trafficked into at least 25 industries, from construction, restaurants and massage parlors to commercial sex.³ They work in faraway factories, fisheries and farms. They work in nearby stores and restaurants. Vulnerable populations are forced, lured and deceived into situations where they endanger their own lives and work in unsafe conditions. Whether we see them or not, they bring us products and services we use everyday.

The problem is very real on the individual level for each survivor. While human trafficking awareness and favorable may have increased, many survivors still struggle to access justice and get back on their feet because of the legal impacts of the trafficking experience.  Without a way to identity theft, secure child custody or clear criminal records for crimes the trafficker forced them to commit, survivors risk homelessness and being re-trafficked. They are effectively blocked from building a safe and successful life.

The problem is very real on the individual level for each survivor. While human trafficking awareness and favorable may have increased, many survivors still struggle to access justice and get back on their feet because of the legal impacts of the trafficking experience.  Without a way to identity theft, secure child custody or clear criminal records for crimes the trafficker forced them to commit, survivors risk homelessness and being re-trafficked. They are effectively blocked from building a safe and successful life.

What does human trafficking mean?

Essentially, human trafficking is the severe exploitation of someone for the purposes of sex or labor through force, fraud or coercion. Victims and survivors of human trafficking include children, women and men, and come from different races and religions. It has many faces and includes more situations than many people realize. But the common elements are clear — someone with more relative power targeting someone with a social vulnerability and compelling (physically or psychologically) that person to work or provide commercial sexual services.

What are examples of human trafficking?

The below populations are among the most vulnerable to trafficking in the U.S. ⁴ It also points to an increase in the use of online social media platforms to recruit and advertise.

• Children in the child welfare and juvenile justice system, including foster care
• Runaway and homeless youth
• Unaccompanied foreign national children without lawful immigration status
• American Indians and Alaska Natives, particularly women and girls
• Individuals with drug addictions
• Migrant laborers, including undocumented workers and participants in visa programs for temporary workers
• Foreign national domestic workers in diplomatic households
• Persons with limited English proficiency
• Persons with disabilities
• LGBTQIA+ individuals
• Participants in court-ordered substance use diversion programs

Learn more at The Many Faces of Human Trafficking.

What tools do traffickers use to control their victims?

Traffickers want to keep their victims isolated, dependent and hopeless, and so they may use different tactics.

• Abuse individuals physically, sexually, psychologically and emotionally, sometimes through calculated unpredictability
• Threaten families and loved ones
• Destroy, conceal, confiscate, or deny access to passports, driver’s licenses and personal belongings
• Impose harsh conditions of individual’s captivity, such as unsanitary housing, low quality food and water, limited freedom of movement
• Expose individual to cruel working conditions, such as crowded factories, high levels of pesticide, unsafe work equipment, long working hours, inadequate pay
• Refuse communication or access to people that could help, such as neighbors, community, family and friends
• Misrepresent terms of employment through misleading recruitment practices that do not disclose basic information and lie about wages and fringe benefits, location of work, employer-arranged living conditions and housing, significant costs charged to employees and dangerous nature of work
• Charge high recruitment fees that can never be repaid with the earned wages

What do human trafficking survivors need?

Human trafficking survivors’ needs are as diverse as their stories. For someone who has been trafficked, the road to rebuilding a stable and fulfilling life is long and hard. Many survivors report having diverse legal issues that are related to how the trafficker abused the law to control them, such as criminal records, debt and child custody. These legal issues often block their ability to reclaim their lives and find employment, qualify for housing and access services and benefits. Survivors need professional legal help to move out of vulnerability to stability. Often, connecting quickly to an attorney is the critical difference between staying trapped in the trafficking cycle, and the hope and opportunity we all deserve.