HUMAN TRAFFICKING OR TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS, IS THE EXPLOITATION OF HUMAN BEINGS THROUGH FORCE, FRAUD OR COERCION FOR THE PURPOSES OF COMMERCIAL SEX OR FORCED LABOR.
Any person under age 18 who performs a commercial sex act is considered a victim of human trafficking, regardless of whether force, fraud, or coercion was present. Human trafficking is a multi-billion dollar industry second only to drug trafficking in annual profit. U.S. Department of State estimates that 14,500 to 17,500 persons are brought into the United States each year for labor or sexual exploitation.
The Federal Definition of sex trafficking is:
(A) sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such has not attained 18 years of age; or
(b) 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.
HUMAN TRAFFICKING DEFINED:
https://www.justice.gov/humantrafficking
Human Trafficking is a crime involving the exploitation of a person for labor, services, or commercial sex.
The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 and its subsequent reauthorizations recognize and define two primary forms of human trafficking:
- Sex trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, obtaining, patronizing, or soliciting of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age. (22 U.S.C. § 7102(11)(A)).
- Forced labor 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 purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery. (22 U.S.C. § 7102(11)(B)).
Additional legal definitions are contained in 18 U.S.C. Chapter 77 (criminal definitions) and 19 U.S.C. § 1307 (includes definition of “forced labor” for purposes of implementing the federal prohibition on importation of goods produced with forced labor).