Human Trafficking

Sadly, some victims are trafficked by family members while others are  initiated into “the life” through an older boyfriend or girlfriend who  forces them to perform sex acts for personal profit. These victims often  have a difficult early life including poverty, child maltreatment,  domestic violence or substance use in the home which places them at risk  for being trafficked.

Under U.S. federal law, “severe forms of trafficking in persons” includes both sex trafficking and labor trafficking:

• Sex trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transportation,  provision, obtaining, patronizing, or soliciting of a person for the  purposes of a commercial sex act, in which the commercial sex act is  induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to  perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age (22 USC § 7102).

In this case, there appears to be a growing demand fueled by easy  access through the internet, and a ready supply of victims that are  constantly being recruited and exploited.

Sadly, some victims are trafficked by family members, some end up  selling sex as a means to support drug use, while others are initiated  into “the life” through an older boyfriend or girlfriend who forces them  to perform sex acts for personal profit. These victims often have a  difficult early life including poverty, child maltreatment, domestic  violence or substance use in the home which places them at risk for  being trafficked.

Successful prosecution of traffickers is a long and complicated  process for law enforcement. It is very difficult to get victims to  testify against their traffickers. Victims are often scared and fear  retaliation.

For more information on how traffickers control their victims download the human trafficking power and control wheel.

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