History is repeating itself.  Slavery is an ancient problem known to humankind. Yet today, human trafficking is the second largest criminal industry in the world and the fastest growing.   We are now faced with the most vast and global slave trade ever known to the human race.  There are more people enslaved today than at any point in history.

Human Trafficking is Modern Day Slavery. Victims of human trafficking are subjected to force, fraud, or coercion, for the purpose of sexual exploitation or forced labor. Victims are young children, teenagers, men and women.

Human Trafficking should be seen as a human rights issue.  Human trafficking is the violations of one’s human rights, the stripping of those rights that we are all entitled to.  When addressing human trafficking from a human rights perspective we are centering our efforts on upholding the human rights of trafficked person…restoring their human freedom.

In the United States, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) defines “Severe Forms of Trafficking in Persons” as:

• Sex Trafficking: the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining 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 forced to perform such an act is under the age of 18 years; or
  • Sex Trafficking may occur but not limited to:
    • Strip Clubs
    • Spas/ Modeling Studios
    • Cantinas
    • Residential Brothels in Hotels, Apartment, Houses

• Labor Trafficking: 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.
  • Labor Trafficking may occur but not limited to:
    • Agricultural Work
    • Restaurants
    • Nail Salons
    • Domestic Servitude
    • Peddling/Begging

Traffickers use force, fraud, and/or coercion to maintain control over their victims and engage them in these activities.

Force:  rape, beatings, and confinement

Fraud:  False offers of employment, education, or a better life

Coercion:  threats of serious harm to them or family members