Description and Dynamics
Identifying Human Trafficking
Myths and Realities
Statistics
Additional Resources

What is human trafficking?

Human trafficking is an exploitation of the poverty and vulnerability of another human being for the goal of obtaining labor or commercial sexual services.  It is a violation of basic human rights and is often considered to be a form of modern day slavery.  Traffickers treat the victims of human trafficking as commodities or possessions to control and exploit them.  Human trafficking as a crime involves the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons, through force, fraud, or coercion for involuntary servitude, debt bondage, slavery, or commercial sex. 

Human trafficking can be a part of organized criminal activities with an extensive network of traffickers that exploit a person; however, it can also happen on a smaller scale, such as domestic servitude cases.  Human trafficking can overlap with domestic violence, where an intimate partner exploits the victim in order to force or manipulate them to perform acts of labor, sex, or both.  Although traffickers often transport victims through borders in order to cover the tracks of the acts of trafficking, human trafficking can occur domestically or internationally for foreign nationals. 

Human trafficking can be both labor and sex trafficking, and sometimes those areas overlap.  Sexual acts can be considered labor in certain circumstances.   A common misconception is that trafficking is all about sex and prostitution, so therefore a lot of labor trafficking crimes go unreported. 

Identifying Human Trafficking

Human trafficking covers a broad range of scenarios and situations, and therefore identification of human trafficking situations are especially difficult.  Generally, traffickers use the vulnerability of the person, whether it’s due to their inexperience, age, language challenges, or economic circumstance to maintain control.  Sometimes there are physical forms of control – keeping a victim harbored in locations where there is complete control by the trafficker.  Sometimes, however, the control is more indirect.  For example, in debt bondage cases, the ever increasing amount of debts holds a victim of human trafficking within the control of the trafficker. This can often be accompanied by threats if a debt is not paid. 

Traffickers can be persons who control the passage to the United States in cases of foreign nationals (called different things in different cultures – like coyotes or snakeheads or brokers); but they can also be an employer, a family member, or an intimate partner.  Sometimes, a person’s freedom of movement, including their ID or passports, are kept by the trafficker in order to retain control.  The access to reach out for assistance is also restricted by the trafficker.

Common signs of human trafficking: Have you been

• Forced or tricked into doing sex work for money?
• Forced to work because of the huge debt you owed, which never seems to be paid off?
• Unable to go anywhere on your own without your employer or interpreter or other controlling persons?
• Feeling fearful, anxious, nervous or paranoid at saying no to the demands to work or providing sexual favors?
• Restricted in your movement either by physical confinement or restraints, or by the taking away of your passport or ID or other documents that allow you to freely travel?
• Restricted from your access to freely seek medical help, legal assistance, etc.?
• Lacking control over your money or your work schedule?
• Threatened physical harm on yourself or your family if you did not continue to provide labor or sexual services?

Profile of a trafficker
Traffickers may be strangers or a network of people who control your movement. They can also be employers and intimate partners.  Some signs of a trafficker include:

• S/he controls you by physical restraint or psychological manipulation, as well as methods of isolation.
• S/he gains a benefit from your work, including sexual services, whether that benefit is monetary or otherwise.
• S/he controls how much you get paid, how you get paid, and how much debt you owe.
• S/he makes you feel like you have no choice but to continue to follow their commands, often brainwashing you to feel like they are the only ones you can trust.
• S/he tells you what lies to tell authorities, medical staff, or lawyers/judges who may talk to you to offer you assistance.

Myths and Realities about Human Trafficking

• Myth: Asian trafficking victims are usually sex trafficked.

Reality: In the Asian communities, a lot of foreign nationals are trafficked into the U.S. for labor, instead of sex.  In fact, amongst NYAWC’s human trafficking clients, about 75% are labor trafficking rather than sex trafficking cases.

• Myth: You have to cross a border for it to be considered trafficking.

Reality: Although foreign nationals are often trafficked into the U.S., there is also a significant number of trafficking cases happening within the country.

• Myth: Sex trafficking victims are young teenage women who are forced to be prostitutes.

Reality: Survivors of trafficking can be any age or gender identity.  In working with the Asian community, sex trafficking survivors have traditionally been older than in other communities, with an average age of approximately 40 years.

• Myth: Bad conditions at work are just a part of life, and there’s nothing to be done about it.

Reality: Labor violations can often be reported to a variety of enforcement agencies, such as the New York State Department of Labor,  and when the employer exerts power and manipulation in a sense to completely control a worker, it can be labor trafficking and modern day slavery.

• Myth: All trafficking victims sneak across the border into the United States.

Reality: Trafficking occurs within U.S. borders– therefore, it can happen to U.S. citizens, green card holders, or someone who holds a legitimate visa when they first entered in the country.

Prevalence of Human Trafficking:

The following statistics is according to the Polaris Project, a national non-profit focused on eradicating slavery networks that rob human beings of their lives and their independence.  The Polaris Project runs the National Human Trafficking Resource Center and the national hotline for trafficking victims.

In 2014, their hotline received reports of human trafficking case in all 50 states and Washington, D.C.  More than 18,000 total cases of human trafficking have been reported since 2007.  There are an estimated 20.9 million victims of human trafficking worldwide, 5.5 million of who are children.  14.3 million of those are victims of labor exploitation. 

In 2014, the International Labor Organization estimated that forced labor generated $150 billion in profits a year worldwide.

The Cycle of Human Trafficking

Human trafficking happens due to the exploitation of vulnerabilities of another human being.  Therefore, human trafficking survivors often were controlled based on those vulnerabilities. The control can be physical, psychological, or sexual, where someone is assaulted or harmed, manipulated or raped in order to gain power over another human being.  It can also be indirect, such as threats against family members.  The exploitation could also be a lack of immigration status, and traffickers use this to keep victims in line by threatening to report them to authorities or controlling the way they can get legal status.

The silence or unawareness of the victim is often related to these vulnerabilities, as traffickers often exploit the fear of the individual.  This then continues the cycle of control by the traffickers, through a manipulation by the traffickers that the traffickers themselves are the only remedy in order to escape.  This fraud and coercion by traffickers is used to force compliance in victims to remain in silence and continue to provide labor or sex to the traffickers.

Anti-HT Resources