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Human Trafficking
Definitions
“Severe Forms of Trafficking in Persons” defined 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.
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.
Fraud: Traffickers use fraud/deception to initially recruit persons typically involve false promises of marriage or employment. Traffickers may also collaborate with family or friends of potential victims to further create the illusion of truth for what they are promising.
Coercion: The use of threats of serious harm, physical restraint of any person. Any scheme, plan or pattern intended to create the belief that a person will have restraint used against them. The abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process.
House Bill 130: The End Demand Act:
Signed into law on June 20, 2014
Focused on those who sell and purchase sex with minors
Removed the need to prove coercion for minors
Increased the penalty for those who solicit sex from a minor from a misdemeanor to a felony offense
Requires offender to register as a Tier 2 sex offender
Increased protections for minors by prohibiting advertisement of sexual activity for hire if materials depict a minor
Courts now have authority to terminate parental rights of a parent convicted of trafficking his or her own child
Restricted the advertising of massage services to only those who are licensed to practice massage
Violations will result in a first degree misdemeanor
Smuggling vs. Human Trafficking:
Smuggling is an offense against the integrity of the U.S. borders. The focus is transporting or harboring an undocumented person. Smugglers make their money early and their “business relationship” with the immigrant terminates at the U.S. border. Smuggling must involve an undocumented migrant.
Trafficking is an offense against a person’s individual rights. The focus is coercion and exploitation; no movement is required. Traffickers may use smuggling debt as a means to control victims. A victim can be a citizen, documented migrant, or undocumented migrant.
Variations of Trafficking:
Sex trafficking: Street-based prostitution, massage parlors/spas, residential brothels, escort services/on-line commercial sexual exploitation of children, hotels and motels, truck stops
Labor Trafficking: Domestic servitude, agriculture, commercial fishing and logging, construction, peddling and begging rings (sales crews), manufacturing/sweat shops, service industry (hotels and restaurants), small businesses
Labor-Sex Trafficking: Hostess clubs/cantina bars, exotic dancing/stripping, pornography
Forced Labor: Victims are forced to work against their will, under the threat of violence of some other form of punishment. Their freedom is restricted and a degree of ownership is exerted. Forms of forced labor can include: domestic servitude; agricultural; sweatshop factory; janitorial, food service and other service industry; and begging.
Involuntary Servitude: Any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to that if he or she did not agree to work, that person or someone they know would suffer serious harm or physical restraint. If a person willingly begins work but later desires to withdraw but is forced to remain and perform work against his will, his service becomes involuntary. Involuntary servitude is not dependent on whether or not a person receives a salary or wages. In other words, if a person is forced to labor against his or her will, the service is involuntary even if he/she is paid for the work.
Peonage: The specific facts which must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt in order to establish the offense of peonage include each elements of involuntary servitude…PLUS: that the involuntary servitude was compelled by the person in order to satisfy a real or imagined debt.
Debt Bondage: Debt bondage is a form of un-free labor in which a laborer is indebted and has to work to pay off the debt. For example, someone might be promised opportunities in a new country. They are often lied to about the nature of the work that they will be doing. They accept a loan from the person who makes the arrangements and are charged for travel documents, traveling costs, food, water, and other necessities. When they arrive in a new country, they are told that they must work off their debt and they quickly learn that the debt will take much longer than expected to be repaid.
Child Labor: Child labor is a form of work that is likely to be hazardous to the health and/or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development of children and can interfere with their education. The International Labor Organization estimates worldwide that there are 246 million exploited children aged between 5 and 17 involved in debt bondage, forced recruitment for armed conflict, prostitution, pornography, the illegal drug trade, the illegal arms trade and other illicit activities around the world.
Labor Trafficking vs. Labor Exploitation:
Trafficking: There is an element of force, fraud or coercion. Limited or no freedom of movement; limited or no freedom to leave; little or no control over earnings. There is a debt cycle.
Exploitation: Substandard work conditions. There is freedom of movement and freedom to leave, but unfair wages.
Stable, or The Family: The circle of women being pimped out or in a brothel
Factors Associated with Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking:
- Large numbers of unattached and transient males in local communities including military personnel, truckers, and conventioneers
- Promotion of child prostitution by parents, older siblings and boy friends
- Use of prostitution by runaway children to provide for subsistence needs
- Promotion of child prostitution by parents, older siblings and boy friends
- Presence of pre-existing adult prostitution markets in communities where large numbers of street youth are concentrated
- Prior history of child sexual abuse and child sexual assault.
- Poverty
Estes, R., & Weiner, N. A. (2001) Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in the U.S., Canada and Mexico
Demography of Sex Trafficking Victims:
- They are more likely to suffer PTSD and present with symptoms consistent with ongoing exposure to trauma
- Victims who have been sex trafficked tend to:
- Run away from home upon return
- Abscond from treatment
- Demonstrate inconsistent and impermanent relationships throughout their lives
- Recruitment:
- 60% first recruited by their peers
- 96% were runaways – stated they had no other options to make money
- Socio economic status:
- 75% from working class and law income families
- 30% from outstate or rural areas
- 45% had homes where primary caregiver was employed and owned home
- Family life:
- 65% report abuse of alcohol and/or drugs in the home
- 19% have positive relationship with father
- 28% have positive relationship with mother
- 80% report physical or sexual abuse prior to the age of 14
- 90% report their first sexual experience as a sexual assault in childhood
- 91% of victims who were sexually abused did not report to anyone; only 1% received counseling for the effects of abuse
Recruitment Strategies for Sex Trafficking:
“Guerrilla Pimping”: Using force such as kidnapping (uncommon) or intimidation
“Finesse Pimping”: Exploitation of needs
- promoting seemingly legitimate work opportunities
- False/predatory romantic involvement
- Offers food, housing, clothes, drugs etc. in exchange for sex
- Purchase of girls from impoverished family/guardians (rare)
Statistics
- National Center for Missing and Exploited Children identifies at least 100,000 US children are caught up in child prostitution
- According to the National Runaway Switchboard, there are between 1,600,000 and 2,800,000 runaway and/or homeless youth in the United States everyday.[1]
- Studies suggest that up to 90% of runaway youth become involved in the commercial sex industry.
- Children are recruited from inner cities, suburbs, and small towns. (Runaway Switchboard)
- Within 48 hours of running away, 1 out of 3 children is approached by someone involved in the commercial sex industry (National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway and Throwaway Youth).
- 80% of the 17,500-20,000 individuals are trafficked into the US annually are for sexual exploitation
- Central Ohio Human Trafficking Task Force
- In 2014:
- Referred 67 potential victims to social services
- Rescued 17 potential victims
- Received 149 human trafficking-related tips
- Successfully obtained 7 criminal convictions against potential offenders
- The Salvation Army in Central Ohio
- Emergency response and intensive care: 515 total cases including survivors from 14 countries
- Street outreach: 1,204 encounters since 2010
Videos
- The Dark Side of Chocolate: YouTube:
- GEMS:
- Shared Hope International END DEMAND:
- END IT Movement: Awareness in Atlanta GA:
- Inside the Lives of American Sex Slaves:
- Human Trafficking in Ohio:
Ohio Human Trafficking Cases
March 2014: A federal jury convicted an Ashland couple of engaging in labor trafficking conspiracy and other crimes related to them holding a woman with cognitive disabilities and her child against their will and forcing the woman to perform manual labor for them. Coercion tactics included beatings, threats of beatings, taunting and threatening the victims with pit bulls and snakes, causing the victims to sleep in unsafe and unsanitary conditions, restricting access to the bathroom, preventing them from eating regular meals and forcing the victims to eat dog food and crawl on the floor while wearing a dog collar.
August 2012: In Columbus, secret panel on human trafficking wins indictments
15 Somalis going on trial for sex trafficking:
Columbus man charged in trafficking of women:
Father and son indicted on human trafficking charges:
18 women rescued in prostitution raids in Powell, Worthington, Columbus