_____________________________ Recognizing and Responding to Human Trafficking in Texas, 2nd Edition
An important caveat to all statistics about human trafficking is the difficulty of obtaining accurate data, which is a limitation of research into this issue that has been pointed out in the reports of the Texas Human Trafficking Prevention Task Force and other organizations working to reduce human trafficking (Texas Human Trafficking Prevention Task Force, 2020). Bar- riers to acquiring accurate data include victims avoiding the criminal justice system due to fears of reprisal, deportation, or incarceration; the failure of healthcare workers or emergency responders to ask about human trafficking or to probe causes of apparent violence; and a lack of coordination and data integration between the various levels of governmental agencies (local, state, federal) and other organizations (e.g., nonprofits, hospitals) that may have data on human trafficking. These barriers and the limitations of existing data suggest that the true scope of human trafficking is larger than can be reliably estimated at any given time (Alpert et al., 2014). WHAT IS HUMAN TRAFFICKING? Human trafficking is “the recruitment, harboring, transport- ing, provisioning, obtaining, patronizing, or soliciting of a person for the purpose of involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, slavery, or sexual exploitation, induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform a commercial sex act is under 18 years of age” (Texas Health and Human Services, 2024). Many victims are lured with false promises of well- paying jobs or manipulated by people they trust (DOJ, 2014). The phrase human smuggling is often confused with human trafficking , but they are two quite different crimes. Human smuggling involves the provision of a service—typically transportation or fraudulent documents—to an individual who voluntarily seeks illegal entry into a foreign country (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE], 2017. While transportation is often a component of human trafficking, victims of human trafficking are still held against their will while being transported, and transportation does not need to be across state or international borders to meet the criteria for trafficking. Human trafficking commonly involves three components: An act (referring to the role the trafficker is playing by exploiting the victim), means (use of force, fraud, or coercion to exploit the victim), and a purpose (referring to the type of labor the victim is exploited for (Stoklosa & Beals, 2022). Human trafficking became a federal crime when the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) was enacted in 2000; it was the first comprehensive federal law to address human trafficking and offered protections through immigration relief for foreign national victims of human trafficking while also focusing on prevention through public awareness programs (Federal Bureau of Investigations, 2024). The TVPA was later revised and updated in 2015, and reauthorized in 2017 (DOJ, 2023).
trafficking, both in the U.S. and overseas; to protect victims and help them rebuild their lives in the U.S.; and to prosecute traffickers and impose federal penalties. The Texas legislature created the Texas Human Trafficking Prevention Task Force in 2009 (House Bill 4009) to respond to the growing human trafficking crisis; the Texas attorney general was designated as the presiding officer (Texas Attorney General, 2024). The Texas Human Trafficking Prevention Task Force consists of more than fifty member organizations, including non-governmental organizations, state agencies, local law enforcement agencies, and district attorney’s offices (Texas Attorney General, 2024). The Task Force has expanded a network of local and regional educational efforts that strive to educate the public to recog- nize human trafficking, identify victims and directing them to services, and ensure traffickers are investigated and prosecuted effectively (Texas Attorney General, 2024). TYPES OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING Human trafficking includes multiple forms of exploitation such as sex, labor, and organ trafficking (note that organ trafficking will not be specifically addressed in this course). Victims may be forced, coerced, or defrauded into prostitu- tion, domestic servitude, or other types of forced labor (e.g., agriculture, construction, fisheries, mining industries). Victims can be found in legitimate and illegitimate labor industries, including sweatshops, massage parlors, agriculture, restau- rants, hotels, street peddling, door to door sales, begging, and domestic service (DOJ, 2014). Inaccurate and misleading information propagated through social media and various Internet news sites has sensationalized the domestic minor sex trafficking domain of human trafficking while minimizing and simplifying other domains of human trafficking. This creates a dangerous situation that detracts vital energy and resources from efforts that seek to combat other forms of exploitation and may ultimately lead to a rise in different forms of human trafficking (Prakash et al., 2022). Often the difference between sex trafficking and consensual commercial sex (sex work) is misinterpreted or misrepresented. Sex trafficking occurs when an adult takes part in the sale of sex through threat, abduction, or other means of coercion, whereas sex work involves the willing and consensual exchange of money for sex and generally does not infringe on the partici- pants’ human rights (Baldwin et al., 2011). Note that children cannot technically be sex workers because they cannot legally consent to commercial sex. In instances of sex trafficking, victims perform commercial sex through the use of coercion, force, or fraud. It more commonly affects women but frequently involves children of both sexes (Inter- Agency Coordination Group against Trafficking in Persons 2017).
The goals of the TVPA are to prevent severe forms of human
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Book Code: ANCCTX2027
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