human trafficking (Texas Human Trafficking Prevention Task Force, 2020). Barriers 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, transporting, 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). 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 prostitution, 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, restaurants, 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
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). The goals of the TVPA are to prevent severe forms of human 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 recognize human trafficking, identify victims and directing them to services, and ensure traffickers are investigated and prosecuted effectively (Texas Attorney General, 2024). 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 does not infringe on the participants' 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). Victims of forced labor trafficking are often found in industries that require a large number of workers yet have little regulation or oversight, including agriculture, restaurants/food services, bars/clubs, domestic work, factories, and the hospitality industry (hotels/motels). Forced labor affects both adults and minors (under the age of 18), and migrant populations are considered to be the most vulnerable to this form of trafficking.
VULNERABILITY FACTORS
Although individuals of any age and any gender may fall victim to human trafficking, it is known that women and girls are the most vulnerable (Inter-Agency Coordination Group against Trafficking in Persons, 2017). Current data for the state of Texas indicates that in 2020 and 2021, 85% of victims in human trafficking–related cases were female compared to 8% males and 7% unknown (Texas Human Trafficking Prevention Task Force, 2022). The same report
indicates that African American was the most vulnerable race/ethnicity with 38.1% of victims, followed by Caucasian (32.3%), Hispanic (18.7%), and Asian/Pacific Islander (2.2%); in 8.4% of cases, the victim’s race/ethnicity was recorded as unknown (Texas Human Trafficking Prevention Task Force, 2022). Vulnerability factors are often regarded as either “push” or “pull” factors (Stoklosa & Beals, 2022). Push factors are
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