Human Trafficking
Human trafficking is a crime where traffickers financially benefit by exploiting victims for labor or sex. They might use force, deception, manipulation, or threats to control victims.
Sex Trafficking
Victims are forced, tricked, or pressured into doing sexual acts for money. Sex traffickers often choose vulnerable targets and then use violence, threats, lies, or debt to control them and keep them in the sex trade so the trafficker can make money.
Labor Trafficking
Victims are forced, tricked, or pressured into unsafe and illegal working conditions. It can include being trapped by false debt, forced to work against their will, or children being made to work when they shouldn’t be. The traffickers gains all the profit from the labor.
Questions to Identify Trafficking
Do you feel trapped in your job / situation?
Is someone keeping your identity or travel documents?
Do you have a debt to your employer that you can’t pay with your wages?
Is someone pressuring you to have sex with other people?
Are you forced to do things that are illegal?
Risk Factors
Sexual abuse
Physical abuse
Abusive relationship
Neglect
Runaway/Homelessness
Identification as LGBTQIA+
Mental health
Unaddressed trauma
Disability
Poverty / Financial hardships
Substance use
Exposure to violence
Proximity to borders
Adult sex industry
Actions-Means Purpose
The A-M-P Model
At a minimum, one element from each column must be present to establish a potential situation of human trafficking.
Action
Induce
Recruits
Harbors
Transports
Provides
Obtains
Means
Force
Fraud
Coercion
Minors induced into commercial sex are human trafficking victims regardless force, fraud, or coercion.
Purpose
Commercial Sex (Sex Trafficking)
Labor/Services (Labor Trafficking)
Force, Fraud, or Coercion
Force
Causing serious harm
Physical restraint
Substance use
Rape
Fraud
False promises
Fraudulent schemes
Deceitful behavior
Debt bondage
Coercion
Threats to harm
Withholding documents
Psychological abuse
Manipulation
Emotional trauma
Minors induced into commercial sex are human trafficking victims regardless force, fraud, or coercion.
Other Forms of Violence