What is human trafficking?
Human trafficking, as defined by a US federal law in 2000, is 鈥渢he 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.鈥� That鈥檚 the definition for labor trafficking; a parallel definition applies to sex trafficking and coerced prostitution.
Note that in this definition, a trafficking victim is not necessarily moved from one location to another. Human trafficking is not a form of smuggling. A person could be smuggled across a border without being trafficked 鈥� for example, a migrant paying a coyote to escort them over the US-Mexican border 鈥� and a person could be trafficked without ever leaving her home city.
But the coercion at the heart of human trafficking often is connected to migration. Job seekers arrive in a new country on promises of a rewarding work, but their supposed helpers confiscate their paperwork and force them into service. Then there鈥檚 coercion in the form of 鈥渄ebt bondage,鈥� such as when victims incur an initial debt as a term of employment 鈥� and traffickers use that debt as a means of control. 聽
The United Nations has called on nations to adopt strong laws criminalizing human trafficking in its many forms 鈥� whether victims are children, women, or men. So far, some 168 countries have signed on to the UN protocol, launched in 2000. from country to country (), and enforcement can be weak. Advocacy groups say there have been relatively few human trafficking convictions worldwide.
The UN definition of human trafficking is similar in key respects to the one adopted by the US. It boils down to three parts 鈥� a 鈥渨hat,鈥� a 鈥渉ow,鈥� and a 鈥渨hy.鈥� What happens. Human trafficking involves one or more of these actions: 鈥渢he recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons.鈥� The means. Criminals act by coercion (including threat or use of force), by abduction, by fraud or deception, by 鈥渢he abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability,鈥� or by paying money 鈥渢o achieve the consent of a person having control over another person.鈥� The motives. The criminal intent is exploitation, meaning 鈥減rostitution 鈥� or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.鈥�
One question that arises is whether or not someone can be considered a trafficking victim if he or she is an adult who gave initial consent to an exploitative labor arrangement. The answer under US law, and the UN protocol, is yes because it is the behavior of the traffickers that determines the crime, not the consent of the victim. As a puts it: 鈥淥nce a person鈥檚 labor is exploited [by coercion], the person鈥檚 prior consent to work for an employer is legally irrelevant.鈥�
