What is Human Trafficking?
January is National Human Trafficking and Slavery Awareness and Prevention Month.
Learn more about human trafficking and how Safe Horizon helps victims of modern-day
slavery.
Human trafficking, also described as modern-day slavery or involuntary servitude, affects an
estimated 700,000 to 2 million people around the globe every year. Of this number,
thousands of victims land in the United States – with New York City serving as a major
destination and transit point.
Traffickers often transport individuals from their home countries to unfamiliar destinations, leaving them defenseless
and vulnerable. Victims are often forced, through physical violence and psychological threats, to engage in sex acts or to
perform work under slavery-like conditions. Trafficking in persons is a violation of human rights.
The United States made human trafficking a federal crime in 2000 with the passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection
Act (TVPA). New York State also made human trafficking a crime in November 2007.
Two Main Types of Trafficking
According to the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, the different types of trafficking are

Sex trafficking: In which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion or in which the person
induced to perform a sex act is not yet 18 years of age (child sex trafficking).

Labor trafficking: Recruiting, harboring, transporting, providing, or obtaining a person for labor or services,
through using force, fraud, or coercion. The person is subjected to involuntary servitude, debt bondage,
peonage, or slavery.
There are three common elements to trafficking cases on which both international and federal definitions agree:

Process - the victim is recruited, transferred, harbored, obtained, or moved by a trafficker.

Means - the trafficker uses force, fraud, coercion, abduction, threat, deception, or the abuse of power to gain
control over the victim.

End - the victim is exploited for forced labor, involuntary servitude, slavery, debt bondage, or commercial sex
acts.
Smuggling vs. Trafficking
Trafficking and smuggling are two different crimes, and law enforcement regards trafficked persons and smuggled
persons in different ways.
Trafficking involves:

An element of coercion. A person cannot consent to enslavement.

A restriction of movement, withholding documents, providing low or no pay, etc.

Crime or violation against a person.

Subsequent exploitation and/or forced labor.

Trafficked persons are seen as victims by the law.
Smuggling involves:

Unauthorized border crossings.

No coercion.

Facilitated illegal entry of person from one country to another.

Smuggled persons are seen as criminals by the law.
It is important to distinguish between trafficking and smuggling, in order to identify those who are trafficking victims and
to provide appropriate services.
Some Questions to Consider
If you are a service provider, the Safe Horizon Anti-Trafficking Program recommends that you incorporate the following
questions into your client assessment. Answers to these questions can reveal whether or not your client may be a victim
of trafficking. These questions alone will by no means serve as a comprehensive assessment of a trafficking case. Please
contact Safe Horizon's Anti-Trafficking Program for assistance.

Did the person come to the United States for a specific job or other purpose?

Upon arrival, was the person forced to do different work than what he/she was promised?

Does the person have access to his/her personal documents, identification papers, etc.?

Does the person owe money to the employer?

Can the person leave his/her present situation?

Has the person been threatened with harm or deportation if he/she tries to leave?

Have family members been threatened?

Is the person's freedom restricted in any other way?