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Moving Forward: Next Steps in Preventing and Disrupting Human Trafficking

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Human Trafficking Is a Public Health Issue

Abstract

The history of combating human trafficking and modern slavery in the United States is built on a long legislative foundation from the abolition of slavery in 1865 to more contemporary laws established since 2000. This policy foundation provides law enforcement tools to prosecute human traffickers and equips community organizations and service providers to protect survivors of trafficking. The matrix of federal and state laws on human trafficking established the effective implementation of the criminal justice framework in the US anti-trafficking field. As the country and international community looks ahead for ways to better prevent and disrupt human trafficking, a public health framework can build on the importance of rule of law to support the health and well-being of families, communities, and populations disproportionately impacted by human trafficking. Integrating a robust public health framework into anti-trafficking strategies will expand the group of stakeholders responsible for creating change, add perspectives on how we create change, and examine the types of changes we need to make. A public health approach also addresses three primary risk factors: (1) the existence of other forms of violence that contribute to normalizing the commercialized violence of trafficking; (2) the experience of disconnection, social isolation, shame, and stigma; and (3) the economic dynamics and demand that fuel the profit incentives of trafficking.

The original version of this chapter was revised. An erratum to this chapter can be found at DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-47824-1_25

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  • 05 May 2017

    In Chapter 5 titled “The Ignored Exploitation: Labor Trafficking in the United States” the affiliation of the author Susie Baldwin has been updated to read as “HEAL Trafficking, P.O. Box 31602, 3001 North Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90031, USA, e-mail: SBaldwin@healtrafficking.org”.

Notes

  1. 1.

    The United States Congress passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000 to combat trafficking in persons, a contemporary manifestation of slavery, to ensure just and effective punishment of traffickers, and to protect their victims. The TVPA of 2000 worked to fill in gaps in legal protections, including the establishment of a comprehensive law to penalize the range of offenses involved in human trafficking schemes; to reflect the seriousness of the crime and its components in sentencing guidelines; and to establish protections for victims, including those without legal documentation status. The TVPA of 2000 also recognized that the international community repeatedly condemned slavery, involuntary servitude, violence against women, and other elements of trafficking through various declarations, treaties, and United Nations resolutions and reports, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ; the 1948 American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man; the 1956 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery; the 1957 Abolition of Forced Labor Convention; the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; United Nations General Assembly Resolutions 50/167, 51/66, and 52/98; the Final Report of the World Congress against Sexual Exploitation of Children (Stockholm, 1996); the Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, 1995); and the 1991 Moscow Document of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

  2. 2.

    References to Fiscal Year (FY) in this chapter refer to the Federal Fiscal Year, which begins on October 1 and ends on September 30. For example, FY 2014 begins on October 1, 2013 and ends September 30, 2014.

  3. 3.

    In alignment with the Federal Strategic Action Plan on Services for Victims of Human Trafficking in the United States, 2013–2017, this chapter uses the terms “victim ” and “survivor ” to refer to individuals who were trafficked. The term “victim” has legal implications within the criminal justice process and generally means an individual who suffered harm as a result of criminal conduct. “Victims ” also have particular rights within the criminal justice process and Federal law enforcement agencies often use the term “victim” as part of their official duties. “Survivor ” is a term used to recognize the strengths it takes to continue on a journey toward healing in the aftermath of a traumatic experience. Both terms are intended to honor those who have suffered, or are suffering, the effects of being trafficked. More information is available at http://www.ovc.gov/pubs/FederalHumanTraffickingStrategicPlan.pdf.

  4. 4.

    Extractive industries involve the removal of non-renewable raw materials such as oil, gas, metals, and minerals from the earth, including mining, drilling, and quarrying activities that often occur in geographically remote areas. The connection between forced labor and extractive industries has been well documented, but the State Department’s Trafficking in Persons report highlights increasing concern about the presence of sex trafficking in mining areas.

  5. 5.

    DOJ-funded task forces bring law enforcement and community organizations together to assist survivors and bring cases to justice. The list of human trafficking task forces is available at https://ovc.ncjrs.gov/humantrafficking/traffickingmatrix.html.

  6. 6.

    The Federal Strategic Action Plan on Services for Victims of Human Trafficking in the United States, 2013–2017 defines a victim-centered approach as one that seeks to minimize re-traumatization associated with the criminal justice process by providing the support of victim advocates and service providers; empowering survivors as engaged participants in the process; and providing survivors an opportunity to play a role in seeing their traffickers brought to justice. A victim-centered approach supports a victim’s rights, dignity, autonomy, and self-determination, while simultaneously advancing the government’s and society’s interest in prosecuting traffickers.

  7. 7.

    The State Department’s “Know Your Rights” pamphlet was created in 2009 as authorized by the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (Public Law 110-457). The information pamphlet provides information on the legal rights and resources for foreign nationals applying for employment-based or education-based nonimmigrant visas. The pamphlet is available in more than 30 languages. The English version of the pamphlet was updated in April 2016. More information is available at https://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/general/rights-protections-temporary-workers.html.

  8. 8.

    Three core functions of public health were established in the 1998 Institute of Medicine report, “The Future of Public Health.” In 1994, the public health sector defined the purpose of public health in the context of health care reform through the work of a “Core Functions of Public Health Steering Committee” involving HHS and key national public health organizations. Learn about the inter-connected components of the US public health system at http://www.cdc.gov/nphpsp/essentialservices.html.

  9. 9.

    In 2015, the American Public Health Association adopted a new policy statement, “Expanding and Coordinating Human Trafficking-Related Public Health Research, Evaluation, Education, and Prevention,” available at https://www.apha.org/policies-and-advocacy/public-health-policy-statements/policy-database/2016/01/26/14/28/expanding-and-coordinating-human-trafficking-related-public-health-activities.

  10. 10.

    <IndexTerm ID="ITerm234">Now called “child abuse imagery”.

  11. 11.

    Forced labor is defined by the International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 29 as “all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily.” Child labor includes minors under age 18 working in the worst forms of child labor as outlined in ILO Convention 182 and children engaged in work that is exploitative and/or interferes with their ability to participate in or complete required years of schooling, in line with ILO Convention 138. ILO Convention 182 defines the worst forms of child labor all forms of slavery or practices similar to slavery, such as the sale and trafficking of children, debt bondage, and serfdom and forced or compulsory labor, including forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict; the use, procuring or offering of a child for prostitution, the production of pornography or for pornographic performances; the use, procuring or offering of a child for illicit activities, in particular for the production and trafficking of drugs as defined in the relevant international treaties; and work which, by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried out, is likely to harm the health, safety, or morals of children. More information on the definitions of forced and child labor are available at https://www.dol.gov/ilab/child-forced-labor/What-are-Child-Labor-and-Forced-Labor.htm.

  12. 12.

    The National Public Health Performance Standards (NPHPS) provides a framework that can help identify areas for system improvement, strengthen state, and local partnerships, and ensure that a strong system is in place for addressing public health issues. The NPHPS was developed by the American Public Health Association, Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Association of County and City Health Officials, National Network of Public Health Institutes, and Public Health Foundation. More information about the NPHPS and its tools are available at http://www.cdc.gov/nphpsp/.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, DC, USA

    Katherine Y. Chon

  2. Columbia University, 116th Street & Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, USA

    Smitha Khorana

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  1. Department of Emergency Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA

    Makini Chisolm-Straker

  2. Department of Emergency Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Hanni Stoklosa

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Chon, K.Y., Khorana, S. (2017). Moving Forward: Next Steps in Preventing and Disrupting Human Trafficking. In: Chisolm-Straker, M., Stoklosa, H. (eds) Human Trafficking Is a Public Health Issue. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47824-1_24

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