Sex Trafficking vs. Labor Trafficking: What’s the Difference?
By Meera Manoj, Contributing Writer
The Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000, the most comprehensive and significant law against trafficking in the U.S., defines the following:
Sex trafficking as “the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, obtaining, patronizing, or soliciting of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act, in which the commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age.”
Labor trafficking as “the 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.”
There are three main forms of labor trafficking: bonded labor or debt bondage, which is similar to indentured labor; forced labor, which occurs against the victim’s consent; and child labor. Labor trafficking victims are often harder to identify than sex trafficking victims because international victims, which make up the majority, are often mistaken for smuggled or illegal immigrants. Labor trafficking victims are often male, resulting in their cases being taken less seriously due to societal views on male victimization.
In 2016, a United Nations report estimated that 3.8 million adults and 1 million children were victims of forced sexual exploitation around the world. In terms of gender, a report from the International Labor Organization found that 99% of sex trafficking victims are women or girls. People who are trafficked are usually from unstable or impoverished communities due to their high vulnerability. Traffickers frequently track populations characterized by oppression, high rates of illiteracy, little social mobility and few economic opportunities, according to a fact sheet by the Department of Health and Human Services.
The Department defines the most common methods through which victims of both sexual and labor trafficking are taken by abusers: recruiting, which includes proactive targeting or grooming behaviors; harboring, like isolation, confinement and monitoring tactics; transporting, which refers to movement and arranging travel; and obtaining, which includes forcibly taking victims or exchanging something for the ability to control them. For sex trafficking in particular, traffickers can also solicit—offer something of value—as well as patronize, or take something of value.
The TVPA combats all forms of human trafficking with a particular focus against the sex trade, slavery and involuntary servitude. The Customs and Facilitations and Trade Enforcement Reauthorization Act of 2009 amended the Tariff Act of 1930 by prohibiting the importation of goods which are made at the expense of human trafficking or forced labor. The Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to End the Exploitation of Children Today (PROTECT) Act protects children from abuse and sexual exploitation. The Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000 (CAFRA) mainly fights labor trafficking by warning property owners whose properties have been identified as being used to facilitate smuggling or harboring aliens. While it may seem counterintuitive, the CAFRA is an important tool because many employers turn a blind eye to the facilitation of criminal activity on their properties. The Mann Act of 1910 criminalized knowingly persuading, inducing, enticing or coercing an individual to travel across state lines to engage in prostitution or attempts to do so.
As one can see, most laws are specialized to address sex trafficking. This is mainly because federal and state data indicate that sex trafficking has more investigations and prosecutions than labor trafficking. However, the U.S. State Department’s 2012 Trafficking in Persons Report states that U.S. victim service providers are reported to have assisted more foreign-national labor trafficking victims than sex trafficking.
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Resources and Further Reading
The Prevalence of Labor Trafficking in the United States
13 Sex Trafficking Statistics That Explain the Enormity of the Global Sex Trade
Mark Wynn’s Labor Trafficking Fact Sheet
Dept. of Homeland Security’s Human Trafficking Laws & Regulations