CLS Christian Lawyer Magazine June 2014_Proofforweb.pdf Jun. 2014 | Page 5

Eradicating Modern Day Slavery
BY AMY HEWAT AND KATHLEEN LESLIE, WORLD RELIEF

S

teve McQueen, director of the Oscar-winning ilm 12
Years a Slave, passionately dedicated his Academy Award
“to all the people who have endured slavery and the 21 million
people who still sufer slavery today.” his is not just the stuf
of movies; modern day slavery is a sad reality across the world
and here in the United States.
Modern day slavery is known as human traicking. It includes
forced labor as well as sex traicking. Shockingly, it is the fastest growing criminal industry worldwide: with estimated profits in excess of $30 billion per year, human traicking is more
proitable than the four biggest American sports industries—
the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL—combined. It is estimated
that over twenty million people worldwide are enslaved today,
with the U.S. Department of State estimating that more than
fourteen thousand people are traicked to the U.S. each year.
Given the covert nature of the crime and the fact that victims
oten do not self-identify, the true number of persons traficked each year is likely higher than these estimates.
Who is vulnerable to human traicking? Everyone. his crime
deies stereotypes and demographic divides. However, as with
most forms of exploitation, it remains true that the economically disadvantaged, those sufering from diicult family circumstances or addiction issues, and undocumented foreign
nationals are especially vulnerable prey to this industry. In this
article, we will focus on the undocumented as a particularly
high-risk population victimized by human traicking.

Legal Background
he Traicking Victims Protection Act of 2000 irst criminalized human traicking as a federal ofense in the United
States.1 It was enacted to prevent human traicking overseas,
to protect victims and help them rebuild their lives in the U.S.,
and to prosecute traickers under federal penalties. Prior to
2000, no comprehensive federal law existed to protect victims
of traicking or to prosecute their traickers.
Under the current law, human traicking is deined as sex traficking or labor traicking:
Sex Traicking: A commercial sex act induced by force,
fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to
perform such an act has not atained 18 years of age.
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Labor Traicking: 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.2
While these deinitions appear straightforward, there are
many common misconceptions about human traicking.
1. Human traicking does not require transportation:
hough the word “traicking” may connote movement or
travel, there is no requirement that the victim of traicking be subjected to movement in order for traicking to
have occurred. Traicking victims may or may not have
been transported in furtherance of the crime.
2. Human traicking difers in deinition from human
smuggling: Human smuggling is also a federal crime, but
involves transportation of humans across country borders, and does not, like most forms of human traicking,
require a showing of fraud, coercion or force. Smuggling is
a crime against established borders whereas traicking is a
crime against a person.
Human Traicking does not discriminate as to citizenship
or age: Children and adults, as well as U.S. citizens and noncitizens (legal or otherwise) can be victims of human traicking under the federal law. here are legal remedies available to
all types of victims. Speciically regarding the undocumented

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