Complete Your CE Test Online - Click Here ● ● High numbers of children ages 12 to 17 who are at risk for child sex trafficking, including runaways, throwaways, homeless youths, and other factors that make them vulnerable. ● ● History of inconsistent response to trafficking victims. ● ● Evidence that first responders to human trafficking lacked sufficient training in human trafficking. ● ● Customers who had purchased youths previously received minimal charges and rarely were prosecuted; traffickers also received minimal consequences. ● ● Inconsistent laws and penalties for human trafficking throughout the U.S. In 2011, the National Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC) hotline received calls from every state, the District of Columbia, American Saipan, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and more than 25 other countries. Callers made reports of potential human trafficking in every state and the District of Columbia except Alaska and South Dakota. Since Polaris Project began operating the hotline in December 2007, the NHTRC has received increased reports of potential human trafficking in every state. The NHTRC noted that as state governments and agencies increase engagement, training, and awareness of human trafficking and the NHTRC hotline, there is a corresponding increase in credible reports about human trafficking in those states and increased opportunities for victims and survivors to access services to escape their captors. The following list contains the states with the highest reported numbers of human trafficking cases as reported by the NHTRC: States with most reports of trafficking Potential trafficking locations Caller locations California California Texas Texas Florida Florida New York New York International Illinois District of Columbia Pennsylvania Illinois Georgia Virginia Ohio North Carolina The left side of the table lists the locations with the highest number of reports of human trafficking cases and victims in 2011, and the right side shows the top 10 caller locations in 2011. The NHTRC considers all of the states listed to have moderate to high levels of state engagement to address trafficking. The list emphasizes the relationship between increased engagement in a state and the high frequency of informed and effective calls and reports of potential human trafficking cases in a state. However, the committee and research team noted that because of the clandestine nature of human trafficking, it is impossible to identify the exact number of victims during a specific time period. Human trafficking defined Human trafficking is a crime against a person brought into the country by force, fraud, or coercion and is the second-largest illegal enterprise in the world. The Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) passed by Congress in 2002 addressed domestic and international victims of labor and sex trafficking in the United States. The TVPA defined human trafficking as: 1. Recruiting, harboring, transporting, supplying, or obtaining a person for labor or services using force or fraud or coercion for the purpose of involuntary servitude or slavery. 2. Sex trafficking where a commercial sex act is induced by force or fraud or coercion when person is induced to perform sex acts under 18 years of age. A commercial sex act is defined as any sex act where anything of value is given to or received by any person. As interpreted by the government, this means that a trafficker, profiteer, pimp, purchaser, “John,” or anyone else that receives something in exchange for sex or who harbored, provided transportation, or “provision” may be subject to federal trafficking charges. Data from the Polaris Project National Trafficking Hotline in 2011 shows the following breakdown of reports: ● ● Labor trafficking: 18 percent. ● ● Labor exploitation: 30 percent. ● ● Sex trafficking: 52 percent. TVPA provides that foreign nationals trafficked into the U.S. for the purpose of sex or labor are viewed and treated as victims who are provided government support instead of criminals to be arrested and deported. This was not always the case in all states, according to human trafficking authorities. The TVPA also has led to a change in the language used to discuss those involved with trading, buying, and selling human beings in the United States. Youths who were labeled as juvenile prostitutes under TVPA are called victims of “commercial sexual exploitation” or victims of “child sex trafficking.” Individuals procuring a child or adult for illegal sex trade are known as “traffickers” under the federal law. “First, I got to find out the secrets of pimping. I really want to control the whole whore. I want to be the boss of her life, even her thoughts. I got to con them that Lincoln never freed the slaves.” “Iceberg Slim,” pimp The Polaris Project in its “Condensed Guide for Service Providers and Law Enforcement” lists examples of the use of force, fraud and coercion against victims of human trafficking. Methods of force include beating, sexual assault, confinement and torture; fraud methods include deceitful behavior and lies, blackmail and preying on a person’s desperation and poverty. Methods of coercion include threats of harm, intimidation and humiliation, emotional abuse and control tactics. DOMESTIC SEX TRAFFICKING The U.S. is currently the world’s second largest destination country for women and children trafficked into the sex industry (Mizus, Moody, Provido, and Douglas, 2003). A study of eight human traffic reports conducted by Logan (2009) outlined various types of human trafficking in the United States. The reports noted that sex trafficking can be found in the following activities and places: ● ● Street prostitution. ● ● Hotel prostitution. ● ● Exotic dancing. ● ● Pornography and live cybersex sites. ● ● Sexual entertainment in adult bookstores. ● ● Sexual servitude in individual homes. ● ● Servile marriage. ● ● Sexual services through massage parlors. ● ● Sexual service through nail and hair salon including street hair braiding. ● ● Escort and hostess club services. ● ● Karaoke bars. ● ● Residential brothels. ● ● Truck stops. ● ● Sex services at conventions. ● ● Asian, Latino and other gang affiliations. Massage.EliteCME.com Page 19