Complete Your CE Test Online - Click Here to address trafficking of persons and provided a three-pronged approach that includes prevention, protection and prosecution. The TVPA was reauthorized through the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Acts (TVPRA) of 2003, 2005 and 2008. Under U.S. federal law, “severe forms of trafficking in persons” includes both sex trafficking and labor trafficking: ● ● Sex trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purposes 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 an act has not attained 18 years of age, (22 USC § 7102; 8 CFR § 214.11(a)). ● ● Labor trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purposes of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery, (22 USC § 7102). State law Human trafficking is not a crime in every state, but state legislators have appointed committees to develop human trafficking legislation in all states. This is critical because it gives states the responsibility and freedom to write laws that are comprehensive and victim-centered specifically for their state. State legislation can address community awareness and increase local media attention, increase training for law enforcement, educators, health care professionals and community members to increase victim identification, protection, referral for services, and prosecution for traffickers. While there is strong federal legislation in the form of the Trafficking Victims Protections Act, states have a critical role in the prevention of human trafficking. The Polaris Project’s U.S. Policy Program works to enact legislation at the state level by partnering with local advocacy organizations, state and local task forces and coalitions, and grassroots advocates and locally led anti-trafficking legislative campaigns. Polaris programs include: ● ● Tracking all pending state legislation related to human trafficking. ● ● Drafting and analyzing legislation, providing model laws and guidelines, lobbying, and providing and presenting testimony. Data on every state is available on the Polaris Project website, including pending legislation and enacted laws and penalties. It is important to study the data at the Polaris Project website to understand the difficulty in eliminating human trafficking because of the lack of consistency among states in anti-trafficking laws, penalties, enforcement and data sharing systems. INTERVENTION AND PREVENTION The Trafficking in Persons Study Commission Prevention, Education and Outreach Subcommittee recommends a multiple approach to improve the knowledge of the general public, vulnerable populations and targeted professional communities. They recommend the following strategies: ● ● Public awareness campaigns, which would include a series of TV and radio public service announcements (PSA). The subcommittee put together Ohio PSAs following the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Look Beneath the Surface campaign. These materials can be obtained from the National Human Trafficking Resource Center website www.acf. hhasked.gov/trafficking ● ● Social media campaigns: Social media strategies, including a Facebook page on human trafficking, YouTube sites and use of Twitter, have been developed. Social media campaigns are especially effective for youths and college populations, and there are a growing number of campus organizations interested in promoting these strategies. A University of Dayton study states that social networking may be the simplest, most cost-effective method of reaching younger generations as well as supplementing methods of communicating to older generations. Anti-trafficking nonprofit organizations across the nation already have recognized the importance of utilizing social media networks. For example, Free the Slaves has more than 1,000 Twitter followers and more than 3,300 Facebook followers. The Polaris Project has more than 2,500 Twitter followers and 4,700 Facebook followers; and the Not For Sale campaign has more than 12,000 Twitter followers and 1,600 Facebook followers. These organizations use social media to send messages, information, and announcements to a variety of global audiences quickly and effectively. Social networking websites are easily created, accessed, updated and maintained at virtually no cost. Organizations working against human trafficking have demonstrated that social networking can disseminate information and inspire activism to an enormous audience at lightning speed. Some benefits of the use of social media include: ○ ○ Facebook ■ ■ Has the flexibility of independent websites. ■ ■ Has the potential to reach the widest possible audience. ■ ■ Is able to review each potential members’ comments when they post. ■ ■ Can be created or maintained at no cost. ■ ■ Users may update via mobile devices, such as smartphones and iPads. ■ ■ The Trafficking in Persons (TIPS) commission page is easily promoted. ■ ■ Users can post events, hyperlinks, images and videos to disseminate information. ■ ■ Posts are open for user comments, encouraging active dialogue between commission members, social service organizations, law enforcement and the general public. ○ ○ YouTube ■ ■ Serves as a centralized, no-cost form for all visual media. ■ ■ Helps public service announcements reach the widest possible audience. ■ ■ Videos are easily shared by forwarding through YouTube hyperlinks. ■ ■ Allows the TIPS commission to network with other anti- human trafficking organizations. ○ ○ Twitter ■ ■ Provides constant updates to an unlimited audience. ■ ■ Allows users to update via mobile devices. The Polaris Project website on human trafficking contains national, state and regional resources that offer information, expertise, speakers and public service announcements (PSA). Educational awareness resource guides can be ordered or downloaded, and many of these websites and resources are included in the resource section at the end of the course. The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unintended Pregnancies has promoted programs to build youth participation in creating videos, blogs, and social media campaigns and strategies aimed at reaching youth. The number of human trafficking awareness and prevention campaigns viewed by youths would increase if they had input in government- produced social media and PSAs. Inclusion in the development process would provide teens a chance to use their creativity and talent to design social media and public awareness ad campaigns on the youth trafficking issue. Massage.EliteCME.com Page 27