FACT: Human Trafficking Does Not Mean Movement of a Victim

The term human trafficking is often misleading and due to the use of the word trafficking makes many believe that a person must be transported to another country -or state- and must involve some form of travel, transportation, or movement across borders. However the federal definition of human trafficking in the United States does not require transportation of any kind to be involved. Therefore transportation may or may not be involved in the crime of human trafficking,but regardless it is not a required component. A victim may be trafficked by a relative and never even leave home.

 As defined by the United Nations Human Trafficking Means:

 “The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs. “

At Bridge to Freedom Foundation we prefer to use the term Modern Slavery as we believe -as do many others in the field- that it more adequately describes the unspeakable crime that has taken some 27 million across the globe.