Trafficking
Types
Services Based Labor Trafficking
Victims in various service industries whose labor is exploited under the presence of actual or implied coercion, fraud or force with the assumption that they are bound to their jobs through involuntary servitude, forced labor, violence, peonage or debt bondage.
Services Based Labor Trafficking
Victims in various service industries whose labor is exploited under the presence of actual or implied coercion, fraud or force with the assumption that they are bound to their jobs through involuntary servitude, forced labor, violence, peonage or debt bondage.
Services Based Labor Trafficking
Victims in various service industries whose labor is exploited under the presence of actual or implied coercion, fraud or force with the assumption that they are bound to their jobs through involuntary servitude, forced labor, violence, peonage or debt bondage.
Services Based Labor Trafficking
Victims in various service industries whose labor is exploited under the presence of actual or implied coercion, fraud or force with the assumption that they are bound to their jobs through involuntary servitude, forced labor, violence, peonage or debt bondage.
Hospitality
Cleaning Services
Cleaning Services
Service based labor trafficking victims specifically in the cleaning service industry, sometimes as “door to door” cleaners or in large janitorial staffs, forced to work for the benefit of their employer, who often holds their documents if the victim is not a US citizen. They are often asked to use dangerous chemicals, have wages confiscated, forced to work off debts and often faced with threats of homelessness.
Landscaping
Sales Crews
These victims are typically away from home, travelling with a crew for weeks at a time from region to region and threatened to be left behind if they don’t meet their sales numbers. Victims typically come from low-income families and drugs/alcohol is used as a manipulation tactic. These businesses change their names often to avoid detection and are generally a part of a larger network.
Carnivals
Service based labor trafficking victims specifically in the carnival industry are exploited for labor and are typically relocated with the carnival/ fair as traveling workers to set up, breakdown, and operate carnival components. This constant relocation allows for similar forms of isolation-related coercion as are present in Sales Crews.
Restaurants
Service based labor trafficking victims specifically in the restaurant industry usually working as cooks, bus staff, or wait staff at restaurants, bars, clubs, food trucks, etc. They typically work long hours without a set wage or overtime pay, and the trafficker often controls their housing and/or movement. This type of trafficking often also has connections to domestic servitude, with the exploitation continuing at the home or place of residence if controlled by the trafficker.
Health and Beauty
Service based labor trafficking victims specifically in the health and beauty industry, often found in nail salons and spa services, sometimes operate as part of larger networks. It is common for victims to carry inflated debt, receive threats of harm or be “blacklisted” from the industry, allowing their traffickers to use coercion to control them. They often work with no set schedule and for little to no wage, or are paid entirely off of tips, and are required to work with hard chemicals and no protection.
Industrial Labor Trafficking
Victims in industrial sectors whose labor is exploited under the presence of actual or implied coercion, fraud, or force with the assumption that they are bound to their jobs through involuntary servitude, forced labor, violence, peonage or debt bondage. In the Industrial Labor Trafficking space, two unique factors contribute to worker exploitations. First, many corporations across these industries pay their workforces “piece-rate” wages, which is calculated on the amount of work they produce as opposed to the length of time it takes for that work to be produced. Second, the corporations sometimes rely on third-party recruiters to recruit, train, and supervise the workers, which at times allows corporations to remain unaware of these practices. There is also a well-documented link between industrial towns and sex trafficking as pimps will travel their operations to these regions to sell sex to the workers and staff.
Industrial
Labor
Trafficking
Victims in industrial sectors whose labor is exploited under the presence of actual or implied coercion, fraud, or force with the assumption that they are bound to their jobs through involuntary servitude, forced labor, violence, peonage or debt bondage. In the Industrial Labor Trafficking space, two unique factors contribute to worker exploitations. First, many corporations across these industries pay their workforces “piece-rate” wages, which is calculated on the amount of work they produce as opposed to the length of time it takes for that work to be produced. Second, the corporations sometimes rely on third-party recruiters to recruit, train, and supervise the workers, which at times allows corporations to remain unaware of these practices. There is also a well-documented link between industrial towns and sex trafficking as pimps will travel their operations to these regions to sell sex to the workers and staff.
Extractives
Extractives trafficking is industrial labor trafficking of victims specifically in the extractive industry, where natural resources are removed from the Earth. In the US, this would include oil, granite, hardwoods, etc and often leads to “boomtowns” in remote areas with limited infrastructure and thus limited government oversight. These workers are often held through coercive debt arrangements with third party agencies that the extractive industry hires to recruit and oversee the workers.
Construction
Industrial labor trafficking victims specifically in the construction industry are US residents and visa-holding and undocumented migrant laborers. They can be difficult to identify, as they’re often passed off as independent contractors without the traditional protections and benefits of an employee, and may be forced to live on the construction site. Often they travel for seasonal work and are often subcontractors.
Forestry
Industrial labor trafficking victims specifically in the forestry or logging industry are often tied to illicit products such as illegal logging, mining or wildlife. In addition to the workers being isolated without easy access to government protections, the often illicit nature of the work enhances the coercive control of traffickers, reminding them they will only get in trouble if they ask for help.
Factories
Industrial labor trafficking victims specifically in the production industry are subject to extreme surveillance, document confiscation, and threats of harm in addition to threats of being “blacklisted” from the industry to keep them producing a variety of consumer good products. This industry is particularly vulnerable to labor trafficking due to low profit margins and a piece-rate production system that pays manufacturers only by the number of products produced.
Fishing
Industrial labor trafficking victims specifically in the fishing industry are used to make up for profits lost from overfishing and exporting countries. Illness, physical injury, abuse and death have been reported by victims who are compensated poorly for dangerous work which takes them to sea for months at a time.
Agriculture
Industrial labor trafficking victims specifically in the agricultural industry who may travel across the country to find seasonal work in rural or remote locations. They are often bait-and-switched from hourly rates to piece-rate which limits earning potential, further indebting the victims to recruiters from different levels of complex labor supply. Men, women, and children as young as 5 have been found to be trafficked by the agricultural industry, at nearly every level. Particularly vulnerable are undocumented immigrants and holders of the temporary H-2 work visa.
Meat-processing
Industrial labor trafficking victims specifically in the meat-processing industry are not afforded basic rights and safety protocols which results in suffering of both the workers and the animals. The industry always tries to speed up the production lines, which makes workplace conditions more dangerous for workers. The focus on cutting costs and keeping up with high turnover leads to minimal to no training in a fast-paced environment that results in serious injuries and death.
Informal Economy Labor Trafficking
Victims of Informal Economy Labor Trafficking are trafficked by individuals, families, or informal business networks.
Informal Economy
Labor Trafficking
Victims of Informal Economy Labor Trafficking are trafficked by individuals, families, or informal business networks.
Peddling and Begging
Victims of peddling or begging trafficking are forced, threatened or coerced to beg as an individual or falsely pose as seemingly legitimate charities in the streets. They are often from poor backgrounds and contributions are confiscated.
Domestic Work
Victimized domestic workers often live in the homes of their employers, their movements are restricted and the threat of arrest or deportation keeps them from escaping as they are generally foreign nationals. US citizens and residents are also victims within this category. Generally, they are providing services such as nannying, elder care, and housekeeping for wealthy families. Their passports and identification are confiscated, their often verbal contracts are violated and can work long, unpredictable hours for little to no pay. Victims can also experience wage theft, sexual harassment, and verbal abuse.
Illicit Services
Often vulnerable males and youth are preyed upon by criminal networks and trafficked into illicit activity. Most common are street-level drug dealing, smuggling drugs or humans across borders, and general gang activity. This can occur alongside other trafficking models, such as sex trafficking and labor trafficking.
Commercial Front Sex Trafficking
Victims in the commercial-front sex trafficking industry that forced or coerced into sex or sexual acts through debt bondage or threats behind the front of a commercial business. Trafficking in this space occurs when victims engage in commercial sex acts under the duress of force, fraud, or coercion.
Commercial Front
Sex Trafficking
Victims in the commercial-front sex trafficking industry that forced or coerced into sex or sexual acts through debt bondage or threats behind the front of a commercial business. Trafficking in this space occurs when victims engage in commercial sex acts under the duress of force, fraud, or coercion.
Strip Clubs
Victims are often recruited under the pretense that they will work as dancers, servers, and hostesses, then forced or coerced to perform sex acts on customers, in private dance rooms or outside the location. They are often forced into strict schedules and are frequently moved between clubs to avoid detection, especially when the victims are youth. This differs from voluntary work in the industry.
Illicit Massage Parlors
Victims working in businesses posing as massage parlors, often recruited from foreign countries, are forced or coerced by violent and nonviolent threats to perform sexual services to clients. They often sleep onsite to provide services at any time, or at a venue where the trafficker is able to monitor or control their movement. These housing arrangements leave them accruing more debt to their traffickers for housing and essentials. Their passport and identification are kept from them, are relocated regularly and kept in fear of the local police to prevent speaking out. Typically, these massage parlors are a part of a larger network. This differs from voluntary work in the industry.
Illicit Cantinas, Bars and Clubs
Victims are hired as cantina/bars/club staff in establishments posing as legitimate businesses and are forced or coerced into performing sexual acts with clientele at a venue offsite but near the location. Sexual acts are used as leverage to upsell patrons. These venues are often a part of informally organized networks.
Formal/Informal Brothel Sex Trafficking
Victims forced, threatened or coerced into sexual acts within a brothel or brothel-like establishment.
Formal/Informal
Brothel
Sex Trafficking
Victims forced, threatened or coerced into sexual acts within a brothel or brothel-like establishment.
Hotel/motel
Victims forced to perform sex acts from a hotel without the management’s knowledge, often advertised online, through escort services, or word of mouth. These are preferred venues for traffickers as they can easily hide money trails and don’t incur the business costs of a traditional brothel.
Residential Brothel
Victims are forced to perform commercial sex acts from homes or apartments where they are forced to live to provide services at any time. They have limited ability to leave and are under close surveillance. In some networks they are moved regularly to ensure they remain unfamiliar with their surroundings.
Mobile brothels
Victims are trafficked within trailers or campers that operate as mobile brothels, often in migrant workers’ camps in rural lands where industrial labor trafficking occurs.
Internet Based Sex Trafficking
Victims that are force, coerced or threated to solicit sexual acts, perform or publish sexual content, online.
Internet Based
Sex Trafficking
Victims that are force, coerced or threated to solicit sexual acts, perform or publish sexual content, online.
Pornography
Victims of pornographic sex trafficking are either minors or adults not consenting to the filming and/or publishing of images or videos sexual in nature. This material can be posted maliciously, for commercial gain and can be used to advertise sexual services.
Internet/Cyber-Based “Brothels”
A broad term which refers to commercial sex acts performed by victims in temporary indoor locations, as “out call” where the victim is transported to the buyer, or “in call” where the buyers meet at the location set by the trafficker. Highly mobile, these services are often advertised online and by word of mouth, cycling victims out of various locations.
Other Sex Trafficking
Victims that are force, coerced or threated to solicit sexual acts, perform or publish sexual content, online.
Other
Sex Trafficking
Victims that are force, coerced or threated to solicit sexual acts, perform or publish sexual content, online.
Street-Based
Victims are engaging in sexual acts under force or coercion on the streets, along highways, or other public settings. Earnings are often taken by their trafficker and generally have to meet a quota. Trafficking occurs when the sex work is not done with freewill and is not consensual. This type of trafficking can sometimes occur in stash houses or desolate buildings.
Truck Stops
Victims are trafficked across state borders and often dropped at truck stops for a few hours as they are being transported from one location to another. Truck stops are in remote locations and offer a transient customer base, making this type of trafficking popular.
Familial Trafficking
Usually happens in this setting and is facilitated when the parent or caregiver exchanges access to the child for money, a place to sleep or other needs. The child being trafficked does not recognize it as trafficking as it often looks like abuse.