The modus operandiof the groups linked to this criminal activity is basically structured around three processes: recruitment, transfer and exploitation. According to one estimate from the ILO, the Walk Free Foundation, and the UN's International Organization on Migration (IOM), there are approximately 25 million people globally who are trapped in a situation where they are being forced to work in one industry or another. Adult women make up 49 percent of all detected human trafficking victims, according to a 2018 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report. Mexico is a large source, transit, and destination country for victims of human trafficking. But the claim that there's an influx of human trafficking at the border is false, The Washington Post's Fact Checker declared. The National Human Trafficking Hotline shows most reports of human trafficking are … Border Patrol has apprehended over 268,000 individuals since the beginning of the fiscal year, marking a 97% increase from the previous year. All rights reserved. This statistic depicts the share of internationally trafficked human trafficking victims from 2008 to 2018, by the type of border crossing made while being trafficked. Although diplomatic engagement on human trafficking occurs year-round, the process for drafting the TIP Report begins in the fall, when the Department of State’s TIP Office requests information from U.S. embassies regarding the profile of human trafficking in that country and efforts of … Human-trafficking and human smuggling from the Southern border account for less than 10 percent of the total cases in the US. Forced labor is when a person is forced to work "under threat or coercion" in a variety of ways, including as domestic workers, construction workers, factory workers, and farm workers, according to the International Labour Organization (ILO). Human trafficking is the trade of humans, most commonly for the purpose of forced labour, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation for the trafficker or others. The constant barrage of protesters attempting to get Trump administration officials to release immigrant children to their adult counterparts, if successful, will result in a number of children being trafficked by sex predators. According to the agency's statistics, in 2015 more than 90 percent of human trafficking cases involved U.S. citizens. Emotional abuse is one of the main ways that the traffickers kept their victims around. The state with the most cases was California, with 1,305. Reality: Human trafficking is often confused with human smuggling, which involves illegal border crossings. Earlier this week, The White House released a statement that uses the complex issue of human trafficking as another reason to justify building a wall across the country’s southern border, a claim the President repeated in his State of the Union address to Congress. We know that trafficking does happen across the border. This rampant, unrestricted human trafficking is the real crisis at the border, and it’s past time to address it. Overall, human trafficking is a global problem with terrible consequences for the millions of victims around the world who don't have control over their own lives. It is important to note that the nexus of human trafficking and human smuggling accounts for a much smaller portion of trafficking in the U.S. than popularly believed, accounting for less than 10% of cases. In an interview on CBS's Face the Nation in early February, Trump said that "this really is an invasion of our country by human traffickers." July 11, 2018: Border Patrol agents across the Rio Grande Valley arrested four gang members and two sex offenders including active members of MS-13 and the 18th Street gang. Human trafficking and migrant smuggling can be linked, for example, through the high costs demanded by smugglers (up to $12,000 per person) for the journey across the border, leaving poor migrants vulnerable to a type of trafficking called “debt bondage.” This type of trafficking occurs when migrants agree to work off a debt they have accrued. The Washington Post noted that includes 92.1 percent of cases dealing with forced labor and sex trafficking, and 92.5 percent of cases of "transportation for illegal sex activity.". According to the agency's statistics, in 2015 more than 90 percent of human trafficking cases involved U.S. citizens. Days later in his State of the Union address, he said that traffickers "take advantage of the wide-open areas between our ports of entry" to smuggle women and girls into the United States to sell them into prostitution and slavery. It means there are 5.4 victims of modern slavery for every 1,000 people in the world. Even if migrants manage to pay the smugglers’ fees, there have been cases where they still end up in the hands of  kidnappers across  the border and trafficked. That comes to about half a million immigrants arrested a year. Human trafficking is a growing problem which hinders universal human rights for hundreds of new victims in Florida every year. February 19, 2019 Sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud or coercion, or in which the person induced to … Don’t see a resource that you know exists? President Trump says a border wall will drastically decrease illegal border crossings, which will help curb human trafficking and kidnappings along the southern border. Traffickers then continue to compound interest and other charges to what appears to be a simple employment agreement, trapping victims in an exploitative cycle of debt and forced labor. By Sonia Lunn. Start Printed Page 6721 Executive Order 13903 of January 31, 2020 Combating Human Trafficking and Online Child Exploitation in the United States. Learn more about how Human Trafficking Search (HTS) seeks to raise awareness and help prevent and eliminate human trafficking worldwide. Government and NGO statistics indicate that the magnitude of forced labor surpasses that of forced prostitution in Mexico. This figure is derived from the Justice department’s statistic that  50% of trafficking victims in the U.S. are U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents (this statistic is mirrored in the state of Texas) and the IOM’s statistic that 79% of victims born outside the U.S., entered the country using legal ports of entry. Of the 2,136 victims of sex trafficking that the hotline identified in 2017, 711 of them were recruited through a proposition from an intimate partner — sometimes even a proposition of marriage. It is a dire global problem, however, and the statistics on human trafficking will show you the actual scope of the issue. Trump's vivid descriptions of human trafficking along the U.S.-Mexico border have, more and more, become a regular part of his argument for a border wall. By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, 22 U.S.C. We have resource guides for researchers across the globe on all forms of trafficking for various stakeholders. Government efforts to help potential migrant trafficking victims already in place include awareness and preventative programs under several government departments. Since Greece bolstered controls along its land border with Turkey, along the Evros River, illegal immigrants have turned to the maritime route between Turkey and the Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, notably Lesbos, Samos, Kos and Chios. The National Human Trafficking Hotline, which is run by Polaris, operates a phone line and a web form that victims of or witnesses to human trafficking can use to alert the authorities. The only question is how many children the Left and the protesters are willing to […] The Washington Post noted that includes 92.1 percent of cases dealing with forced labor and sex trafficking, and 92.5 percent of cases of "transportation for illegal sex activity." The report found girls make up 23 percent of all victims, adult men make up 21 percent, and boys make up 7 percent. Spain is for the most part a destination for victims, mainly from Eastern Europe (mainly Romania), Africa (mainly Nigeria), Asia (mainly China) and South America (mainly Paraguay), as well as for transit to other destinations, chiefly European countries such as France and the United Kingdom. According to the agency's statistics, in 2015 more than 90 percent of human trafficking cases involved U.S. citizens. And of those 20% that were born outside the United States, very few of them were actually trafficked across the border. Claim: “Human traffickers and sex traffickers take advantage of the wide-open areas between our ports of entry to smuggle thousands of young girls and women into the United States and to sell them into prosti… Just 526 traffickers were convicted in 2018. Opponents of the wall claim that these crossings will happen anyway because smugglers already take humans and cargo over existing walls and fences with ramps, drones and aircraft. Nearly 59 percent of foreign citizens trafficked into the United States are labor trafficking victims, while just over 28 percent are known to be victims of sex trafficking and 6 percent are victims of both, Brandon Bouchard of the anti-trafficking group Polaris told the Post. This is a given, and is unarguable. “They asked for a survivor who had crossed the southern border,” Nat Paul, a survivor of human trafficking and a human-rights advocate, told me. Though such … That’s why Polaris has partnered with Consejo Ciudadano to support Mexico’s first national human trafficking hotline. Thus, accounting for U.S. nationals and foreign nationals entering through legal ports of entry, the overlap between the two crimes resides in the remaining 10% of cases. In fact, the crime of human trafficking does not require any movement whatsoever. Human trafficking is a worldwide problem, with millions of people affected and billions of dollars made off of their bodies, forced labor, and sometimes even organs. Since Mexico is the most frequent source country for foreign nationals identified through the National Human Trafficking Hotline,data suggest that the nexus of human smuggling and human trafficking, though possibly less than ten percent of cases, does center around the southern border. Between Consejo’s Línea Nacional Contra la Trata de Personas and the National Human Trafficking Hotline, operated by Polaris, survivors on either side of the border can seek and receive help. Share it with us and we’ll add it to the database! Human Trafficking, Sex Tourism, and Child Exploitation on the Southern Border Acknowledgements The authors wish to thank Southern Methodist University and the Department of Justice AMBER Alert Program for their support in the research and writing of this project. According to a White House press release, “nearly 70% of migrants travelling north to the United States are victims of violence.” Since Mexico is the most frequent source country for foreign nationals identified through the National Human Trafficking Hotline,data suggest that the nexus of human smuggling and human trafficking, though possibly less than ten percent of cases, does center around the southern border. But as The Appeal reported, Trump often conflates smuggling, when migrants willingly ask or pay someone to help them cross the border, with actual human trafficking. Presently human trafficking is among the fastest-growing criminal enterprises in the world, but whether it continues on an upward trajectory depends a lot on how we approach border security. Lauren DeCicca/Getty Images News/Getty Images, an invasion of our country by human traffickers, 25 million people globally who are trapped, 49 percent of all detected human trafficking victims, are not brought in for sexual exploitation, 13 percent rise in cases of identified human trafficking, victims are recruited into sexual slavery, human trafficking by airplane is almost impossible, wide-open areas between our ports of entry, 79 percent of human trafficking operations that cross borders. The Justice Department prosecuted 230 cases of human trafficking in the United States in 2018, down from 282 cases in 2017. These statistics show exactly what it looks like. According to a 2012 ILO report, 56 percent of instances of forced labor happened in the victims' place of origin or residence. human trafficking; many of those victims originate from Mesoamerica—Southern Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. At the southern border, there are now about 2,100 illegal border crossings a year with experts projecting illegal immigration in Fiscal Year 2019 to hit the highest level in more than a decade, with 600,000 illegal border crossings expected. Spotlighting Action: Truckers Against Trafficking, U.S. (A spokesperson for the D.H.S. In 2017, the hotline received calls alerting the organization to 8,524 cases of human trafficking across the country. 1 in 4 victims of modern slavery are children. Recently, President Donald Trump has leaned on human trafficking as one of the main reasons that a wall on the United States' southern border is necessary — but the claims Trump uses in order to further his push for a wall are not exactly true. The truth about human trafficking is that it's a very serious worldwide problem. Human trafficking centers on exploitationand is generally defined as: 1. There are no official statistics on how many victims of human trafficking there are in the country, since so many cases remain unreported; however, Polaris estimates that there are hundreds of thousands across the nation. Have you recently published a useful resource? Human trafficking in the United States isn't an immigration problem, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Why Online Safety Matters, “Thousands of Unaccompanied Migrant Minors, Unaccounted for”, Protecting Unaccompanied Mexican Migrant Child Trafficking Victims, “New Tool for Temporary Migrant Workers Seeks to Reduce Risk for Trafficking”, “When Drug Trafficking Becomes Human Trafficking”, How Students Can Help Address the Exploitation of Incarcerated Workers, A Call for Catalytic Investment in Prevention and Strategic Global Leadership in Anti-Trafficking Efforts, Donating to Anti-Trafficking Organizations, Opaque Supply Chains are Hiding Whether the Fashion Industry is Benefiting from State-Imposed Forced Labor, How Child Labor Could Be Fueling Your Electric Car. Those cases could include multiple victims. Senators Put Forth Legislation to Amend the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report and Current US anti-Trafficking Law, Part 4: How to Foster an Environment Where Children Feel Comfortable Speaking Up, Do You Know Who Your Kids Are Chatting With? A great deal has changed on the border. Every year, these forced laborers do work that would be worth more than $150 billion, a report from the ILO states. Human trafficking is defined by the U.S. State Department as “a crime involving the exploitation of an individual for the purposes of compelled labor or a commercial sex act through the use of force, fraud, or coercion.” Whereas the U.S. State Department says human smuggling, also known as migrant smuggling, “occurs when a person voluntarily enters into an agreement with a smuggler to gain illegal entry into a foreign country and is moved across an international border.” Whether voluntary or involuntary,  both crimes endanger the powerless and raise human rights concerns. It's notoriously difficult to gauge the number of human trafficking victims. Recruitment Victims have been captured in their countries of origin by adverti… For over a decade, the Rendon-Reyes Trafficking Organization, based in Tenancingo, Tlaxcala, Mexico, has used the insecurity and lawlessness at the southern border to … According to Polaris, the nonprofit that seeks to disrupt trafficking networks, there was a 13 percent rise in cases of identified human trafficking in the United States in 2017. Brandon Bouchard of Polaris told The Washington Post that the numbers of reports of human trafficking that the organization received on American citizens vs. noncitizens were "basically split.". The nexus of human trafficking and human smuggling, two related but different crimes, is in the spotlight as President Trump stresses the need for a border wall to stop human trafficking. The report, discussing human trafficking around the globe, is even more interesting this year in light of the ongoing immigration debacle on the United States’ southern border. Human trafficking and migrant smuggling can be linked, for example, through the high costs … According to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol Border Protection (CBP), so far in fiscal year 2020, agents along the southern border have apprehended 21,301 unaccompanied alien minors (UAMs). HTS creates a blog, publishes research, and hosts a global resource database on human trafficking and modern-day slavery. Human trafficking and human smuggling are distinct criminal activities, and the terms are not interchangeable. 7101 et seq., it is hereby ordered as follows: Governments, NGOs, and even private citizens can still do a lot more to stop it — but the evidence is lacking that building a wall along the southern border of the United States will have any sort of effect. In most cases, victims are recruited into sexual slavery by intimate partners or someone who they think could become an intimate partner, according to Polaris. Trump distorts how often trafficking victims come from the southern border, according the Counter-Trafficking Data Collaborative, a global hub for trafficking statistics with data contributed by organizations from around the world.. This figure is derived from two sources. All Rights Reserved. Of that work, about $46.8 billion's worth takes place in developed countries, which includes the U.S. and many European countries. Myth: Human trafficking involves moving, traveling or transporting a person across state or national borders. About 20 percent of these journeys happen on airplanes. Use the following links to learn more: Read more HTS blogs relating to the southern border: We depend on the anti-trafficking community to keep our resource hub up to date. Some people are trafficked across American borders from other countries, but contrary to Trump's claims that "human trafficking by airplane is almost impossible" and that traffickers use the "wide-open areas between our ports of entry" to carry out their crimes, most trafficking actually takes place through official ports of entry.