Human Trafficking

The United Nations recently announced that approximately two million people are falling victim to the modern slave trade across the world.^[1] The UN’s High Commissioner of Human Rights, Louise Arbour, said that the victims, mostly women and children, were “ending up as sex slaves, beggars, and forced labourers because of human trafficking.”^[2]

The majority of people trafficked in south-east Asia end up in the sex trade.^[3] Some of the victims are tricked into thinking they will have high-paying jobs, never suspecting that they will be forced into prostitution; others know they are going into prostitution but think they can leave after a certain amount of time when they actually cannot.^[4]

Human trafficking is a very serious transnational crime, and the United States has taken measures to combat the practice. In 2000, Congress enacted the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000,^[5] to “combat trafficking in persons, a contemporary manifestation of slavery whose victims are predominantly women and children, to ensure just and effective punishment of traffickers, and to protect their victims.”^[6] The same Act also amended Title 18, Chapter 77 of the US Code, by adding sections 1589-1594 to the chapter. In 2003, Congress amended Chapter 77, changing the former “Peonage and Slavery” to the current “Peonage, Slavery, and Trafficking in Persons.”

Trafficking in persons for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity is largely punished by 18 U.S.C. § 1591. Under this section, it is a crime for a person to knowingly

• recruit, entice, harbor, transport, provide, or obtain by any means a person, knowing that force, fraud, or coercion will be used to cause that person to engage in a commercial sex act;^[7]
• recruit, entice, harbor, transport, provide, or obtain by any means a person who has not reached 18 years of age, and that person will be caused to engage in a commercial sex act;^[8] or
• benefit, financially or by receiving anything of value, from participation in such a venture.^[9]

The punishment for violating section 1591 is a fine, imprisonment for up to life, or both.^[10]

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[1] Justin Huggler, Two Million Fall Victim to Slave Trade Each Year, Says UN, Independent Online, Aug. 31, 2005, available here.
[2] Id.
[3] Id.
[4] Id.
[5] Pub. L. No. 106-386, 114 Stat. 1464 (2000) (codified at 22 U.S.C. §§ 7101-7110).
[6] 22 U.S.C. § 7101(a).
[7] 18 U.S.C. § 1591(a)(1).
[8] Id. § 1591(a). Note that force, fraud, or coercion, are seemingly not required if the victim is under 18.
[9] . Id. § 1591(a)(2).
[10] Id. § 1591(b).