Possible Points of Intervention

Numerous articles and reports on human trafficking in the United States as well as survivor's stories have indicated that there are places along the human trafficking transportation network where a public awareness and education campaign and law enforcement would make a significant impact and could rescue victims before they are exploited.

A recent article in The Charlotte Observer, noted that a human trafficker would routinely pick up women outside of a McDonald's near the interstate where other traffickers had dropped them off. A 2005 Department of Justice Report noted that human traffickers stopped at fast food restaurants, discount retail stores and gas stations in particular as they transported victims to their final destination to be exploited.

A public awareness campaign to educate the employees of these businesses on how to identify potential victims of human trafficking, the placement of brochures in public areas and restrooms that inform potential victims of their rights and give the phone numbers of victim assistance providers, and having law enforcement "on the lookout" at these places would all be effective measures to combat human trafficking.

The U.S. Department of Labor Gets It Wrong

The United States Department of Labor(DOL) recently released its report on goods produced by child labor or forced labor. In the report, DOL defines child labor in relevant part, as "(A) All forms of slavery or practices similar to slavery, such as the sale or trafficking of children, debt bondage and serfdom, or forced or compulsory labor, including forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict; (B) the use, procuring, or offering of a child for prostitution, for the production of pornography or pornographic purposes; and (C) the use, procuring, or offering a child for illicit activities in particular for the production and trafficking in drugs."



Forced labor is defined as "work provided or obtained by force, fraud, or coercion, including: (1) By threats of serious harm to, or physical restraint against any person; (2) by means of any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause the person to believe that, if the person did not perform such labor or services, that person or another person would suffer serious harm or physical restraint; or (3) by means of abuse or threatened abuse of law or the legal process."



The DOL concludes that "The majority of forced labor and child labor victims are not trafficked into their situations of exploitation." [Emphasis mine]

This statement is not only patently false, it is absolutely outrageous. The definition of forced labor is taken from the U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Act(TVPA), any act that satisfies this definition is human trafficking by law. Furthermore, the definition of child labor includes elements found in the TVPA. It is clear that DOL mistakenly equates human trafficking with forced migration, which human trafficking is not. Movement across borders or State lines does not define human trafficking. It is the state of exploitation that defines human trafficking. The Department of Labor must learn what defines human trafficking in order to effectively fight it.