Avoiding eye contact, social interaction, and authority figures/law enforcement. Seeming to adhere to scripted or rehearsed responses in social interaction. Lacking official identification documents. Appearing destitute/lacking personal possessions.
Recognizing the signs is the first step in identifying victims. Each red flag focuses on the traffickers' methods of control and can be broken down into categories: personal documents, wages, safety, freedom, and working and living conditions. Think of these categories as pieces of a puzzle.
The elements of both definitions can be described using a three-element framework focused on the trafficker's 1) acts; 2) means; and 3) purpose. All three elements are essential to form a human trafficking violation.
One common way that traffickers target their victims is through deception. They often pose as legitimate recruiters or employment agencies and promise their victims high-paying jobs, travel opportunities, or educational programs.
Traffickers employ a variety of control tactics, the most common include physical and emotional abuse and threats, isolation from friends and family, and economic abuse.
Person seems overly fearful, submissive, tense, or paranoid. Person is deferring to another person before giving information. Person has physical injuries or branding such as name tattoos on face or chest, tattoos about money and sex, or pimp phrases. Clothing is inappropriately sexual or inappropriate for weather.
The 5-stages of human trafficking are luring, grooming and gaming, coercion and manipulation, exploitation, and lastly, recruitment.
But as is the case in many crimes of exploitation and abuse, human traffickers often prey upon members of marginalized communities and other vulnerable individuals, including children in the child welfare system or children who have been involved in the juvenile justice system; runaway and homeless youth; unaccompanied ...
Blue is internationally recognized as the universal color for human trafficking prevention.
Blue is the color of Human Trafficking Awareness Month, and to show their support for survivors and to spread awareness for human trafficking, various state agencies lit their buildings with blue spotlights from Jan. 9-11, 2023.
Human trafficking occurs when a trafficker uses force, fraud, or coercion to compel another person to work or engage in a commercial sex act. It sometimes involves crossing a border but does not require it.
Signs that a child has been trafficked may not be obvious, but could include: rarely leaving the house. having no time to play. living apart from family or having limited social contact with friends, family and the community.
Children account for half of the victims of human trafficking. In fact, the average age that a young person becomes involved in sex trafficking is 12 years old.
Suggested Screening Questions
Have you been physically harmed in any way? What are your working or living conditions like? Where do you sleep and eat? Do you sleep in a bed, on a cot or on the floor?
Various research and study have indicated that human trafficking victims are highly likely to experience depression, anxiety, emotional numbness, or memory loss. Some of them get affected more and develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Many sex traffickers lure victims by providing basic survival needs. They systematically provide distorted versions of higher needs to manipulate victims. Using threats, force and coercion, traffickers exploit the fact that, for many victims, “the life” may be their first experience of 'family' and belonging.
The FBI investigates all forms of human trafficking, which fall under the FBI's Violent Crime Section, Crimes Against Children and Human Trafficking Unit (CACHTU). CACHTU has programmatic oversight over all FBI-led human trafficking investigations, including sex trafficking, labor trafficking, and domestic servitude.
Recruitment: Sex traffickers approach potential victims in a variety of ways, including pretending to be a potential boyfriend or friend, contacting them via social media such as Facebook, posting newspaper or Internet ads for jobs and opportunities, or even threatening or kidnapping them.