The U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 and its subsequent reauthorizations recognize and define two primary forms of human trafficking:

Sex trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, obtaining, patronizing or soliciting of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age. (22 U.S.C. § 7102(11)(A))

Forced labor is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage or slavery. (22 U.S.C. § 7102(11)(B)) 1

Organ trafficking is a lesser-known form of human trafficking, and instances of forced marriage can also fall into the definition of human trafficking.

Trafficking is not the same as smuggling. Human trafficking does not require movement over borders, though human trafficking and human smuggling might occur together. 2

In fact, the crime of human trafficking does not require any movement whatsoever. Survivors can be recruited and trafficked in their own communities, even in their own homes. 3

Exploitation of a minor for commercial sex is human trafficking, regardless of whether any form of force, fraud or coercion was used. 4

1) www.justice.gov/humantrafficking
2) www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/faqs.html
3) https://humantraffickinghotline.org/en/human-trafficking/myths-facts
4) https://www.justice.gov/humantrafficking/what-is-human-trafficking