How Does Human Trafficking Happen?

Human trafficking is often a result of vulnerability. That could mean unstable housing; poverty; addiction; a need for love and affection; a history of sexual or physical abuse; or other environmental, situational or physical challenges. 1

The legal definition requires force, fraud or coercion.

Force might look like:

  • physical assault, such as being hit, kicked, punched, stabbed, strangled, burned, shot, raped

  • confinement such as being locked in a room or closet, handcuffed, tied up, bound or otherwise physically prevented from moving or leaving a situation

  • drugging a person to incapacitate him or her

Examples of fraud include:

  • false promises of a better job, good pay, a new life in the United States or better circumstances for one’s family

  • the use of fraudulent travel documents such as passports or visas

  • false advertising

Coercion might be physical or psychological.

Physical coercion:

  • Putting a gun to someone’s head

  • Holding a person at knifepoint

  • Threatening to hit or hurt someone

Psychological coercion:

  • Threats or intimidation against the victim or victim’s family, including threats to physically harm a loved one

  • Blackmail (such as threatening to release nude photos of a person)

  • Threats of deportation or sending someone to jail

  • Showing a person a dead body and intimating that if the person doesn’t cooperate he or she will end up the same way 2

Recruitment tactics can include promises of a better job or life, a sense of belonging, grooming or seduction, an offer to meet basic needs, glamorization of a situation or normalization of trafficking situations or environments, according to a study made available by the Office of Justice Programs’ National Criminal Justice Reference. 3

Exploiting vulnerabilities—poverty, desperation, loneliness, abandonment, addiction, a need for love, hunger, homelessness—is traffickers’ strongest tactic.

1) www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/faqs.html
2) https://ctip.defense.gov/portals/12/Trafficking_in_Persons_101_Fact_Sheet_2020.pdf
3) www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/308701.pdf