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| Toni Richmond and Jack |
Dear Jack,
In my high school we began to study what constitutes abuse,
whether physical, sexual, emotional, or neglect. It was all really interesting and gave me and
the other students some valuable information.
At the end of school we were just beginning to study child trafficking,
but didn’t have enough time. Do you know anything about it? I would like to know more about this topic.
Josh
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Dear Josh,
This is something that has been going on for a very long
time. In 2000 the Trafficking Victims
Protection Act (TVPA) first made trafficking in persons a federal crime. All states have anti-trafficking legislation,
but the problem lies in identifying the victims who are commonly hidden and
living in fear. Even if these victims
come in contact with law enforcement, they may be re-victimized by being
treated like criminals, denying them the support and services that they need.
Many people, when thinking about human trafficking, believe
it only happens when people are trafficked into the United States, but many are
U.S. citizens. The Department of Justice
has estimated between 14,500 and 127,000 foreign men, women and children are
trafficked into the United States each year.
According to “Building Child Welfare Response to Child Trafficking
Handbook” these figures fail to take in account the 293,000 children who are
United States citizens and who are at risk for being trafficked specifically
for sex trade each year.
The federal definition of human trafficking states “Severe
forms of human trafficking" are:
2. Trafficking in which the person induced to perform such
act has not attained 18 years of age;
3. The recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or
obtaining of a person for labor of services, through the use of force, fraud,
or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage,
debt bondage, or slavery.
Jack
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