Human traffickingCombatting human trafficking
Law enforcement organizations across the United States have recently arrested multiple people charged with various crimes that include organizing, operating or paying for services from human trafficking rings. “Human trafficking is not synonymous with human smuggling,” notes one expert.
Law enforcement organizations across the United States have recently arrested multiple people charged with various crimes that include organizing, operating or paying for services from human trafficking rings.
To learn more about human trafficking and how current and future technologies can help address the problem, ASU Now spoke with Kristen Abrams, the senior director of combatting human trafficking at ASU’s McCain Institute for International Leadership, and Nadya Bliss, director of ASU’s Global Security Initiative (GSI). GSI recently helped organize a conference at the United Nations on how computational science and AI can help combat human trafficking.
ASU Now: What is human trafficking?
Kristen Abrams: Human trafficking, sometimes referred to as trafficking in persons or modern-day slavery, is a heinous crime that involves the exploitation of a person for the purpose of forced labor or commercial sex. Methods of coercion can be subtle or overt, physical or psychological and can include blackmailing, threats against a victim or a victim’s loved ones, or the withholding of identifying documents or wages. Any commercial sexual exploitation of a minor is human trafficking, regardless of whether any form of force, fraud or coercion was involved.
The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, and its subsequent reauthorizations, provides a federal definition of human trafficking. Since 2013, every state has implemented legislation to define human trafficking. Many state definitions of human trafficking mirror the federal definition.
