LABOR TRAFFICKINGLabor Trafficking in the United States
In 2020, DHS developed a strategy to guide its efforts to curb trafficking worldwide. Principally, the strategy calls for improving the identification and reporting of suspected trafficking. Questions about the current state of research on U.S. labor trafficking and future research needs need to be answered as the initial step in building a research agenda focused on labor trafficking.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s webpage on human trafficking defines such trafficking as “[t]he recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.”
Human trafficking occurs in three forms: sex trafficking, labor trafficking, and child exploitation. Labor trafficking — the most common form of human trafficking worldwide — includes both bonded labor or labor exploitation (in which the victim is forced to work to repay a debt) and forced labor (in which the victim is forced to work against their will). The International Labour Organization (ILO) has estimated that more than 12 million people worldwide are victims of forced labor at any given time, and the U.S. Department of State has estimated that 14,500 to 17,500 people are trafficked into the United States each year to perform bonded or forced labor, and the dimensions of this problem are growing.
A new report from RAND notes that the federal government has prioritized reducing the prevalence of human trafficking in all its forms — including labor trafficking and sex trafficking — across the United States, relying primarily on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In 2020, DHS developed a strategy to guide its efforts to curb trafficking worldwide, Strategy to Combat Human Trafficking, the Importation of Goods Produced with Forced Labor, and Child Sexual Exploitation. Principally, the strategy calls for improving the identification and reporting of suspected trafficking. DHS’s Science and Technology Directorate asked the Homeland Security Operational Analysis Center (HSOAC), a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC), to assess the current state of research on U.S. labor trafficking and future research needs — questions that need to be answered — as the initial step in building a research agenda focused on labor trafficking.
Why Is Labor Trafficking So Challenging to Study and Address?
What makes labor trafficking especially challenging to address is that identifying its victims is very difficult:
· Victims often are not aware of their rights.
