The Greater New Orleans Human Trafficking Task Force recognizes the legal definitions of trafficking at international, national, and state levels.
LEGAL DEFINITIONS
International
According to the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons (Palermo Protocol), “trafficking in persons” shall mean:
The 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. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.
National
The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) defines “severe forms of trafficking in persons” as:
Sex trafficking- the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act, in which the 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; and
Labor trafficking- 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.
State
Louisiana’s Criminal Law RS 14:46.2 on human trafficking states that it shall be unlawful:
(1) For any person to knowingly recruit, harbor, transport, provide, solicit, receive, isolate, entice, obtain, or maintain the use of another person through fraud, force, or coercion to provide services or labor.
(2) For any person to knowingly benefit from activity prohibited by the provisions of this Section.
(3) For any person to knowingly facilitate any of the activities prohibited by the provisions of this Section by any means, including but not limited to helping, aiding, abetting, or conspiring, regardless of whether a thing of value has been promised to or received by the person.
UNDERSTANDING THE CRIME
The A-M-P Model
The Action-Means-Purpose Model is a tool to determine whether a situation fits the federal definition of human trafficking. The "action" is the thing the trafficker does to a trafficking victim using the "means" or the method the trafficker uses to compel a person into the "purpose" or the type of exploitation.
“Human trafficking occurs when a perpetrator, often referred to as a trafficker, takes any one of the enumerated ‘Actions’, and then employs the ‘Means’ of force, fraud or coercion for the ‘Purpose’ of compelling the victim to provide commercial sex acts or labor or services. ”
POLARIS PROJECT, "a-m-p mODEL" https://humantraffickinghotline.org/sites/default/files/AMP%20Model.pdf
WHO IS AT RISK FOR TRAFFICKING?
Who is at risk of trafficking? You may be surprised to see who's at risk...
American citizens
Foreign nationals
Boys
Girls
Men
Women
Transgender/ gender non-binary individuals
People with physical and/or developmental disabilities
Able-bodied people
People of all races
People of all ethnicities
People of all socio-economic statuses
People living in urban, suburban, and rural contexts
There is no "perfect victim": human trafficking can happen in virtually any context, to any person... however: there are vulnerabilities that increase a person's likeliness of experiencing trafficking.
TRAFFICKING VULNERABILITIES
A vulnerability is something that makes you more likely to experience something. This list of vulnerabilities is not exhaustive- these are just a few of the vulnerabilities identified within trafficking victims in the United States.
Compromised legal and/or immigration status
Non-English speaking or limited English speaking proficiency
LGBTQ+ identity
Homelessness
History of runaway behavior
Experience within the foster care system
Physical, mental and/or developmental disability
Member of a marginalized social, racial, or cultural group
Low socio-economic status
Formerly incarcerated
History of substance abuse
History of sexual abuse
TRAFFICKING STATISTICS
The National Human Trafficking Hotline identified 2,978 cases of human trafficking in Louisiana alone since 2007. An additional 3,719 cases were coded as “moderate,” suggesting that these cases contained several elements of human trafficking but lacked thorough evidence of force, fraud, or coercion.
*Please note that this number reflects the incidences of potential trafficking cases or official cases that were reported through those hotlines- this is not a prevalence estimate.
TRAFFICKING PREVALENCE
Many people ask the question: "How many people are trafficked in New Orleans? How many people in the world are trafficking victims?"
While this is an important question to attempt to answer, it is an extremely difficult question to answer. Human trafficking is a hidden crime, meaning a crime that happens in the black market or "behind closed doors" because it is an illicit trade. In addition, people who have experienced conditions of trafficking often do not come forward because of a variety of factors. As such, it is extremely difficult to determine how many trafficking victims there are in the world, or in the United States. It is important to be cautious when using statistics related to prevalence of trafficking because there is so little methodologically sound data to answer that question.
