What do you think of when you hear the words “human trafficking?” Do you envision international locations, underground trades, individuals without citizenship, a person physically confined to a space, or a person being abducted off the street? These are all stereotypes of human trafficking. They do not paint a complete or fully accurate portrayal of human trafficking in the United States. In order to understand human trafficking, we must take a step back to discuss and understand the totality of factors that are a part of the human trafficking experience.
Human Trafficking specific laws have a fairly recent history, with the first federal comprehensive trafficking law, The Trafficking Victims’ Protection Act (TVPA), being enacted in 2000. TVPA defines the elements of sex and labor trafficking. Broadly speaking, the TVPA finds that human trafficking is the use of force, fraud, or coercion to compel a person into sexual acts or acts of labor against their will.
The TVPA utilizes the Action-Means-Purpose Model or AMP Model. The Model breaks apart the elements of human trafficking into three parts, all three of which must be fulfilled in order to have the presence of human trafficking. The first two steps–action and means– describe specific actions taken and the ways in which those actions are fulfilled. Actions contemplated when evaluating whether human trafficking was present include an analysis of whether they completed one of the following: induce, recruit, harbor, transport, provide, or obtain. The next consideration, the means, seeks to understand whether the action completed involved force, fraud, or coercion. The means portion of the AMP model explains tactics traffickers use to exert control over their target whether psychologically or physically. Force can include physical restraint, physical harm, or sexual assault to compel their targets into forced labor. Fraud can include false promises regarding employment, wages, working conditions, love, marriage, or a better life. Coercion can include threats of serious physical harm, document confiscation, and shame/fear induced threats. The final element, the purpose, evaluates whether the actions taken were completed with the intention of having someone engage in an act of commercial sex or labor trafficking. When all three elements are present, human trafficking is found.
Overall there is less time and awareness around labor trafficking. Labor trafficking is more difficult to identify than sex trafficking because victims are engaged in acts that appear to be commonplace, as they appear that an individual is engaged in a standard act of employment.
While anyone can be victimized through labor trafficking, those populations vulnerable to socioeconomic instability are at an increased risk. Labor traffickers may begin with a job offer for a job that does not exist or under false pretension. Thereafter, traffickers might utilize threats and exploitative circumstances to keep an individual working subjected to a state of indentured servitude through requirements of payment of items such as rent and food, the presence of little or no pay, and abusive working conditions. A variety of circumstances encompass labor trafficking ranging from forced and involuntary child labor, panhandling or forcible requirement for the engagement in illegal acts.
One notable labor trafficking case is the United Nation of Islam (UNOI), now known as the Value Creators. Six men, led by Royall Jenkins, of the UNOI were convicted of forcing children as young as eight to work without pay while being physically harmed, denied healthcare, and forced to follow strict diets. The UNOI ran storefronts such as diners, bakeries, and gas stations, and spanned numerous states including Kansas, New York, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, and Ohio.
Ohio’s law is even more recent than the TVPA, having only been enacted in 2012. Section 2905.32 of the Ohio Revised Code (ORC) broadens the federal definition of human trafficking by including language such as luring, enticing, and maintaining. Understanding these expansions will help to paint a broader picture of what human trafficking looks like in Ohio.
Notably, the act of enticing explodes the concept of who is trafficked under Ohio Law. The act of enticing is where traffickers figure out their victims’ vulnerabilities and exploit them to get the person to do what the trafficker wants. A person can be offered or deprived of a resource they need (i.e. housing, food, substances) in order to get them to engage in the act the traffickers require.
Understanding ORC Section 2905.32 is important because it emphasizes that traffickers thrive on emotional manipulation and psychological coercion as their method of confinement rather than visible confinement. A key component of ORC Section 2905.32 is compulsion. The element compelled does not require the compulsion to be openly displayed or physically exerted. Compulsion has been established if the state proves the victim’s will was overcome by:
This understanding challenges ways in which the public views and understands human trafficking. Someone being trafficked may not demonstrate visible visual traits. While contemporary media might showcase a certain portrayal of what human trafficking can look like (i.e. someone is kidnapped, taken to an international location, and held there), these ideals need to be updated to create a more complete and comprehensive understanding of what trafficking looks like and who is at risk. The highlight on psychological means of victimizing people requires the conversation to be more inclusive around a variety of vulnerabilities ranging from mental health challenges, the use of substances, and to those experiencing a lack of resources.
The discrepancies in how society documents and reports human trafficking cases makes it imperative to look at a variety of statistics to gather a comprehensive view of human trafficking. No one site reports the same numbers or utilizes the same screening mechanisms for the same risk factors.
According to the Human Trafficking Courts, Ohio ranks fifth in the United States for human trafficking incidents as of 2022; however, has the fourth overall worst ratio of victims per capita. This means Ohio has the fourth highest number of human trafficking victims per 100,000 people. As of June 2022, Ohio’s rate of human trafficking was 3.84 victims per 100,000 residents. As of 2022 the population of Ohio was 11,756,058, meaning there were an estimated 450 trafficking victims in the state.
The National Human Trafficking Hotline is a platform for victims of sex and labor trafficking with services to provide help and safety. For Ohio in 2023, there were 810 hotline calls, SMS reports, online reports, email, and web chats to which 258 cases were identified through the national number and of those 458 victims were identified.
The Human Trafficking Annual Report, by the Ohio Office of the Attorney General, states that Ohio law requires local law enforcement agencies to collect data surrounding human trafficking investigations. The 2022 Report demonstrated that law enforcement in 60 counties reported open investigations. In these investigations, 100 human trafficking suspects were identified, resulting in 55 arrests and 26 criminal convictions.
Discrepancies in these statistics are due to a variety of factors including disconnect in the type of screening tools utilized, the inability of individuals to understand human trafficking, and the lack of standardization in outreach to at-risk communities. As a result, the numbers we report in Ohio and elsewhere underreport the true impact.
According to the Polaris Project and the Ohio Attorney General 2022 Annual Human Trafficking Report, the most common risk factors include:
Traffickers identify victims’ needs and learn how to fulfill those needs to create a cycle of dependency. By promising economic stability, food security, shelter, community, safety, or emotional support/love, traffickers can compel victims to engage in previously unthought of acts. To combat human trafficking, it is imperative to understand that caring about human trafficking must equate to caring about the systems that make people vulnerable to trafficking in the first place. It is a public health issue that must be addressed at its root causes. Until, as a society, we address people’s holistic, whole personhood, we continue to perpetuate the ground for individuals to exploit others whose needs remain unmet due to systemic failure.
The listed vulnerabilities outline certain demographics that are predisposed to being trafficked because they are disproportionately impacted by social, cultural, economic, and political factors such as the systemic disconnection from social services and support, lack of education access, stigmas, forced assimilation, familial poverty, racism, cultural norms, economic hierarchies, etc. Because these factors are a direct derivation of the social-political system, these factors impact and directly contribute to the facilitation of vulnerabilities and their concurrent predisposition to human trafficking.
As members of the legal or legal-adjacent community, it is necessary to continue expanding knowledge about this topic, to become more proactive at identifying individuals who are at-risk, and to understand the best trauma-informed resources available to address the variety of risk-factors that provide space for human trafficking to flourish. We must first understand what human trafficking is/is not, what it entails, and how its influence is impactful on our entire community. We must also seek to dedicate ourselves to bettering the systems that allow these exploitations to continue to flourish. Human trafficking is a crime of exploitation and vulnerability. The underlying root causes that make human trafficking possible, lack of access to housing, healthcare, food, mental health support, and gainful employment, must remain a priority in our focus as we move forward in working to eradicate the impact of human trafficking.
Simek and Husein are affiliated with The Human Trafficking Law Clinic (HTLC) at Case Western Reserve University School of Law. It focuses on legal wellness direct civil legal representation, and referral to social service agencies to address clients’ holistic, whole-person needs. Our legal focus and social service support help with sustainability and stabilization of clients.