Human trafficking is a subject that elicits strong visceral reactions when it chances into the spotlight. For good reason. Stomach-churning stories of children sold into forced labor, of young girls and boys entrapped into lives of rape and violence that the word “prostitution” doesn’t quite cover, and of adult men and women smuggled across borders to become indentured servants — they are found on the uncomfortable, dark underside of the global flow in trade, money, and labor, that underpins modern economics and society itself. They resonate as a nightmare version of the more familiar logic of supply and demand, legality and illegality. They constitute infuriating human rights abuses, and violate any number of laws and treaties — and because they happen to people whose very existence is undocumented, whose bodies are uncounted and whose faces and voices are hidden, they go on and are not discussed in polite company. It is the twenty-first century, and the trade in human beings accounts for the world’s third largest illegal market¹. It is probably small news that the United States is a big consumer. It is news to most people that the US is also a source of victims.

Human trafficking is defined as the crime of using force, coercion, or fraud to procure or detain another person for involuntary servitude or for commercial sex work². It often involves travel across borders, but doesn’t have to. The best available estimates pin the number of people trafficked across national borders for sexual or labor exploitation at 800,000 each year — and the number of people brought into the US for these purposes for 15,000 to 18,000 per year^3,4. Immigrants and refugees are particularly vulnerable to exploitation, and being an internally displaced person (IDP) has been shown to be an additional risk factor for becoming a victim of trafficking^2,5.

Some numbers from the Human Trafficking Reporting System set up by the US Department of Justice in 2007⁶:
- 83% of 1,200+ human trafficking incidents reported in the US involved sex trafficking
- Two-thirds of all victims were under age 24, and 27% of all victims were children and teens under age 17.
- Over 90% of victims in all reported trafficking incidents, and 99% of victims in sex exploitation cases, were female.
- Hispanic immigrants made up 37% of sex trafficking victims and 56% of labor trafficking victims in the US in 2007-2008
- More than half of all victims, and 63% of sex trafficking victims, were US citizens.

What does all this have to do with human rights or global health? Are you kidding?

No art or movie clips this time. Just incredibly depressing statistics and some imagination. Medical- and public-health-side interpretations coming next time.

In upcoming installments:
Part II: Guest post from AMSA Global’s Health and Human Rights coordinator.
Part III: Trafficking and the medical provider: What you need to know, what you can do to help.
Part IV: Guest post from the field.

Sources / Further Reading:
[1] Orhant M. Trafficking In Persons. Population Reference Bureau. 2002. Link.
[2] Logan TK, Walker R, and Hunt G. Understanding Human Trafficking in the United States. Trauma, Violence, and Abuse. 2009. 10(1): 3-30.
[3] U.S. Department of State. Trafficking in Persons Report. 2006. Link.
[4] Polaris Project. Human Trafficking Statistics. 2009. Link.
[5] Feller E. UNHCR’s role in IDP protection: Opportunities and challenges- Forced Migration Review. 2006. Link.
[6] U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Bureau of Justice Programs. More than 1,200 alleged incidents of human trafficking reported in the U.S. Press release. 15 Jan. 2009. Link.

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In our previous themed series, Jennifer Weinberg writes about health care, HIV, and teledermatology in Botswana, where she spent the summer of 2009. Check out “Blogging from Botswana”, parts I, II, III, and IV, from this summer.