The Department of Justice held a Summit on Combating Human Trafficking last week at which the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) unveiled a first-of-its-kind long-term strategy for what the United States has declared a national priority.
According to Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf, the strategy leverages all authorities in the fight to end human trafficking, the importation of goods produced with forced labor, and child sexual exploitation. These three interrelated activities comprise human exploitation, with forced labor being the predominant form. Altogether, human trafficking is a lucrative illicit crime with estimated annual global profits of $150 billion. It victimizes approximately 25 million people around the world, of whom 80 percent are victims of forced labor and 20 percent victims of sex trafficking.
The Strategy to Combat Human Trafficking, the Importation of Goods Produced with Forced Labor, and Child Sexual Exploitation outlines five key goals:
- Reduce the threat of human trafficking by providing information and resources to vulnerable populations and groups, equipping them with the tools necessary to make educated decisions and avoid possible trafficking situations.
- Disrupt illicit activity by identifying and assisting victims toward stability and recovery. Protecting victims long-term is not only important to the large cause of justice, but can also provide helpful to investigation and prosecution.
- Leverage DHS law enforcement and national security authorities to investigate, take enforcement action, and refer cases for prosecution.
- Build strong partnerships throughout the homeland security enterprise as force multipliers across the United States.
- Harmonize and organize DHS programs to allow for efficiency and effectiveness.
The first four goals relate to the globally accepted framework to combat human trafficking known as the “four P paradigm” of prevention, protection, prosecution and partnership. The last goal is specific to the DHS who, 20 years after the passing of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA), is still seeing an annual increase in human trafficking cases.
“The TVPA responded to the fact that the ability of one person to control, exploit, abuse and profit from another person’s labor and commercial sex acts has not yet been fully eradicated, and it needs to be,” Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen said in a speech at the summit. “We need the availability of all law enforcement tools to adequately investigate and prosecute more human trafficking cases. While some say we cannot prosecute our way out of this problem, the fact is that a human trafficker who remains at large can and will find other victims.”
Additionally, there are nine objectives across the five goals, each with a series of priority actions. Within 180 days of issuing the strategy (January 15), DHS will develop and release an implementation plan that includes specific deliverables, timelines and metrics for key results.
Photo: U.S. Attorney Erica MacDonald for the District of Minnesota moderates a conversation on discussing survivors' perspective. Credit: DOJ