WHAT IS HUMAN TRAFFICKING?

Trafficking is slavery

Traditionally, slaves were considered non-human property that was bought and sold, moved from place to place without consent, controlled by physical violence, subjected to unlimited sexual use by the master and anyone else they chose, allowed to keep no money or own possessions.

Today, public slave trading blocks have been replaced by cell phones and the internet. Iron shackles have been exchanged for less ‘visible’ means of force, fraud and coercion.

Tragically, little else of significance has changed for the world’s estimated 12 million men, women and children being trafficked into prostitution, pornography, sweatshops, field work, domestic servitude, child soldiering, drug selling, street begging, and even organ selling on a global scale never before seen in history.

Trafficking is a crime

It is a poorly understood fact that the United States recognizes the basic humans rights of life and liberty for every individual inside its borders, regardless of citizenship or immigration status. Human trafficking is a criminal violation of those human rights.

The U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) set the legal bar when it officially defined human trafficking as the recruitment, harboring, transporting, obtaining, or maintaining of a person by means of force, fraud or coercion, for purposes of involuntary servitude, debt bondage, slavery, or participation in the sex trade. Furthermore, the TVPA specifically defined trafficking victims to include anyone under the age 18 involved in commercial sex acts, period.

The choice to eliminate the need for proof of force, fraud or coercion in cases of sex trafficked minors was based on the assumption that no child is developmentally mature enough to choose to engage in commercial sex acts without a corruptive influence who is in some way exploiting them.

This watershed decision helped throw open the door to pursuing the rescue of thousands of American ‘juvenile prostitutes’ who, up to this point, had generally been seen as criminals rather than as victims of a crime.

Trafficking is a business

With estimated yearly profits averaging 32 billion dollars, human trafficking reigns as the world’s second largest, fastest growing criminal industry - and for good reason. Those who traffic in illegal drugs and guns can sell their commodities only once. Human beings can be sold over and over again.

In 2007 alone, human slave traders made more money than Google, Nike, and Starbucks combined.
The trafficking industry breaks down into labor trafficking and sex trafficking, with significant overlap between the two branches. Labor trafficking victims are often also sexually exploited, and sex traffickers are sometimes prosecuted for labor trafficking due to the fact that they keep all of their victims’ earnings. There are key distinctions between the two, however, especially when it comes to profits.

At the high end, labor traffickers have been known to clear $60,000 a year for a single victim. The average is closer to $13,000 per victim per year. In contrast, researchers estimate the average pimp in the United States can make more than $200,000 a year off the sexual trafficking of a single girl.

While global conflict, poverty and inequality play a critical role in creating the trafficking industry’s ‘raw materials’ (vulnerable human beings), it is important to acknowledge that the abundance of potential victims is not the cause behind the crime. Human trafficking exists as a market-based economy dependent on supply and demand that’s being driven by the ability to make excessive profits generated at low risk.

Seen in this light, Oregon’s persistent reputation as a hub for sex-trafficked minors translates to an illicit business environment being fueled not by the availability of victimized children being sold for sex, but by the steady stream of customers eager to pay the price for youthful, child-like bodies.

Trafficking is a Network

There is no standard size for a human trafficking operation. Individual families are often found holding a single domestic servant hostage. On a larger scale, loosely organized groups or gangs maintain ‘stables’ of victims they trade and move from place to place. Most sophisticated are the internationally organized crime syndicates that routinely funnel drugs, guns and/or human slaves along well-established pipelines.

There is no dominant trail that marks the journey of a human trafficking victim. Nearly every country in the world plays a role in the ever-shifting make-up of trafficking’s lucrative, underground network.
‘Source countries’, where victims originate, are often those weakened by war, corruption or natural disasters.
‘Transit countries’ act as temporary stops on the victims’ journey to the country where they will be enslaved.
‘Destination countries’ must have affluent citizens with enough ‘disposable income’ to buy the traffickers’ ‘products’, which may account for the growing number of trafficking cases being uncovered in Japan, India, much of Western Europe, and the United States.

Research is underway across the U.S. to better determine the make-up and scale of human trafficking inside this country. What’s already clear, however, is Oregon’s major role in the lucrative Pacific coast circuit moving trafficking victims up and down the I-5 corridor.

Trafficking is an American problem

Of the 600,000 to 800,000 victims trafficked across international borders every year, an estimated 17,500 end up swelling the ranks of the exploited inside the United States. The most common countries of origin for these new arrivals include Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe and Africa.

Furthermore, U.S. citizens account for 25% of the world’s child sex tourism (visiting foreign countries for the express purpose of having sex with children). In spite of that, the number one destination for Americans seeking sex with a child is the United States.

On any given day, over 200,000 children inside the United States are at high risk for sexual exploitation, including prostitution, pornography, and stripping. Ninety percent of these children are American citizens. A child’s average age of entry into the U.S. sex industry is 12, with children as young as 10 being not uncommon.

Over half of the world’s child pornography originates inside America. While sex trafficking in its various forms currently dominates U.S. trafficking statistics, American involvement in human trafficking is clearly not limited to sexual exploitation.

Labor trafficking cases inside the United States have uncovered nannies and domestic servants held hostage inside American homes, as well as abused and unpaid workers inside small businesses such as restaurants, construction sites (particularly if access is denied), nail salons, custodial services, and landscaping crews.

Large-scale businesses involving farm industries, garment factories, food processing plants, and others have also been found harboring labor trafficking victims. Once thought to be a crime restricted to foreign nationals, recent labor trafficking cases inside the U.S. have uncovered American citizens being exploited in agricultural operations, traveling carnivals, pan handling rings, and traveling sales crews. Human trafficking has been reported in all fifty states.

Trafficking is an Oregon problem

Consider the Ethiopian nanny working nine years without pay for an affluent couple in Salem, Oregon – or the Mexican woman kidnapped by a Mexican man who brought her to Oregon to work his marijuana farm where she endured beatings, stabbings, and sexual assault – or the Portland teenager with broken ribs forced to bark like a dog so her pimp would not kill her.

During the 2008 FBI Operation Innocence Lost campaign to rescue child victims of sex trafficking, Oregon ranked second in the nation for victims recovered – seven victims in a single eight-hour shift.

While it’s estimated that one third of the minors being sex trafficked along Portland’s 82 Avenue and Sandy Boulevard actually come from nearby Vancouver, Washington, there are not, as yet, accurate numbers attached to the significantly larger internet-driven ‘off streets’ operations hidden inside underground brothels located in Oregon motel rooms and residential homes.

The costs of human trafficking to Oregon communities in terms of broken lives, lost potential, and human suffering are beyond anyone’s ability to count. However, state tax revenues spent in efforts to rescue and restore the lives of these trafficking victims are painfully concrete.

In terms of sex-trafficked minors alone, the Oregon Department of Human Services Child Welfare (DHS) recently measured expenditures of between $35,000 and $200,000 per year for each minor victim identified. Those figures do not include law enforcement intervention, drug and alcohol abuse treatment, Juvenile Justice detention expenses of $300/day, or forensic medical interviews, which can cost as much as $2000.

These numbers affect the lives of every Oregonian when considering the fact that DHS Child Welfare identified eight new cases involving minor victims of sex trafficking in a single 3-month period.

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HUMAN TRAFFICKING is NOT MIGRANT SMUGGLING

Smuggling is ALWAYS transnational and involves a smuggler who’s been paid to assist another in the illegal crossing of borders.

Trafficking does NOT require the physical movement of a person.

Smuggling is a relationship that typically ends after the border has been crossed and the smuggler has been paid.
Trafficking involves ongoing exploitation of victims for labor or commercial sex that generates illicit profits for the trafficker.

Smuggling includes those who consent to being smuggled.

Trafficking victims either do NOT consent to their situations, or if they initially consent, that consent is rendered meaningless by the actions of their traffickers.*

*The key distinction between trafficking and smuggling lies in the individual’s freedom of choice. A smuggling situation can escalate into a trafficking situation if and when the smuggler sells or ‘brokers’ the smuggled individual into a condition of servitude, or if the smuggled individual cannot pay the smuggler and is then forced to work off that debt.
Slavery and involuntary servitude are illegal practices in the United States, regardless of original consent.

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Who are the victims?

Trafficking victims worldwide

An estimated 12 million people worldwide are currently being trafficked for forced labor and/or sexual exploitation. Over half of these victims are believed to be children. Together, women and children are thought to make up 80% of all those enslaved.

Advocates who would rescue these victims face a surprisingly daunting task. In parts of the world where traffickers exploit their victims in broad daylight with little impunity, it may mean challenging deeply engrained customs and widespread corruption.

In freedom-loving cultures where trafficking, by necessity, operates as a covert crime, the voiceless, ‘invisible’ victims silently exist beneath the surface of society. Rescuers quickly learn there is no universal profile to help identify these ‘hidden’ populations.

Given the right circumstances, anyone – rich, poor, old, young, male, female, rural, urban, citizen, foreign-born, well-educated or uneducated – is sadly vulnerable to becoming enslaved and exploited as a result of the skillful application of force, fraud or coercion.

There are, however, certain populations around the world that do appear particularly at risk of being trafficked, including the poor and oppressed, refugees, undocumented immigrants, runaways, and homeless youth.

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Foreign national trafficking victims

Foreign national trafficking victims are individuals who have been ‘obtained’ and then transported to another country for purposes of labor and/or sexual exploitation.

Having been stripped of all identity papers and money, cut off from friends and family, unable to speak the local language, and threatened on a daily basis, most foreign national victims are easily intimidated, manipulated and controlled by their traffickers.

Some of these victims will have been originally ‘obtained’ through kidnapping. Other child victims will have been purchased from desperate parents who likely did not know their sons or daughters were going to be starved, abused, and/or raped before being funneled around the world as child prostitutes, forced laborers, child soldiers, drug-addicted street beggars, or victims of illicit international adoptions and ‘early’ marriages.

In many cases, however, everyday poverty, illiteracy, oppression and political turmoil will have made it possible for traffickers to simply lure their victims into leaving their home country using nothing more than false promises of good employment and a better life.

Foreign nationals who find themselves enslaved inside the United States do not fall neatly into a single category. Some will have begun their life as a trafficking victim long before being brought to America.

Others will start their new life as a slave following their illegal entry into the U.S., having cooperated unwittingly with the schemes of their traffickers based on the promise of a good job, only to discover the truth after it was too late.
Still other foreign nationals will have entered the United States legally on work or student visas at the invitation of family members or friends already living in America who promised them employment, schooling, family reunification, or a brokered marriage proposal, only to have their trusted sponsors confiscate their passports upon arrival and force them into labor and/or sexual enslavement.

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Domestic trafficking victims

Domestic trafficking victims are citizens or residents being trafficked for purposes of labor and/or sexual exploitation within the borders of their own countries.

The vast majority of America’s domestic trafficking victims are being sex trafficked, and the vast majority of these homegrown sex trafficking victims are children.

America’s sexually exploited youth are not restricted to any particular race, class or section of the country. However, records do indicate that the majority of those who’ve been intercepted by law enforcement have come from poor families.

Admittedly, accurate statistics are difficult to compile, as many trafficked children start out as runaways neglected, ejected, or abandoned by families who never even report them as missing.

Unlike the image of foreign-born ‘child victims of sex trafficking’ who get secreted into the U.S. for exploitation, American youth are not so readily seen as victims. They are not generally kidnapped, sold to traffickers by their family, locked up in brothels, or found chained to a bed.

Consequently, victimized American children have traditionally been seen as ‘juvenile prostitutes’ willingly selling themselves for easy money and a ‘glamorous’ lifestyle.

Furthermore, their notoriously angry resentment of those who would rescue them, coupled with relentless loyalty to their pimps, only serves to support the stereotypical image of ‘hardened inner city kids’ who know exactly what they’re getting themselves into and deserve whatever they get.

Thankfully, perceptions are changing, due to the abundance of research deciphering these victims’ complex trauma-based, survival-oriented behaviors. (see Love Addiction)

Public awareness also continues to grow regarding the key conditions known to create children more vulnerable to the ‘charms’ of sex trafficking pimps, such as parental drug and alcohol abuse, physical and verbal abuse, neglect, abandonment, ejection from the home, poverty, and media bombardment glamorizing sex and easy money.
However, no single factor is more clearly documented as a precondition to child prostitution than childhood sexual abuse.
A National Institute of Justice report claims sexually abused children are 28 times more likely to be arrested for prostitution at some point in their lives than peers who did not suffer abuse.

Not surprisingly, 90% of all sexually trafficked children are reported to have a prior history of sexual abuse. When it comes to the central issue facing all state judicial systems regarding ‘juvenile prostitutes’ – whether to view them as sex trafficked victims under the control of unscrupulous adults, or as willing participants in an illegal activity – the Oregon Human Trafficking Task Force exemplifies Oregon’s clear commitment to identifying these youth as victims deserving the same compassion and legal protections afforded foreign national children who’ve been trafficked into the United States for sexual slavery.

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Who are the traffickers?

Transnational traffickers

Transnational human traffickers are modern-day slave traders whose operations span across international borders.

Transnational traffickers operating inside the United States are often in the country legally, may be fluent in English as well as their home language, and usually maintain close contact with their home country where they often have greater social or political status than their victims.

Like their victims, human traffickers can be anyone – husbands, wives, boyfriends, friends, acquaintances, employers, landlords, interpreters, even parents. They may operate individually, such as diplomats or foreign business executives who arrive in the U.S. with family members, friends, or acquaintances functioning as their ‘servants’ or pimps.

Or they may operate as a ‘mom and pop’ cottage industry that has extended family ‘on both sides of the border’ who lure victims by promising a better life in the United States, or by striking up romantic relationships.

On a larger scale, transnational traffickers often function as contractors or agents whose job it is to deliver menial laborers for legitimate businesses such as restaurants, farms, and construction companies.

Others act as international marriage brokers arranging servile marriages. Still others are paid to deliver pawns for illegal enterprises such as begging rings, drug dealing, and prostitution.

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Domestic traffickers

Most of America’s homegrown domestic traffickers are sex traffickers, commonly referred to as pimps. Their frequently flamboyant lifestyles are paid for by forcing and coercing women and children to work in strip clubs, massage parlors, escort services, pornography, residential brothels, and street prostitution.

Most U.S. domestic sex traffickers are between 18-45 years old, have a limited education, are unemployed, and have a criminal record, such as gang involvement. They commonly have another family member involved in pimping, and oftentimes have a mother or sister involved in prostitution.

Earlier in their teen years they may have worked as an underage ‘wannabe pimp’ standing guard over another pimp’s girls to make sure they stayed on the job. Some domestic sex traffickers are discovered to be friends or family members who’ve involved a child in their care in the pornography business or as a prostitute in exchange for cash, rent, or loan payments.

Adept at their shifting roles as lover, ‘father’, torturer, and savior, domestic sex traffickers are above all ruthless businessmen willing to inflict limitless suffering upon vulnerable men, women, and children in the name of profit.

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How does trafficking work?

From 'vulnerable' to V-I-C-T-I-M

The premeditated methods used by human traffickers to master control over their victims closely mirror those used in domestic violence situations and prisoner of war camps.

Validation
Once a suitably vulnerable prey has been identified, whether it’s an unskilled worker in Eastern Europe desperate for a job, or a runaway youth on the streets of Portland looking for a friend, a savvy trafficker will likely begin a relationship by validating their victim’s unappreciated attributes (beauty, intelligence) and posing as their long-awaited benefactor ready to make their dreams come true.

Intimidation
Once a victim has been lured into joining the trafficker on an adventure toward a new life, they are thrown into a ‘seasoning process’ lasting days or weeks during which time they may be beaten, starved, raped, and/or confined until they finally relent to go to work in the sex trade, drug trade, or at legitimate jobs where they must turn over all their earnings.

Control
Traffickers exercise strict control over their victims by constantly monitoring their movements, confiscating all identity papers and money, controlling food and shelter, and enforcing a non-negotiable set of rules that result in violence if broken, such as falling short of daily earning quotas, attempting escape, or talking to the wrong person.

Threats
Traffickers maintain their control by endlessly threatening to brutalize their victims, or turn them in to police or immigration officials, or shame them by exposing their circumstances to friends and family, or to kill their family members if they try to escape. Such threats keep victims in a constant state of fear and unwillingness to leave.

Isolation
Traffickers eliminate interference from their victim’s family, friends and ethnic communities by cutting off all communications. They further reduce the chances of detection by authorities by moving their victims from house to house, state to state, or country to country. Alone, disoriented, penniless and afraid, victims become completely dependant upon their traffickers for survival and have few opportunities to develop trusting relationships with outsiders who they might ask for help.

Manipulation
Traffickers brainwash their victims with a barrage of false and emotionally confusing messages. Foreign national victims, for instance, who may be unfamiliar with American freedoms, are often told the police are their enemies, and that the traffickers abusing them are, ironically, the only ones who can keep them safe. American pimps will likewise offer their victims a warped form of protection by faithfully promising to free them from jail if and when they are arrested for the prostitution they are being forced to commit. Some pimps insist that their label actually stands for ‘Power In Manipulating People.’

Sex trafficking

America’s pimps have learned that, when it comes to trafficking their victims, the younger and more child-like the body, the greater the demand, and the higher the profits. Consequently, they are constantly on the prowl for vulnerable children where they are likely to be found: living on the streets as runaways, hanging out at parties, malls, movies, bus stations, court house hallways, living in juvenile group homes, sitting alone during school breaks, or cruising internet chat lines.

A pimp will chat up girls tirelessly, impervious to rejection, until he hits upon the ‘right’ lost-looking youngster suffering from low self-esteem perhaps due to trouble at school, or a fight with a boyfriend, or some crisis at home. On occasion, a pimp will send his ‘bottom bitch’, the most trusted girl in his ‘stable’, to entice the potential victim with talk of independence, easy money, and a glamorous lifestyle. Later on, this same ‘bottom bitch’ will carry out the new recruit’s training, management, and disciplinary beatings whenever the rules get broken.

In most cases a pimp will not force his prey immediately into prostitution. He might involve them in a credit card scam or check-cashing scheme that he can then hold over their heads. In Oregon, sex traffickers have an abundance of options for putting their victims to work at one of Portland’s many strip clubs or exotic dance clubs before coercing them into fullblown prostitution and pornography.

Once a victim ultimately relents to performing sex acts for money, the trafficker then uses that to keep them under his control by threatening to expose their ‘shameful’ behavior to friends and family. A ‘finesse pimp’ will be able to move his victim from the Recruitment Stage, through the Breaking Stage, to the Maintenance Stage using just sweet talking charm.
A ‘gorilla pimp’ (which all pimps eventually become) will resort to physical and psychological brutality to get what he wants.

Once a recruit is ready to be ‘turned out’ and put to work on the streets she will be given a street name, branded or tattooed to verify ownership, and taught the non-negotiable set of rules:

charge the right amount for each sex act
limit each ‘trick’ to a half hour
follow cell phone procedures for reporting the beginning and end of each session
follow procedures for requesting food breaks and food allowance
refrain from even looking at another pimp, as that can signify a transfer of ownership
do not return before meeting the daily earning quota
immediately give each new john the ‘handshake’, which means touching their genitals, as undercover police are not allowed physical contact and will be required to withdraw, thereby exposing their identity

Most sex-trafficking victims will eventually resort to drugs and alcohol to ‘disconnect’ from what they must endure. However, a sharp distinction must be made between those who practice ‘survival sex’ (trading sex sporadically for drugs, food or shelter) and those being controlled and exploited by a sex trafficker.

The more ‘professional’ girls being prostituted up and down the Pacific coast circuit are generally discouraged from using drugs by their traffickers. Drugs not only cost money, they cause the girls to age more quickly, and can end up having more control over the victim than the trafficker.

Law enforcement’s ongoing battle

It is a frustrating fact that domestic sex traffickers know the limits of law enforcement. While police are quick to learn the names and ages of the prostitutes frequenting Portland streets, the traffickers are also quick to teach their victims to lie to police about their situations and to insist that they are not involved in prostitution, they do not have a pimp, their bruises came from accidents, and they are not being exploited.

Traffickers and would-be johns are nevertheless discouraged from conducting business as usual by the unmarked police cars continually patrolling Portland’s best-known prostitution hot spots. Police regularly intercept women and girls doing ‘the walk’ – appearing to loiter, making eye contact with passing drivers, waiting at bus stops but never getting on a bus, talking to drivers in idling cars. If appropriate, police take them into custody, which is their best hope of making a clean break from their predatory traffickers.

However, far beyond simply acting as deterrents, Oregon law enforcement officers run undercover sting operations, both online and on the streets, as part of a police crackdown on sex trafficking operations. Perhaps most importantly, committed Oregon law enforcement officers spend countless hours (on and off duty) building trust with those they suspect of being sexually trafficked, working toward the day when those victims will finally be ready to leave their pimps and will need someone to run to for help.

The ‘revolving door’ of criminal justice

Domestic sex traffickers also know the limits of Oregon courts. Pimps know that when adult prostitutes in their ‘stable’ get arrested, they will usually spend as little as 4-6 hours in jail before their bail can be paid and they can be put back on the street.

Oregon has a 90-day waiting period between a person’s arrest and their scheduled hearing date. Pimps commonly use this time to keep their victims working as usual, and then simply move them out of state before their hearing date arrives.
When it comes to the underage girls in their ‘stable’, pimps are careful to provide them with fake ID and train them to lie about their age in the hopes that, when arrested, they might attempt to slip through the system as an adult and avoid the juvenile justice system where minors are routinely held, investigated, traced, and placed in foster care, mental health facilities, or group homes where it is hoped they will respond to counseling and rehabilitation.

Realistically, however, there are only 30 beds in the entire nation adequately equipped to meet the singular rehabilitation needs of children who’ve been sexually trafficked. Not one of those beds is in Oregon. All the juvenile programs available to Oregon’s sex-trafficked youth are currently temporary and/or voluntary, which means these young victims are ultimately free to leave – which they do, often within hours of their ‘placement.’ (Juvenile Detention Hall does not take juveniles unless they’ve committed a violent person-to-person crime.)

Convinced that they will ultimately be found by their pimp and severely punished, or that they are no longer fit for anything other than a lifetime of prostitution, sex-trafficked minors and adults quickly run back to their pimps who put them back on the street where they risk being picked up yet again and funneled through the ‘revolving door’ of the criminal justice system.

This frustrating scenario highlights the most crucial gap yet remaining in Oregon’s assault on criminal sex trafficking: safe, secure, mandatory transitional housing equipped with services and support systems designed specifically to meet the challenges connected with this uniquely traumatized victim population.

Once rescued, individuals who have felt truly safe from their predatory traffickers have proven more than capable of rebuilding their lives. Many such rehabilitated survivors have gone on to testify against their traffickers and help put them behind bars.

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Labor trafficking In the U.S. labor trafficking victims covering a wide range of ages and nationalities have been discovered in legal and illicit businesses, both large and small.
It is not uncommon to discover labor trafficking victims in remote rural locations where detection is less likely. Their rescue may largely depend on an informed citizenry alert to the tell-tale signs of labor trafficking, such as:

Heavy security at a commercial establishment (barred windows, locked doors, barbed wire compounds, electronic surveillance)
Workers who live at the work-site, with their employer, or with multiple people in a cramped facility
Workers who are driven between living quarters and the work-site by a guard
Workers prohibited from leaving the work-site without an escort
Workers kept under surveillance when taken to a doctor, hospital, or clinic (trafficker may act as a translator)
Children with a significant gap in their schooling, or who attend school sporadically, or not at all

While the term ‘labor trafficking’ justifiably evokes images of victims being forced to work against their will under threat of violence, a lesser known, more common method used by both labor and sex traffickers to exploit their victims is the more sophisticated ruse of ‘bonded labor’, or debt bondage.

Debt bondage

Human traffickers often begin a relationship with their victims by making them feel ‘indebted.’
For foreign national victims lured into coming to America in search of a better life, it commonly starts with the cost of their plane ticket, plus food and shelter after they arrive. For domestic victims, such as runaway teens who fall under the charms of a flattering pimp, it can begin with gifts of clothes, jewelry, restaurant meals, or a place to stay.

Once the ‘debt’ has been established, traffickers will require their victims to pay them back. Without the means to do so, victims will be required by the traffickers to go to work as prostitutes, domestic servants, factory workers, or whatever is demanded, with the understanding that they must forfeit all their earnings until the debt is fully paid.

But, of course, the debt can never be fully paid.

By charging exorbitant interest rates, never setting a definite figure for what they owe, charging for ongoing living expenses, and tacking on fines for not meeting daily work quotas or exhibiting ‘bad’ behavior, the trafficker traps his victim into a cycle of debt that is virtually endless.

Victims rarely understand that these ‘debts’ are often legally unenforceable, and that no one can legally dictate what ‘work’ they must do to repay a debt. Savvy traffickers know that if they can keep their victims sufficiently intimidated, isolated from outside influences, and fearful of asking for help or talking to the police, they are unlikely to ever discover the truth.

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What makes victims stay?

Brainwashed and traumatized

One of the most difficult aspects of human trafficking for Americans to grasp is the fact that the majority of voiceless, ‘invisible’ trafficking victims do not voluntarily seize their opportunities to identify themselves and seek help from authorities. They stay when they might run. They do not call 911.

On the contrary, to the great consternation of law enforcement and social service providers, brainwashed and traumatized victims may vehemently resist intervention from those who would help them, as they doggedly stick to the cover stories concocted by their traffickers.

Unconvinced that they will be kept safe by authorities, victims are often paralyzed by an overwhelming fear of violence from their traffickers who have proven repeatedly that they can and will find them and punish them for daring to break the rules.

Moreover, even if a victim were to escape, that would not protect their family and friends from the attacks their trafficker has promised to deliver if they ever dared to run.

Some foreign nationals unfamiliar with basic human rights are not even aware their treatment is illegal. Others may choose not to trust U.S. authorities because the police in their home countries were notoriously corrupt. Still others find the risk of having their loved ones learn about their captivity and degrading activities too shameful to bear. It is far easier to cling to shreds of hope that if they can just satisfy their trafficker, or finish paying off their debt, they will finally be set free to pursue the promised ‘good life’ waiting just around the corner.

Tragically, many foreign nationals mistakenly think that if they are in the U.S. without documentation, or if they originally consented to being brought into the country and placed in a job, they must now live with the cruel consequences of their decision and submit to a life of abuse and exploitation by the unscrupulous.

Well-studied traffickers have also learned the trick of keeping their victims confused and off-balance by sprinkling their ongoing brutality with small, unpredictable acts of kindness. The resulting emotional swings between fear and gratefulness often create in their victims a warped sense of loyalty known as the Stockholm Syndrome known to bind victims to their captors to the point of being incapable of leaving.

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Love addiction

Most people can understand why foreign national victims who are penniless, afraid, far from home, and unable to speak the language, might find it difficult to leave their traffickers. But why would sex-trafficked Americans (mostly teenagers) who are being regularly beaten, starved, raped, verbally debased, and sold for sex to strangers by their pimps resist those who are trying to rescue them and run back to their abusers?

Remarkably, many survivors report it was their addiction to ‘love’ that kept them in captivity.

As previously stated, 90% of minors involved in prostitution report a prior history of childhood sexual abuse. Research clearly shows that, besides an obsessive search for love and protection, sexually abused children experience a complex tug of war between the desire for punishment and the simultaneous need for salvation.

Pimps openly take pride in their ability to recognize this ‘condition’ and turn it to their advantage. They regularly rape, beat, and make ‘verbal love’ to their victims all in a single encounter, whispering in their victims’ ears that no one else could ever love them, considering of how ‘bad’ and worthless they are.

Consequently, traumatized and brainwashed sex-trafficking victims often draw a clear distinction between the violence suffered at the hands of johns verses the ‘loving discipline’ doled out by their ‘boyfriends,’ which is no more than they deserve. Ever the savvy businessmen, traffickers regularly encourage their ‘stables’ to compete for these warped affections by showing favor to whoever brings in the most money.

The power of this pathological conditioning is perhaps best demonstrated by sex trafficking survivors who’ve successfully fought to escape ‘the life’ only to admit that the temptation to return never goes away. Sadly, for those who have not yet escaped, the responses sex trafficking victims receive from the outside community often serve to reinforce the lies of their traffickers. Peers avoid them. Society ignores them.

Even when assigned to juvenile group homes, sex-trafficked youth often run because they prefer the relative safety of their pimps compared to the contempt and abuse of the other girls who’ve been arrested for ‘less shameful’ crimes like drugs, theft, or assault.

Thankfully, perceptions are beginning to change. Average citizens are beginning to recognize their key role in the fight against labor and sex trafficking. Through simple acts of caring, such as Taking The Oath to learn the tell-tale signs of human trafficking situations, talking about trafficking with family and friends, supporting community leaders in a position to take action on the issue, or even sharing a smile with a troubled teen, Oregonians are effectively shining a light on the covert crime of modern day slavery in an effort to restore the hope of freedom for all.

But time is continually of the essence. Evidence confirms that the longer victims remain in captivity enduring severe levels of trauma, the more likely their survival mechanisms will lead them to ‘normalize’ their exploitation. Over time, behaviors that were once unthinkable can become part of everyday life, as victims accept their ‘fate’ of having become part of a hidden subculture that has trained them, sustains them, and made them believe there is no hope of anything else.

What are the laws?

Federal anti-trafficking statutes

Despite staggering worldwide evidence of human trafficking, and the international laws condemning it, traffickers continue to boldly operate in many parts of the world with nearly total impunity. However, human trafficking has become a growing target for law enforcement across the United States, not only because of the abhorrent personal and psychological toll it takes on society, but also because it is seen as facilitating the illegal movement of immigrants across borders, and providing a ready source of income for organized crime groups, including possible terrorists.

The United States Congress enacted the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) in October 2000 as the nation’s first comprehensive law confronting the crime of human trafficking. Hailed for its victim-centered approach, the TVPA and its subsequent reauthorizations continue to focus on the three-pronged strategy of Protection, Prosecution and Prevention.

Protection: In recognition of foreign national trafficking victims who need to rebuild their lives without threat of deportation, the TVPA signified an important shift in immigration policy by creating two new nonimmigrant visa categories: T Visas and U Visas.

T Visas, or Trafficking Visas, are granted to adult foreign trafficking victims who have been certified by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as having been involved in labor, services or commercial sex acts in the U.S. as a result of force, fraud or coercion. Those certified may be eligible for temporary legal status, a work permit, and both state and Federal benefits to the same extent as refugees. Minor foreign victims of human trafficking (under age 18) need not apply for a T Visa. HHS issues child victims a ‘letter of eligibility’ granting them immediate access to benefits and services necessary for the safety and protection of their lives, including food, income assistance, employment assistance, English language training, health care, mental health care, and culturally appropriate foster care or other licensed care, according to the youth’s individual needs.

U Visas are designated for non-citizen crime victims who have suffered substantial physical or mental abuse from criminal activities that violate US law or occurred inside the United States or US territories. (U.S. citizens who are victims of trafficking need not be certified to receive benefits, as they may already be eligible for many benefits.)

Before issuing protective status to adult foreign victims applying for either the T Visa or U Visa, a federal, state or local law enforcement official must attest that the visa petitioner has been, is being, or is likely to be helpful in the investigation or prosecution of criminal activity.

Prosecution: The TVPA significantly increased the chances for successful prosecutions of human traffickers by recognizing that the more subtle forces of coercion, trickery, seizure of identification documents, threats of exposing victims to shame or ridicule, and psychological abuses are all tactics capable of enslaving and exploiting individuals, and therefore fulfill the elements of a human trafficking crime.

Domestically, the TVPA dramatically strengthened the fight against child sex trafficking by recognizing ALL persons under 18 years old involved in commercial sex acts as automatic victims of sex trafficking, regardless of ‘consensual’ participation or proof of force, fraud or coercion. In recognition of sex traffickers’ growing demand for child-like bodies, penalties for pimps were increased, the younger the victims. Furthermore, the TVPA eliminated the requirement that a state line be crossed in order for a human trafficking violation to qualify as a federal crime.

As a result, the FBI Operation Innocence Lost initiative, created in June 2003, has been proactively pursuing and investigating child prostitution wherever it might be found, including escort services, massage parlors, strip clubs, motel rooms and residential homes.

Prevention: In an effort to prevent the suffering of potential trafficking victims worldwide, the TVPA authorizes the launching of international economic development programs to assist high risk populations around the world.

The TVPA also requires the U.S. Department of State to issue annual Trafficking in Persons Reports assessing the actions of foreign governments in the fight against trafficking. In addition, the Department of Labor produces its own annual report focused specifically on the steps countries are taking to combat the worst forms of child labor.

The TVPA strongly supports ongoing public awareness efforts, including the Department of Health and Human Services’ widely recognized campaign to Rescue & Restore Victims of Human Trafficking. (www.acf.hhs.gov/trafficking/)

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Oregon anti-trafficking statutes While cases of human trafficking have been reported in all fifty of the United States, Oregon is one of only thirty-three states to have passed state legislation criminalizing human trafficking.

Traffickers arrested inside Oregon may be prosecuted in either the state or Federal system, whichever allows for the maximum incarceration possible. While Oregon anti-trafficking statutes are drafted differently than the Federal statutes, the concepts are complimentary and overlapping.

ORS 163.263 – Involuntary Servitude – Second Degree Encompasses forced labor by multiple means, most of which involve non-personal threats, such as deportation or unlawful debt collection
ORS 163.264 – Involuntary Servitude – First Degree Encompasses forced labor by means of personal threat to cause death or serious physical injury
ORS 163.266 – Trafficking in Persons Generally encompasses harboring, transporting, providing for, or obtaining persons who are subjected to Involuntary Servitude, or those who are financially benefiting from them.
ORS 167.017 – Compelling Prostitution Encompasses causing or inducing a person under 18 years of age to engage in prostitution, or compelling any person of any age to engage in prostitution

Oregon’s repeated rulings protecting nude dancing, adult bookstores and live sex shows under the state’s far-reaching free speech clause pose unique challenges to state law enforcement mandated with both protecting the extraordinary liberties of its citizens while, at the same time, curtailing the growing sexual exploitation of its children.

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What can Oregonians do?

Take The Oath Perhaps the most effective step any citizen can take to help thwart human trafficking is to learn how to identify potential trafficking victims.
Take The Oath now to learn how to:

recognize visible traits common among trafficking victims
report suspicious behavior
spread the word to fellow Oregonians
alert state officials that you’ve joined the ranks of Oregonians Against Trafficking Humans

Help provide Oregon’s missing piece Law enforcement and advocates agree the most critical piece still missing from Oregon’s assault on human trafficking is a safe, secure facility for the mandatory protection and specialized rehabilitation of traumatized victims rescued from sex trafficking. A study by the Department of Health and Human Services shows that, without the help of a specialized rehabilitation program designed specifically for sex trafficked minors, 85% of these traumatized teens will tragically end up being trafficked again. Securing the safety and rehabilitation of trafficking victims may be Oregon’s best hope of gaining the testimony necessary to put increased numbers of human traffickers behind bars.

Support increased oversight For human trafficking to thrive, it must remain hidden. Support efforts to increase oversight within Portland’s large urban sex industry and inside migrant labor camps where human trafficking violations might be expected.

Support reinstating Oregon’s lost programs

Reinstate the ‘Johns School’ for those caught buying the services of a prostitute.
Reinstate Portland’s ‘Prostitution Free Zone’ and facilitate law enforcement’s efforts to disrupt ‘business as usual’ for Oregon’s sex traffickers.
Reinstate programs for families with at-risk children and reduce the number of Oregon runaways falling into the hands of sex traffickers.

Stay abreast

Share trafficking-related media stories with friends and family.

Visit www.polarisproject.org for ongoing updates on trafficking-related bills before the Oregon State Legislature. Remember that the tactics used by traffickers keep evolving. Encourage Oregon lawmakers to make sure our state has the current tools it needs to win the fight against human trafficking.

Keep spreading the word Encourage those in the medical community, social service providers, church leaders, emergency response teams, school officials, and other community ‘gate keepers’ most likely to come into contact with trafficking victims to attend an OHTTF training seminar.

Host a human trafficking training seminar for your club or neighborhood.

Hold a human trafficking fund-raiser and invite the media.

Write a letter to the Oregonian.

Write your state representatives.

Encourage a student leader to start an Oath Club at their school.

Choose human trafficking as the subject for a school report.

Use your imagination, and contact the Oregon Human Trafficking Task Force with your ideas for spreading the word about human trafficking throughout the state of Oregon.

“Slavery can and will end… as it has ended in every single country where it has been consistently and boldly challenged. It is an institution that cannot and will not survive in the face of focused resolve to bring it to its end.”
Blair L. Burns
International Justice Mission