Human Trafficking Laws

Human trafficking is modern-day slavery, and includes the recruiting, harboring, transporting, providing, or obtaining of a person for compelled labor or commercial sex acts through the use of force, fraud or coercion. It is a crime under federal and international law; it is also a crime in every state in the United States.

The Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000 is the first comprehensive federal law to address human trafficking.The TVPA was reauthorized through the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) of 2003, 2005, 2008, and 2013.

Click here for Additional Federal Laws

All 50 states & DC have a law criminalizing sex trafficking.

47 states & DC do not require proof of force, fraud, or coercion when the victim is a minor.

48 states & DC distinguish between adult and minor victims.

40 states & DC have a buyer-applicable trafficking law.

31 states have a buyer applicable trafficking or Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC) law that prohibits a mistake of age defense in prosecutions for buying a commercial sex act with any minor under 18.

45 states require convicted sex traffickers to register as sex offenders.

47 states have laws that may apply to buyers who use the Internet to purchase sex with minors.

46 states have laws that may apply to traffickers who use the Internet to sexually exploit minors.

20 core trafficking laws have language expressly applicable to buyers.

Six states have now implemented our training for CDL holders in their states.

Sources:

https://sharedhope.org/what-we-do/bring-justice/reportcards/state-survey-charts/#section1

http://www.ncsl.org/research/civil-and-criminal-justice/human-trafficking-laws.aspx

https://www.justice.gov/criminal-ceos/citizens-guide-us-federal-law-prostitution-children

https://sharedhope.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/PROSECUTING-DEMAND-AS-A-CRIME-OF-HUMAN-TRAFFICKING-THE-EIGHTH-CIRCUIT-DECISION-I.pdf

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/1532?r=16

https://www.demandabolition.org/news/california-law-enforcement-empowered-impound-sex-buyers-cars/

https://www.justice.gov/crt/involuntary-servitude-forced-labor-and-sex-trafficking-statutes-enforced

https://polarisproject.org/current-federal-laws

https://www.congress.gov/bill/106th-congress/house-bill/03244