Conclusion

Risk Factors for the Trafficking of Women and Girls

Labor Trafficking

“Jocelyn”

of State, Human Smuggling & Trafficking Center, 2006; Watts & Zimmerman, 2002). Jocelyn, an adult woman from Southeast Asia with four children, was seeking work in the United Displacement from home States to better support her family. She came to the United States on an H-2B visa, having been and community results in the promised a 40-hour work week at minimum wage in hotel housekeeping. She and her workmates weakening or loss of protective instead were forced to work more than 100 hours each week in a hotel and café in a western town social support, thereby increasof fewer than 500 people. Their documents and earnings were confiscated, and threats of violence ing an individual’s vulnerability and legal action were used to control them. Jocelyn’s traffickers were the married couple who to trafficking (Heyzer, 2002). owned the franchise to the chain motel in which Jocelyn was enslaved. In research based on surveys (From the Human Trafficking Law Project database, 2013, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Law School. Copyright 2014 by the Regents of the of service providers and University of Michigan. Adapted with permission.) trafficking-related newspaguys would be interested in [me]” (Reid, 2011, p. 149). Reid found per articles in the United States, researchers at the University of that childhood maltreatment predicted running away, substance California, Berkeley, found that foreign-born persons represented use, and sexual denigration but that sexual denigration was the 80% of victims in 131 identified cases (Free the Slaves & Human strongest predictor of childhood sexual exploitation. Rights Center, 2004). Analysis of data from 389 confirmed human Research also identified fetal alcohol exposure as a factor that trafficking cases from 2008 to 2010 (D. Banks & Kyckelhahn, increases a child’s vulnerability to commercial sex exploita2011) showed that one third of all victims were foreign born, and tion (Boland & Durwyn, 1999; Hunt, 2006; Olson, Burgess, & 53 of the 63 confirmed victims of labor trafficking were foreign Streissguth, 1992; Streissguth, 2005). Because of high rates of born (one was a U.S. citizen or national; the citizenship of nine fetal alcohol syndrome in American Indian, Alaska Native, and victims was unknown). Of labor-trafficking victims, 67% were Canadian Aboriginal communities, children in these populations undocumented, but 28% had legal authorization to work in the may be at increased risk for CSEC (Hunt, 2006; Kingsley & Mark, United States (D. Banks & Kyckelhahn, 2011). In one recent case, 2000; Pierce, 2009; Vancouver/Richmond Health Board, 1999). the U.S. Department of Justice indicted Global Horizons, Inc., a labor recruiting company, for trafficking more than 400 migrant Although the vulnerability to trafficking of individuals with Thai workers for forced labor in 13 states. The company deported physical or cognitive disabilities or developmental delays has recruits who did not cooperate with its demands (Polaris Project, not been formally studied, they may be at elevated risk for 2012; U.S. Department of Justice, 2010b). sexual abuse and exploitation (Tang & Lee, 1999; Tharinger et al., 1990), suggesting they are at elevated risk for trafficking. Several cases of trafficking involve victimization of persons with disabilities or developmental delays for both labor and sex Conclusion trafficking (McGraw, 2009; U.S. Attorney’s Office, 2009, 2012, A host of factors at multiple levels contribute to risk for human 2013; U.S. v. Adriana Paoletti-Lemus, 1998). trafficking. Conditions that permit or condone exploitive labor and sexual exploitation, tolerate or fail to regulate unscrupuIMMIGRANT OR REFUGEE STATUS lous business practices, and maintain status inequalities and Immigrants, refugees, asylees, and internally displaced persons marginalization all contribute to the phenomenon. Factors that (people displaced within their own nation by economic status, polit- undermine an individual’s capabilities for self-protection or that ical upheaval, natural disasters, or armed conflict) are susceptible disrupt her connection to social and familial protection increase to human trafficking because of social isolation, language barriers, her vulnerability. Therapeutic response to survivors of trafficking and lack of a reliable source of protection (Free the Slaves & Human requires sensitivity to the unique constellation of factors that Rights Center, 2004; Gajic-Veljanoski & Stewart, 2007; Hodge, contributed to that survivor’s victimization. Primary prevention 2008; Human Rights Watch, 2001, 2012; Kara, 2010; Sturdevant & of future victimization requires addressing the persistent social, Stoltzfus, 1992; U.S. Department of State, 2011b; U.S. Department economic, and political factors that place populations at risk.