The Consequence of Human Trafficking

Business Law
Professor Chen

Human trafficking has been around as long as prostitution and human trafficking is a modern-day form of slavery. As stated in Colonel Sandra L. Keefer’s research, in 1865, President Abraham Lincoln and the United States Congress passed the 13th amendment, which states neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist within the United States, yet over the past decade, trafficking in human beings has reached epidemic proportions. No country is immune, including the United States. “The U. S. State Department’s 2005 Report on Human Trafficking estimates that between 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders every year and almost 20,000 are trafficked across U.S. borders alone.” What is more disturbing than that number is that half of all trafficking victims are children under the age of eighteen. (Keefer, Human Trafficking and the Impact on National Security for the United States). We are going to be looking at the different state law that California, Texas and Nevada have, to clearly see how some states are more strict about the matter. The United Nations define human trafficking as, “The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery or servitude” (Keefer Paragraph 3). As written in Keefer’s article, according to Christine Dolan, sex trafficking is linked to terrorism. Terrorist use the transportation networks of smugglers and traffickers to move operatives. In many parts of the world, profits from drug trading provide funds for terrorism, and in certain regions of the world sex trafficking is a large and significant component of that economy. Examples of this would be Balkans, Southeast Asia, Philippines and parts of the former Soviet Union. According to CaseAct.org, one of the current anti-trafficking laws in the United States are the Federal Law: “Neither slavery not involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” -U.S. Constitution Amendment XIII-Slavery Abolished (1865). The U.S. Congress passed the “Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, other wise known as (TVPA) which is updated and reauthorized every two years. Since TVPA apples only to federal cases tried in federal courts, each state is responsible to enact its own legislation to handle within the state. Along with the federal law there is the California State Law, IN 2005, California enacted the AB 22 California Trafficking Victims Protection Act, other wise known as (CTVPA). This act established human trafficking for forced labor or services as a felony crime punishable by a sentence of 3, 4, or 5 years in state prison and a sentence of 4, 6 or 8 years for trafficking of a minor. Also, there is no stated penalty for sex trafficking a minor without force. The CTVPA was written when domestic human trafficking was viewed as a crime impacting mainly foreign nationals brought into this country. It overlooked thousands of American minors and adults who were also exploited. This is where the law is weak, leaving the human trafficking operations to flourish, again said by CaseAct.org. Per the 2007 Human Trafficking in California Report, California Alliance to Combat Trafficking and Slavery (CA ACTS) stated that