What is Trafficking in Persons?
Trafficking in persons, also called human trafficking, is a crime and a human rights abuse. The three most common forms of trafficking in persons (TIP) that DoD personnel may encounter are:
- Sex trafficking
- Labor trafficking (also called forced labor)
- Child soldiering
The Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000 defined “severe forms of trafficking in persons” in 22 U.S.C. 7102 (11) as:
- Sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which a person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age; OR
- The recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, using force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery
- Sex trafficking means the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, obtaining, patronizing, or soliciting of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act. -22 U.S.C. 7102 (12)
- The term “commercial sex act” means any sex act on account of which anything of value is given to or received by any person. - 22 U.S.C. 7102 (3)
- Labor trafficking includes involuntary servitude; peonage; debt bondage; and slavery.
The term child soldier is defined in the Child Soldiers Prevention Act of 2008 as:
- Any person under 18 years of age who takes direct part in hostilities as a member of governmental armed forces, police, or other security forces;
- Any person under 18 years of age who has been compulsorily recruited into governmental armed forces, police, or other security forces;
- Any person under 15 years of age who has been voluntarily recruited into governmental armed forces, police, or other security forces; or
- Any person under 18 years of age who has been recruited or used in hostilities by armed forces distinct from the armed forces of a state.
Child soldiers are forced to fight but also used as: cooks, porters, messengers, medics, guards, spies, and sex slaves.