Attachments
World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, commemorated on July 30, aims to raise awareness of the harsh reality of human trafficking around the world. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s (UNODC) most recent Global Report on Trafficking in Persons provides an overview of trafficking detection and conviction trends since 2003. The theme for this year’s campaign is "reach every victim of trafficking, leave no one behind.”
What can the United Sates do to Ensure that no Survivor is Left Behind?
Remove “force, fraud, and coercion” from the labor definition for children
The definitions of sex trafficking and labor trafficking for children vary slightly. Force, fraud, and coercion does not need to be present to show sex trafficking of a minor. However, for children subject to labor trafficking, force, fraud, or coercion is needed to show trafficking. Traffickers often target children because they are more vulnerable and easier to manipulate. Children should not have to meet the higher standards required of adults in both sex and labor trafficking. As such, to ensure that child survivors are not left behind, the definition of trafficking should be changed so that all children are exempt from proving force, fraud, or coercion.
Provide work authorization
T nonimmigrant status (T visa) is a temporary immigration benefit that enables certain survivors of a severe form of human trafficking to remain in the United States for an initial period of four years. Current regulations on bona fide determinations (BFD) of T visas provide administrative discretion for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to conduct an initial review of each T visa application to determine if it is a bona fide application.
T visa applicants do not receive an Employment Authorization Document (EAD) after submitting their application. They need to go through several steps, one of which, the BFD, does not appear to be happening. USCIS has not made a formal statement about BFDs for T visas in almost six years and has yet to comment on whether it will change its policies to accommodate for the significant delays for T visa adjudications. As a result, T visa applicants rarely receive BFDs and are forced to wait years before being able to work, which increases their risk of exploitation and labor trafficking. In order to ensure that no survivor is left behind, the United States should:
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offer immediate updated guidance on BFDs for T visas to reflect the reality of long processing times and the increase in number of T visa applications.
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require that applicants for T visas be granted the right to apply for work authorization within 150 days of submitting their application, if their case has been decided, similar to the processing time for asylees.
Expand the definition of trafficking to include forced marriage and organ removal
The Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000 is the main framework to prosecute and address trafficking in the United States. The TVPA divides trafficking into two distinct categories: sex and labor obtained through force, fraud, or coercion. Sex trafficking must arise from a commercial sex act, i.e., for an exchange of money or something of value. Labor trafficking must arise from a scheme of involuntary servitude, debt bondage, peonage, or slavery.
While UNODC considers forced marriage as a form of trafficking, it is notably absent from the list of forms of human trafficking in the TVPA. As a result, survivors of forced marriage in the United States cannot access the services and justice that are obtainable by other survivors of the set definitions of trafficking. Instead, they are left behind in the attempt to define themselves as victims of another crime or another form of trafficking to receive help.
Similarly, UNODC considers organ removal as a form of trafficking, while it is not included in the definition of trafficking in the TVPA. Organ trafficking describes the phenomenon of trafficking in persons for the purpose of organ removal or harvesting.