Dakota Beacon

Christmas settles around us. Good cheer resounds in neighborhoods and across the marketplace as the hustle and bustle infects the Shopping Season.

Not everyone, however, celebrates the season – and for good reason. They are bound in slavery.

What?! Such talk! At this time of year? Slavery does not exist, especially here in the US. It’s a thing of the past! This is the stuff reparations are made for.

Oh no! Slavery is not a “thing of the past!” It’s here, it’s now, and it’s across America. Case in point – human trafficking! Welcome to one of the most lucrative criminal activities today.

So, what is human trafficking? According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), human trafficking, or modern-day slavery, is a crime that compels or coerces persons to provide labor or services, or to engage in commercial sex acts. Coercion can be subtle or explicit, physical or psychological. Exploitation of a minor for commercial sex is a crime even without the use of force, fraud, or coercion.

A standard international definition of human trafficking does not exist and for good reason. The United Nations (UN) views three categories of human trafficking: for sex, for labor, and for the purpose of organ removal. The US identifies only sex and labor trafficking.

With regard to victims, the DOJ concurs that no uniform profile fits a trafficked person. Victims comprise a homogenous list. Anyone can be a victim “regardless of race, color, national origin, disability, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, socioeconomic status, education level, or citizenship status.” Encyclopedia Britannica estimates approximately 1,000,000 people are trafficked each year globally and of that number between 20,000 and 50,000 are trafficked in the US making it one of the largest destinations for trafficking, and for sex trafficking in particular.

Who are human traffickers? These culprits also have varied profiles. Traffickers can be foreign or domestic people, family members, partners, acquaintances, or strangers. They may act alone or as an organized criminal endeavor. Surprisingly, they may be either male or female. These wrongdoers may serve as pimps, gang members, diplomats, business owners, or as agricultural supervisors.

The tools used by enterprising traffickers range as far as the imagination will roam. This criminal element may use force, fraud, or coercion to ensnare their victims. Once hooked, the victims are compelled into labor or commercial sexual abuse. Tools of traffickers include violence, manipulation, false promises of well-paying jobs, declarations of romantic intent, and more. They seek out susceptible people including the psychologically or emotionally vulnerable and those facing economic hardship, natural disasters, or political instability.

In the end, the perpetrator of human trafficking seeks to make a buck and does so by different means. The crudest way is to lease the sexual services of the victim. Beyond that, forced involuntary servitude (a form of slavery) keeps a victim in bondage. Debt bondage forces the victim to reimburse to the trafficker for fees for transportation, boarding, food, interest on the debt, fines for missing payments, and charges for poor conduct or performance. Typically, the victim is trapped in a debt that may never be repaid. This results in peonage (from the root “peon”) meaning permanent involuntary servitude. Finally, there is true slavery where the victim is actually owned by the criminal.

What is our federal government doing to solve the problem? Viewing many of the Departments’ pages on human trafficking does not warm the heart and build confidence. Much of the verbiage resembles classic bureaucratic mumbo jumbo (“outreach,” “collaboration,” “victim services,’ etc.). Many of the pages are as current only as the Obama administration. A few have been updated to 2020. Homeland Security is the exception with some pages as current as November 2021. That does not mean nothing is being done to curtail human trafficking. It does indicate that, with trillions of federal dollars being spent, one would expect a good faith effort to keep the public abreast of progress against trafficking.

Human trafficking in the US is a scourge on the nation and disturbingly darkens Christmas. The Passing Scene will re-visit this topic from time to time expanding the focus in detail on the prevalence, counter-trafficking efforts, and prosecution of the criminals to halt this American plague.

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).