California’s Human Trafficking Crisis

Human trafficking is the illegal trade of human beings, either nationally or internationally, for the purposes of forced labor.  This labor can take one of two forms. The first form is prostitution.  The second type is a pernicious form of indentured servitude in which workers are forced to perform work for traffickers and their associates.  This labor is sometimes connected to the requirement to pay off debts incurred in the trafficking of individuals from one location to another. But in reality, the traffickers are merely exploiting the illegal means the victims entered the country to use them as slave labor

It is notable that over 70 percent of human trafficking victims in California are native to the US ("The State of," 2012). It is thought that most human trafficking victims are female and involved in prostitution.  This is based on surveys of individuals who seek assistance from California's human trafficking task forces where these individuals are identified as 56 percent female.  Yet there is research that suggests that human trafficking in forced labor is 3.5 times that of illicit sex trafficking ("The State of," 2012).  The number of individuals involved in some form of modern slavery is thought to be about 12 million worldwide (Kapstein, 2006). 

After years of being overlooked, human trafficking has been recognized in recent years as a problem of some significance to law enforcement and social service agencies in the US.  It's estimated that there are between 600,000 and 800,000 victims of human trafficking worldwide ("Remedying," 2006; Kapstein, 2006).  In the US the estimates of human trafficking victims have varied.  Initial estimates from the CIA placed the number of victims at 45,000 to 50,000 in 2000.  These numbers were revised down to 18,000 to 20,000 (Knepper, 2013). But more recent CIA estimates have revised this number even lower to about 15,000 to 18,000 (Knepper, 2013; "Remedying," 2006).  It may be that the hidden nature of the crime, and the unwillingness of many victims to cooperate with law enforcement, make it difficult to obtain truly precise counts of victims. In California, accurate data are similarly difficult to obtain.  Wagner (2010) reports that in 2010 more than 500 trafficking victims received special benefits targeted to this risk group.  

The federal government acknowledged the significance of human trafficking when it passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000.  This law targeted both the law enforcement and social services aspects of the human trafficking problem (Gallagher, 2011; "Counteracting the," 2013).  This is crucial because previous efforts to address the problem of trafficking focused overwhelmingly on the law enforcement aspect.  This included mostly punitive measures that treated traffickers and their victims alike.  The new law has paid some dividends.  Between 2001-2005 260 individuals were arrested for trafficking.  This number is up from 100 in the previous four year period ("Human trafficking, 2005). 

The 2000 legislation recognized two new categories of refugees for visa purposes: the T Visa and the U Visa. The T Visa was issued to victims of human trafficking and the U Visa was issued to undocumented immigrants who suffered serious crimes (Wagner, 2010). These visas permit victims of trafficking to remain in the country while their cases are being decided.  The visas also provided trafficking victims with welfare benefits and other forms of public assistance they wouldn't normally be eligible for. 

Under the Schwarzenegger administration (2003-2011) a number of anti-trafficking laws were passed.  These laws included the SB 180 and AB 22, which criminalized trafficking in the state and provided special trafficking-related training for law enforcement.  Together these laws formed the foundation for the California Alliance to Combat Trafficking and Slavery Taskforce.  The purpose of the task force is to study the problem of trafficking in the state and formulate practical options to fight it (Wagner, 2010).  Another role of the task force was to produce an annual report on human trafficking problems in the state.  The first report was issued in 2007, with the most recent version available in 2012. The 2012 report noted that California's nine human trafficking task forces identified about 1300 victims, initiated nearly 2600 investigations and made roughly 1800 trafficking-related arrests ("The State of," 2012).  

Additional state laws were passed in the wake of those that established the task force.  These laws extended the range under which traffickers could be prosecuted under the law to extortion and accepting future wages of victims as payment.  State laws also increased the penalties for traffickers to include mandated repayment of income to their victims. 

The law SB 1569 established California's Trafficking and Crime Victims Assistance Program (TCVAP). This program provides state benefits and services to trafficking victims (Wagner, 2010).  The program allows for any non-citizen who has been victimized by human trafficking, domestic violence, and other felonies, to receive benefits.  They must be ineligible to receive other similar forms of aid from federal, state or county programs. This allows victims to receive assistance that meets their basic needs for food, shelter, and clothing while they wait authorization to remain in the US. State-funded services that are provided under TCVAP include cash assistance, employment services, language instruction, and medical benefits.  The periods of eligibility range from two months to eight months for various benefits. 

It's recognized that much is being done to mitigate the circumstances of trafficking victims.  But it's also realized that much more still needs to be done in this ongoing struggle against illegal trafficking.  One such radical solution might be the legalization of prostitution.  As one study noted as many 88 percent of women involved in prostitution want to get out of the illicit trade (Marcin, 2013).  But some believe legalization can reduce its more harmful and abusive effects.  Still getting prostitution legalized is an uphill battle in even the most liberal of enclaves ("S.F. rejects," 2008) and this is in light of attempts to portray it as a victimless crime (Hua & Nigorizawa, 2010).

References

Counteracting the bias: The Department of Labor's unique opportunity to combat human trafficking. (2013, Feb.). Harvard Law Review, vol. 126, no. 4, pp. 1012-1033. 

Gallagher, Anne T. (2011). Improving the effectiveness of the international law of human trafficking: A vision for the future of the US trafficking in persons reports. Human Rights Review, vol. 12, pp. 381-400. DOI 10.1007/s12142-010-0183-6.

Hua, Julietta & Holly Nigorizawa. (2010, Dec.). US sex trafficking, women’s human rights and the politics of representation. International Feminist Journal of Politics, vo. 12, issue 3-4, pp. 401–423. DOI: 10.1080/14616742.2010.513109.

Human trafficking arrests on the rise, two states pondering possible laws. (2005, Nov.).   Contemporary Sexuality, vol. 39, issue 11, pp. 10. 

Kapstein, Ethan B. (2006). The new global slave trade. Foreign Affairs, vol. 85, no. 6, pp. 103-115. 

Knepper, Paul. (2013). History matters: Canada's contribution to the first worldwide study of human trafficking. Canadian Journal of Criminology & Criminal Justice, vol. 55, no. 1, pp. 33-54.

Marcin, Steve. (2013, Mar.). Prostitution and human trafficking: A paradigm shift. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin. 

Prois, Jessica. (2013, Jan. 11). Human trafficking awareness day: Nonprofits call on Obama to do more to fight modern-day slavery. Huffingtonppost.com. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/11/human-trafficking-awareness-day_n_2455950.html. July 2013. 

Remedying the injustices of human trafficking through tort law. (2006, June). Harvard Law Review, vol. 119, no. 8, pp. 2574-2595. 

S.F. rejects legalization of prostitution. (2008, Dec.). Contemporary Sexuality, vol. 42, no. 12, pp. 13. 

The State of Human Trafficking in California 2012. (2012). California Dept. of Justice. Retrieved from http://oag.ca.gov/sites/all/files/pdfs/ht/human-trafficking-2012.pdf.  July 2013.

Wagner, John. (2010, Dec.). Serving California's human trafficking victims and refugees. Policy & Practice, pp. 14-17.