Sex trafficking is a form of modern slavery that exists throughout the United States and globally.
Sex traffickers use violence, threats, lies, debt bondage, and other forms of coercion to compel adults and children to engage in commercial sex acts against their will. Under U.S. federal law, any minor under the age of 18 years induced into commercial sex is a victim of sex trafficking—regardless of whether or not the trafficker used force, fraud, or coercion.
The situations that sex trafficking victims face vary dramatically. Many victims become romantically involved with someone who then forces or manipulates them into prostitution. Others are lured in with false promises of a job, such as modeling or dancing. Some are forced to sell sex by their parents or other family members. They may be involved in a trafficking situation for a few days or weeks, or may remain in the same trafficking situation for years.
Victims of sex trafficking can be U.S. citizens, foreign nationals, women, men, children, and LGBTQ individuals. Vulnerable populations are frequently targeted by traffickers, including runaway and homeless youth, as well as victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, war, or social discrimination.
Sex trafficking occurs in a range of venues including fake massage businesses, via online ads or escort services, in residential brothels, on the street or at truck stops, or at hotels and motels.
Key Statistics (provided by the Polaris Project)
- In 2017, the National Human Trafficking Resource Center received 26,884 calls, 3,154 webforms, and 1,833 emails.
- The BeFree Textline received 2,306 SMS messages.
- Through the above signals, 7,255 individual sex trafficking victims were identified.
- Of the identified trafficking victims, 58.4% were adults and 80.7% were female.
- In 2017, 2,144 unique survivors contacted the National Hotline 5,263 times.
- Of the identified sex trafficking cases in 2017, the most common range for age at the time trafficking began was 15-17 years old.
- Human trafficking occurred in all 50 states in 2017.
- In total, 25,696 trafficking cases have been reported through the NHTRC and Polaris’s BeFree Textline since December 2007.
- The top venue for sex trafficking was escort services.
- The top five recruitment tactics of sex trafficking (in order) were intimate partner/marriage proposition, familial, posing as a benefactor, job offer, and false promises/fraud.
- The top industry for labor trafficking was domestic work.
- The top five recruitment tactics for labor trafficking (in order) were job offer, false promises/fraud, smuggling related, familial, and posing as a benefactor.
