Human Trafficking

Human trafficking is a multi-billion-dollar kind of international, organized crime that may constitute modern-day slavery. Most victims are trafficked between regions or countries and targeted on their vulnerabilities using coercion or deception. Upon arriving at their destination, they’re forced to work in inhumane conditions, stripped of their freedom of choice and movement, and stripped of autonomy. It comes in different kinds of mental and physical abuse. It’s also associated with other crimes, including cybercrimes, the use of fraudulent travel documents, and illicit transactions.

Fear of law enforcement, fear of their traffickers, and language barriers stop victims from seeking help, making the problem a hidden crime. Traffickers only look for people susceptible for different reasons, including political instability, natural disasters, the lack of a social safety net, economic difficulties, and emotional or psychological vulnerability. Here’s a guide on how to tell if someone is being trafficked. Read on.

Human Trafficking: An Overview

Human trafficking is a kind of modern-day slavery that involves the receipt, sale, harboring, transportation, or recruitment of individuals through fraud, deception, abduction, force, and/or coercion. Traffickers force them into debt bondage, domestic servitude, sexual exploitation, forced labor, and other practices.

Moreover, it can involve coercion, fraud, or force to obtain a particular kind of commercial sex or labor. Yearly, millions of children, women, and men are being trafficked globally. It can happen in any state, and victims can come from any nationality, gender, race, or age. Traffickers may use romantic relationships, false promises of well-paying jobs, manipulation, or violence to lure victims.

Forms of Human Trafficking

Miami human trafficking may come in different forms, but the consistent aspect is the abuse of the inherent vulnerability of the victims.

Forced Labor

• Under the statutes of Title 18 of the U.S. Code, it may use obtaining, providing, transporting, harboring, or recruiting involved if the trafficker uses physical threats or force. It may also include patterns intended to hold a person in fear of serious harm, plans or schemes, abuse of the legal process, psychological coercion, and other means to compel someone to work. Once a trafficker gets what he/she wants by such means, the victim’s previous effort or consent to work under the trafficker doesn’t prevent them from being called a victim.
• Under the customs-related statutes of Title 19, human trafficking is related to the importation of goods through indentured labor under penal sanctions, convict labor, and forced child labor.
• Debt Bondage: U.S. law doesn’t allow the use of a debt to coerce or force a person into working. Other people become victims of recruiters or human traffickers who unlawfully exploit an initial debt assumed as a condition of employment. In other states, other workers “inherit” the debt. Even though hazardous working conditions and contract violations can’t be called human trafficking, the imposition of debts and costs into the people will contribute to debt bondage.
• Domestic Servitude: Working in a private residence may also lead to vulnerabilities, mainly because what happens in a private home is hidden from the world. It’s also easy to isolate a person. Domestic workplaces are not shared with other people, are connected to off-duty living quarters, and are informal. It becomes susceptible to exploitation because authorities can’t inspect private homes as quickly as formal workplaces. Using informal or verbal employment contracts constitutes vulnerability. Foreign workers are highly vulnerable to abuse due to the lack of community ties, cultural issues, and language barriers.
• Forced Child Labor: Young children may legally engage in particular kinds of slave-like practices, slavery, or work; however, debt bondage, forced or compulsory child labor, and the sale of children for exploitation continue to exist, despite widespread condemnation and legal prohibitions.

Sex Trafficking

• If a person is forced to engage in commercial sex due to coercion, fraud, force, threats, or a combination of such means, that person is a victim of human trafficking in Miami. In these circumstances, traffickers involved in soliciting, patronizing, maintaining, advertising, obtaining, providing, enticing, transporting, harboring, or recruiting are guilty of sex trafficking. Even if a victim gave her consent to engage in commercial sex, it’s still trafficking.
• Child Sex Trafficking: Minors (under the age of 18) who have been solicited, patronized, maintained, advertised, obtained, provided, enticed, transported, harbored, or recruited to engage in commercial sex is a victim of human trafficking, despite whether coercion, fraud, or force is used.

Report a Human Trafficking Incident

Both the working and living conditions of a victim often pose health risks and are unsafe. Most victims live with dozens of people in houses, apartments, hotel rooms, or even their workplaces. Usually, they can’t move freely and are under supervision either remotely or directly. If they have the freedom to move, the trafficker closely controls and monitors them through fear. Here are a few simple ways you can help save a human trafficking victim:

• Call 911.
• Call the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888.
• Anti-Trafficking Hotline Advocates are always available to take reports of potential human trafficking incidents.
• Text HELP to the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 233733. Message and data rates may apply.
• Reach out to the National Human Trafficking Hotline.
• Send a tip online using the hotline’s anonymous reporting form. Leave a note if the situation has occurred within the last 24 hours or is urgent. Your human trafficking attorney encourages you to chat, text, or call.
• Text or call 305-FIX-STOP (305-349-7867)

Pro Tip

“You should always be on the lookout for people displaying signs of being a victim of human trafficking.”

Need a Professional to Help You Out?

Being a victim of human trafficking is traumatizing and challenging. If you need expert assistance in filing a case, Diamond & Diamond Miami can help you! We’ll ensure that your pain and suffering will be compensated accordingly. We can also help you in filing a human trafficking incident or other areas. Contact us at 1-800-567-HURT to schedule a FREE case evaluation.