By Amy D. Lauger. Danielle Kaeble and Mark Motivans, etc.

The Combat Human Trafficking Act of 2015 (CHTA) (34 U.S.C. § 20709(e)) requires the director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) to prepare an annual report on human trafficking. The report must include information on the following: „ arrests by state law enforcement officers for human trafficking offenses „ prosecutions of individuals in state courts for human trafficking offenses „ convictions of individuals in state courts for human trafficking offenses „ sentences imposed on individuals convicted in state courts for human trafficking offenses. BJS obtains information on human trafficking through several data collections, including those on victim service providers, law enforcement, prosecution and adjudication, and corrections. For each collection, these data are available for some combination of the federal, state, local, and tribal levels. The information in each data collection contributes to a general profile of human trafficking in the United States. Some differences exist across collections due to varying definitions of human trafficking, data availability, and other factors. At the federal level, human trafficking offenses are defined according to federal statutes that include peonage, slavery, forced labor, sex trafficking, sexual exploitation and other abuse of children, and transportation for illegal sexual activity and related crimes. The classification of human trafficking offenses varies among state and local jurisdictions. This report describes the BJS data collections and activities across various jurisdictional levels that include various offenses that may be categorized as human trafficking, and it presents the most recent statistical findings.

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics , 2024. 7p.

By Jennifer E. O’Brien ; Lisa M. Jones; Kimberly J. Mitchell; and Gina Zwerling Kahn

Objectives: Child sex trafficking (CST) is the involvement of minors in the commercial exchange of sex for goods, services, drugs, or money. The COVID-19 pandemic negatively affected many risk factors associated with CST victimization and the availability of CST services. We examined service providers’ perspectives on how the pandemic affected trajectories of CST victimization among young people in the United States. Methods: We collected qualitative data from 80 law enforcement professionals and service providers working with young people affected by CST from 11 US cities. Semistructured interviews lasted approximately 1 hour and were digitally recorded, transcribed verbatim, and coded via a grounded theory approach. Results: We found 3 overarching themes related to the pandemic’s effect on CST victimization trajectories: grooming, perpetration, and service provision. Participants described how increased online activity may have increased the risk of CST, even among children without traditional risk factors. However, technology also facilitated young people’s agency in seeking help and receiving services. In addition, participants reported increases in virtual service provision that facilitated access to, and availability of, CST services more generally. Conclusions: Technology use among young people increased during the pandemic, leading to increases in the risks of experiencing technology-facilitated CST. Technology use among young people who experience CST victimization—and how it may differ from young people more generally—is underexplored and may provide insights into prevention and treatment. Collectively, results highlight the need for epidemiologic research to help identify how global and national events affect trajectories of victimization among young people

Public Health Reports 1–7 , 2024, 7p.

By Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)

Trafficking in persons is a global challenge that transcends borders, and the advent of AI technologies has the potential to amplify both its reach and complexity. It is precisely this global nature of both trafficking and AI that necessitates coordinated, regional, and international responses. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the Regional Support Office of the Bali Process (RSO) have jointly developed this brief on the emerging nexus of artificial intelligence (AI), trafficking in persons, and transnational crime with a clear objective: to equip policymakers, law enforcement agencies, and the technology sector with the insights needed to anticipate and pre-emptively address the potential implications of AI on trafficking in persons.

Vienna: OSCE, 2024. 33p.

By Julia Korkman

Traffickers often use manipulation to tie their victims with what is sometimes called “invisible chains”. These, often subtle and large ly psychological means of controlling and manipulating victims are hard to detect and prove by the criminal justice system. The terms used for this phenomenon in the scientific literature are psychological coercion, psychological control and coercive control. IN THIS POLICY brief, we use the term psychological coercion, as it is widely used in the human trafficking literature. This policy brief pro vides a brief insight into psychological coercion as a phenomenon, what is known about the use of such coercion in the context of trafficking in human beings and how investigators can strive to address the issue of psychological coercion within criminal investigation

Helsinki: HEUNI, 2023. 4p.

By Eva Veldhuizen Ochodničanová, Alicia Heys

Despite the link between conflict and human trafficking having been globally recognized, academic inquiry investigating how the two interact continues to be limited. Given the recency of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation in February 2022, this lack of literature is even more pronounced in understanding how the risks of trafficking are developing in the current context. This paper examines extant academic literature to explore what is already known about the relationship between conflict and human trafficking, situating this within the theoretical framework of routine activity theory (RAT). It analyses governmental and non-governmental organization reports emerging from Ukraine to contextualize the risk that is specific to those affected by the war. The paper identifies four key drivers of risk facing those in, or fleeing, Ukraine, which can heighten their vulnerability to human trafficking, before offering a novel and innovative typology of the ways that human trafficking can manifest as a result of conflict. The typology considers the direct and indirect links between conflict and trafficking, the geographical spaces in which trafficking can occur, and the specific forms that exploitation can take. By situating the paper within RAT and contextualizing it with evidence from the war in Ukraine, the findings of this paper provide both theoretical and empirical insights that help to expand existing knowledge on how conflict situations can increase the risk of THB.

Journal of Illicit Economies and Development, 6(2): pp. 26–41.2024