Child prostitution is prostitution involving a child, and it is a form of commercial sexual exploitation of children. The term normally refers to prostitution of a minor, or person under the legal age of consent. In most jurisdictions, child prostitution is illegal as part of general prohibition on prostitution.
Sex trafficking is human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation, including sexual slavery, which is considered a form of modern slavery. A victim is forced, in one of a variety of ways, into a situation of dependency on their trafficker(s) and then used by the trafficker(s) to perform sexual services to customers. Sex trafficking crimes can involve acquisition, transportation and exploitation; this includes child sex tourism (CST), domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST) or other kinds of commercial sexual exploitation of children, and prostitution.
International Justice Mission is an international, non-governmental 501(c)(3) organization focused on human rights, law and law enforcement. Founded in 1997 by lawyer Gary Haugen of the United States, it is based in Washington, D.C.. All IJM employees are required to be practicing Christians; 94% are nationals of the countries they work in.
Human trafficking is the trade of humans for the purpose of forced labour, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation for the trafficker or others. This may encompass providing a spouse in the context of forced marriage, or the extraction of organs or tissues, including for surrogacy and ova removal. Human trafficking can occur within a country or trans-nationally. Human trafficking is a crime against the person because of the violation of the victim's rights of movement through coercion and because of their commercial exploitation. Human trafficking is the trade in people, especially women and children, and does not necessarily involve the movement of the person from one place to another.
The Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (J/TIP) is an agency within the United States Department of State charged with investigating and creating programs to prevent human trafficking both within the United States and internationally. The office also presents the Trafficking in Persons Report annually to Congress, concerning human trafficking in the U.S. and other nations. This report aims to raise awareness about human exploitation and trafficking, and to prevent it. The office's goals are to make the public aware, protect victims, take legal action against violators, establish necessary and just sentences for criminals, and train law enforcement individuals. The office is led by the United States Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.
Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST) is a Los Angeles-based anti-human trafficking organization. Through legal, social, and advocacy services, CAST helps rehabilitate survivors of human trafficking, raises awareness, and affects legislation and public policy surrounding human trafficking.
Donna M. Hughes is professor and Eleanor M. and Oscar M. Carlson Endowed Chair of the Women's Studies Program at the University of Rhode Island, a leading international researcher on human trafficking, and also sits on the editorial board of Sexualization, Media, and Society. She is frequently consulted by governments and non-governmental organizations on policy related to women's human rights, particularly on trafficking of women and girls for sexual exploitation. She has testified before the U.S. House International Relations Committee, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Moscow Duma, and the Czech Parliament.
Human trafficking is a modern form of slavery, with illegal smuggling and trading of people, for forced labor or sexual exploitation.
Polaris is a nonprofit, non-governmental organization that works to combat and prevent modern-day slavery and human trafficking. For the past 10 years, Polaris has run the National Human Trafficking Hotline, working on some 40,000 cases of trafficking. From that work, the organization has built out one of the largest data sets on human trafficking in the United States. Based on this data set, in 2017 Polaris released The Typology of Modern Slavery, which classified human trafficking in the United States into 25 distinct businesses. The data set is publicly available for use by researchers through the Counter-Trafficking Data Collaborative, launched by Polaris and U.N. International Organization for Migration. Polaris also advocates for stronger state and federal anti-trafficking legislation, and engages community members in local and national grassroots efforts. Polaris has been criticized for releasing false and misleading data regarding sex trafficking. Critics of Polaris state that the organization fails to distinguish between consensual sex work and coercion, and that the policies Polaris lobbies for harm sex workers.
Katherine Chon is the co-founder of Polaris Project in the United States. She started the organization immediately upon graduation with fellow Brown University student Derek Ellerman in 2002 after learning about the issue during her undergraduate studies. She has testified before Congress concerning the scope of human traffickingand has won numerous awards for her work in the field. She is currently a Senior Advisor in Trafficking in Persons at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The A21 Campaign is a global 501(c)(3) non-profit, non-governmental organization that works to fight human trafficking, including sexual exploitation & trafficking, forced slave labor, bonded labor, involuntary domestic servitude, and child soldiery. The organization was founded by Christine Caine, an international motivational speaker, in 2008. The A21 Campaign aims to "abolish slavery everywhere, forever," and focuses on combatting slavery around the world through educational awareness and prevention, the protection of victims, the prosecution of traffickers, and various partnerships. The A21 Campaign has branches in the Australia, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Denmark, Greece, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Thailand, Ukraine, The United Kingdom, The United States and more.
Lighthouse: Center for Human Trafficking Victims (Japanese：人身取引被害者サポートセンター ライトハウス) is a nonprofit organization based in Tokyo, Japan working to eradicate human trafficking and modern day slavery. It used to be known as "Polaris Project Japan".
The Blue Heart Campaign is an international anti-trafficking program started by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Established in 1997, the UNODC supported countries in implementing three UN drug protocols. In 2000, after the UN General Assembly adopted the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, the UNODC became the “guardian” of that protocol and assumed the functions of fighting against human trafficking. The Blue Heart Campaign was launched in March 2009 by the Executive Director of the UNODC, Antonio Maria Costa, during his address to the World's Women's Conference meeting in Vienna. The campaign's symbol is a blue heart. The Blue Heart Campaign uses its website, as well as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr to communicate goals, objectives, and news with the public.
Thorn: Digital Defenders of Children, previously known as DNA Foundation, is an international anti-human trafficking organization that works to address the sexual exploitation of children. The primary programming efforts of the organization focus on Internet technology and the role it plays in facilitating child pornography and sexual slavery of children on a global scale. The organization was founded by American actors Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher.
The National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking is a four-year action plan that was established by the Government of Canada on June 6, 2012 to oppose human trafficking in Canada. In 2004, the government's Interdepartmental Working Group on Trafficking in Persons was mandated to create a national anti-human-trafficking plan, but the mandate went unfulfilled despite reminders from politicians and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Member of Parliament (MP) Joy Smith put forward motion C-153 in February 2007 to put a plan in place, and the House of Commons passed it unanimously. Smith began developing a proposal and released it in September 2010 under the title "Connecting the Dots". University of British Columbia law professor Benjamin Perrin helped guide Smith's writing of the proposal. Before the establishment of the NAP-CHT, a variety of people and organizations—including the 2009 and 2010 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Reports of the United States Department of State—criticized Canada for failing to have such a plan.
Not My Life is a 2011 American independent documentary film about human trafficking and contemporary slavery. The film was written, produced, and directed by Robert Bilheimer, who had been asked to make the film by Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Bilheimer planned Not My Life as the second installment in a trilogy, the first being A Closer Walk and the third being the unproduced Take Me Home. The title Not My Life came from a June 2009 interview with Molly Melching, founder of Tostan, who said that many people deny the reality of contemporary slavery because it is an uncomfortable truth, saying, "No, this is not my life."
Slavery is a system which requires workers to work against their will for little to no compensation. In modern-day terms, this practice is more widely referred to as human trafficking. Human trafficking is defined by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation”. The practices of slavery and human trafficking are still prevalent in modern America with estimated 17,500 foreign nationals and 400,000 Americans being trafficked into and within the United States every year with 80% of those being women and children. Human trafficking in the United States can be divided into the two major categories of labor and sex trafficking, with sex trafficking accounting for a majority of cases.
Maria Grazia Giammarinaro is an Italian judge and policy-maker.
