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| Through this website, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops/Migration and Refugee Services (USCCB/MRS) hopes to provide a resource for information on child trafficking, particularly in the U.S. context. Service providers, law enforcement, and others interested in assisting child victims of trafficking can search the clearinghouse to find journal articles, government reports, toolkits, and other resources. The trafficking of children for forced labor or commercial sex is one of the most terrible crimes imaginable. Children trafficked into the United States may be recruited in their home countries through a variety of means. They often live in vulnerable situations, as street children or with little family support and no formal education. Frequently, they are manipulated by traffickers with false promises of marriage or employment in the United States. Sometimes family members themselves may be involved in the trafficking of the children. Once in the United States, children may be kept in slave-like conditions. Often they suffer physical abuse at the hands of their captors. Throughout their experience, they may be unable to go to school or receive health care. They are often kept in isolation. U.S. citizen children are also trafficked within the U.S. It is
estimated that annually 125,000-300,000 American children are being
sexually exploited. Exploiters include criminal networks, family
members and acquaintances, strangers, local pimps, other youth,
pedophiles and transient male population. Commercially sexually
exploited children cut across socio-economic, race, ethnic and gender
lines. 75% of the children are from middle class backgrounds. (
Richard Estes and Neil Alan Weiner, "The commercial sexual
exploitation of children in the U.S., Canada and Mexico", University
of Pennsylvania School of Social Work, September 2001.) In addition,
the National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and
Thrownaway Children report that 450,000 children run away from home
each year. One out of three teens of the street will be lured into
survival sex within 48 hours of leaving home. Catholic
Charities USA has been a leader in developing services and advocacy
for U.S. citizen children and youth who have been trafficked. How does USCCB/MRS assist child trafficking victims? In January of 2003, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops/Migration and Refugee Services (USCCB/MRS) and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS), received funding from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement to implement the Trafficked Child Placement and Technical Assistance Program. Under that funding, both USCCB/MRS and LIRS placed children with specialized foster care programs and provided training and technical assistance for those programs and others working with trafficked children. While the federal funding expired in September 2006, USCCB and LIRS continue to advocate for the needs of trafficked children. Trafficked children may still enter Unaccompanied
Refugee Minor (URM) programs, which are licensed child welfare
agencies that provide foster care, in a family, small group or independent
living setting, for unaccompanied trafficked children. Through these
programs, trafficked children are able to receive culturally and
linguistically appropriate care, including mental health services,
intensive case management, and education. What is human trafficking? Human trafficking is a modern-day form of slavery. Victims of human trafficking are subjected to force, fraud, or coercion, for the purpose of sexual exploitation or forced labor. Examples of recent cases of human trafficking in the U.S. include adolescent Mexican girls trafficked to the U.S. for forced prostitution, Indian men trafficked for forced labor, and Cameroonian women and children trafficked for domestic servitude, among others. The Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 defines “severe forms of trafficking in persons” as follows: Sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age, OR The recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery. What is the extent of the problem? The U.S. government estimates that approximately 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders each year; about 14,500-17,500 of them into the United States. Of those trafficked into the United States, some estimate that one-third may be children. What help is available for trafficking victims? Child victims of trafficking may be eligible for federally funded, specialized services, including placement in the network of Unaccompanied Refugee Minor programs, which are state-licensed, specialized foster care programs. In order to access these services, a law enforcement officer or other concerned party must send a referral to the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). When trafficking victims are first identified, they may be granted
continued presence by the federal government, allowing them to stay
in the country temporarily during an investigation or prosecution.
They can also apply for a “T-visa,” a special three-year
visa for victims of trafficking which also allows them to apply
for legal permanent residence status at the end of the three-year
period. Unlike adults, child victims do not need to work with law
enforcement on an investigation or prosecution in order to qualify
for the T-visa. |
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