human trafficking

Human trafficking, or trafficking in persons, is a crime in which a victim is forced or exploited by another to provide work/services or perform commercial sex against their will. It is a contemporary form of slavery, and the majority of victims are women and children. Human trafficking has three key elements: the act, or the trafficker recruiting, transporting, providing, or soliciting a person for labor or commercial sex; the means, or how the trafficking is accomplished, such as through fraud, force, or coercion; and purpose, or the trafficker’s goal for exploiting the victim. A person does not need to be physically transported between locations in order to be considered a victim of human trafficking.

In 2000, the United States passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) to address human trafficking within the U.S. and abroad. The TVPA publishes the annual Trafficking in Persons Report which monitors international efforts to combat human trafficking. The TVPA defines the two primary forms of human trafficking, forced labor and sex trafficking, as:

  1. Sex trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, obtaining, patronizing, or soliciting of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act 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. (22 U.S.C. § 7102(11)(A)).
  2. Forced labor is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, using force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery. (22 U.S.C. § 7102(11)(B)).

The United Nations Trafficking in Persons Protocol, provided the first internationally recognized definition of human trafficking (or trafficking in persons):

"Trafficking in persons" shall mean 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.

If any individual seeks to report instances of human trafficking, call the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888, or text JOIN to 233733 if you consent to receiving referral information, crisis intervention resources, guidance, and updates.

For more information about International human trafficking trends, see the 2025 TIP Report.

[Last reviewed in May of 2026 by the Wex Definitions Team] 

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