Child Labor Trafficking in the United States: A Hidden Crime

Emerging research brings more attention to labor trafficking in the United States. However, very few efforts have been made to better understand or respond to labor trafficking of minors. Cases of children forced to work as domestic servants, in factories, restaurants, peddling candy or other goods, or on farms may not automatically elicit suspicion from an outside observer as compared to a child providing sexual services for money. In contrast to sex trafficking, labor trafficking is often tied to formal economies and industries, which often makes it more difficult to distinguish from ”legitimate” work, including among adolescents. This article seeks to provide examples of documented cases of child labor trafficking in the United States, and to provide an overview of systemic gaps in law, policy, data collection, research, and practice. These areas are currently overwhelmingly focused on sex trafficking, which undermines the policy intentions of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (2000), the seminal statute criminalizing sex and labor trafficking in the United States, its subsequent reauthorizations, and international laws and protocols addressing human trafficking

Legal Services Assessment for Trafficked Children- Cook County, Illinois Case Study

Child trafficking is one of the most disturbing human rights abuses of our time, involving cases of boys and girls exploited for labor and/or commercial sexual services. These children may suffer physical, sexual, and emotional violence at the hands of traffickers, who can be pimps, employers, and even family members. Trafficking schemes may involve various forms of force, fraud, and coercion, which can be physical and/or psychological in nature. Current research indicates that legal services are a critical component of a comprehensive service delivery model for victims of human trafficking and a realization of human rights. However, little to no effort has been made to identify the various legal needs of child trafficking victims, a particularly vulnerable population. In February 2012, the Center for the Human Rights of Children (CHRC) initiated a legal needs assessment project for child trafficking victims, using Cook County Illinois as a case study. The project identified: •Existing service providers working with both US citizen and foreign national child trafficking survivors •The legal needs of trafficked children •Current legal services available to this population •Gaps in those services in Cook County We chose Cook County as a case study for several reasons. It is the second most populous county in the nation, and houses the city of Chicago, which has been recognized as one several human trafficking hubs across the United States. Cook County has an established community of service providers and advocacy organizations working with survivors of human trafficking in various capacities, and two task forces. The project also included a preliminary assessment of legal services for child trafficking victims offered by organizations around the country as a comparison to the results of our research in Cook County

Building a Child Welfare Response to Child Trafficking Handbook (2011)

In 2007, the International Organization for Adolescents (IOFA), under the leadership of Katherine Kaufka Walts the then Executive Director, developed and launched the Building Child Welfare Response to Child Trafficking project. The purpose of this project is to build the capacity of child welfare agencies and service providers to identify and respond to this often invisible and underserved population. The primary goals are to ensure that children are correctly identified as trafficked persons and that they receive the appropriate protections and referrals to specialized services to which they are entitled under federal and state laws. This project, supported by funding from the Chicago Community Trust, takes place over a two year period ending in mid-2011. IOFA identified the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (IDCFS) in Illinois as the first implementing partner for the project. IDCFS is one of the largest state government child welfare agencies in United States; it addresses the needs of thousands of children and youth every day. IOFA and IDCFS worked together to develop innovative and sustainable training and advocacy efforts on child trafficking for the child protection units within the agency. The project was designed to increase identification of cases, ensure that child trafficking victims receive full access to the legal and human rights afforded to them under the law, and ultimately to prevent further child trafficking. The project team focused on enabling child protection staff to identify and access key protections and services for victims, including special visas for undocumented victims, public benefits, job training programs, foster care, assistance in the criminal justice system, and mandatory restitution offered under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (2000) and applicable state laws. The Building Child Welfare Response to Child Trafficking project in Illinois is a comprehensive effort, and IOFA and IDCFS continue to collaborate on additional activities in the second year of the project

Input to SR on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, Including its Causes and Consequences Regarding the Role of Organized Criminal Groups

The Center for the Human Rights of Children (CHRC), in collaboration with signatory organizations, submits this input in response to the call for submissions made by the Special Rapporteur’s Report on the Role of Organized Criminal Groups with regard to Contemporary Forms of Slavery to inform the forthcoming report to the 76th session of the General Assembly. This input will focus upon the role of organized criminal groups with regard to child labor trafficking (forced labor), and specifically, forced criminality as a form of forced labor.1 We provide input on cases both in the interior of the United States, and also regionally along the migrant corridor between Central America (Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador), Mexico, and the United States Southern border, one of the busiest migrant corridors in the world. In this submission, we address issues involving both US citizen victims as well as migrant children. The United States anti-trafficking legislation, or the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) and its subsequent reauthorizations (TVPRA), address contemporary forms of slavery under the Palermo Protocol and UN CRC Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, including crimes of forced labor and involuntary servitude. Thus, we use the terms “contemporary forms of slavery,” “labor trafficking” and “forced labor” interchangeably throughout this input.2 Children are uniquely vulnerable, due to their age, development, and dependence on adults for their safety and well-being. Despite this vulnerability, child trafficking victims in the U.S. are often treated in the same manner as adults, without any additional protections in place to account for their unique needs. The lack of child-appropriate protection is particularly problematic for child victims of labor trafficking, especially forced criminality. Forced criminality generally involves the use of force, fraud, or coercion to compel children to commit criminal activities including (but not limited to) drug smuggling, drug production, benefit fraud, theft, begging, prostitution, and other criminal acts.3 Children in the US, both migrant children and US citizens, boys and girls, who are victims of forced criminality are treated inconsistently by the US legal system, with some offered protection as victims of crime (e.g., child prostitution), and others treated as perpetrators of crime (e.g., children forced to smuggle drugs across the border). Perpetrators of child labor trafficking and forced criminality in the US and throughout the region are often organized criminal groups, as defined by the UN.4 This report addresses key questions regarding organized criminal groups and contemporary forms of modern slavery. The input focuses on 1) providing evidence of organized criminal groups and the nature and extent to which they are involved in child trafficking and forced criminality, both domestically and internationally, 2) the US legislative framework regarding forced labor and forced criminality, and 3) the challenges child victims’ advocates face in obtaining protections for both migrants and citizens

The Right to Be a Child: Human Trafficking of Child Soldiers and Gang Involved Youth

Discussants from this event, entitled “The Right to Be a Child: Human Trafficking of Child Soldiers and Gang Involved Youth,” discussed the trafficking of children as child soldiers and the parallels with children recruited into gangs in Central America and the United States. Discussants included the following: Julie Hicks, Foreign Affairs Officer, US State Department; Diana Tafur, Supervising Attorney, Asylum Project, National Immigrant Justice Center; Brad Stolbach, Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Chicago; Kathryn Kaufka Walts, Director, Center for the Human Rights of Childre

Human Trafficking and Exploitation of Children and Youth in the United States- Outcome Document

The conference entitled, “Human Trafficking and Exploitation of Children and Youth in the United States,” was held at Loyola University Chicago on September 22-23, 2010, sponsored by the Center for the Human Rights of Children. The purpose of the conference was to bring national, multi-sector and interdisciplinary experts and participants together to discuss the plight of children being trafficked to and within the United States. The goal of the conference was not only to present an overview of child trafficking in the United States, but also to provide an opportunity to initiate dialogue among a network of professionals and to actively engage in advancing the movement to combat child trafficking in the United States.To build on the momentum and activism demonstrated at the conference, the Center for the Human Rights of Children has created this outcome document. The document summarizes the information presented during the conference about the current state of child trafficking and exploitation, promising practices, challenges, resources, and action items. The document reflects information and opinions presented by expert panelists, as well as information submitted by participants during question and answer sessions, evaluations, and a questionnaire (See “Methods\u22). The first panel presentation, “Challenges in Identifying Child Trafficking Cases,” sets the stage for the conference and the document, highlighting some of the larger systemic challenges addressed in more detail in subsequent panel presentations and workshops. There were reoccurring issues and themes throughout the conference that are reflected in this outcome document. This document is not intended to be acomprehensive overview of child trafficking. It reflects the presentations, discussions, and reflections during the two-day September conference, and is designed to be a practical starting point for future dialogue and efforts to combat child trafficking in the United States. Please note that while this document uses the term “victim,” a legal term used to describe a wronged party, we recognize and respect the resiliency and perseverance of child survivors of human trafficking and exploitation. We hope this document can be a guide for future advocacy, scholarship, research, and collaboration on the issues of human trafficking and exploitation of children and youth in the United States

2012 CHRC/Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights Alternative Report

This NGO Alternative Report is a response to the U.S. government’s (USG) periodic report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) on its work to implement the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography (OPSC). This NGO Alternative report is also a supplemental report to the Alternative Report submitted by ECPAT-USA. The purpose of this report is to augment information provided in the alternative report submitted by ECPAT-USA, in order to emphasize the issue of the sale of children for the purpose of forced labor as defined under Articles 2-3 of the OPSC and labor trafficking under the U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Act. Both the Center for the Human Rights of Children at Loyola University Chicago (CHRC) and the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights at the University of Chicago (the Young Center), the authors of this report, collaborated with ECPAT-USA in developing their alternative report, and we are both signatories to the ECPAT-USA alternative report. The ECPAT-USA alternative report has provided excellent recommendations to improve the USG response to address commercial sexual exploitation of children. In authorizing this report, we emphasize the importance of improving efforts to address both labor and sexual exploitation of children