Defines human trafficking, details the various forms of forced labor, and explains the United States’ efforts to limit it worldwide, with special reference to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000 and 2003. This law provides tools for the U.S. to combat trafficking in persons, both domestically and abroad. One of the key components of the law is the creation of the Trafficking in Persons Report

United States Department of State

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The Facts About Human Trafficking for Forced Labor 
United States Department of State 
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The Facts About Human Trafficking for Forced Labor 
Abstract 
Defines human trafficking, details the various forms of forced labor, and explains the United States’ 
efforts to limit it worldwide, with special reference to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 
2000 and 2003. This law provides tools for the U.S. to combat trafficking in persons, both domestically 
and abroad. One of the key components of the law is the creation of the Trafficking in Persons Report. 
Keywords 
association, benefits, bonded, business, catherwood, child, code, compliance, conduct, cornell, corporate, 
costs, economic, employment, enforcement, forced, freedom, gender, global, globalization, government, 
ILR, industrial, inspection, international, labor, labour, law, legislation, monitoring, nondiscrimination, 
organization, organisation, portal, relations, sanctions, school, slave, standards, study, trafficking, victim, 
TVPA, women, work 
Disciplines 
Other Business 
Comments 
http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/forcedlabor/6/ 
This article is available at DigitalCommons@ILR: https://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/forcedlabor/6 
THE FACTS ABOUT HUMAN 
TRAFFICKING FOR FORCED LABOR
A Victim’s Story
Rajila, age 30, left her home in India to work in Saudi Arabia 
based on promises of a good salary and free housing from a 
company that supplies laborers for hospitals.  But what seemed 
like a dream opportunity turned out to be a nightmare. Rajila, 
together with other foreign women, was forced to work 12-
hour shifts, six days a week.   She was never paid.  The “free” 
housing was excruciatingly conﬁning, and, when the women 
returned from work, they were locked in their rooms.  Once 
a week they were escorted to the local market to purchase 
groceries and other necessities.  She and other Muslim 
laborers from India were not allowed to practice their faith 
in local mosques.  Rajila left Saudi Arabia taking with her no 
accumulated salary from three and a half years of uninterrupted 
work.1 
What is Human Trafﬁcking?
Trafﬁcking in persons is modern-day slavery.  Annually, 
approximately 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafﬁcked across 
international borders; millions more are enslaved in their own 
countries.  The common denominator of trafﬁcking scenarios is the 
use of force, fraud or coercion to exploit a person for commercial 
sex or for the purpose of subjecting a victim to involuntary 
servitude, debt bondage, or forced labor. The use of force or 
coercion can be direct and violent, or psychological.  
The Causes of Labor 
Trafﬁcking
Most instances of 
forced labor occur as 
unscrupulous employers 
take advantage of gaps 
in law enforcement 
to exploit vulnerable 
workers.  These 
workers are made more 
vulnerable to forced 
labor practices because 
of unemployment, 
poverty, crime, 
discrimination, 
corruption, political 
conﬂict, and cultural 
acceptance of the 
practice.  Immigrants 
are particularly 
vulnerable,2 but individuals are also often forced into labor in 
their own countries.
Bonded Labor
One form of force or coercion is the use of a bond, or debt, 
to keep a person in subjugation. This is referred to in law and 
policy as “bonded labor” or “debt bondage.” It is criminalized 
under U.S. law and included as a form of exploitation related 
to trafﬁcking in the United Nations protocol on trafﬁcking in 
persons.  Many workers around the world fall victim to debt 
bondage when they assume an initial debt as part of the terms 
of employment, or inherit debt in more traditional systems 
of bonded labor.  In South Asia, this phenomenon exists in 
huge numbers as traditional bonded labor in which people are  
enslaved from generation to generation.  
 
Involuntary Servitude
People become trapped in involuntary servitude when they 
believe an attempted escape from their conditions would result 
in serious physical harm or the use of legal coercion, such as 
the threat of deportation.  Victims are often economic migrants 
and low-skilled laborers who are trafﬁcked from less developed 
communities to more prosperous and developed places.  Many 
victims experience physical and verbal abuse, breach of an 
D E M O C R A C Y  A N D  G L O B A L  A F F A I R S
A small girl, bonded into slavery just as her 
parents and their parents before her, labors 
under the hot sun forming bricks from clay 
in rural South Asia.
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Photos ©DOL, Faces of Change
A trafﬁcked Ghanaian child, one of thousands forced to work seven days a 
week, ﬁshes in Lake Volta, Ghana. Rural children are either sold by their 
parents or exchanged for money, an agreement that is generally brokered by the 
ﬁshing recruiters.
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U N I T E D  S T A T E S  D E P A R T M E N T  O F  S T A T E  July 25, 2005
employment contract, and may perceive themselves to be in 
captivity—and too often they are.
 
Domestic Servitude
Domestic workers may be trapped in servitude  through the 
use of force or coercion, such as physical (including sexual) 
or emotional abuse.  Children are particularly vulnerable to 
domestic servitude which occurs in private homes, and is 
often unregulated by public authorities.  For example, there 
is great demand in some wealthier countries of Asia and the 
Persian Gulf for domestic servants who sometimes fall victim to 
conditions of involuntary servitude.  
 
Child Labor
Most international organizations and national laws 
indicate that children may legally engage in light work.3 By 
contrast, the worst forms of child labor are being targeted 
for eradication by nations across the globe.  The sale and 
trafﬁcking of children and their entrapment in bonded and 
forced labor are particularly hazardous types of child labor.  
Forced conscription into armed conﬂict is another brutal 
practice affecting children, as armed militias recruit some 
children by kidnapping, threat, and promise of survival in war-
ravaged areas.    
 
What Consequences Do Victims Face?
Victims of trafﬁcking for forced labor lose their freedom, 
becoming modern-day slaves.  They experience permanent 
physical and psychological harm, isolation from families and 
communities, reduced opportunities for personal development, 
and restricted movement.4  Victims are often wary of law 
enforcement and psychologically dependent on their 
trafﬁckers.  Child victims are denied educational access, which 
reinforces the cycle of poverty and illiteracy.
 
What is the United States doing to combat human trafﬁcking for 
forced labor?
n The 2000 Trafﬁcking Victims Protection Act and 2003 
Trafﬁcking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act mandates 
efforts to combat trafﬁcking in persons.
n The Department of State issues an annual Trafﬁcking in 
Persons Report that assesses foreign government actions to 
combat trafﬁcking, including prevention, protecting the 
victims of labor servitude and punishing their exploiters.  
The 2005 Trafﬁcking in Persons Report includes an increased 
number of countries on Tier 3 for labor violations.  
u Four countries were placed on Tier 3 in 2005 for 
insufﬁcient efforts to take action to comply with U.S. 
standards for the elimination of trafﬁcking, including 
the exploitation of some workers:  Kuwait, Qatar, 
Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. 
n Burma, North Korea, Sudan and Cuba remain on Tier 3 
largely because of their lack of efforts to address forced 
labor in their countries.
n The Trade and Development Act of 2000 mandates efforts 
to eliminate the worst forms of child labor including the 
trafﬁcking of children and forced child labor, as a criterion 
for countries receiving trade beneﬁts.
n The Department of Labor (DOL) produces an annual 
report on the steps countries are taking to combat the 
worst forms of child labor.
n In FY 2004 alone, the United States Government spent 
more than $81 million on anti-trafﬁcking efforts abroad to 
assist governments and non-governmental organizations.  
About 24 percent, ($19.4 million), of that amount focused 
in part on labor trafﬁcking, while 14 percent ($11.3 
million) focused primarily on programs to combat labor 
trafﬁcking.  These programs include: 
u A partnership between the Department of State 
and the International Organization for Migration to 
reintegrate and identify children trafﬁcked into the 
ﬁshing industry in the Lake Volta region of Ghana.
u A USAID-funded project in Uganda with the  
International Rescue Committee rehabilitates children 
who were abducted by a terrorist organization that 
operates in Southern Sudan and Northern Uganda, 
and to protect other children from abduction.  
u A Department of State-funded project with Free the 
Slaves in India to free indentured servants, train law 
enforcement ofﬁcials, provide counseling to victims, 
and raise awareness in rural villages.
u A DOL-funded program with Catholic Charities 
in Brazil to identify trafﬁcking routes, improve 
coordination between law enforcement and labor 
inspectors, and train police in to better detect and 
investigate trafﬁcking for forced labor.
For more information, please log on to the Web site of the State 
Department’s Ofﬁce to Monitor and Combat Trafﬁcking in 
Persons at www.state.gov/g/tip.
1 Human Rights Watch Report; “Bad Dreams: Exploitation and Abuse of Migrant Workers in 
Saudi Arabia” July, 2004. http://hrw.org/mideast/saudi/labor 
2 Tuller, David, 2005. “Freedom Denied: Forced Labor in California.”  Human Rights Center, 
University of California Berkeley, pg. 1. www.hrcberkeley.org/download/freedomdenied.pdf
3 2004 DOL Report on the Worst Forms of Child Labor, pg. xlv-xlvi; International Labour 
Organization. 1973. Convention concerning Minimum Age for Admission to Employment. 
No. 138. http://www.ilo.org/ilolex/english/convdisp1.htm.
4 Tuller. pp. 1 and 4. 
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A family in rural South Asia, bonded into slavery for generations.


The Facts About Human Trafficking for Forced Labor

Defines human trafficking, details the various forms of forced labor, and explains the United States’ efforts to limit it worldwide, with special reference to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000 and 2003. This law provides tools for the U.S. to combat trafficking in persons, both domestically and abroad. One of the key components of the law is the creation of the Trafficking in Persons Report.The_facts_about_human_trafficking51174.pdf: 7443 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

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