Labor Trafficking and Sex Trafficking: Equally Critical, Unequally Prioritized
On July 12, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) and the House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC) Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations Subcommittee held hearings to review the 2016 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report with Department of State Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, Susan Coppedge.
The TIP report ranks countries based on their efforts to combat human trafficking, and the 2016 report showed progressive trends globally in prosecutions, convictions, and victims identified. Though such progress is significant, both committees correctly pointed out concerns over the significant gap in labor trafficking cases handled.
Globally, labor trafficking convictions accounted for 7 percent of 6,609 total human trafficking cases in 2015, while victims of forced labor make up 68 percent of the estimated 20.9 million human trafficking victims worldwide. The number of convictions pales in comparison to the scale of the crime.
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