the berlin turnpike - us human trafficking prevalence report

Review of Existing Estimates of Victims of Human Trafficking in the United States and Recommendations for Improving Research and Measurement of

Human Trafficking

March 31st, 2010

Prepared by:

Amy Farrell, Ph.D. Jack McDevitt, Ph.D.

Noam Perry, M.S. Stephanie Fahy, M.S.

Kate Chamberlain, M.S. Northeastern University, Institute on Race and Justice

William Adams, M.P.P.

Colleen Owens Meredith Dank, Ph.D.

Urban Institute, Justice Policy Center

Michael Shively, Ph.D. Ryan Kling, M.A. Kristin Wheeler

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Abstract This research project aims to fill gaps in our understanding of the prevalence of human

trafficking in the United States by systematically assessing and compiling information about potential victims of trafficking from a variety of existing sources. In spite of our expectation that it would be feasible to generate such a better estimate, however, the deficiencies in the existing research are more considerable than we initially anticipated, making it problematic to derive a single concrete estimate of the number of trafficking victims in the United States. Having a more complete understanding of the strengths of existing research and extent of the deficiencies in the research on human trafficking in the United States is itself a substantial finding, however, it suggests that enhancement of the quality and scope of data that are systematically collected by government agencies, nongovernmental organizations and researchers is necessary. More complete and reliable information on actual and potential victims of human trafficking is required to estimate the number of victims of human trafficking in the United States and guide effective governmental and nongovernmental efforts to address this problem.

Despite the limitations of existing data identified in this report, we can describe the scope and character of human trafficking in the United States. In particular, though the most commonly cited estimate of human trafficking in the United States suggests there are between 14,500 to 17,500 persons trafficked into the United States each year (U.S. Department of State, 2004), we find a much broader range of estimates of the number of trafficking victims when information from numerous sources of data is combined. For example, taking the median number of estimated victims that exist across various types of data sources, we find a yearly minimum of between 5,166 victims reported by national data collection programs and survey studies to 60,467 estimated victims reported by economic modeling studies.1 Thus, the most commonly cited estimates of the prevalence of human trafficking in the United States fall toward the low end of the range of the minimum number of estimated victims reported by the other studies. Because information about known or estimated victims of human trafficking was not available for a number of the specific venues where trafficking is believed to occur, it is likely that the summaries of existing research presented in this report still offer an incomplete picture of the potential prevalence of human trafficking victimization in the United States.

We do not present these data as authoritatively representative of the scope of the problem of trafficking in the United States due to the challenges of the data, but we suggest these ranges offer a more accurate snapshot of our limited understanding of the scope of human trafficking as made possible by the existing studies that have attempted to enumerate the problem. At the end of the report, we present a number of recommendations for improving the collection of data and estimation of the prevalence of human trafficking in the United States.

1 This range is built up from estimates of the minimum median number of victims of labor trafficking and sex trafficking in the United States, which range from 1,349–46,849 victims of labor trafficking and from 3,817–22,320 victims of sex trafficking. See the summary data table in the Executive Summary for more detailed information on these summations.

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Executive Summary The trafficking of persons has become a pressing international and national concern in

recent years. Despite heightened public awareness, the enactment of new laws, and increased funding to combat the problem, we still do not know enough about the true scope of human trafficking victimization in the United States. The most commonly cited estimate of the number of victims of trafficking in the country is the figure reported by the U.S. State Department in 2004 that 14,500 to 17,500 individuals are trafficked into the United States each year. Although this estimate offers a starting point for dialogue about the scope of human trafficking in the United States, there are a number of problems with its use. First, it is limited to measuring the flow of foreign victims into the United States, and as such does not account for the number of U.S. citizens or residents victimized within the country. Second, the estimate does not account for the number of victims in the United States who escape out of trafficking each year, nor does it provide a cumulative total number of victims in the United States at any one time. Finally, methodological problems with the calculation of the estimate and a lack of transparency about the way the estimate was derived call into question its reliability for informing governmental and nongovernmental anti-human trafficking interventions. Although the deficiencies of this and other existing estimates of human trafficking are well documented (Government Accountability Office, 2006), few attempts have been made to use other existing sources of data and research to inform our understanding of the prevalence of trafficking in the United States.

This research project set out to derive a more reliable estimate of the prevalence of human trafficking in the United States by synthesizing the myriad of previously published reports on this issue. In spite of our expectation that it would be feasible to generate such a better estimate, however, the deficiencies in the existing research are more considerable than we initially anticipated, making it problematic to derive a single estimate of the number of trafficking victims in the United States. This more complete understanding of the deficiencies of the existing literature on human trafficking in the United States is a substantial finding in itself, and suggests that enhancement of the quality and scope of data systematically collected on actual and potential victims of human trafficking is necessary to estimate more reliably the number of victims of human trafficking in the United States to guide effective governmental and nongovernmental efforts to address this problem. We introduce at the end of this summary our recommendations for improving the collection of data and estimation of the prevalence of human trafficking in the United States.

Despite the limitation of the data, however, this research enables us to say more about the scope and character of human trafficking in the United States than is currently accepted as fact. In particular, though the most commonly cited estimate of human trafficking in the United States suggests that there are between 14,500 to 17,500 persons trafficked into the United States each year, we find that the range of estimates of the minimum number of victims of trafficking in the United States varies considerably according to the type of source the estimate is based on. When relying on national data collection/survey studies, the median estimate of the minimum number of victims each year reaches a low 5,166 victims, whereas the median estimate of the minimum number of victims produced by studies that are based on economic modeling reaches a high of 60,467. (See the

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table of summary data presented below.) This range is derived from estimates of the minimum median number of victims of labor trafficking and sex trafficking in the United States, which range from 1,349 to 46,849 victims of labor trafficking and from 3,817 to 22,320 victims of sex trafficking. Summary of Median Minimum Known Counts and Estimates of Human Trafficking Victims Identified in Assessed Data Sources, with number of sources upon which counts and estimates are based (n)2

Labor Trafficking Adult Sex

Trafficking Child Sex

Trafficking Total Human

Trafficking Victims Data Type Counts Estimates Counts Estimates Counts Estimates Counts Estimates

25 - 68 - 276 - 369 - Federal prosecution data (n=1 ) (n=0 ) (n=1 ) (n=0 ) (n=2) (n=0 ) (n=2 ) (n=0 )

37 - 90 - 146 - 273 - Federal law enforcement data (n=3 ) (n=0 ) (n=4 ) (n=0 ) (n=4 ) (n=0 ) (n=4 ) (n=0 )

50 - 179 - 58 - 287 - Federal victim service data (n=3 ) (n=0 ) (n=3 ) (n=0 ) (n=3 ) (n=0 ) (n=3 ) (n=0 )

57 - 35 - 26 - 118 - Media reports (n=1 ) (n=0 ) (n=1 ) (n=0 ) (n=1 ) (n=0 ) (n=1 ) (n=0 )

264 3,191 165 5,231 96 13,787 525 22,209 Local studies (n=2 ) (n=2 ) (n=4 ) (n=4 ) (n=5 ) (n=7 ) (n=5 ) (n=7 )

381 1,349 675 2,672 480 1,145 1,526 5,166 National data collection/surveys (n=2 ) (n=3 ) (n=3 ) (n=3 ) (n=3 ) (n=3 ) (n=3 ) (n=3 )

- 46,849 - 9,533 - 4,085 - 60,467 Economic indicator studies (n=0 ) (n=1 ) (n=0 ) (n=2 ) (n=0 ) (n=2 ) (n=0 ) (n=2 )

We do not present these data as authoritatively representing the scope of the problem of

trafficking in the United States due to the limitations in the existing research, which we discuss further in the full report. Instead, these ranges represent an assessment of what we know about the potential scope of human trafficking in the United States based on existing research and data collection. As we note in more detail in the body of the main report, the data that is currently collected on human trafficking in the United States has a number of important limitations. In many cases, the counts and estimates of numbers of victims that is available from existing data sources represent only a fraction of potential victims. This is due in part to the lack of available systematic information about the existence of victims in areas where human trafficking are known to exist and also to the fact that agencies that do collect information on human trafficking victims lack many of the capacities necessary to successfully identify and track potential human trafficking victims. The following few paragraphs of this summary briefly examine how we collected and analyzed the data that does exist on human trafficking in the United States and provides recommendations for improving the scope and quality of such information.

2 Empty cells in the Counts column mean that the sources did not specify numbers of victims found, but only provided estimates. Empty cells in the Estimates column mean that we did not find any data upon which to base an estimate from the identified sources. For more detail on these counts and estimates see tables 4-6 in the body of the report.

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As noted previously, the goal of this research project was to employ the existing data from various sources on the prevalence of human trafficking in the United States, as defined by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, in order to derive a more complete and accurate estimate of the problem. To do this, we followed a careful research plan, and made adjustments to this plan as we realized the challenges posed by the available data. As a first step in this effort, we began our research by undertaking a comprehensive search of existing research reporting on the prevalence of human trafficking victimization in the United States to help us recognize the current state of understanding of the magnitude of the problem. We reviewed, assessed and analyzed the data from 207 identified technical reports, published studies and scholarly articles that include information about populations that have been trafficked or are at risk for human trafficking. Using information from these sources, we catalogued known counts and estimates of human trafficking by type of trafficking (labor or sex trafficking), origin of victim (foreign or domestic) and type of trafficking venue (e.g. brothels, domestic work, agriculture, etc.). The method of disaggregating the data according to type and venues of trafficking helped us identify gaps in the current literature. We then cataloged the types of venues where human trafficking victimization had been identified for each type of trafficking and attempted to identify sources of information within those venues that might include counts or estimates of human trafficking victims. This process identified that there are more sources of information about potential victims for some types of trafficking than others. For example, we identified more studies or sources of data about child victims of sex trafficking than about either adult or child victims of labor trafficking.

Later on, we divided up the data according to the type of sources used to produce it: government counts of officially recognized victims, local studies that look into a specific geographic location, large-scale national studies, etc. Presenting the data this way illustrates the strengths and limitations of the various sources of the data, as well as the reason for the existence of different estimates. Disaggregating the data by source type also helped to avoid double counting the victims, which could potentially result in a significant over-estimation of the problem. For example, victims identified in federal prosecution data are also likely to be counted by federal victim service providers; victims identified by local law enforcement may also be reported by federal agencies who have worked on the investigations; etc.

It was at this point in the research program that we recognized that the data challenges would prevent us from generating the meta-assessment we had previously aspired to and would require us to adjust our research design to focus instead on deriving ranges of existing counts and estimates of victims of trafficking. For each type of trafficking (labor trafficking, sex trafficking of adults and sex trafficking of children), we identified ranges of the minimum-to-maximum number of known and estimated victims. The above table presents the median minimum counts and estimates, broken down by the seven types of sources.3 (Counts represent the annualized number of victims

3 The main sources of data for which we identified counts and estimates of human trafficking victims are federal law enforcement data, federal victim service data, media reports, local studies, national data collection and large-scale surveys and economic indicator studies. When multiple studies were available for each main source type, we report the median count and estimate. For some sources, we could calculate a range of counts or estimates based on the available data. We present minimum counts and estimates in summary tables and provide the available ranges of minimum and maximum counts and estimates within the body of the report, Tables 4-6. Data from other sources of information are included in

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identified in individual studies. Estimates represent the annualized national statistics that could be derived, where possible, from counts). The calculated ranges of minimum counts and estimates allow us to put the most commonly cited estimates into a comparative context and assess how well they correspond with the broader body of knowledge on the subject. The median minimum estimates from within each source type allow us to conservatively represent an annualized estimate of the total number of victims of human trafficking in the United States.

The conclusions that can be drawn about the prevalence of human trafficking victimization vary significantly across studies. As a result, we are reluctant to attempt to derive a single estimate of the extent of human trafficking victimization based on these unstable measures. Instead, the data presented in this report help us draw some preliminary conclusions about the known minimum numbers of labor trafficking and adult and child sex trafficking cases that are identified across different data sources. Of the three median estimates we have obtained, the one that was derived from national studies and surveys (5,166 victims) provides a more reliable, although still flawed, estimate of the minimum number of trafficking victims in the United States. The data sources from which this minimum estimate was drawn used standard social science methods and they provided the most clarity regarding their samples, hypotheses and procedures, although it does not account for a variety of venues where trafficking occurs. In fact, we could not find systematic sources of information that would help us identify the number of actual or estimated victims of human trafficking for over 80 percent of the identified venues for the different types of human trafficking (see Appendix D in the main report for counts of sources by venue). The two other median estimates (22,209 and 60,467 victims, respectively) could serve to gauge how high the minimum number of human trafficking victims could be, but they contain many assumptions regarding unknown factors. It is important to note that the data provided in the summary represents the ranges of minimum number of human trafficking victims, the main body of the report provides counts and estimates of maximum number of human trafficking victims that are much higher than the minimums presented here. Largely the most important insight to be gleaned from the very wide ranges between the lowest and highest estimates identified in the literature is that the quality of the available research is lacking. Two points illustrate this lesson. First, the reason why we have reported these ranges with such large differences between the lowest and highest values is that the data collectively are of such varied, and in some cases–lower–quality, that it is inadvisable to attempt to compare them other than in a qualitative fashion. Second, the highest estimate from a type of source for any of the identified types of trafficking (labor trafficking, sex trafficking of adults, and sex trafficking of children) is greater than the lowest estimate for that type of trafficking by at least 400 percent, suggesting that there is enormous uncertainty about the national scope of the problem, to the point that representations of more narrow estimates utilizing these existing data would be open to considerable questions from the start. This applies to the U.S. State Department estimate (from 2004) as well as to others. Similarly, because no information on numbers or estimates of human trafficking victimization was available for a number of the specific venues where trafficking is

Tables 4-6, but they are excluded from the summary table because they represent a mixture of other types of sources that cannot be classified; concerns about double counting prevent their inclusion in summaries.

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believed to occur, it is likely that the results presented here offer an incomplete picture of the potential prevalence of human trafficking victimization. Recommendations

Informed by our review of existing research and experience of attempting to calculate ranges of human trafficking victims identified in existing data sources and apply appropriate multipliers for estimation, we offer a series of recommendations to help improve the quality of data collected on human trafficking and ultimately improve efforts to estimates of prevalence of human trafficking in the United States. Specifically, we recommend:

• Enhancing the scope and quality of data reported in U.S. government publications that routinely

provide information on human trafficking victims or suspects (i.e. U.S. Attorney General’s Assessment, Department of Justice Civil Rights Division data, Heath and Human Services T-Visa Certification data, etc.). More granular information about victims classified by type of victimization and victim characteristics is necessary for future estimation efforts. Additional information on the duration of trafficking conditions until the victim was recovered and the amount of overlap between equivalent government agencies in handling cases would improve our ability to use governmental data for estimation.

• Improving the collection of information on human trafficking by law enforcement, prosecutors and courts. As provided for in the most recent reauthorization of the TVPA, steps should be undertaken to integrate human trafficking crime classifications into data routinely collected as part of the UCR national crime-reporting program.

• Enhancing potential sources of data where information on human trafficking is currently not being captured. For example, reports on exploitive labor conditions across various industries often do not provide information necessary to determine whether or not individuals could be classified as human trafficking victims. Information about migration and visas is another area where the collection of additional data could improve our ability to measure human trafficking.

• Where appropriate, including measures of human trafficking into existing national data collection programs that tap into populations who may be at risk for human trafficking. Some examples include the Youth Risk Behavior Study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and the National Agricultural Workers Survey.

• Improving basic research on the characteristics of human trafficking. One of the most striking limitations of using official data to estimate the victims of human trafficking is that we lack basic research in the field that would help us identify the venues where we should expect to find trafficking victims and the type of information that would help us generate more accurate multipliers for estimation modeling.

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• Commissioning feasibility studies for conducting a victimization survey of human trafficking victims. Although the logistics of such a study would be challenging, a well-designed study that would identify a systematic measure of unidentified victims is critical for understanding the nature of human trafficking victimization and developing statistical tools to help us understand the degree to which officially reported victims of human trafficking under-represent the total victim population.

• Conducting city saturation studies. Because human trafficking victims are believed to be hidden from public view, official statistics will always undercount the scope of the problem. Intensive studies of human trafficking, where researchers would saturate potential venues for human trafficking to identify all possible sources of information across a stratified sampling of U.S. cities would improve our knowledge of the distribution of victims across different venues and provides critical information about how often and under what conditions victims of human trafficking are identified by law enforcement or victim services agencies.

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Table of Contents

Background..........................................................................................................................................................................9

Description of Current Project.........................................................................................................................................9

Analysis of the Assessed Studies ......................................................................................................................................9

Discussion and Limitations of Findings..........................................................................................................................9

Recommendations ..............................................................................................................................................................9

Recommendations for Improvement of Data Collection........................................................................................9

Recommendations for Future Research .....................................................................................................................9

References ............................................................................................................................................................................9

Appended materials ............................................................................................................................................................9

Appendix A: List of Assessed Sources........................................................................................................................9

Appendix B: Assessment Criteria ...............................................................................................................................9

Appendix C: Data Collection Methodology .............................................................................................................9

Appendix D: Counts of Identified Sources................................................................................................................9

Appendix E: Original Matrices and Technical Notes for Tables 4-6 ...................................................................9

Appendix F: Computational Notes on the Calculation of Multipliers Used for Data in Tables 3-5...............9

Table of Figures

Table 1: Human Trafficking Venue Matrix ....................................................................................................................6

Table 2: Most Common Estimates of Human Trafficking in the U.S. Cited in Secondary Reports, by Citing Organization Type ..............................................................................................................................................................9

Table 3: Number of Primary- and Secondary-Source Counts and Estimates Found in Assessed Sources of Data on Prevalence of Human Trafficking in the U.S................................................................................................10

Table 4: Labor Trafficking – Count and Estimates.....................................................................................................13

Table 5: Sex Trafficking of Adults – Counts and Estimates......................................................................................17

Table 6: Sex Trafficking of Children – Counts and Estimates ..................................................................................22

Table 7: Summary of Median Minimum Known Counts and Estimates of Human Trafficking ........................28

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Background

Over the past decade, public concern about the trade in people for exploitive labor, commonly known as human trafficking, has increased dramatically. In response, U.S. policymakers and government officials have enacted federal and state legislation recognizing human trafficking as a unique criminal act and supporting programs aimed at its identification and eradication. To accomplish these goals, the federal government has allocated significant federal funding to increase awareness and prevent human trafficking, prosecute offenders, and protect victims, including assisting them to escape from and recover from being trafficked.4

Although there have been numerous published studies and reports about human trafficking in the United States and internationally, reliable empirical research about the phenomenon is limited. A recent review of the research literature on human trafficking found that of the more than 700 research-based articles, reports, and books on human trafficking published in the English language, over half (54 percent) were based on non-empirical research—mainly descriptive accounts of different types of trafficking victimization (Gozdziak and Bump, 2008)—and only 12 percent of this research was subject to the traditional peer-review process. Additionally, much of the existing research on human trafficking focuses on sex trafficking among women and girls (Laczko, 2005). More research is needed on labor trafficking and the victimization of men and boys to improve our understanding of human trafficking.

In addition to the lack of basic research on the nature of human trafficking, few studies reliably document the scope of the problem. The U.S. government has provided a number of different estimates of the scope of human trafficking internationally and nationally. The first U.S. estimate of human trafficking, released in 1998, indicated that “an estimated 45,000 to 50,000 women and children are trafficked annually to the United States, primarily by small crime rings and loosely connected criminal networks” (O’Neill Richard, 1999). The analyst tasked with developing this estimate searched through intelligence reports and law enforcement data to identify reports of human trafficking. Data from news clippings about trafficking cases overseas were also used to extrapolate the number of U.S. victims. A major limitation of this estimate is that it only includes women and children as victims. In May 2003, the U.S. government revised its analysis of trafficking into the United States, estimating 18,000 to 20,000 people are trafficked annually into the country (Office of the Attorney General, 2004). Since 2004, the U.S. government has relied upon an estimate that 14,500 to 17,500 people are trafficked into the United States annually (U.S. Department of State, 2004; Office of the Attorney General, 2005).5

4 Since the passage of the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Prevention Act (TVPA)4 in 2000, the U.S. Department of Justice has spent over $64 million to support law enforcement training and investigations of human trafficking. We used data reported in the 2002 to 2007 U.S. Attorney General’s Report to Congress and Assessment of U.S. Activities to Combat Trafficking in Persons, released annually by the U.S. Attorney General’s Office to calculate the total allocation of resources. 5 The 2004 U.S. Government Assessment of Human Trafficking Activities notes, “The new estimates rely on the same methodology and the same data; they do not reflect a conclusion that trafficking flows are declining” (pg. 8). It is not clear how the authors of the report reached this conclusion, but the report suggests “More in-depth analysis on regional flows of

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Though it is not completely clear how the 2003 and 2004 U.S. human trafficking estimates were calculated, the data for these estimates come from a larger project undertaken by the federal government to estimate human trafficking worldwide that resulted in the estimate of 800,000 to 900,000 people trafficked across borders globally per year. This estimate was derived from counts of cross-border trafficking incidents that occurred between 2000 and 2002. These incidents were identified by researchers at the Institute for Intelligence Studies at Mercyhurst College, who identified and gathered information about 1,594 human trafficking events through searches of existing open source information.6 A researcher at the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress then assessed the quality of information in the Mercyhurst database and assigned a credibility rating to each event based on the source and the type of information provided. Reports recategorized the data into incidents, aggregates or rates.7 Another government agency then re-checked, validated and prepared the data for estimation. Analysts then broke the information from the sources down into month of occurrence (24 months), region, trafficking type, and demographic information of victims. An analyst then used this information to develop estimates of trafficking in various regions, by type and across age categories using a Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation method.8 From the estimates of destination countries for human trafficking victims worldwide, analysts derived the estimated number of victims that were trafficked into the United States—14,500 to 17,500 annually.

The United States General Accountability Office’s (GAO) 2006 report criticized the estimate used by the U.S. government for being based on unreliable country-level data and not being transparent in the estimation methodology processes and suggested the statistics were unsuitable for long-term analysis (GAO, 2006). The GAO also reported that the U.S. government’s methodology only provides an estimate of trafficking flow for a one-year period. Since trafficking operations are people led the U.S. Government to adjust the original 2003 estimates downward by eighteen percent in 2004 (from 18-20,000 to 14,500-17,500) (See Office of Attorney General, 2005). 6 Thirty-nine percent were incidents, and the remainder were aggregate reports or rates found in open source information. (For a detailed description of the methodology, see Kutnick, Belser, and Danailova-Trainor, 2007). The open sources that were used include the Foreign Broadcasting Information Service, Stop Traffic List Serve, International Organization of Migration, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, International Labour Organization, and NGOs. FBIS is the U.S. government’s open source portal and provides publications from foreign periodicals translated into English. 6 Reports were placed into one of four categories: “highly credible,” “credible,” “credible but questioned,” or “suspect.” Events or incidents reported by U.S. government agencies were judged to be highly credible 70.5 percent of the time, and reports by foreign government agencies were found to be credible 70.6 percent of the time. These made up less than four percent of all the sources (61/1,594). Press sources made up nearly 70 percent of the sources (1096/1,594), but only 2.7 percent were judged as highly credible, though 69 percent were judged as credible. An interesting source of information was international organizations, with 371 sources – 90 percent of which were found to be highly credible (Kutnick, Belser, and Danailova-Trainor, 2007). 7 Using this model, unknown numbers are replaced with numbers that experts feel are a reasonable substitution in estimation models to produce high and low ranges. This process involves averaging various aggregate estimates of reported and unreported trafficking victims using published reports and data sources. Because the estimates provided in the published reports often lack credibility, further estimates derived using these numbers may make the final estimate suspect. 8 From this point on the terms “trafficking” “human trafficking,” and “severe forms of human trafficking” are used interchangeably.

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generally carried out over multiple years before intervention (Bales, 2004; Kara, 2009) the reliability of the U.S. estimate across years further diminishes. It is important to note that since the U.S. government estimate does not include domestic victims of human trafficking it excludes a potentially significant population of trafficking victims.

Other groups have developed estimates of the total number of trafficking victims globally. Using a capture-recapture methodology for identifying victims of human trafficking that appear in open source information between 1995 and 2004, the ILO estimated that there are at least 2.45 million people trafficked at any given time. The ILO measure includes transnational and internal trafficking and is a worldwide estimate (Belser, De Cock, and Mehran, 2005). Similarly, using open source information, mainly from newspaper accounts, Kevin Bales has estimated that there are 27 million slaves worldwide at any given moment, 10 percent of whom are victims of trafficking (Bales, 1999) and at least 10,000 are in the United States, comprising both American and foreign citizens (Bales, 2004). Other efforts have been made to provide generalized analyses of trafficking patterns across geographic regions (UNODC, 2006; Bales, 2005) and to prepare estimates of the total number of trafficking victims globally and in the United States (Belser et al., 2005; Clawson, Layne, and Small., 2006 ). The reliance upon open source information such as newspaper accounts or reports from agencies that have identified victims of trafficking is a major weakness of all of these and other global and national estimates.

As with other types of hidden crime, the nature of human trafficking makes it difficult to accurately count the extent of victimization. Human trafficking perpetrators purposefully hide victims. And once free, victims of trafficking are reluctant to seek help due to trauma and fear. As a result, government agencies and victim service providers identify fewer victims of severe forms of human trafficking than would be anticipated based on existing estimates. Reasons for under-identification of trafficking victims also include inadequate training, reluctance of victims to self identify, and resistance of agencies to define certain individuals as human trafficking victims (Farrell, McDevitt, and Fahy, 2008; Newton, Mulcahey, and Martin, 2008). Even when victims are identified, their cases often do not progress through stages of the criminal justice system where they would be counted in government statistics because victims who are traumatized or are fearful of retaliation by their traffickers may be reluctant to cooperate with law enforcement investigations (Antonopoulou and Skoufalos, 2006; Clawson, Small, Go, and Myles, 2003).

As a result of these challenges, researchers must begin to identify new methods for collecting data to understand the nature and extent of human trafficking victimization. Until new methodologies are developed, there is not much that we can learn from existing research. To inform our understanding of human trafficking in the United States, we conducted a systematic review of existing estimates and basic research on human trafficking for the purpose of establishing a more careful understanding of the problem to help guide governmental and nongovernmental interventions. Although such a review will inform our understanding of the prevalence of human trafficking in the United States, short of generating improved estimates, this review will identify methods that could be used to develop more reliable estimates of the prevalence of human trafficking in the United States.

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Description of Current Project

Given that the global and national estimates of human trafficking victimization employed by the U.S. government have been subject to much debate and critique, we developed a methodology to bring together data from existing macro- and micro-level studies that capture information on potential victims of human trafficking in the United States. Numerous studies on human trafficking or victimization that meets the definition of human trafficking under the TVPA exist in isolation. Given the hidden nature of human trafficking described above, counts of identified human trafficking victims found in government statistics likely underestimate the extent of human trafficking. The goal of this report is to bring together different sources of information and research on human trafficking victimization and populations at risk of victimization to develop a more holistic picture of the extent of human trafficking victimization in the United States. To do this, we identified sources of information about potential victims of human trafficking across different types of trafficking and different venues where trafficking might exist. We then assessed the strengths and weaknesses of this research and identified how various sources of data individually and together contributed to a more complete understanding of the scope of human trafficking victimization in the United States.

First, we collected 207 studies that included primary data about the phenomenon of human trafficking victimization in the United States (A complete list of assessed sources is available in Appendix A). Because this project is intended to inform U.S. policymakers about the scope of severe forms of human trafficking, we relied upon the definition included in the TVPA.9 The TVPA classifies severe forms of human trafficking into two main categories: sex trafficking and labor trafficking. Sex trafficking involves the “recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision or obtaining 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 forced to perform such an act is under the age of eighteen” (TVPA, 2000: Section 103, 8a). Labor trafficking is defined as the “recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor services, through the use of force, fraud or coercion for the purpose of subjugation to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage or slavery” (TVPA, 2000: Section 103, 8b).

Many of the data sources we identified employed other definitions, some of which do not explicitly distinguish between labor and sex trafficking; include additional provisions; or use different language. These sources were not excluded on that criterion alone, however. We took an expansive approach with sources that used ambiguous definitions or omitted a definition completely. It was necessary to use a degree of subjective discretion when determining if a behavior exhibited “severe trafficking” characteristics and if it should be included in this report. One of the challenges we encountered in the cataloging and assessment processes was how to classify activities or experiences that had indicators of human trafficking but did not clearly meet the criteria for severe forms of

9 Since the TVPA states that a “commercial sex act” must be performed (an act in exchange for something of value, i.e. drugs or money), it is questionable whether pornography could be classified as a severe form of human trafficking. Therefore, if a child performs a sex act, for the purpose of being filmed/photographed and inevitably distributed, all while under the pretenses of force, fraud, and/or coercion, the crime may not fall under severe forms of human trafficking provisions if no commercial exchange was made.

v

human trafficking under the terms of the TVPA. For example, child and adult pornography could arguably be considered human trafficking, and this issue has caused disagreement between federal prosecutors and human trafficking supporters who wish to broaden the definitional scope.10 There are also disagreements about when adult prostitution crosses the line to become trafficking and the extent of harmful, unsafe, and exploitative labor conditions necessary to constitute a severe form of human trafficking. Although we reviewed studies that included information on all forms of potential human trafficking, we made some conservative decisions about how to utilize the counts from these sources.

Though some of the sources of information we assessed were specific to human trafficking victimization, others provided information primarily about conditions or problems not explicitly defined as severe human trafficking (e.g. prostitution, migrant labor, labor exploitation) but in which a subset of the victims or subjects fit the definition of human trafficking victims under the TVPA. To help guide our identification and analysis of the wide variety of sources of information about human trafficking we constructed a multi-level matrix outlining the types of trafficking victims and venues in which human trafficking is believed to occur. The matrix, Table 1 below, categorizes human trafficking by type (sex trafficking, labor trafficking, or undefined/combined sex and labor trafficking). Within each type of human trafficking, we designated when possible whether the victims were adults or children and whether they were of foreign or domestic origin. We then further disaggregated the numbers of victims by the type of venue in which human trafficking might occur. For example, the shaded row in Table 1 designates information about foreign labor trafficking victims in the construction industry. In most cases, however, the sources we reviewed did not provide sufficient information on victim characteristics to allow this process. As can be seen in Appendix D, very few sources provide venue-specific data, but most of them address broad categories of victimization.

10 For examples of this research expertise, see Farrell (2009), Farrell, McDevitt, and Fahy (2008), Small, Adams, Owens, and Roland (2008), Shively, et al. (2008).

6

Table 1: Human Trafficking Venue Type of Trafficking Adult/Minor Foreign/Domestic Venues

Agriculture Domestic work Construction

Factories/Industrial Landscaping

Retail sales industries Entertainment

Restaurants

Domestic Victims

Forced begging

Agriculture

Domestic workers Construction

Factories/Industrial

Landscaping Retail sales industries

Entertainment Restaurants

Labor Trafficking Adult and Minor

Foreign Victims

Forced begging

Households

Brothels Hotel/In-call prostitution

Escort service industry Street prostitution

Truck stops Strip clubs

Pornography industry Work camps

Institutional care

Domestic Victims

Survival sex

Households

Brothels

Hotel/In-call prostitution

Escort service industry

Street prostitution

Truck stops

Strip clubs

Pornography industry

Work camps

Institutional care

Adult

Foreign Victims

Survival sex

Households


Escort service industry Street prostitution

Truck stops Strip clubs


Institutional care Survival ex

Domestic Victims

Survival ex

Households


Sex Trafficking

Minor

Foreign Victims


7

Street prostitution Truck stops Strip clubs


Institutional care

Survival sex

8

The selection of potential venues where human trafficking is likely to exist was informed by our experience conducting primary research on human trafficking and the commercial sexual exploitation of children in the United States.11 That experience, coupled with our assessments of existing research specific to the problem of human trafficking, informed our development of the human trafficking matrix, which guides the present research. We recognize that the characterization of the field represented by this matrix is only a first step toward developing a comprehensive outline of the potential venues in which we should expect to find potential victims of human trafficking and thus where we need to have data on potential victims. We believe future dialogue and research efforts can continue to improve upon this matrix.

Once we completed a review of potential sources of data for each of the components of the human trafficking matrix, we assessed the quality of the data from each study or data source. Forty different pieces of information were captured about each study during the assessment process, including background on the source materials, sampling, study design, methods and statistical techniques employed, and estimation techniques employed. Appendix B includes a listing of categories of information we captured in each assessment, and Appendix C provides a more detailed description of the methodology used to identify studies for assessment. The narrative assessments for the 207 studies we assessed are available in a separate technical report that accompanies this report. We used the information from the assessment process to identify sources of data with more reliable counts of potential victims of human trafficking. We then identified the date of the data collection, geographic coverage of the data (national, state, or city), and strengths and limitations of the measurements for each entry. Information on the number of victims was categorized as either a 1) count of stock, 2) estimate of stock, 3) count of flow, 4) estimate of flow, or 5) information on lifetime victimization.12 Because very few sources dealt with flows of victims (and none with estimates of lifetime victimization), we abandoned these categories and contracted the matrix into two categories: counts and estimates of victims identified.

We then populated the cells in the human trafficking matrix (Table 1) with data on victims identified in the studies we assessed in order to identify types of trafficking and venues in which we had more or less information. Not surprisingly, we were unable to identify any research that reliably provides counts of victims of human trafficking across numerous venues for different types of trafficking. The table in Appendix D illustrates the distribution of reports with data on victims across the categories in the human trafficking matrix. One of the main findings from this exercise is the fact that existing research on human trafficking in the United States is incomplete. This deficiency in existing research makes it extremely problematic to attempt to derive estimates of the number of victims in the United States.

11 “Stock” refers to the number of persons who are in the state of being trafficked in a specific period. “Flow” refers to the number of persons who move in and out of the state of being trafficked in a specific period. “Lifetime victimization” refers to persons who have ever been trafficked in their lifetime. 12 Original estimate found in the U.S. Department of State Trafficking in Persons Report, 2004. The estimate was explained in more detail in the 2004 Assessment of U.S. Government Activities to Combat Trafficking in Persons (Office of Attorney General, 2005).

9

Despite this limitation, we do know something about the number of potential sex and labor trafficking victims who have been identified across different venues. In the following sections of the report, we use that information to develop some estimated ranges of potential victims of human trafficking. These ranges represent both low and high counts of victims identified in existing research and low and high ranges of estimated human trafficking victims that were derived from existing research.

Because necessary information is missing across a number of the venues in which human trafficking is believed to exist, it is not possible at this time to develop an accurate estimate of the total number of human trafficking victims in the United States based on the available data. E4nhancing the quality and scope of data on potential victims of human trafficking is critical if organizations and agencies hope to estimate more reliably the number of victims of human trafficking in the United States. In the conclusion section of this report, we discuss in more detail the gaps in the existing data and data collection systems and provide recommendations to improve the quality of data.

Analysis of the Assessed Studies

Once all the studies identified for this project were assessed and information about those studies’ counts or estimates of human trafficking was mapped onto the human trafficking matrix, we more closely analyzed the data from existing research for each cell of the matrix. Working cell by cell, we developed analytic memos to describe each source of data, identify weaknesses or limitations of the data, and apply multipliers where appropriate to estimate national statistics from local or regional data. Additionally, for studies that included only general information about human trafficking victims but did not specify the type of trafficking or victim characteristics, including the proportion of foreign and domestic victims or adult and child victims, we applied multipliers of known distributions of these populations from other reliable sources to inform our more specific trafficking type and venue analysis. Following the modification and recalculation process, information from the various studies in each cell of the matrix was combined to identify a range of minimum and maximum potential victims based on existing research. We were not able to combine the results of various studies together within or across cells through more traditional meta-analysis procedures because the quality of data in many studies was poor and there were extreme differences in the types and levels of data collected across the assessed studies.

The assessment process revealed that, despite criticisms of the worldwide and U.S. trafficking estimates, the existing literature about human trafficking relies heavily on U.S. government estimates of the number of victims of human trafficking in the United States. As illustrated in Table 2, of the 207 studies reviewed for this project, the three most commonly cited estimates are: 14,500–17,500 people trafficked annually into the United States,13 18,000–20,000 people trafficked annually into the United States,14 and 45,000–50,000 women and children 13 Estimate originally found in the 2003 Assessment of U.S. Government Activities to Combat Trafficking in Persons (Office of Attorney General, 2004). 14 Estimate provided by the CIA and referenced in the TVPA 2000 legislation, see O’Neill Richard, 1999).

10

trafficked annually into the United States.15 If one breaks down reports by type of agency, we found the 2004 estimate of 14,500 to 17,500 to be the most commonly cited estimate, appearing in at least 19 governmental reports, seven nongovernmental reports, and nine reports by other types of agencies. Table 2: Most Common Estimates of Human Trafficking in the U.S. Cited in Secondary Reports, by Citing Organization Type

U.S. Government Nongovernmental Organization

Other Total

14,500–17,500 people trafficked into the U.S. (U.S. Department of State, 2004)

19 7 9 35

45,000–50, 000 women and children trafficked annually into the U.S. (CIA and referenced in the TVPA 2000 legislation)

8 3 14 25

18,000–20,000 people trafficked annually in U.S. (Office of Attorney General, 2004)

4 0 4 8

Although these are the most commonly cited estimates of human trafficking, they are not

necessarily the most accurate estimates of the problem. These estimates suffer from a number of important limitations, some of which were described in more detail in earlier sections of the report. The most commonly cited estimates are based on counts of incidents of human trafficking identified in public documents, mainly U.S. and international news reports, which likely represent only a fraction of total cases. Additionally, the counts upon which these estimates were derived are based on old data, mainly collected in 2000 and 2001. Most important, the mathematical procedures used to produce estimates of the flow of human trafficking victims into the United States are not publicly available. As a result, it is impossible to understand exactly how the estimates were derived or to validate the soundness of the derivation process.

Beyond referencing U.S. government estimates of human trafficking, 110 sources provided data or derived estimates that informed our analyses (See Table 3). Twenty-three reports included an original estimate derived from other primary data sources, 27 reports included original estimate(s) derived from secondary data source(s), and 7 reports included original estimates derived from both the primary and secondary data source(s). Fifty-three reports used primary sources of data to provide counts of human trafficking victims, cases of human trafficking, or arrests or prosecutions but did not derive estimates from that data to account for the unrepresentative sample. Twenty-nine sources did not cite any existing estimates or provide primary data.

15 Due to limitations on available data on labor trafficking, we were not able to separate out counts or estimates of adult and child labor trafficking victims.

11

Table 3: Number of Primary- and Secondary-Source Counts and Estimates Found in Assessed Sources of Data on Prevalence of Human Trafficking in the U.S.

Total Sources (N=110)

Primary sources of data provided only counts of human trafficking victims, no estimates derived

53

Original estimate of human trafficking victims derived from primary data 23

Original estimate of human trafficking derived from secondary data 27

Original estimate of human trafficking derived from primary and secondary data

7

As described above, we grouped together and analyzed counts and estimates of victims identified through the assessment process into the human trafficking matrix by type of human trafficking and venue. In cases where counts of victims were available across multiple years, the data were annualized to standardize the time period for which counts and estimates are provided (See Appendix E for more information on specific annualized counts). The following sections provide detailed reviews of the counts and estimates of human trafficking victims for each of the three trafficking types: labor trafficking of adults and minors16, sex trafficking of adults, and sex trafficking of minors. Using count and estimate data from each study that included statistics about trafficking (or from which trafficking statistics could be imputed), we calculated a range of low and high counts and estimates for both foreign and domestic trafficking victims. Detailed information about these calculations, including how the original data were collected, the strengths and limitations of the data sources, and the calculations we used to derive estimates from counts or distribute counts among types of trafficking in different venues can be found in Appendix E. Readers should carefully cross-reference the statistics listed in each row of the tables with the narrative summary of these statistics for each study. Study numbers in the tables refer to the detailed descriptions of calculations found in Appendix E.

The sources of data we have examined for this exercise vary greatly in terms of their scope, basic assumptions, research design, reliability, and validity, to a degree that makes them incomparable with each other. Within each source, category, and venue, there is an unquantifiable degree of double counting of victims–either in the original counts or in the estimations. As a result,

16 In some case studies or reports about identified human trafficking victims, counts of trafficking were not broken down by trafficking type. When that occurred, we applied multipliers of known distributions of human trafficking victims across types of trafficking found in other studies (e.g. Kyckelhahn, Beck, and Cohen, 2009)—allowing us to sort these more generalized human trafficking victimization statistics into specific types of human trafficking used in this analysis (e.g. labor, adult sex, and child sex trafficking). (Detailed information about these computations can be found in Appendix F.) Additionally, for studies that are local or regional in nature, we have applied multipliers where appropriate to help estimate numbers of national trafficking victimization based on small, local, or regional studies. In other cases, there was insufficient information about the representativeness of the counts to the full population to allow us to derive estimates.

12

it would not be advisable to sum the number of identified victims across source types. Instead, we have presented a series of ranges of the lowest and highest counts and estimates (where possible)17 for both foreign and domestic victims within each source type. These ranges include the lowest median counts or estimates within a column and the highest median counts or estimates within a column. We recognize that this information does not lend itself to summing up easily across sources, venues, or types of trafficking. In fact, in many cases the ranges even within a single venue for a single type of trafficking are quite vast. These large differences between low and high counts and estimates that are available from the extant research on human trafficking in the United States illustrate the challenge of using existing data to develop new, reliable estimates of human trafficking victimization.

Because there are numerous issues related to the scope and reliability of data collected that are common within specific types of sources of information, we have grouped our presentation of the data for each type of trafficking by source type. The detailed data on labor trafficking, adult sex trafficking, and child sex trafficking presented in Tables 4–6 below provide some parameters through which we can understand the known scope of the problem and help identify the need for additional research and improved data collection. Additional detail about the studies assessed for Tables 4–6, including all calculations and multipliers can be found in Appendix E. We have done our best to produce estimates that reflect what we deemed the most reliable pieces of literature and victim count. For this purpose, we have left out from the following tables some sources that we found to be less reliable or too specific. For this reason and others, it is possible that the ranges of victims we identified across different types of human trafficking are more reflective of the mathematical processes that we used to derive the estimates than the actual scope of trafficking victimization.

The following discussion and data presented in Tables 4–6 walk through the counts and estimates of U.S. labor trafficking, adult sex trafficking, and child sex trafficking victims identified in existing research and grouped by source type. The data presented in the following tables demonstrate that estimates that rely on prosecutions, federal government agencies, and public media sources are systematically prone to undercount the number of victims. The reasons are diverse, but they all involve the fact that these sources filter out some number of victims. Large-scale surveys conducted by social scientists capture more victims and enable us to make plausible estimates based on their findings. The state and local studies typically use multiple sources and provide a good understanding of a limited geographic area. When we extrapolated their findings to the entire U.S. population, the estimates are of similar magnitude to the estimates based on the large-scale studies. Sources that are not based on actual counts, but rather use economic and statistical models, generate even higher estimates. With little data on the methods employed in these studies, we find them to be less reliable. However, they do attempt to account for the hidden population of victims who are never counted in any known source.

17 A source is not the same as a study or report, as one study can contain data from more than one source, and two studies can both rely on the same data source. See Appendix D for more details on sources.

13

It is important to note that it is possible, and in some cases quite likely, that there are double counts of individual victims across the categories of sources of information provided in Tables 4–6. As a result, we have computed the average count and estimate within source types and do not attempt to sum counts or estimates across source types in each table.

14

Table 4: Labor Trafficking – Count and Estimates

Counts of victims National estimate of victims

Foreign Domestic Foreign Domestic Data type

Low High Low High Low High Low High

Source of data References Tech. note

Federal prosecution data

24 24 1 1 - - - - Federal prosecutions in which trafficking was the leading offense

Motivans, 2006 8

Federal law enforcement data

22 22 1 1 - - - - Cases opened by the Civil Rights Division

Office of the Attorney General, 2009

2


36 36 2 2 - - - - Cases opened by the FBI


3


361 361 - - - - - - Cases opened by Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Office of the Attorney General, 2006-2009

4

Median of federal law enforcement data

36 36 1 2 - - - -

Federal victim service data 89 89 4 4 - - - - The Office for Victims

of Crime


5

Federal victim service data 36 36 1 1 - - - - The Legal Services

Corporation


6

Federal victim service data 48 48 - - - - - -

Certifications and letters of eligibility issued by the Office of Refugee Resettlement


7

Median of federal victim service data

48 48 2 3 - - - -

Media reports 55 83 2 3 - - - - Newspaper articles and expert interviews

Bales, 2004; Human Rights Center, 2005

11

Local studies 39 39 2 2 2,263 2,263 92 92 A survey of service providers in MN

Minnesota Office of Justice Programs, 2007 and 2008

12

Local studies 466 466 19 19 3,869 3,869 157 157

Interviews with law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, victims service providers in CA

California Alliance to Combat Trafficking and Slavery Task Force, 2007

13

Median of local studies 253 253 11 11 3,066 3,066 125 125

15





National data collection/surveys

246 246 10 10 1,296 1,296 53 53

Human Trafficking Reporting System (HTRS) data on alleged cases

Kyckelhahn, Beck, and Cohen, 2009 1


484 484 21 21 5,435 5,435 226 226 A survey of law enforcement agencies

Farrell, McDevitt, and Fahy, 2008 9


- - - - 141 1,400 6 58 A survey of law enforcement agencies

Newton, Dutch, & Cummings, 2008

10

Median of large-scale surveys

365 365 16 16 1,296 1,296 53 58

Economic indicator studies

- - - - 46,849 46,849 - -

Multiple economic indicators of eight Latin American countries

Clawson, 2005 14

Other sources 400 1,000 - - - - - -

Reports of abuses against foreign workers in agriculture in FL, GA, and SC

Oxfam America, 2004 15

Other sources 124 136 - - 2,541 2,787 - -

Interviews with service providers for migrants who work as domestic workers in the DC region

Pier, 2001 16

Other sources - - - - - - 25 300 Expert estimates regarding traveling magazine crews

Urbina, 2007 17

16

The following description walks through the data presented in Table 4 by the source of information from which counts and estimates were drawn. Seventeen sources provided detailed information upon which we could reliably extract a count or estimate of labor victims identified in the study.18

Federal prosecutions Counts of 24 foreign labor trafficking and 1 domestic labor trafficking victim were derived

from numbers of federal prosecutions in which trafficking is a leading offense. Several reasons cause this number to be the lowest measure for the number of trafficking victims. Beyond the clandestine nature of human trafficking, which impedes law enforcement identification, only a minority of trafficking investigations result in sufficient evidence for a prosecution. Moreover, the decision whether to prosecute is not based merely on the merits of the case but also on various political reasons, especially on the federal level. Because we do not have any information on the proportion of trafficking cases that end up being prosecuted, it was not possible to derive any estimates from these data. We cannot derive any national estimates from the federal prosecution data, because it is unlikely that the human trafficking cases brought to federal prosecution are representative of the national population of human trafficking upon which multipliers could appropriately be applied.

Federal law enforcement data Medians of 36 foreign labor trafficking and 1 to 2 domestic labor trafficking victims were

identified across three sources of data on cases opened by several federal law enforcement agencies.19 Across the studies, the number of victims ranged from a low 25 victims identified in the Civil Rights Division data to a high of 361 victims identified in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) data. Although separate law enforcement agencies contribute data to each study, these numbers cannot be simply added up; based on previous research, we know that the same human trafficking incident may investigated and reported by more than one agency (Farrell, McDevitt, and Fahy, 2008). Because we cannot determine the proportion or distribution of human trafficking cases that would come to the attention of federal law enforcement agencies, nor can we estimate the number of cases that are investigated by multiple agencies, we cannot estimate the number of victims that exist nationally but were not counted in these sources.

Federal victim service data Medians of 48 foreign labor trafficking victims and 2 to 3 domestic labor trafficking victims

were identified in reports on victims served by agencies that have been commissioned by the federal government to provide services to alleged victims of severe forms of trafficking. Because these agencies provide different kinds of services, it is extremely likely that victims are served by more than one agency, and as a result some victims may be double counted across these studies. We also

18 See information in the technical notes in Appendix E on the calculation of victims per case that was applied for some of these sources of data. 19 See information in the technical notes in Appendix E on the calculation of victims per case that was applied for some of these sources of data.

17

do not have data on the proportion of trafficking victims that draw the attention of these agencies, and therefore cannot produce a national estimate based on these data.

Media reports Between 55 and 83 foreign and 2-3 labor trafficking victims were cases identified through a

survey of newspaper articles over a seven-year period. Not all of the discovered trafficking cases get mentioned in public media, which aim to attract readers rather than to necessarily reflect reality. As a result, we have no reliable data on the proportion of trafficking incidents that end up in the public media and therefore cannot produce an estimate based on these data.

Local studies Medians of 253 foreign labor trafficking victims and 11 domestic labor trafficking victims

were identified in local human trafficking studies. These data were gathered by local task forces in California and Minnesota from various local sources. In both cases, we have produced national estimates by extrapolating the state data based on population size.

Large-scale surveys Averages of 365 foreign labor trafficking victims and 16 domestic labor trafficking victims

were identified in data from local law enforcement agencies throughout the United States. The first source of information, the Human Trafficking Reporting System (HTRS), is a system into which human trafficking task forces nationwide constantly enter data on incidents they encounter. The other two sources are surveys of law enforcement agencies that were chosen through random samples. Using our knowledge of the sample sizes and sampling procedures of the first two sources, we were able to provide both data that are based on the original samples and extrapolated estimates for the entire United States. We could not do the same thing for the third source, in which only the national estimates are provided.

Surveying task forces and non-federal law enforcement agencies provides more comprehensive data than federal sources can produce. Moreover, the sampling procedures of these sources make them the most reliable for quantifying the number of trafficking victims in the United States. However, they do not account for hidden victims who have not been identified. From the available data, we cannot estimate how many unidentified victims exist.

Economic-based estimates An estimate of 46,849 foreign trafficking victims was identified in a study based on an

economic model that relies on international macroeconomic indicators. No actual victims were identified for the process of producing this estimate.

Three additional sources of information contained counts or estimates of labor trafficking

victims. Although the findings from these studies are included in Table 4, we did not combine these estimates into our summaries because different sources of information were used to gather data that

18

likely contain double counting and at the same time are sufficiently different that it would be inappropriate to calculate median estimates across these studies.

19

Table 5: Sex Trafficking of Adults – Counts and Estimates

Counts of victims19 National estimate of victims20





25 25 43 43 - - - - Federal prosecutions in which trafficking was the leading offense

Motivans, 2006 8




2


44 44 76 76 - - - - Cases opened by the FBI Office of the Attorney General, 2009

3


307 307 - - - - - - Immigration and Customs Enforcement


4


44 44 46 46 - - - -

Federal victim service data 80 80 140 140 - - - - The Office for Victims

of Crime


5


Corporation


6

Federal victim service data 148 148 - - - - - -



7

Median of federal victim service data

80 80 99 99 - - - -



11

Local studies 49 49 84 84 2,765 2,765 4,815 4,815 A survey of service providers in MN


12

Local studies 127 127 220 220 1,051 1,051 1,830 1,830



13

Local studies 3 4 5 6 108 125 187 217 Interviews with service providers in New York City

Thukral and Ditmore, 2005 22

20





Local studies 166 567 69 283 16,094 55,135 28,026 96,011 Arrest data in Chicago and expert interviews

O’Leary and Howard, 2001 21

Median of local studies 88 88 77 152 1,908 1,908 3,323 3,323

National data collection/ surveys

246 246 429 429 1,297 1,297 2,259 2,259


Kyckelhahn, Beck, and Cohen, 2009

1


87 87 156 156 962 962 1,710 1,710 A survey of law enforcement agencies

Farrell, McDevitt, and Fahy, 2008

9


- - - - 37 375 67 667 A survey of law enforcement agencies

Newton, Dutch, and Cummings, 2008

10


6,390 12,780 11,128 22,256 - - - - National UCR data (arrests for prostitution charges)

Puzzanchera, Adams, and Kang, 2008

23

Median of national data/surveys

246 246 429 429 962 962 1,710 1,710


- - - - 8,733 8,733 - -

Multiple economic indicators of 15 countries in Eastern Europe and 8 in Latin America

Clawson, 2007 18


- - - - 2,268 2,268 4,032 4,032 Field research, interviews with victims and experts, and official data

Kara, 2009 19

Median of economic indicator studies

- - - - 5,501 5,501 4,032 4,032

Other sources - - - - 382 382 488 488 Website of U.S. strip clubs

Raphael and Ashley, 2008 24

Other sources - - - - 3,500 - - - Field research in Mexico City Acharya, 2006 20

21

The following description walks through the data presented in Table 5 by the source of information from which counts and estimates were drawn.

Federal prosecutions Counts of 25 foreign adult sex trafficking and 53 domestic adult sex trafficking victims were

derived from counts of federal prosecutions in which trafficking is a leading offense. As we stated in the earlier labor trafficking discussion, only a minority of trafficking investigations result in sufficient evidence for a prosecution, and as a result the number of victims identified in federal prosecution data is quite low. We cannot derive a national estimate from the federal prosecution data, since it is unlikely that the human trafficking cases brought to federal prosecution are representative of the national population of human trafficking upon which multipliers could appropriately be applied.

Federal law enforcement data Medians of 44 foreign adult sex trafficking and 46 domestic adult sex trafficking victims

were identified in the data on cases opened by federal law enforcement agencies.20 Across the studies, the number of victims ranged from a low of 24 victims (foreign and domestic) identified in the Civil Rights Division data to a of high of 307 victims in cases investigated by ICE. Although separate law enforcement agencies contribute data to each study, these numbers should not be combined. Because we cannot determine the proportion or distribution of human trafficking cases that would come to the attention of federal law enforcement agencies, or estimate the number of cases that are investigated by multiple agencies, we cannot estimate the number of victims that exist nationally but were not counted in these sources.

Federal victim service data Medians of 80 foreign adult sex trafficking victims and 99 domestic adult sex trafficking

victims were identified in reports on victims served by agencies that have been commissioned by the federal government to provide services to alleged victims of severe forms of trafficking. Because these agencies provide different kinds of services, it is extremely likely that victims are served by more than one agency, and as a result some victims may be double counted across these studies. Since we do not have data on the proportion of trafficking victims that draw the attention of these agencies, we cannot produce a national estimate based on these data.

Media reports Between 13 and 22 foreign, and 22 and 38 domestic adult sex trafficking victims were

identified through a survey of newspaper articles over a seven-year period. Because not all of the discovered trafficking cases get mentioned in public media, we have no reliable data on the proportion of trafficking incidents that end up in the public media and therefore cannot produce an estimate based on these data.

20 See information in the technical notes in Appendix E on the calculation of victims per case that was applied for some of these sources of data.

22

Local studies A median of 88 foreign adult sex trafficking victims and 77–152 domestic adult sex

trafficking victims were identified in local human trafficking studies. These data were gathered by local agencies or researchers in California, Minnesota, New York, and Chicago. We have produced national estimates by extrapolating from the local and state data provided by these sources to a national estimate based on population size.

National data collection and surveys Averages of 365 foreign adult sex trafficking victims and 16 domestic adult sex trafficking

victims were identified in data from local law enforcement agencies either in national data collection programs (UCR) or large-scale surveys. Three of the sources relied on sampling procedures where enough information was provided that national estimates could be derived. The sampling procedures of these sources make them the most reliable for quantifying the number of trafficking victims in the United States. However, they do not account for hidden victims who have not been identified. From the available data, we cannot estimate how many unidentified victims exist. No estimation was conducted for UCR data, since they contain information from all law enforcement agencies in the United States participating in the national crime reporting program.

Economic-based estimates Median estimates of 5,501 foreign adult sex trafficking and 4,032 domestic adult sex

trafficking victims were identified in two studies based on an economic model that relies on international macroeconomic indicators. No actual victims were identified for the processes of producing these estimates.

Two additional sources contained information about potential adult sex trafficking victims from which we could derive national estimates. We did not combine these estimates into our summaries however, because different sources of information were used to gather data that likely contain double counting and at the same time are sufficiently different that it would be inappropriate to calculate median estimates across these studies.

23

Table 6: Sex Trafficking of Children – Counts and Estimates






11 11 19 19 - - - -

Federal prosecutions in which trafficking was the leading offense

Motivans, 2006 8


188 188 333 333 - - - - Federally prosecuted CSEC cases Small, et al., 2008 27

Median of federal prosecution data

100 100 176 176 - - - -




2


19 19 32 32 - - - - Cases opened by the FBI


3


132 132 - - - - - - Immigration and Customs Enforcement


4


- - 108 108 - - - - Innocence Lost Initiative


28


19 19 32 32 - - - -

Federal victim service data 34 34 60 60 - - - - The Office for

Victims of Crime


5


Corporation


6

Federal victim service data

16 16 - - - - - -



7

Median of victims served by service providers

16 16 42 42 - - - -

24







11

Local studies 35 35 61 61 1,993 1,993 3,470 3,470 A survey of service providers in MN


12

Local studies 24 24 42 42 200 200 349 349



13

Local studies 71 243 124 424 6,903 23,648 12,020 41,179 Arrest data in Chicago and expert interviews

O’Leary and Howard, 2001

21

Local studies 1 1 3 3 46 54 80 93 Interviews with service providers in New York City

Thukral. and Ditmore, 2005 22

Local studies - - - - - - 93,174 93,174 CSEC cases in NY Gragg et al, 2007; Curtis et al., 2008 32

Local studies - - - - - - 16,894 16,894

Estimates from 9 U.S. cities based on law enforcement and service provider data

Shared Hope International, 2009

31

Local studies 37 62 263 438 1,767 2,960 12,557 20,913

Juvenile prostitution arrests and service provider survey in WA

Boyer, 2008 32

Median of local studies 35 35 61 61 1,767 1,993 12,020 16,894

Nation data collection/survey

175 175 305 305 921 921 1,604 1,604



1


37 37 66 66 412 412 733 733 A survey of law enforcement agencies


9


- - - - 16 160 29 288 A survey of law enforcement agencies


10


639 639 1,114 1,114 - - - - National UCR data (FBI arrests for prostitution charges)


23

25






175 175 305 305 412 412 733 733


- - - - 3,742 3,742 - -


Clawson, 2007 18


- - - - 972 972 1,728 1,728

Field research, interviews with victims and experts, and official data

Kara, 2009 19

Median of economic indicators studies

- - - - 2,357 2,357 1,728 1,728

Other sources - - - - 1,500 - - - Field research in Mexico City Acharya, 2006 20

Other sources - - - - 89,081 118,770 50,108 66,808 Field research in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico

Estes and Weiner, 2001 26

Other sources - - - - 498,571 498,571 938,487 938,487 National survey of adolescents

Edwards et al, 2006 29

Other sources - - - - 36,620 169,636 107,706 301,636 A national study of street youth Greene, 1999 33

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The following description describes the data from the 28 studies presented in Table 6 by the source of information from which counts and estimates were drawn.

Federal prosecutions Median counts of 100 foreign child sex trafficking and 176 domestic child sex trafficking

victims were derived from counts of federal prosecutions in which trafficking is a leading offense. Because only a minority of trafficking investigations result in sufficient evidence for a prosecution, the number of victims identified in federal prosecution data is quite low. We cannot derive a national estimate from the federal prosecution data since it is unlikely that the human trafficking cases brought forward to federal prosecution are representative of the national population of human trafficking upon which multipliers could appropriately be applied.

Federal law enforcement data Medians of 19 foreign child sex trafficking and 32 domestic child sex trafficking victims were

identified in the data on cases opened by federal law enforcement agencies.21 Across the studies, numbers of victims ranged from a low 10 victims (foreign and domestic) identified in the Civil Rights Division data to a high of 132 victims in cases investigated by ICE. Although separate law enforcement agencies contribute data to each study, these numbers should not be combined. Because we cannot determine the proportion or distribution of human trafficking cases that would come to the attention of federal law enforcement agencies, or estimate the number of cases that are investigated by multiple agencies, we cannot estimate the number of victims that exist nationally but were not counted in these sources.

Federal victim service data A median of 16 foreign child sex trafficking victims and 42 domestic child sex trafficking

victims was identified in reports on victims served by agencies that have been commissioned by the federal government to provide services to alleged victims of severe forms of trafficking. Because these agencies provide different kinds of services, victims may be served by more than one agency, and as a result some victims may be double counted across these studies. Since we do not have data on the proportion of trafficking victims that gain the attention of these agencies, we cannot produce a national estimate based on these data.

21 The main sources of data for which we identified counts and estimates of human trafficking victims are federal law enforcement data, federal victim service data, media reports, local studies, national data collection and large-scale surveys, and economic indicator studies. When multiple studies were available for each main source type, we report the average minimum count and estimate. For some sources, we could calculate a range of counts or estimates based on the available data. We present minimum counts and estimates in summary tables and provide the available ranges within the main report Tables 4–6. Data from other sources of information are included in Tables 4–6 in the main report but are excluded in the summary table because they represent a mixture of other source types that cannot be classified and thus, concerns about double counting prevent their inclusion in summaries.

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Media reports Between 5 and 10 foreign, and 10 and 16 domestic, child sex trafficking victims were

identified through a survey of newspaper articles over a seven-year period. Because not all of the discovered trafficking cases get mentioned in public media, we have no reliable data on the proportion of trafficking incidents that end up in the public media and therefore cannot produce an estimate based on these data.

Local studies Medians of 35 foreign child sex trafficking victims and 61 domestic child sex trafficking

victims were identified in local human trafficking studies. State data were gathered in California, Minnesota, and Washington. Additionally, researchers in New York City and Chicago identified child sex trafficking victims through local studies. We have produced national estimates by extrapolating from the local and state data provided by these sources to a national estimate based on population size. Two additional local studies provided estimates of child sex trafficking victims. A study by Shared Hope collected data and estimated the magnitude of child sex trafficking in nine cities. Additionally, a study on the commercial sexual exploitation of children in New York provided estimates of child sex trafficking, which have been included in this review.

National data collection and survey Averages of 175 foreign child sex trafficking victims and 205 domestic child sex trafficking

victims were identified in data from local law enforcement agencies, either in national data collection programs (UCR) or large-scale surveys. Three of the sources relied on sampling procedures where enough information was provided that national estimates could be derived. The sampling procedures of these sources make them the most reliable for quantifying the number of trafficking victims in the United States. However, they do not account for hidden victims who have not been identified. No estimation was conducted for UCR data because it contains information from all law enforcement agencies in the United States participating in the national crime-reporting program.

Economic-based estimates A median estimate of 2,357 foreign child sex trafficking and 1,728 domestic child sex

trafficking victims were identified in two studies based on an economic model that relies on international macroeconomic indicators. No actual victims were identified for the processes of producing these estimates.

Four additional sources contained information about potential child sex trafficking victims

from which we could derive national estimates. We did not combine these estimates into our summaries, however, because different sources of information were used to gather data that likely contain double counting and at the same time are sufficiently different that it would be inappropriate to calculate median estimates across these studies. It is important to note, however, that the estimates produced from these other sources of information are generally much higher than other types of data we reviewed. That is largely because they capture data on risky behavior, some of

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which we believe may meet the definition of human trafficking specified in the TVPA. In the future, these sources of information may serve as useful tools for estimating human trafficking victimization, particularly if the data could be improved to more specifically measure characteristics of sex trafficking.

Discussion and Limitations of Findings

Based on our analysis of the existing research on human trafficking victimization in the United States presented in Tables 4–6, we can summarize the minimum median counts and estimates for all types of human trafficking within source types. As we noted earlier, presenting the counts and estimates identified within specific source types illustrates the strengths and limitations of various sources of data. As illustrated in the summary table below, federal prosecution and law enforcement data captures information on far fewer victims of human trafficking than local studies or national data collection programs that seek out information on victims who may not have come to the attention of federal authorities.

Table 7 includes the median minimum counts and estimates of victims identified across seven main sources of information.22 These figures represent an annualized stock of human trafficking victims identified through different sources.

22 Detailed calculations for all counts and estimates, including the justification for the use of particular multipliers are outlined in technical notes found in Appendices E and F.

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Table 7: Summary of Median Minimum Known Counts and Estimates of Human Trafficking Identified in Assessed Data Sources, with number of assessed data sources (n)

Labor Trafficking Adult Sex Trafficking Child Sex Trafficking Total Human

Trafficking Victims Data Type Counts Estimates Counts Estimates Counts Estimates Counts Estimates

25 - 68 - 276 - 369 - Federal prosecution data (n=1 ) (n=0 ) (n=1 ) (n=0 ) (n=2) (n=0 ) (n=2 ) (n=0 )

37 - 90 - 146 - 273 - Federal law enforcement data (n=3 ) (n=0 ) (n=4 ) (n=0 ) (n=4 ) (n=0 ) (n=4 ) (n=0 )

50 - 179 - 58 - 287 - Federal victim service data (n=3 ) (n=0 ) (n=3 ) (n=0 ) (n=3 ) (n=0 ) (n=3 ) (n=0 )

57 - 35 - 26 - 118 - Media reports

(n=1 ) (n=0 ) (n=1 ) (n=0 ) (n=1 ) (n=0 ) (n=1 ) (n=0 )

264 3,191 165 5,231 96 13,787 525 22,209 Local studies

(n=2 ) (n=2 ) (n=4 ) (n=4 ) (n=5 ) (n=7 ) (n=5 ) (n=7 )

381 1,349 675 2,672 480 1,145 1,526 5,166 National data collection/surveys (n=2 ) (n=3 ) (n=3 ) (n=3 ) (n=3 ) (n=3 ) (n=3 ) (n=3 )

- 46,849 - 9,533 - 4,085 - 60,467 Economic indicator studies (n=0 ) (n=1 ) (n=0 ) (n=2 ) (n=0 ) (n=2 ) (n=0 ) (n=2 )

Counts represent the actual number of victims identified in individual studies. Estimates represent the annualized national statistics that could be derived, where possible, from counts. For each type of trafficking (labor trafficking, adult sex trafficking, and child sex trafficking), we calculated the median minimum and maximum counts of domestic and foreign trafficking victims identified in existing studies. In some cases, we could not compute ranges because sources of information provided single counts. Where appropriate, we applied multipliers to individual counts to derive annualized national estimates based on known counts for each type of trafficking.23

We caution readers that they should not attempt to sum the total counts and estimates of victims across source types. Double counting of victims between different sources of information likely would overinflate counts and estimates if the totals for the summary rows were combined. Instead, conclusions about what we know about the extent of human trafficking victimization should be drawn within categories of sources of information. We found the largest annual counts of victims in data from national data collection or survey-based studies. The largest estimated numbers of human trafficking victims, however, came from local studies in which national estimates were derived or from studies relying on economic indicators rather than estimations from counts of identified victims.

23 This will enable an estimate of the extent of double counting, which in turn will allow researchers add up data from different sources.

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Even within source categories, we found great variation in ranges of known counts and estimates of trafficking victims across different studies. In some cases, the range of known or estimated victims spans thousands of victims. These ranges were largest for counts and estimates of adult and child sex trafficking victims, an area where there is more research on potential human trafficking victimization, particularly local and regional studies, but the conclusions that can be drawn about the prevalence of human trafficking victimization vary significantly across studies. The wide ranges of human trafficking victims identified in existing research illustrate the inaccuracy that results from significant gaps in our knowledge about victimization.

Additionally, because no information on counts or estimates of human trafficking victimization was available for a number of the specific venues where trafficking is believed to occur, it is likely that the results presented here offer an incomplete picture of the potential prevalence of human trafficking victimization. In venues for which specific data were found, the ranges typically rely on one or two sources. Only in rare cases (street prostitution, for example) do they rely on more. The absence of victim counts within specific venues impedes our understanding of the prevalence of human trafficking, particularly labor trafficking, which is less likely to come to the attention of law enforcement agents, who are generally better equipped to identify and investigate cases of sex trafficking and often lack the time and resources needed to investigate these labor intensive cases.

The analysis of existing research and presentation of ranges of potential victims of human trafficking across known types of trafficking represents a first attempt to draw some conclusions about the scope of human trafficking in the United States based on existing research. The calculated estimates for all types of trafficking are the products of multiple steps, featuring numerous limitations, including derivatives that were in some cases based on less reliable data, and readers should approach and use this information cautiously. We encourage readers to consult the technical notes that correspond to each table, found in Appendix E. We have done our best to produce estimates that reflect what we deemed the most reliable pieces of literature and victim count, but it is possible that the ranges of victims we identified across different types of human trafficking are more reflective of the mathematical processes that we used to derive the estimates than the actual scope of trafficking victimization.

We should note some additional limitations for the counts and estimates presented in Tables 4–6. Data from prosecutors, law enforcement, and victim service providers are based on cases that have come to the attention of these agencies. It is a well-documented fact that victims do not easily draw the attention of any of these groups, but we do not know what proportion of victims actually will be reported in these data sources. If there was an estimate of the unreported victims, as in the case of rape victims from the National Crime Victimization Survey, for example, we could apply that estimate to obtain a more accurate estimate of the number of trafficking victims.

Additionally, the estimates in the table reflect the number of victims at a single point in time (all calculations are annualized where the original data reflected multiple years or a portion of a year). Traffickers recruit and bring new victims of human trafficking into trafficking networks on an ongoing basis. At the same time, some victims are able to leave their victimizers and the conditions

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of human trafficking through rescue, escape, or other means. Because we do not have reliable estimates of the flow of victims into and out of their victimization situations, sometimes referred to as a “churn rate,” we cannot reflect those changes over time. For example, if we knew that a new victim of human trafficking became victimized for each victim in the United States each year, and that 50 percent of the victims were able to leave their victimization each year, we could adjust the estimates by increasing them by 50 percent each year.

It is important to note when using these estimates that they do not represent the total population of human trafficking victims in the United States, as they are all derived from identified populations of victims. Until new research is conducted that better addresses the data limitations identified in this report, all attempts at identifying a national estimate will be subject to legitimate criticism that they do not represent an accurate count. There are also a number of measurement complications with official statistics of human trafficking victims identified by government agencies, particularly arrest and prosecution data. Though the federal law may be standardized across the entire country, we know that the interpretation and implementation of that law varies a considerable degree. Therefore, the estimates derived from these reports, the most reliable of all existing literature in which to derive a victim estimate, may be a better indicator of law enforcement and court activity, rather than of the number of trafficking victims that exist in the United States. Research reveals that many local law enforcement officials are under the impression that trafficking does not exist in their communities (Farrell, McDevitt, and Fahy, 2008; Newton, Mulcahy and Martin, 2008). Therefore, recognition of suspects and subsequently victims is naturally going to be underrepresented in law enforcement data. Estimations should not be used to make broad generalizations but rather to shed light on the emerging awareness and enforcement on human trafficking.

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Recommendations

Recommendations for Improvement of Data Collection

Through the process of assessing existing studies of human trafficking, we identified a number of gaps and limitations of the existing data sets. The following recommendations are made to help improve the quality and usefulness of current and future data about human trafficking in the United States.

• Enhance the scope and quality of data reported in U.S. government publications that routinely provide information on human trafficking victims or suspects (i.e., U.S. Attorney General’s Assessment, Department of Justice Civil Rights Division data, Heath and Human Services T-Visa Certification data). In most of these sources of data, it cannot be determined for example how many victims of labor trafficking were foreign adults versus domestic adults. Many official sources of data track incidents, cases, or prosecutions. Using this data to measure the extent of human trafficking requires more detailed information about the number of victims and offenders per case, incident, arrest, etc. In the present study, we calculated numbers of victims based on known multipliers, but detailed information on victims in federal cases would greatly improve the quality of these calculations.

Additionally, it is important for law enforcement and victim service data to begin to capture information on the pathways victims have been forced to take into, and in some cases out of, their victimization. Capturing more detailed information about the venues in which victims were identified or report victimization would be one important step in that direction. Developing more refined categories of information about those cases that have come to the attention and are investigated by government officials would at least provide the opportunity for richer analysis of officially reported cases. Additional data that are missing from official reports and that would dramatically improve the current estimates include, for example, the duration of trafficking conditions until victims were recovered, and the amount of overlap between equivalent government agencies or non-governmental organizations in handling trafficking cases (i.e. how many agencies are involved in handling the same case).24

• Enhance potential sources of data where information on human trafficking is currently not being captured. Reports and data on exploitive labor conditions often do not report the scope of exploitation in particular industries, and when statistics are provided it is generally not possible to determine if identified victims are classified as human trafficking victims. Providing more detailed information about the circumstances of exploitation would be useful in helping us estimate what proportion of exploited workers in

24 The term “coercion” means (A) threats of serious harm to or physical restraint against any person; (B) any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause a person to believe that failure to perform an act would result in serious harm to or physical restraint against any person; or (C) the abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process.

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any particular industry have indications of trafficking and thus might be counted as “potential” trafficking victims.

Data on migration and visas is another area ripe for the collection of additional information. We can calculate statistics about the total number of visas given for particular sectors of work (e.g. agriculture), and there are some statistics about what proportion of foreign workers in these industries do not have legal status to work (e.g. a visa), but this is still not a sufficient measure of how many of these victims are trafficked or find themselves in a circumstance of human trafficking.

• Address definitional issues. Despite the potentially unifying use of the definition of human trafficking outlined in the TVPA, there is still a great deal of disagreement about what factual circumstances and elements constitute human trafficking. A few examples that we identified through the course of our review are provided below.

• Does child prostitution require inducement by a third party (e.g. pimp)? If a child exchanges sex for money or other things of value and no one else profits from that exchange, is this a severe form of human trafficking?

• Is child pornography or adult pornography by force, fraud, or coercion a severe form of sex trafficking? Does this meet the “commercial sex act” element of the federal legislation? Federal prosecutors seem to suggest it does not, but advocates in human trafficking want to count these cases as human trafficking.

• Would a commercial sex act encompass sex in exchange for shelter or drugs, for example, or is it defined strictly as a monetary exchange?

• What extent of force, fraud, or coercion is needed for an exploitive or unfair labor situation to be classified as human trafficking?

Recommendations for Future Research

In addition to recommending changes and additions to human trafficking data that are already collected, we offer a series of broader recommendations for future research that would improve our ability to understand the scope of human trafficking victimization in the United States.

• Increase basic research on the characteristics of human trafficking. One of the most striking limitations of using official data to estimate the victims of human trafficking is the fact that we lack basic research in the field that would help us identify the venues in which we should expect to find trafficking victims and the type of information that would help us generate more accurate multipliers for estimation modeling. For example, we may know the total number of foreign migrant workers that enter the United States, but we lack reliable information on what proportion of workers across different industries are at risk for or are

34

actual victims of human trafficking. Studies that utilize information from victims or their informants (e.g. case workers) would begin to address the basic research needs.

• Conduct city saturation studies. Because human trafficking victims are believed to be hidden, the use of official statistics will always undercount the scope of the problem. Intensive studies of human trafficking, where researchers saturated potential venues for human trafficking to identify all possible sources of information across a stratified sampling of U.S. cities would improve our knowledge of the distribution of victims across different venues and provide critical information about how often and under what conditions victims of human trafficking are identified by law enforcement or victim services agencies. Data could include interviews with law enforcement, service providers, nongovernmental organizations, labor and immigration advocacy groups, and others with knowledge of human trafficking in each sampled community to identify areas and venues where human trafficking may be occurring in their community. From previous research, we know victims of human trafficking have been found in a number of different types of places and venues. These include: brothels, households, hotels, escort services, street prostitution networks, truck stops, strip clubs, pornography industries, work camps, agricultural industries, domestic workers, construction, migrant workers, factories, landscaping, institutional care, retail sales, and restaurants. Although this list is not exhaustive, it represents some of the places where we know victims of human trafficking have been found. Within each sampled community, these venues should be saturated with research, including observations of, interviews with, and surveys from participants to try to identify how many victims exist in each potential venue in each city. This research would help us develop working counts of victims from intensive studies of populations in each venue and provide critical information about the characteristics of human trafficking victimization across the venues that could inform future estimation strategies.

• Conduct a feasibility study for a national victimization survey of human trafficking victims. Although the logistics of such a study would be challenging, a well-designed study that would identify a systematic estimate of unidentified victims is critical for understanding the nature of human trafficking victimization and developing statistical tools to help us understand the degree to which officially reported victims of human trafficking underrepresent the total victim population.

• Improve the collection of information on human trafficking by law enforcement, prosecutors, and courts. As provided for in the most recent reauthorization of the TVPA, steps should be taken to have human trafficking added to the ongoing normal data being collected as part of the UCR national crime reporting program. Although the exact vehicles for this collection need to be determined, it would be very helpful to begin to develop a plan for acquiring this data. Adding human trafficking to the crimes collected by the National Incident Reporting System (NIBRS) would seem to be the easiest approach requiring the fewest changes in infrastructure. However, this system is not utilized by many large law enforcement agencies, which poses an additional challenge. Adding human trafficking to the

35

crime classifications in the Crime in The United States Report produced annual by the Federal Bureau of Investigation would take more structural changes but would mean collecting data from a much larger number of agencies.

One ancillary benefit of this national data collection strategy would be additional training for law enforcement officers across the country to recognize and report cases of human trafficking and thus provide services to many more victims than are served today. This strategy has been successful in other crime categories, most notably the collection and reporting of hate crimes.

Until the UCR is modified to include a crime classification for human trafficking, law enforcement agencies throughout the country will continue to input information into the Human Trafficking Reporting System (HTRS), a data collection project sponsored by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Expansion of HTRS to law enforcement agencies outside of the federally funded human trafficking task force would provide a broader picture of the human trafficking cases that do gain the attention of law enforcement. Additionally, linking data from law enforcement captured by the HTRS to other sources of information on identified victims would help us understand the similarities and differences between victims identified by law enforcement and those identified by other types of victim service providers or national hotlines. Examples of other such sources of data might include the National Human Trafficking Resource Center Hotline or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children Hotline, and victim service data such as the information collected by grantees from the Office of Victims of Crime or the Department of Health and Human Services.

Where appropriate, include measures of potential human trafficking in existing national data collection systems. Human trafficking is a phenomenon that cuts across many different disciplinary areas of inquiry. As such, we must look outside the traditional bounds of criminal justice to build on strengths in nationally representative data collections in other areas, such as public health or victimization in the workplace. For example, the national Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) monitors priority health risk behaviors that contribute to the leading causes of death, disability, and social problems among youth and adults in the United States. The YRBS includes a national school-based survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and state, territorial, tribal, and local surveys conducted by state, territorial, and local education and health agencies and tribal governments. It is conducted every two years during the spring semester and provides data representative of ninth- through twelfth-grade students in public and private schools throughout the United States. Included in the YRBS are eight questions under the category of “Sexual behaviors that contribute to unintended pregnancy, and STDs, including HIV infection.” Questions probing potential sex trafficking victimization could be included in this survey. Similarly, the National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS) is an ongoing national survey conducted by the Department of Labor, which examines the demographic, employment, and health characteristics of the U.S. crop labor force. Through a random sample of farms,

36

between 1,500 and 4,000 workers are interviewed each year, in three seasonal cycles. Some of the questions in this survey inquire into the working conditions, e.g. access to water, type and quality of on-site housing, etc. Questions probing potential labor trafficking victimization could be included in this survey.

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Review of Existing Estimates of Victims of Human Trafficking in the United States and Recommendations for Improving Research and Measurement of

Human Trafficking

Appended materials

Appendix A: List of Assessed Sources

Appendix B: Assessment Criteria

Appendix C: Data Collection Methodology

Appendix D: Counts of Identified Sources Across Venues

Appendix E: Technical Notes for Data Tables 3–5

Appendix F: Technical Note on Calculations

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Appendix A: List of Assessed Sources

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44

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Monzini, Paola. 2004. “Trafficking in Women and Girls and the Involvement of Organised Crime in Western and Central Europe.” International Review of Victimology 11, no. 1: 73-88.

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Appendix B: Assessment Criteria

Each source of data was reviewed by a member of the research team and the following pieces of information were extracted:

• Source citation: Title of the report, document, or publication in which the data source and/or estimate appears.

• Author(s) (ln/fn) #: The individual(s) or organization responsible for writing the report, document, or publication in which the data source and/or estimate appears.

• Title of Journal (if applicable): Title of the journal in which the article with the data source and/or estimate appears.

• Journal Volume, Number, and Pages: The volume number of the journal in which the article with the data source and/or estimate appears and the page numbers of the article.

• Type of organization funding the report: (i.e., federal government, state government, local government, nongovernmental organization (NGO), private foundation, university, etc.): Indicate whether the organization funding the report is federal, state, local, nongovernmental, a private foundation, a university, or some other type of organization.

• Name of organization funding the report: Indicates the name of the organization funding the report, document, or publication in which the data source and/or estimate appeared.

• Reporting city: Location of reporting agency. • City and Publishing House (Book): The city and publishing house of the book in which the

data source and/or estimate appeared. • Date published: The year that the report, document or publication in which the data source

and/or estimate appears was released. • Is this a primary source or a secondary source?: Indicates whether the report is a primary

source of data and/or estimates derived from the data or whether the report includes data and/or estimates from other primary sources.

• If secondary source, list the primary source: author, date, title: The source citation for the primary source of the data and/or estimates that appear in the report.

• Type of trafficking: The type of trafficking (sex trafficking, labor trafficking, or sex and labor) that is included in the data source and/or used for the estimate.

• Study primarily about trafficking? (Yes/No): Indicates whether the study or report in which the estimate appears is a trafficking study or a study on something else that may be related to human trafficking (i.e., a study on smuggling and/or underage prostitution may include information about human trafficking).

• Data source: Indicates the source of the data/where the data come from (i.e., ICPSR, NACJD, HTRS).

• Purpose of data collection: Indicates why or for what purpose the data are being collected. • Time period for which data being studied were collected (i.e., report studied incidents of

human trafficking occurring between 2000 and 2007): Indicate the dates for which the data being studied within the report were collected. Note: differs from the dates of the study period.

• Is there a definition of human trafficking used in the data source/report? Yes/No: Indicates whether there is the data source/report includes a definition of human trafficking.

• Definition of human trafficking used in the report/data source: If the data source/report includes a definition of human trafficking, indicate what that definition is.

• Does the definition meet criteria for severe forms of HT under TVPA?* Yes/No: Indicates whether the definition meets the criteria for severe forms of human trafficking under the TVPA.

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*The term “severe forms of trafficking in persons” means- (A) sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion25, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age; or (B) 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.

• Method(s) for collecting data (i.e., interviews, surveys, official records): Indicates the type of methodology used for collecting the data.

• From whom or what are the data collected? (i.e., identify respondents): Indicate who responded to data collection efforts (i.e., police officers, victim service providers).

• Number of respondents/cases included in the data collection?: Indicate how many people responded to data collection efforts or how many cases were included in the data collection.

• Method(s) for selecting respondents/sample selection strategy (i.e., random, cluster, convenience sample): Indicate the strategy for selecting the sample that was used in the data collection.

• Scope of data collection (i.e., region(s) data collected from, national vs. state vs. local): Indicate the region(s) that the data were collected from and/or whether the data were collected nationally, statewide, or locally.

• Number of victims identified: Indicates the number of victims identified in the data source/report.

• Range of trafficking victims encompassed by the data source/estimate (domestic vs. international victims, sex trafficking vs. labor trafficking victims): Indicates whether the victims included in the data source/report were domestic, international, or both domestic and international and whether they were victims of sex trafficking, labor trafficking, or both sex and labor trafficking.

• Was an estimate derived from the data source? Y/N: Indicates whether or not an estimate was derived from the data collected.

• Was the estimation referenced within the report derived from a secondary data source? Y/N: Indicates whether an estimation referenced within the report was derived from a data source that originated from a different study.

• What is the estimate: Indicates what the estimate is (i.e., between 1,000 and 5,000 victims are trafficked for sex each year in the United States.)

• Statistical estimation techniques/how was the estimate derived?: Indicate the method(s) used to calculate the estimate.

• Data cleaning, auditing, and quality control procedures: Indicates how the data were cleaned, any auditing measures that were in place and how issues like confidentiality were controlled for.

• Data storage (i.e., ICPSR, State Dept.): Indicate where is the data is/was stored. • Data reporting procedures (i.e., series of semi-annual reports): Indicates if and how often

reports on the data are issued and to whom. • Strengths of data source: Indicates how the data source can contribute to improved

estimates of the prevalence of human trafficking. • Limitations of data source: Indicates the weaknesses of the data source or why it could not

contribute to improved estimates of the prevalence of human trafficking.

25 Primary sources are distinguished from secondary sources in that a primary source is an original source of information, whereas a secondary source is derived from pre-existing information.

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• Strengths of estimate: Indicates why the estimate is important or what value it adds to our knowledge of human trafficking.

• Limitations of estimate: Indicates the weaknesses of the estimate or why it is not a reliable estimate of the prevalence of human trafficking.

• Reliability of information about subgroups of victims (low, medium, high): Indicates how reliable the victim information is and the reason it is low, medium, or high.

• Estimate reporting/how the estimate has been used: Indicates how the estimate has been used (i.e., used by state legislators to pass state human trafficking legislation).

• Limitations of data source/estimate acknowledged in the report: Indicate the weaknesses of the data source/estimate that are acknowledged by the author(s) of the report in which they appear.

• Identify how data source/estimate could be improved: Indicate ways the data source/estimate could be improved and why.

• Identify how each source of data should be used to generate the most reliable information about the prevalence of severe forms of human trafficking in the United States:

• Should the report be excluded in the evaluation of estimates of human trafficking? Yes/No: Indicate if the reviewer thinks the report should be being excluded from the current study.

• Reason why report should be excluded in evaluation of estimates of human trafficking (i.e., use of secondary data source): Indicates why the reviewer thinks the report should be excluded.

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Appendix C: Data Collection Methodology

The research team collected and catalogued information about victims of severe forms of human trafficking starting with the initial list of data sources presented by Humanity United in the request for proposals. After beginning to review the preliminary set of sources, we used a recent literature review funded by the National Institute of Justice (Gozdziak and Bump, 2009) that included data and research on human trafficking conducted over the past 15 years to determine the most applicable additional sources of information for the project. The experiences of research team members conducting primary research on human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation of children was critical in helping us identify additional sources of information on human trafficking victimization. Because human trafficking is a relatively new and emerging crime, it was also necessary to examine sources of information on activities with elements of human trafficking that might not be explicitly described as human trafficking, including, but not limited to, human smuggling, exploitative and harmful labor conditions and practices, domestic work, and prostitution. To overcome this problem, we developed a list of potential venues where victims of human trafficking might be found. We then searched for information on victimization in these venues that met the definition of human trafficking provided under the TVPA. Although the main objective of the study was to provide clarity on trafficking victims in the United States, the team did not exclude international reports. Some international reports have estimates of victims identified in the United States and other important figures that are related to trafficking in the United States (e.g. financial profit in U.S. dollars in foreign trafficking markets). However, reports only discussing the experiences of victims in foreign countries were based on the scope of this study. The team compiled a list of sources using information from the literature review, as well as other data sources collected by the team from Internet searches and past and present research projects involving human trafficking. We explored data sources dating back as early as 1982 and non-English reports. Reports containing any element of human trafficking were reviewed in the cataloging process. Both primary and secondary sources were collected, including reports written by government agencies, nongovernmental institutions, academia, and the media.

Once the preliminary list of sources was developed, the Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking (ATEST)—a coalition of anti-human trafficking and anti-slavery organizations—reviewed the sources and provided feedback on additional reports or sources of data. ATEST, a project of Humanity United, is composed of nine leading U.S.-based nongovernmental organizations, including experts in human trafficking research. Throughout the collection and cataloging process, we used feedback from ATEST members in order to identify existing information on human trafficking numbers and estimates. The collection process remained ongoing throughout the assessment process to avoid any gaps in information and to maintain diligence and comprehensiveness.

Through dialogue with ATEST, additional sources of information were identified and new studies were added to the assessment. In total, we identified 207 reports on sources of data that met our criteria for providing information on counts of potential human trafficking victims. Of the 207 data sources assessed in this study, 68 reports (33%) were funded by the federal government, 49 reports (24%) were from nongovernmental agencies, and 29 reports or studies (14%) were conducted by academic institutions. Of the 207 sources identified through the search, 110 were primary sources of data.26

26 The HTRS database allows the recording of data on cases without including data on the victims in these cases.

58

Appendix D: Counts of Identified Sources

The following table presents the numbers of sources of data we have found and used in our calculations regarding the number of victims in the various categories and venues of human trafficking. A source of data does not always reflect one study or report. Some reports, most notably the Attorney General’s annual report to Congress, contain multiple sources for counts of victims (e.g. FBI investigations vs. HHS victim certifications). When populating the tables and counting sources, we treated every count as a distinct source. Similarly, when one report gave distinct data about different categories, e.g. labor trafficking and sex trafficking, it was counted as a source in both categories. In contrast, sources that are provided routinely (annual reports), as well as reports that rely on the same data source, were counted only once.

Type of trafficking

Adult/Minor victims

Foreign/Domestic victims Venue Counts Estimates

No venue reported 2 1 Agriculture

Domestic work 1 Construction


Retail/sales industries Entertainment

Restaurants

Foreign (N=4)

Forced begging No venue reported 1

Agriculture Domestic work Construction


Retail/sales industries 1 Entertainment

Restaurants

Domestic (N=2)

Forced begging No venue reported 4 2

Agriculture 2 Domestic work 1 Construction

Factories/Industrial 1 Landscaping

Retail/sales industries Entertainment 1

Restaurants 1

Labor trafficking

(N=18)

Foreign or domestic (status unreported)

(N=12)

Forced begging No venue reported 1

Households Sex trafficking

(N=44) Adult (N=8) Foreign (N=1)

Brothels

59

Type of trafficking

Adult/Minor victims

Foreign/Domestic victims

Venue Counts Estimates

Hotel/In-call prostitution Escort service industry



Institutional care

Survival sex No venue reported 1

Households Brothels




Institutional care

Domestic (N=1)

Survival sex No venue reported 3 3

Households Brothels

Hotel/In-call prostitution




Institutional care


(N=6)

Survival sex No venue reported 1

Households Brothels


Street prostitution

Minor (N=20) Foreign (N=1)

Truck stops

60

Type of trafficking

Adult/Minor victims



Strip clubs Pornography industry

Work camps Institutional care


Households Brothels




Institutional care

Domestic (N=4)


Households Brothels




Institutional care


(N=15)


Households Brothels 1




Institutional care

Foreign (N=4)

Survival sex No venue reported

Households

Adult or minor (status

unreported) (N=16)

Domestic (N=0)

Brothels

61

Type of trafficking

Adult/Minor victims






Institutional care


Households Brothels 1

Hotel/In-call prostitution Escort service industry 1

Street prostitution 1 Truck stops Strip clubs 2


Institutional care


(N=12)

Survival sex 1

Foreign (N=1) No venue reported 1

Domestic (N=0) No venue reported Adult (N=1)


(N=0) No venue reported

Foreign (N=1) No venue reported 1 Domestic (N=0) No venue reported

Minor (N=1) Foreign or domestic (status unreported)

(N=0) No venue reported

Foreign (N=0) No venue reported Domestic (N=0) No venue reported

Sex or labor trafficking

(type unreported)

(N=6)

Adult or minor (status

unreported) (N=4)


(N=4) No venue reported 4

The total number of sources we have used in our calculations is thus 68. Note that 53 (78%) of these sources do not deal with a specific human trafficking venue, and that out of the 15 sources that are venue specific, 13 (87%) do not specify whether they deal with foreign or domestic victims.

62

Appendix E: Original Matrices and Technical Notes for Tables 4-6 Original Matrix for Table 4: Labor Trafficking


Foreign Domestic Foreign Domestic Venue



No venue reported 246 246 10 10 1,296 1,296 53 53



1

No venue reported 22 22 1 1 - - - - Cases opened by the

Civil Rights Division


2


FBI


3

No venue reported 361 361 - - - - - -

Cases opened by Immigration and Customs Enforcement


4

No venue reported 89 89 4 4 - - - - The Office for Victims

of Crime


5

No venue reported 36 36 1 1 - - - - The Legal Services

Corporation


6




7

No venue reported 24 24 1 1 - - - -


Motivans, 2006 8

No venue reported 484 484 21 21 5,435 5,435 226 226 A survey of law

enforcement agencies


9

No venue reported - - - - 141 1,400 6 58 A survey of law



10

No venue reported 39 39 2 2 2,263 2,263 92 92 A survey of service

providers in MN


12

No venue reported 466 466 19 19 3,869 3,869 157 157



13

No venue reported - - - - 46,849 46,849 - -

Multiple economic indicators of eight Latin American countries

Clawson, 2005 14

63





Ranges where no venue reported

22 941 1 39 141 46,849 6 323

Agriculture 400 1,000 - - - - - -

Reports of abuses against foreign workers in agriculture in FL, GA, and SC

Oxfam America, 2004 15

Agriculture 4 7 - - - - - - Newspaper articles and expert interviews


11

Ranges for Agriculture 4 1,000 - - - - - -

Domestic work 124 136 - - 2,541 2,787 - -

Interviews with service providers for migrant workers in DC region

Pier, 2001 16

Domestic work 22 27 1 1 - - - - Newspaper articles and

expert interviews


11

Range for Domestic work

22 136 1 1 2,541 2,787 - -

Sweatshop/ Factories 25 46 1 2 - - - - Newspaper articles and

expert interviews


11

Service/ Food/Care 3 3 - - - - - - Newspaper articles and

expert interviews


11

Entertainment 2 2 - - - - - - Newspaper articles and expert interviews


11

Retail sales industries - - - - - - 25 300

Several expert estimates regarding traveling magazine crews

Urbina, 2007 17

64

Original Matrix for Table 5: Adult Sex Trafficking





No venue reported 246 246 429 429 1,297 1,297 2,259 2,259



1

No venue reported 9 9 15 15 - - - - Cases opened by the Civil

Rights Division


2

No venue reported 44 44 76 76 - - - - Cases opened by the FBI


3

No venue reported 307 307 - - - - - - Immigration and Customs

Enforcement


4

No venue reported 80 80 140 140 - - - - The Office for Victims of

Crime


5


Corporation


6




7



Motivans, 2006 8

No venue reported 87 87 156 156 962 962 1,710 1,710 A survey of law



9

No venue reported - - - - 37 375 67 667 A survey of law



10

No venue reported 13 22 22 38 - - - - Newspaper articles and

expert interviews


11

No venue reported 49 49 84 84 2,765 2, 765 4,815 4, 815 A survey of service

providers in MN


12

65





No venue reported 127 127 220 220 1,051 1,051 1,830 1,830



13



Clawson, 2007 18

No venue reported - - - - 2,268 2,268 4,032 4,032


Kara, 2009 19

No venue reported - - - - 3,500 - - - Field research in Mexico

City Acharya, 2006 20

No venue reported 3 4 5 6 108 125 187 217 Interviews with service

providers in New York City Thukral and Ditmore, 2005 22

Ranges for no venue reported

3 307 5 527 37 8,733 67 4,902

Street prostitution 51 128 89 222 4,962 12,404 8,640 21,600 Arrest data in Chicago and

expert interviews O’Leary and Howard, 2001 21

Street prostitution 6,390 12,780 11,128 22,256 - - - - National UCR data (FBI

arrests)


23

Ranges street prostitution

51 12,780 89 22,256 4,962 12,404 8,640 21,600

Escort services 64 255 111 445 6,202 24,808 10,800 43,199 Arrest data in Chicago and


Massage parlors 11 22 19 38 1,054 2,109 1,836 3,672 Arrest data in Chicago and


Exotic dancing 40 163 69 283 3,876 15,815 6,750 27,540 Arrest data in Chicago and


Strip clubs - - - - 382 382 488 488 Website on U.S. strip clubs Raphael and Ashley, 2008 24

66

Original Matrix for Table 6: Child Sex Trafficking





No venue reported 175 175 305 305 921 921 1,604 1,604



1


Civil Rights Division


2


FBI


3


Immigration and Customs Enforcement


4

No venue reported 34 34 60 60 - - - - The Office for

Victims of Crime


5


Corporation


6




7



Motivans, 2006 8

No venue reported 37 37 66 66 412 412 733 733

A survey of law enforcement agencies


9

No venue reported - - - - 16 160 29 288

A survey of law enforcement agencies


10

No venue reported 5 10 10 16 - - - - Newspaper articles

and expert interviews


11

No venue reported 35 35 61 61 1,993 1,993 3,470 3,470 A survey of service

providers in MN


12

67








13



Clawson, 2007 18

No venue reported - - - - 972 972 1,728 1,728


Kara, 2009 19

No venue reported - - - - 1,500 - - - Field research in

Mexico City Acharya, 2006 20


Interviews with service providers in New York City

Thukral and Ditmore, , 2005 22

No venue reported - - - - 89,081 118,770 50,108 66,808

Field research in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico

Estes and Weiner, 2001 26

No venue reported 188 188 333 333 - - - - Federally prosecuted

CSEC cases Small, et al., 2008 27

No venue reported - - 108 108 - - - - Innocence Lost

Initiative


28

No venue reported - - - - 498,571 498,571 938,487 938,487 National survey of

adolescents Edwards et al., 2006 29

Range no venue reported

1 188 3 333 16 498,571 29 938,487

Street prostitution 22 55 38 95 2,128 5,320 3,706 9,264

Arrest data in Chicago and expert interviews

O’Leary and Howard, 2001

21

Street prostitution 639 639 1,114 1,114 - - - - National UCR data

(FBI arrests)


23

Street prostitution - - - - - - 93,174 93,174 CSEC cases in NY

Gragg et al., 2007; Curtis et. al., 2008

32

68





Street prostitution - - - - - - 16,894 16,894

Estimates from 9 U.S. cities based on law enforcement and service provider data

Shared Hope International, 2009

31

Street prostitution 37 62 263 438 1,767 2,960 12,557 20,913

Juvenile prostitution arrests and service provider survey in WA

Boyer, 2008 32

Range street prostitution 22 639 38 1,114 1,767 5,320 3,706 93,174

Survival sex - - - - 36,620 169,636 107,706 301,636 Greene, 1999 33

Escort services 27 109 48 191 2,660 10,640 4,632 18,528



Massage parlors 5 9 8 16 452 904 787 1,575



Exotic dancing 17 70 30 122 1,663 6,783 2,895 11,812



69

The following technical notes give a detailed account of the original numbers that can be found in the various sources we have identified, the procedures we have conducted to clean and standardize them, and the ways we used them to generate estimates. The serial numbers of the notes correspond to the number under the “Tech. note” column in Tables 4–6 in the main report. The final results of the calculations, i.e. the numbers that are presented in Tables 4–6, are presented here in bold font.

General Sources Used in Multiple Types of Human Trafficking Calculations

1) Human Trafficking Reporting System data on alleged cases (Kyckelhahn, Beck, and Cohen, 2009)

According to Table 7 in this report, the number of recorded victims in labor trafficking incidents is 313, and the number of recorded victims in sex trafficking incidents is 1,070. Of the 1,070 victims of sex trafficking, 429 are reported to be adults, 184 are reported to be minors, and the remaining 457 are of unknown age. If we assume that the proportion of adults within the victims of unknown age is the same as in the group of victims of known age (0.7), we get an additional estimated 320 adult victims and 131 minor victims, amounting to 749 and 321 victims, respectively.

These numbers are based only on those incidents in which some data were provided about the number of victims.27 According to Table 3 in this report, there are an additional 44 incidents of labor trafficking, 218 incidents of adult sex trafficking, and 261 incidents of minor sex trafficking that do not contain victim data. We assume that each of these cases involved the average number of victims per case, i.e. 3.07 for labor trafficking cases and 1.99 for sex trafficking cases. This extrapolation leads to the adding of 135 victims of labor trafficking, 433 adult victims of sex trafficking, and 518 minor victims of sex trafficking. Adding them up and averaging over the period of 21 months, we get a total of 256 victims of labor trafficking, 675 adult victims of sex trafficking, and 480 minor victims of sex trafficking per year. Of the labor trafficking victims, 246 (96 percent) are estimated to be foreign and 10 (4 percent) are estimated to be of domestic origin. Of the adult sex trafficking victims, 246 (36 percent) are estimated to be foreign and 429 (64 percent) are estimated to be domestic. Of the minor sex trafficking victims, 175 (36 percent) are estimated to be foreign and 305 (64 percent) are estimated to be domestic.28

According to the latest census data (2000), the 38 task forces that have identified these victims cover a geographical region that contains about 19 percent of the entire U.S. population. Using this percentage to extrapolate the data over the entire U.S. population, we get the following total estimated number of victims per year:

27 This calculation is based on the same source and is provided in Appendix F. 28 For an explanation of the percentages that are used in this estimation, see Appendix F.

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Total

Foreign 1,296 Labor trafficking

Domestic 53 1,349

Foreign 1,297 Sex trafficking of adults

Domestic 2,259 3,556

Foreign 921 Sex trafficking of minors

Domestic 1,604 2,525

Total 7,430

2) Civil Rights Division data (Office of the Attorney General, 2009)

The following data are provided for the number of trafficking cases opened by the Civil Rights Division in the Department of Justice:

CRD Cases 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 Total 2001-2008

Annual average

Labor trafficking 6 3 3 3 9 10 12 13 59 7.4

Sex trafficking 4 7 8 23 26 22 20 27 137 17.1

Assuming these cases involved the average number of victims, i.e. 3.07 victims in a labor trafficking case and 1.99 victims in a sex trafficking case,29 they yield an annual average of 23 victims of labor trafficking and 34 victims of sex trafficking. Of the labor trafficking victims, 22 (96 percent) are estimated to be foreign and 1 (4 percent) domestic. Of the sex trafficking victims, 24 (70 percent) are estimated to be adults: 9 (36 percent) foreign and 15 (64 percent) domestic, and 10 (30 percent) are estimated to be minors: 4 (36 percent) foreign and 6 (64 percent) domestic. No estimate was derived from these numbers because there are no available data on the proportion of cases that are opened by the CRD from the entire number of cases.

3) Federal Bureau of Investigation data (Office of the Attorney General, 2009)

The following data are provided for the number of trafficking cases opened by the FBI:

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 Total 2001-2008

Annual average

54 58 65 86 146 126 120 132 787 98

29 For an explanation of the percentages that are used in this estimation, see Appendix F.

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Of the 98 annual cases, we estimate that 12 (13 percent) are cases of labor trafficking and 86 (87 percent) are cases of sex trafficking. Assuming these cases involved the average number of victims, i.e. 3.07 victims in a labor trafficking case and 1.99 victims in a sex trafficking case, they yield an annual average of 38 victims of labor trafficking and 171 victims of sex trafficking. Of the labor trafficking victims, 36 (96 percent) are estimated to be foreign and 2 (4 percent) domestic. Of the sex trafficking victims, 120 (70 percent) are estimated to be adults: 44 foreign (36 percent) and 76 domestic (64 percent), and 51 (64 percent) are estimated to be minors: 19 foreign (36 percent) and 32 domestic (64 percent). No estimate was derived from these numbers because there are no available data on the proportion of FBI trafficking cases among all trafficking cases.

4) Immigration and Customs Enforcement data (Office of the Attorney General, 2009)

The following data are provided regarding the number of trafficking cases opened by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE):

ICE Cases 2005 2006 2007 2008 Total 2005-2008

Annual average

Labor trafficking 86 85 129 170 470 118

Sex trafficking 188 214 219 262 883 221

Assuming these cases involved the average number of victims, i.e. 3.07 victims in a labor trafficking case and 1.99 victims in a sex trafficking case, they yield an annual average of 361 victims of labor trafficking and 438 victims of sex trafficking. Since these cases were opened by the ICE, we assume that all of these victims are foreigners, although the source does not explicitly state that. Of the sex trafficking victims, 307 (70 percent) are estimated to be adults and 132 (30 percent) are estimated to be minors. No estimate was derived from these numbers because there are no available data on the proportion of ICE trafficking cases among all trafficking cases.

5) Office of Victims of Crime data (Office of the Attorney General, 2009)

The source indicates that during a period of 5.5 years (January 2003 through June 30, 2008), grantees of the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) have provided services to 2,238 pre-certified potential trafficking victims. Divided by 5.5, this yields 407 victims per year, of whom 92 (23 percent) are estimated to be victims of labor trafficking and 315 (77 percent) are estimated to be victims of sex trafficking. Of the labor trafficking victims, 89 (96 percent) are estimated to be foreign and 4 (4 percent) domestic. Of the sex trafficking victims, 220 (70 percent) are estimated to be adults: 80 foreigners (36 percent) and 140 domestic (64 percent), and 94 (64 percent) are estimated to be minors: 34 foreigners (36 percent) and 60 domestic (64 percent). No estimate was derived from these numbers because there are no available data on the proportion of trafficking victims who receive OVC services.

6) Legal Services data (Office of the Attorney General, 2004–2009)

72

The following data are provided regarding the number of victims that were assisted by the Legal Services Corporation (LSC):

2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 Total 2005-2008

Annual average

81 170 142 269 258 74 994 166

Of the 166 annual LSC clients, 37 (23 percent) are estimated to be victims of labor trafficking and 128 (77 percent) are estimated to be victims of sex trafficking. Of the labor trafficking victims, 36 (96 percent) are estimated to be foreign and 1 (4 percent) domestic. Of the sex trafficking victims, 90 (70 percent) are estimated to be adults: 33 foreign (36 percent) and 57 domestic (64 percent), and 38 (64 percent) are estimated to be minors: 14 foreign (36 percent) and 24 domestic (64 percent).

7) Office of Refugee and Resettlement data (Office of the Attorney General, 2009)

The following data are provided regarding the number of adult victims that have been “certified” and the number of minor victims who have received letters of eligibility from the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR):

ORR certifications and letters

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 Total 2001-2008

Annual average

Adults 194 81 145 147 197 214 270 286 1,543 192

Minors 4 18 6 16 34 20 33 31 162 20

Because the ORR only certifies victims who are not U.S. citizens, these numbers represent only foreign victims. Victims of labor trafficking are estimated to comprise 23 percent of all trafficking victims, i.e. 43 of the adult victims and 5 of the minor victims, yielding a total of 48 victims of labor trafficking. Victims of sex trafficking are estimated to comprise 77 percent of all trafficking victims, i.e. 148 of the adult victims and 16 of the minor victims.30

8) Federal Justice System Resource Center data (Motivans, 2006)

This source indicates that the total number of suspects in matters referred to U.S. attorneys with human trafficking offenses as the lead charge between 2001 and 2005 is 555, or an annual average of 111 suspects. Assuming that, on average, every suspect is linked to at least one victim,31 this yields 111 victims per year. Of them, 25 (23 percent) are estimated to be victims of labor trafficking and 97 (77 percent) are estimated to be victims of sex trafficking. Of the labor trafficking victims, 24 (96 percent) are estimated to be foreign and 1 is estimated to be domestic. Of the sex trafficking victims, 68 (70 percent) are estimated to be adults: 25 foreigners (36 percent) and 43 domestic (64 percent), and 29 (64 percent) are estimated to be minors: 11 foreigners (36 percent) and 19 domestic (64

30 This does not have to be true for every case, as two suspects could be involved in the trafficking of one victim. 31 For an explanation of the percentages that are used in this estimation, see Appendix F.

73

percent).32 No estimate was derived from these numbers because there are no available data on the proportion of these suspects among the population of people involved in crimes of human trafficking.

9) Northeastern University study of law enforcement responses to human trafficking (Farrell, McDevitt, and Fahy, 2008)

How preliminary numbers were calculated: Northeastern University distributed a survey to 3,000 local, county, and state law enforcement--of which, 117 indicated they had investigated at least one case of trafficking between 2000 and 2006. Each agency also indicated the total number of cases they had investigated for each year for a total of 2,394 cases of sex and labor trafficking between 2000 and 2006. According to the report, 36 percent (862) of the agencies reported having only sex trafficking cases, 34 percent (814) reported having only labor trafficking cases, and 30 percent (718) reported having sex and labor trafficking cases. If we divide the number of agencies with sex and labor trafficking cases evenly between sex and labor trafficking, we get 359 for a total of 1,173 (814+359) cases of labor trafficking and 1,221 (862+359) cases of sex trafficking between 2000 and 2006. Divided by seven years, we get an annual average of 168 victims of labor trafficking and 174 victims of sex trafficking. The following calculations were performed to break down these numbers into categories:33

• 168 * .94 (proportion foreign) * 3.07 (avg # sex trafficking vics) = 484 foreign labor trafficking victims

• 168 * .04 (proportion domestic) * 3.07 (avg # sex trafficking vics) = 21 domestic labor trafficking victims

• 174 * .70 (proportion adult) * .36 (proportion foreign) * 1.99 (avg # sex trafficking vics) = 87 adult foreign sex trafficking victims

• 174 * .70 (proportion adult) * .64 (proportion domestic) * 1.99 (avg # sex trafficking vics) = 156 adult domestic sex trafficking victims

• 174 * .30 (proportion minors) * .36 (proportion foreign) * 1.99 (avg # sex trafficking vics) = 37 minor foreign sex trafficking victims

• 174 * .30 (proportion minors) * .64 (proportion domestic) * 1.99 (avg # sex trafficking vics) = 66 minor domestic sex trafficking victims

How estimated numbers were calculated: Northeastern University estimated 907 law enforcement agencies in the United States reported a sex or labor trafficking case from 2000 to 2006. First, we want to estimate the number of law enforcement agencies in the United States that would report a sex or labor trafficking case in one year. According to the report, in 2006, 97 agencies (of the 117 over the seven year period) reported at least 1 trafficking investigation. Using this ratio, we assume 752 law enforcement agencies would have at least one sex or labor trafficking case in any one year:

907 agencies between 2000–2006 * (97 agencies reporting >=1 trafficking case in 2006 / 117 agencies reporting >=1 trafficking case in 2000-2006) = 752 law enforcement agencies per year 32 The multipliers are derived and explained in Appendix F 33 This assumes that, of the agencies that had a case during the course of two years, at least half of them had a case during the period of one year and at the most they all had a case in the course of that year.

74

According to the report, 34 percent (256) of the agencies reported only labor trafficking cases, 36 percent (271) reported only sex trafficking cases, and another 30 percent (226) reported sex and labor trafficking cases.

We next estimate the number of cases resulting from the agencies’ investigations. According to the report, the average number of investigations per agency over the seven years is five investigations. For the sex and labor trafficking agencies, we divided the cases evenly between sex and labor trafficking:

• 256 agencies with labor trafficking only * 5 cases per agency = 1,280 labor trafficking cases

• 271 agencies with sex trafficking only * 5 cases per agency = 1,354 sex trafficking cases

• 226 agencies with sex and labor trafficking * 5 cases per agency = 1,128 sex trafficking cases, which are divided evenly between labor trafficking cases and sex trafficking cases.

Adding these together, we get 1,844 labor trafficking cases and 1,918 sex trafficking cases per year.

• 1,844 cases of labor trafficking * .96 (proportion foreign) * 3.07 (avg # labor trafficking vics) = 5,435 foreign labor trafficking victims

• 1,844 cases of labor trafficking * .04 (proportion domestic) * 3.07 (avg # labor trafficking vics) = 226 domestic labor trafficking victims

• 1,918 cases of sex trafficking) * .70 (proportion adult) * .36 (proportion foreign) * 1.99 (avg # sex trafficking vics) = 962 adult foreign sex trafficking victims

• 1,918 cases of sex trafficking * .70 (proportion adult) * .64 (proportion domestic) * 1.99 (avg # sex trafficking vics) = 1,710 adult domestic sex trafficking victims

• 1,918 cases of sex trafficking) * .30 (proportion minors) * .36 (proportion foreign) * 1.99 (avg # sex trafficking vics) = 412 minor foreign sex trafficking victims

• 1,918 cases of sex trafficking * .30 (proportion minors) * .64 (proportion domestic) * 1.99 (avg # sex trafficking vics) = 733 minor domestic sex trafficking victims

10) National Opinion Research Center study of law enforcement (Newton, Dutch, and Cummings, 2008)

According to this source, an estimated 116 law enforcement agencies representing U.S. counties have at some time investigated at least one case of labor trafficking, and an estimated 696 law enforcement agencies have ever investigated at least one case of sex trafficking. Ninety-five agencies are estimated to have investigated at least one case of labor trafficking in the two years preceding the study, and 150 agencies are estimated to have investigated at least one case of sex trafficking in the same period. Because the number of agencies that had at least one trafficking case in one year is not specified, we will use a range of 48–95 agencies with labor trafficking cases and 75–150 agencies with sex trafficking cases.34 Assuming that agencies had a minimum of one case per year and a

34 Five is the average number of sex trafficking cases for law enforcement agencies that have at least one case, according to Farrell, McDevitt, and Fahy, 2008 (see technical note 9 above).

75

maximum of five cases per year,35 yields an estimated range of 48–475 labor trafficking cases and 75–750 sex trafficking cases per year nationwide.

The number of victims per case in this survey ranged from 1 to 40. With no further data from this study, we will assume that they involved the average number of victims, i.e. 1.99 victims per sex trafficking case and 3.07 victims per labor trafficking case. We thus get an estimate of 147–1458 victims of labor trafficking and 149–1489 victims of sex trafficking. Of the labor trafficking victims, 141–1,400 (96 percent) are estimated to be foreign and 6–58 (4 percent) are estimated to be domestic. Of the sex trafficking victims, 104–1,042 (70 percent) are estimated to be adults: 37–375 (36 percent) foreign and 67–667 (64 percent) domestic, and 45–448 (30 percent) are estimated to be minors: 16–160 (36 percent) foreign and 29–288 (64 percent) domestic.

11) Bales and Human Rights Center (2004 and 2005)

These two reports are based on the same research study, which counted cases of trafficking over a period of six years (1998–2003). One of them (#49) is national in scope, and the other (#209) focuses solely on the state of California.36 The following table presents raw data that were extracted from the two reports:

National report California report

Economic sector Cases identified

Cases identified

Victims identified

Sex trafficking Forced prostitution 58 27 238

Agriculture 13 1 2

Domestic services 34 19 93

Sweatshop/factory 6 3 143

Service/food/care 5 - -

Labor trafficking

Entertainment 4 - -

Because the national report does not provide victim numbers, we need to estimate them in order to add them to the victims found in California. From the California data, we can calculate the average number of victims per case for four of the venues: 8.8 victims per case in forced prostitution, 2 victims per case in the agriculture sector, 4.9 victims per case in the domestic services sector, and 47.7 victims per case in the sweatshop/factory sector. These are different from the average number of victims per case we are using throughout this report.37 We will use both multipliers to generate a high and low estimate of the total number of victims that are represented by these two sources. The following table presents this calculation:

35 The California report contains details about the numbers of estimated victims, whereas the national report only presents numbers of cases. For this reason, we are using both reports, despite the fact that the national report does include all the cases in the California report. 36 3.07 victims per labor trafficking case and 1.99 victims per sex trafficking case, as explained in Appendix F. 37 For an explanation of the percentages that are used in this estimation, see Appendix F.

76

Estimated victims from the additional cases

Total estimated number of

victims (for 6 years)

Annual average

estimated number of

victims

Economic sector

Victims identified in California

Additional cases from

national report

California report Appendix F Low High Low High

Agriculture 2 12 24 37 26 39 4 7 Domestic services 93 15 73 46 139 166 23 28

Sweatshop/ factory 143 3 143 9 152 286 25 48

Service/food/ care 0 5 - 15 15 15 3 3

Entertainment 0 4 - 12 12 12 2 2 Sex trafficking (“forced prostitution”)

238 31 273 62 300 511 50 85

For victims of labor trafficking, 96 percent are estimated to be of foreign origin and only 4 percent domestic. Given the low numbers of victims in the agriculture, service/food/care, and entertainment venues, we estimate that they are all foreign. Of the domestic workers 22–27 are estimated to be foreign and 1 is estimated to be domestic. Of the sweatshop workers, 25–46 are estimated to be foreign and 1-2 is estimated to be domestic.

Of the sex trafficking victims, 35–60 (70 percent) are estimated to be adults: 13–22 foreigners (36 percent) and 22–38 domestic (64 percent), and 15–26 (30 percent) are estimated to be minors: 5–10 foreigners (36 percent) and 10–16 domestic (64 percent).38

12) Minnesota Human Trafficking Reports (Minnesota Office of Justice Programs, 2007–2008)

The following data were extracted from these two reports, regarding the number of victims Minnesota service providers reported to have served in the three years preceding the survey:

LT victims in 3 years ST victims in 3 years

Adult female Adult male Child Adult

female Adult male Child

2007 84 40 30 215 12 410 2008 47 39 7 564 4 163 Annual average 22 13 6 130 3 96

For labor trafficking, the average number of annual victims is 22+13+6=41, of whom 39 (96 percent) are estimated to be foreign and 2 (4 percent) are estimated to be domestic. For sex 38 For an explanation of the percentages that are used in this estimation, see Appendix F.

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trafficking, the average annual number of adult victims is 130+3=133, of whom 49 (36 percent) are estimated to be foreign and 84 (64 percent) are estimated to be domestic. Of the 96 average annual number of child victims of sex trafficking, 35 (36 percent) are estimated to be foreign and 61 (64 percent) are estimated to be domestic.39

We can then extrapolate to the entire United States by multiplying by the ratio of the U.S. population and the Minnesota population. According to the latest census data (2000), the population of the United States is approximately 57 times the population of Minnesota. The extrapolation yields an estimate of 2,355 victims of labor trafficking (2,263 foreign and 92 domestic), 7,580 adult victims of sex trafficking (2,765 foreign and 4,815 domestic), and 5,463 child victims of sex trafficking (1,993 foreign and 3,470 domestic).

13) California Human Trafficking Report (California Alliance to Combat Trafficking and Slavery Task Force, 2007)

This report contains the results of a survey that was conducted in 2007 among 101 organizations that come in contact with trafficking victims, including law enforcement agencies, federally funded regional task forces, victim services agencies, domestic violence and sexual assault service providers, immigrant rights groups, legal service providers, and refugee assistance organizations. The following table, extracted from the report, represents what 94 of the responding organizations reported on the number of victims they have encountered in the year prior to the survey:

Number of victims Percent reporting

None or unknown 41

1–5 32

6–20 20

21–50 2

51–100 2

Over 100 3

We calculated the number of agencies from the percentages and multiplied them by the average number of reported victims in order to get the total number of victims represented in this report:40

Percent of

organizations Number of

organizations Average victims

reported Total

victims 41 39 0 0 32 30 3 90 20 19 13 244 2 2 36 67 2 2 76 142

39 Although this procedure is necessary for the purpose of using this source, it leads to an unknown amount of double counting, as we do not know how many victims were encountered by more than one organization. 40 For an explanation of the percentages that are used in this estimation, see Appendix F.

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3 3 126 354 Total 100 94 897

The report also states that 54 percent of the reported victims were subject to labor trafficking, while the remaining 46 percent were trafficked in the sex industry. Sixteen percent of the trafficking victims were children. If we apply these percentages to the number of victims we have calculated above, we get 485 victims of labor trafficking, 347 adult victims of sex trafficking, and 66 child victims of sex trafficking.

The report does not contain data on the origin of the victims. We estimate that among the victims of labor trafficking, 466 (96 percent) are foreign and 19 (4 percent) are domestic; among the adult sex trafficking victims, 127 (36 percent) are foreign and 220 (64 percent) are domestic; and, among the child sex trafficking victims, 24 (36 percent) are foreign and 42 (64 percent) are domestic.41

We can extrapolate these numbers to the entire U.S. population by multiplying by the ratio between the U.S. population and the population of California, which—according to the latest census data (2000)—is 8.31. After multiplying, we get a national estimate of 3,869 foreign and 157 domestic victims of labor trafficking, 1,051 foreign and 1,830 domestic victims of sex trafficking who are adults, and 200 foreign and 349 domestic victims of sex trafficking who are children.

Labor Trafficking Specific sources

No venue reported

14) Caliber, ICF Report on Estimates of Human Trafficking into the U.S. (Clawson, 2005)

This report estimates that 46,849 victims are being trafficked for the purposes of labor exploitation into the United States at the southwest border annually, based on an analysis of economic indicators of eight countries in Central and South America: Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, and Venezuela. The original data from which this estimate was derived are not disclosed in the report.

Agriculture

15) Oxfam Report on Agriculture (Oxfam America, 2004)

This source examines the protection of the human rights of workers in the U.S. agriculture industry. It reports the existence of a slavery ring with 400 victims that operated in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina as of 2004. In addition, the report identified approximately 3,000 farm workers in those states who have been suffering abuses from their employers, such as being beaten while working. Assuming that all 400 workers in the slavery ring can be regarded as trafficking victims, but that about 1,000 of the 3,000 are actual trafficking victims,42 we get a range of 400–1,000 victims in 2004.

41 This assumes that 1 in every 3 reported alleged workers abuses is a trafficking case. This also conforms to our following estimate on domestic workers from Pier, 2001, #50. 42 Farmland data was extracted from the USDA website, at: http://www.ers.usda.gov/StateFacts/

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To extrapolate this number over the entire United States, we multiply by the ratio of farmland area in the United States and farmland area in those three states: 922,095,840 farm acres in the U.S. / 24,271,448 farm acres in FL, SC, and GA.43 This yields an estimate of 15,196–37,991 victims nationwide, of whom 14,589–36,471 (96 percent) are estimated to be foreign and 608–1,520 (4 percent) are estimated to be domestic.44

Domestic Work

16) Study of Domestic Workers in Washington, D.C. Metro Area (Pier, 2001)

This source provides counts of domestic workers who have reported being abused by their employers in the Maryland/Washington, D.C. region.

CASA de Maryland, a Latino and immigration advocacy and assistance organization, has opened 30 cases on behalf of domestic workers with special visas against their employers in 1999. Its attorneys estimate that during the same year, they have actually “spoken to or consulted three times that number.” This information leads to the assumption that approximately 1 in every 3 calls is actually a case of employer abuse.

Three additional organizations that provide legal services have reported the number of calls they have received from migrant domestic workers alleging abuse by their employers:

• During 1991–1995, a Spanish Catholic center in Washington, D.C., received 12–15 calls per month. Multiplied by 12, this amounts to 144 to 180 calls per year.

• A private attorney, working in Gaithersburg, Maryland, received about six calls per month during 1995–2001. Multiplied by 12, this amounts to 72 calls per year.

• Between June and September of 2000, the campaign for Migrant Domestic Workers Rights in Washington received approximately 22 calls. Multiplied by 3, this amounts to 66 calls per year.

The total of these three additional sources amounts to 282–318 calls per year. Applying the assumption that only 1 in 3 calls results in a case, these three sources add about 94–106 victims per year. Together with the CASA de Maryland data, we get a total of 124–136 migrant domestic workers who are being abused by their employers in the Maryland/D.C. region per year.45

We now turn to extrapolate these figures to the entire U.S. population. For this purpose, we take a conservative assumption that this region actually includes Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, and Washington, D.C. We can then extrapolate to the entire United States by multiplying by the ratio between the U.S. population and the population of these states, which according to the latest census data is 20.5. This yields 2,541–2,787 migrant domestic workers who are being abused by their employers in the United States per year.

Retail/sales industries

43 For details on the calculation of the proportion of foreign and domestic victims see the appendix. 44 With no detailed statistical information about the nature of these abuses, we cannot say for sure that all of these victims can be counted as victims of human trafficking as defined in the TVPA. 45 We assume that this is a relatively good approximation for the number per year.

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17) Study of Traveling Magazine Crews (Urbina, 2007)

According to this source, there are between 2,500 and 30,000 young adults who are a part of a traveling magazine sales crew at any given moment.46 The source specifies many abuses and coercive methods by which these crew members are recruited and held. Assuming that 10 percent of the members could be considered victims of severe human trafficking under the TVPA, we get an estimated 25–300 victims per year.

Sex Trafficking Sources

No venue reported or multiple venues

18) Caliber, ICF Estimates of Human Trafficking in the U.S. (Clawson, 2007)

This report estimates the number of females trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation into the mid-Atlantic region of the United States from 15 counties located in Eastern Europe (Albania, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine) and the number of women trafficked for sex into the United States at the southwest border from eight countries in Central and South America (Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, and Venezuela). They estimated 1,358 sex trafficking victims are trafficked into mid-Atlantic United States and 11,117 sex trafficking victims are trafficked into the United States at the southwest border per year. If we add 1,358 to 11,117, we get a total of 12,475 foreign victims of sex trafficking per year, of whom 8,733 (70 percent) are estimated to be adults and 3,742 (30 percent) are estimated to be minors.

19) Kara Study of Sex Trafficking (Kara, 2009)

Based on field research and economic calculations, the author of this book estimates that in 2006 there were approximately 10,000 victims of sex trafficking in North America. The original data from which this estimate were derived are not disclosed in the source. If we assume that Canada accounts for 10 percent of the victims, there are approximately 9,000 victims of sex trafficking in the United States in a given year. Of them 6,300 (70 percent) are estimated to be adults: 2,268 (36 percent) foreign and 4,032 (64 percent) domestic, and 2,700 (30 percent) are estimated to be minors: 972 (36 percent) foreign and 1,728 (64 percent) domestic.

20) Acharya Study of Sex Trafficking (Acharya, 2006)

This study estimates that about 5,000 women aged 17–20 are being trafficked from Mexico into the United States every year. The original data from which this estimate were derived are not disclosed in the report. We estimate that 3,500 (70 percent) of them are adults and 1,500 (30 percent) are minors.

21) Prostitution in Chicago (O’Leary and Howard, 2001)

46 For an account of how these proportions were calculated, see technical note 22.

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This source provides the following estimates for the number of women and girls in prostitution per year in the city of Chicago, according to specific venues: 800–1,000 in street prostitution, 1,000–2,000 in escort services, 170 in massage parlors, and 625–1,275 in exotic dancing. To estimate the number of victims of severe sex trafficking, we use an estimated proportion range of 25 to 50 percent.47 Taking 25 percent of the low estimate in the report and 50 percent of the high estimate, we get:

Venue Low estimate

High estimate

Street prostitution 200 500 Escort services 250 1000 Massage parlors 43 85 Exotic dancing 156 638

For each venue we can then estimate the numbers of adult vs. minor victims (70 and 30 percent respectively), and then the number of foreign vs. domestic victims (36 and 64 percent respectively). We get the following final estimate:

Adult Minor Foreign Domestic Foreign Domestic Venue

Low High Low High Low High Low High Street prostitution 51 128 89 222 22 55 38 95 Escort services 64 255 111 445 27 109 48 191 Massage parlors 11 22 19 38 5 9 8 16 Exotic dancing 40 163 69 283 17 70 30 122

Total 166 567 288 988 71 243 124 424

In order to extrapolate these numbers for the entire U.S. population, we multiply by the ratio between the U.S. population and the population of Chicago (97.2 according to the 2000 census), and get the following estimated table:

Adult Minor Foreign Domestic Foreign Domestic Venue

Low High Low High Low High Low High Street prostitution 4,962 12,404 8,640 21,600 2,128 5,320 3,706 9,264 Escort services 6,202 24,808 10,800 43,199 2,660 10,640 4,632 18,528 Massage parlors 1,054 2,109 1,836 3,672 452 904 787 1,575 Exotic dancing 3,876 15,815 6,750 27,540 1,663 6,783 2,895 11,812

Total 16,094 55,135 28,026 96,011 6,903 23,648 12,020 41,179

22) Thukral and Ditmore (Thukral, J. and Ditmore, M., 2005) 47 For an explanation of how we reached these estimates, see Appendix F.

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This report deals with indoor prostitution in New York City. However, the data on trafficking victims do not seem to be limited to indoor venues and is therefore included in this section. One service provider who was interviewed for the study estimated that “since winter 2001,” they have served 40–45 sex workers who they would classify as being involved in “forced prostitution.” The report does not state when this information was given, but because it was published early in 2005 (March), we assume that the interview was conducted in the end of 2004. Under this assumption, the information relates to a period of four whole years (2001–2004), and therefore needs to be divided by four to get an annual average of 10–11 victims. Another service provider estimated that “since summer 2003” they had three or four such clients. Assuming that this relates to a period of a year and a half (mid-2003 to end of 2004), we divide by 1.5 and get an annual average of 2–3 victims.

Assuming that the two interviewed service providers did not serve the same victims, we add up the numbers to a total of 12–14 victims per year in New York City. We estimate that 8–10 (70 percent) of them are adults: 3-4 (36 percent) of foreign origin and 5-6 (64 percent) of domestic origin, and that the other four are minors: 1 foreign and 3 domestic.48

We can extrapolate these data to the entire U.S. population by multiplying them by the ratio of the U.S. population and the population of New York City, which is 35.1 according to the latest census data (2000). This calculation yields 422–489 victims nationwide. We estimate that 295–342 (70 percent) of them are adults: 108–125 (36 percent) foreign and 187–217 (64 percent) domestic, and 126–147 are minors: 46–54 foreign and 80–93 domestic.

Street Prostitution

23) UCR data for juvenile arrests (Puzzanchera, Adams, and Kang, 2008)

The following data on the national number of arrests for offenses of prostitution and commercial vice were extracted from the EZAUCR system (Easy Access to FBI Arrest Statistics)49:

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 Total 2000-2006

Annual average

Adults 86,300 79,400 78,200 73,800 86,100 83,300 78,100 565,200 80,743

Juveniles 1,300 1,400 1,500 1,400 1,800 1,600 1,700 10,700 1,529

48 These numbers are provided by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) and are available at: http://ojjdp.ncjrs.gov/ojstatbb/ezaucr. They differ slightly from the officially published Unified Crime Reports. On top of separating the arrests of juveniles from the arrests of adults, OJJDP makes some reasonable assumptions to make up for law enforcement agencies, which do not report to the UCR, or which report for only part of the year. 49 Miller, Eleanor M., Kim Romenesko, and Lisa Wondolkowski. 1993. The United States. In Prostitution: An International Handbook on Trends, Problems, and Politics, edited by Nanette J. Davis. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press; Alexander, Priscilla. 1987. Prostitution: A Difficult Issue for Feminists. In Sex Work: Writings by Women in the Sex Industry, edited by Frederique Delacoste and Priscilla Alexander. San Francisco: Cleis Press.

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Although the data do not explicitly state this, we assume that the vast majority of these arrests occurred on the street. We therefore categorized this data source under the venue of street prostitution.

These figures can serve as a basis for estimating the number of women in prostitution. Because male clients are also counted as arrestees for prostitution offenses, we first need to estimate their proportion to eliminate them from our count. Several sources indicate that the about 90 percent of the arrests are of the prostituted women and men, and only 10 percent are of clients.50 We therefore reduce the annual average number of prostitution arrests of adults by 10 percent to 72,669. (We do not do the same for the number of juveniles, because we assume most of the clients are adults and would be arrested as such).

The UCR reports the governing offense, i.e. the most severe charge made in any single arrest. For example, if someone was arrested for both prostitution (usually a misdemeanor) and cocaine possession (usually a felony), the arrest would usually be reported in UCR as a drug possession arrest rather than a prostitution arrest. We can adjust the data to reflect this by using Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) data, which provide an empirical basis for estimating how often that happens. During 2000–2002, ADAM surveyed adult women in booking facilities in 39 counties across the country. The number of sampled arrestees who had prostitution as their governing charge was 1,373, and another 202 (an additional 15 percent) had prostitution as the secondary or tertiary charge. We therefore augment the number of adult arrests by 15 percent, and get an estimated 83,360 arrests. (We do not perform the same calculation for juvenile arrests due to the lack of data on drug use of juvenile arrestees).

The number of arrests is not the same as the number of people arrested, because a person could be arrested multiple times in a single year. The best source we could locate to estimate the extent of multiple arrests among women in prostitution is, again, the ADAM survey. Based on the answers of 551 adult women who have been arrested for prostitution between 2000 and 2002, the number of arrests per year is 1.19.51 There are a few problems with using this number for our purposes. Because the ADAM survey was designed to monitor drug use, all the respondents had to have used at least one illicit drug in the year prior to taking the survey. Although evidence shows that most of the women in street prostitution use drugs while in prostitution,52 some do not. Assuming that the use of illicit drugs increases the chances of a woman in prostitution to get arrested, our estimate of the average number of arrests per year may be biased upward. However, this estimation will result in a lower number of victims and is therefore a conservative assumption. Dividing the number of arrests by 1.19 arrests per year, we get 70,072 people with an appreciable probability of having a prostitution arrest within one year. Because we do not have reliable information on the average

50 As calculated by Ryan Kling, based on Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) Program in the United States, 2000-2003. Washington: National Institute of Justice. 51 Farley, Melissa, Isin Baral, Merab Kiremire, and Ufuk Sezgin. 1998. Prostitution in Five Countries: Violence and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Feminism & Psychology 8, no. 4: 405-426. 52 For an explanation of how we reached these estimates, see Appendix F.

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number of arrests per year for juveniles, we do not perform the same calculation for the juvenile arrests.

Next, we need to establish how many of the adult arrestees could be counted as victims of severe forms of human trafficking. According to the TVPA definition, all of the 1,529 juveniles arrested for prostitution are such victims, and we estimate that 558 (36 percent) of them are of foreign origin and 971 (64 percent) are of domestic origin.53

For the adult arrestees, we have several sources that can shed light on the proportion of victims:

• Raymond and Hughes (2001) interviewed adult women in prostitution from San Francisco, New York, the Northern Midwest, the Northeast, and the Southeast. Of the 40 interviewees in the sample, which included women of both foreign and domestic origin, 20 (50 percent) reported that their pimp has control over the money they make and withholds money from them.

• Dalla, Xia, and Kennedy (2003) interviewed 43 adult women in prostitution, and 17 of them (39.5 percent) reported having been under the control of a pimp.

• Williamson and Cluse-Tolar,(2002) interviewed 21 adult women who self identified as former prostitutes in Ohio, and six of them (28.5 percent) reported having been under the control of a pimp.54

Although these scarce sources do not measure exactly the statistic we need, i.e. the proportion of victims of severe human trafficking according to the TVPA among adult women in street prostitution, we can use them to form a range for this proportion. Taking the range to be 25 to 50 percent of the 70,072 arrested women, we get an estimate of 17,518–35,036 trafficking victims. Of them, we estimate that 6,390–12,780 (36 percent) are of foreign origin and 11,128–22,256 (64 percent) are of domestic origin.55

Strip Clubs

24) Raphael and Ashley (Raphael and Ashley, 2008)

For an estimate of trafficking victims among “exotic dancers” and people performing in strip clubs, we used a compilation of strip clubs throughout the United States listed on a website catering to

53 None of these studies directly measures severe trafficking, i.e. the use of force, fraud, or coercion. However, these are the best approximations we could find. 54 For an explanation of how we reached these estimates, see Appendix F. 55 There are no strong data on this matter, but one can speculate that the lifetime prevalence of prostitution among strip club performers may be substantially higher than 25 percent, or that a higher percentage might occasionally or routinely sell sex off-site. However, we are trying to restrict the venue-specific estimates to each venue as much as possible, to minimize overlap across venues and thus “double counting,” which would inflate our rolled-up total estimate.

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club patrons: http://www.tuscl.net/r.php?RID=7. We found 2,422 clubs listed and conducted a cursory check of its accuracy by examining 30 listings for clubs in three states. Judging by the club names and descriptions of “services,” it appears that the site lists strip clubs and no other kinds of businesses. We have no way of knowing if the site undercounts or excludes some clubs. We made an educated guess that prostitution occurs in a minimum of 25 percent of strip clubs, based on anecdotal evidence from qualitative accounts of strip clubs and news accounts of occasional police arrests for prostitution in such clubs. This figure yields a total estimate of 606 strip clubs that house prostitution in the United States. We further estimated that there is an average of 20 women dancing/stripping in each club (yielding a total of 12,120 performers), and estimate conservatively that 25 percent of them engage in prostitution within the clubs56 (3,028). Finally, we again rely upon Raphael and Ashley (2008) to assume that 35 percent of those providing prostitution in strip clubs are trafficked (3,028 x .35). Thus, we estimate that there are 1,060 sex trafficking victims in strip clubs throughout the United States. Applying the domestic and foreign multipliers yields:

1,060* .64 = 488 (domestic)

1,060*.36 = 382 (foreign)

Child Sex Trafficking Sources

No venue reported or multiple venues

26) Estes and Weiner (2001)

Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking Assessment Report: Dallas, Texas (Nicole Hay for Shared Hope International, 2008) reported that the Dallas Police Department, Child Exploitation/High Risk Victims & Trafficking Unit (CE/HRVTU) developed an investigative tool to identify high risk victims (HRV) by flagging all minors who have run away from home four or more times in one year, as well as any minors that are repeat victims of sexual abuse or sexual exploitation. In 2006, CE/HRTVU identified 131 HRV cases, 65 of which involved prostitution. In 2007, CE/HRVTU identified 189 HRV cases, 119 of which involved prostitution. Officers in the Dallas Police Department are trained to notify CE/HRVTU immediately with any potential cases of DMST.

This study was used to develop multipliers to apply to Estes and Weiner to come up with an estimate of the number of at-risk CSEC victims who are actually involved in prostitution annually.

In 2006 – 65 of 131 HRVs involved in prostitution = 49.6% = 50%

In 2007 – 119 of 189 HRVs involved in prostitution = 62.9% = 63%

Average % of juveniles involved in prostitution = .50+.63/2 = 57%

56 This point is not stated in the report, but it seems to us to be more accurate than to assume that the distribution of foreign/domestic victims here is the same as in general statistics.

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Estes and Weiner (2001) found that 244,181 (low scenario)—325,575 (high scenario) children (domestic and foreign) are at risk of CSEC annually in the United States. These numbers were derived using data on runaway/thrown away youth as well as victims of sexual abuse, therefore, the findings from Hay 2008 would be a somewhat defensible multiplier. Using the 57 percent multiplier from Hay of the number of HRVs who turn out to be involved in prostitution, we would get:

.57* 244,181 = 139,189 (low scenario) and .57* 325,575 = 185, 578 (high scenario) as an estimate of the number of children at risk of CSEC who are involved in prostitution/child sex trafficking annually in the United States.

Due to the paucity of youth-specific data, we use the same multiplier for foreign-born victims as we did in the adult sex trafficking estimates. The multiplier for foreign-born victims at 36 percent (=174/477) is from Characteristics of Suspected Human Trafficking Incidents, 2007-2008 (Kyckelhahn, Tracey, Allen Beck, and Thomas Cohen, 2009). Applying these multipliers to the findings above results in:

139,189 *.36=50,108 (low scenario) foreign children at risk of CSEC in the United States who become involved in prostitution/child sex trafficking annually in the United States

185,578 *.36=66,808 (high scenario) foreign children at risk of CSEC in the United States who become involved in prostitution/child sex trafficking annually in the United States

139,189*.64=89,081 (low scenario) domestic children at risk of CSEC in the United States who become involved in prostitution/child sex trafficking annually in the United States

185,578*.64=118,770 (high scenario) domestic children at risk of CSEC in the United States who become involved in prostitution/child sex trafficking annually in the United States.

27) Small, et al. (2008)

Year Cases concluded in U.S. District Court

Total victims per case concluded (= # cases* 1.99 victims per case)

Total foreign national victims (= # victims per case*36%)

Total domestic victims (=# victims per case * 64%)

2000 243 243*1.99= 484 174 310

2001 250 498 179 319

2002 255 508 183 325

2003 254 506 182 324

2004 265 527 190 337

2005 306 609 219 390

Average 262 521 188 333

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According to Small, et al., (2008), the number of suspects in federal cases that were investigated and concluded under charges of child prostitution or sex trafficking was: 111 in 1998, 186 in 1999, 243 in 2000, 250 in 2001, 255 in 2002, 254 (2) in 2003, 265 (18) in 2004, and 306 (13) in 2005 (numbers in parentheses present suspects in these cases that were investigated under the TVPA, i.e. 18 USC 1591). For purposes of the estimation, only those cases between 2000 (TVPA) and 2005 were included. The methodology is presented in the table below.

28) Innocence Lost (Office of the Attorney General, 2009)

The Innocence Lost Initiative is an ongoing operation designed to curb domestic sex trafficking of children. Between its inception in June 2003 through October 2008, the initiative resulted in the identification and rescue of more than 575 victims. This figure yields an annual average of 108 victims. Because the Innocence Lost Initiative focuses on recovering children who are U.S. citizens, we assume that all of the victims in this count are of domestic origin.57

29) Edwards, et al. (2006)

This report found that 3.5 percent (n=471; 95% CI 3.0-4.0) of adolescents featured in this nationally representative study ever exchanged sex for drugs or money (during survey wave 1=1995), 0.2 percent (n=19; 95% CI .1-.2) reported exchanging at both waves (wave 2=1996).

To calculate national estimates, 2005 Census data of 41,896,732 youth (ages 10-19) was applied to 3.5 percent to result in a total estimate of 1,466,386.

41,896,732 youth 10-19 according to 2005 U.S. Census* 3.5%= 1,466,386

To ascertain breakdowns by foreign and domestic victims, the following multipliers were used:

64%*1,466,386= 938,487 estimated domestic victims of child sex trafficking

34%*1,466,386= 498,571 estimated foreign victims of child sex trafficking

** Important limitation: Census data includes those age 18 and 19 as well as those under 12 (7th grade). Because the study focused on youth in 7th–12th grade, this figure is likely an overestimate.

Street Prostitution

30) Gragg et al. and Curtis et al. (Gragg et al., 2007; Curtis et. al., 2008)

These two studies were conducted in New York. First, we consider The New York Prevalence Study of Commercially Sexually Exploited Youth (Gragg, et al., 2007). Because we use a better study later regarding New York City, from Gragg, et al. we only consider the 399 cases of CSEC identified in

57 The counties are Chautauqua, Erie, Oneida, Onondaga, Schenectady, Warren, and Washington.

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seven upstate New York counties.58 To extrapolate these upstate New York counties to the rest of the state sans New York City, we first obtained the population of New York State (NYS) aside from New York City (NYC), from 2005 U.S. Census data:

19,336,376 pop in NYS – 8,213,839 pop in NYC = 11,122,537 pop in NYS sans NYC

Next, we found that the 2005 population in our seven upstate counties was 2,022,754. To extrapolate to the rest of the state, we multiplied the 399 CSEC cases by the ratio of total New York State population sans New York City to the population in the seven upstate counties:

399 CSEC in 7 upstate counties * (11,122,537 pop in NYS sans NYC / 2,022,754 pop in 7 upstate counties) = 2,194 cases of CSEC in NYS sans NYC

Next, from The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in New York City (Curtis, et al., 2008), we used the estimate of 3,946 cases of CSEC in New York City per year. Combining the two figures, the total number of cases of CSEC in New York State is:

2,194 cases in NYS sans NYC + 3,946 cases in NYC = 6,140 CSEC cases in New York State

We then use an extrapolation based on 2005 population for an estimate of CSEC within the United States per year:

6,140 CSEC in New York State * [292,892,127 (pop in US in 2005) / 19,301,113 (pop in New York State in 2005)] = 93,174 CSEC cases in United States per year.

The numbers presented above may also be a bit of an overestimate, because the Curtis, et al., 2008 study included persons age 18. Although there are other localized studies of cities or states that could be used to produce national estimates in the manner we have described above, we believe that the New York studies are the strongest methodologically and, when combined, have the advantage of including a separate major city estimate and another statewide estimate that includes rural, suburban, and urban areas. Of course, one can reasonably argue that New York is not a sound basis to estimate cases across other regions of the United States, but the same argument applies to any of the other state or city studies (e.g., Atlanta, Kentucky, and San Diego).

It is important to note that Gragg et al. based their estimate on surveys collected from and interviews conducted with a number of local and state government agencies, juvenile detention facilities, runaway and homeless youth service agencies, rape crisis centers, and child advocacy centers in seven upstate New York counties--Chautauqua, Erie, Oneida, Onondaga, Schenectady, Warren, and Washington. Curtis, et al. based their prevalence estimate on interviews with 249 prostituted youth in the five boroughs of New York City (Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, Bronx, Staten Island) using the Respondent Driven Sampling method.

58 Kychelhahn, Beck, and Cohen, 2009: 61.

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Lastly, these studies are categorized as “street prostitution” because that was the main venue through which the children were identified. However, the children interviewed in the Curtis, et al. study did indicate other venues through which they participated. This information is presented in the tables below. We are unable to derive annual national estimates based on these numbers because they represent venues of victimization across victims, rather than a unique victim associated with a unique venue. It is important, therefore, for child sex trafficking estimates to delineate between victims and victimizations.

31) Shared Hope International (2009)

This estimate of domestic CSEC cases is based upon data published by Shared Hope International (SHI) in May 2009 (The National Report on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking: America's Prostituted Children). We believe that building estimates on this foundation will produce lower estimates for a number of reasons:

• The victims are primarily domestic. • The counts are based upon cases investigated by local law enforcement, and as such…

o the victims are primarily those engaged in prostitution, and not other commercial sex activity, and

o the data do not include cases known through non-law enforcement agencies (public health, social services) or NGOs (private social service providers, counselors), as was the case with the Estes and Weiner data identifying “at risk” populations.

Within the nine U.S. research SHI sites (one was a U.S. island territory and was excluded from our estimate), we sought to find the number of domestic minor sex trafficking victims per year. The table below reports numbers for the nine sites.

Research site Time period Number of suspected

victims

Yearly multiplier

Yearly number of suspected

victims

2005 area population

Dallas, TX 2007 150 1.00 150 1,245,855 Bexar County, TX 2005–2008 3–4 0.25 1 1,512,654 Tarrant County, TX 2000–2008 29 0.11 3 1,612,869 Clark County, NV 1994–2007 5,122 0.07 366 1,702,957 Independence/Kansas City, MO 2000–2008 227 0.11 25 1,724,059 Baton Rouge/New Orleans, LA 2000–2007 105 0.13 13 677,393 Salt Lake City, UT 1996–2008 83 0.08 6 176,869 Erie County, NY 2000–2008 74–84 0.11 9 924,748 Clearwater/Tampa Bay, FL 2000–2008 36 0.11 4 433,825

To establish the number of yearly suspected victims for each site, we multiplied the number of suspected victims by the inverse of the number of years for which the victim data were collected.

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To extrapolate the yearly number of victims to the entire United States, we:

1. Added the yearly number of suspected victims across the nine research sites (= 577) 2. Added the 2005 area population across the nine research sites (= 10,011,229) 3. Multiplied the 577 suspected victims across the nine research sites by the ratio of 2005 U.S.

population to 2005 population in the nine research sites [577 * (292,892,127/10,011,229)] = 16,894 suspected victims per year

32) Boyer (2008)

This report estimates that there are between 300 and 500 juveniles involved in prostitution in the state of Washington. Of the 16 respondents to the social service provider survey, two (12.5 percent) reported having cases of international trafficking. Assuming this is the proportion of foreign victims within these cases, we get a low estimate of 37–62 foreign victims and 263–438 domestic victims.

We can then extrapolate these numbers to the entire U.S. population by multiplying them by the ratio between the U.S. population and the Washington population. This yields an estimate of 1,767–2,960 foreign victims and 12,557–20,913 domestic victims nationally.

Survival Sex

33) Greene (1999)

In a nationally representative study, Greene (1999) found that 27.5 percent of street youth and 9.5 percent of shelter youth have ever engaged in survival sex. The mean age is 16.1 for shelter youth and 18.1 for street youth.

Hammer, et al. (2002) Runaway/Thrownaway children: National estimates and characteristics. National Incident Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children, found that

“In 1999, an estimated 1,682,900 youth had a runaway/thrownaway episode.”

Greene’s findings were applied to Hammer’s study to yield total estimates of foreign and domestic child sex trafficking victims:

27.5% * 1,682,900 = 471, 212 (high)

9.5% * 1,682,900 = 168,290 (low)

Multipliers for foreign and domestic victims were then applied:

471, 212 * 64% = 301,636 (high estimate of domestic child sex trafficking victims)

168,290 * 64% = 107,706 (low estimate of domestic child sex trafficking victims)

471,212 * 34% = 169,636 (high estimate of foreign child sex trafficking victims)

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168,290 * 34% = 36,620 (low estimate of foreign child sex trafficking victims)

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Appendix F: Computational Notes on the Calculation of Multipliers Used for Data in Tables 3-5

Some of the sources that were used for this report provided statistics on numbers of human trafficking cases, but contained no information regarding the number of trafficking victims in these cases. To make use of these sources, we needed to generate an estimate for the number of victims per trafficking case. That was made possible by using information that was published in the Bureau of Justice Statistics report, Characteristics of Suspected Human Trafficking Incidents, 2007-2008. The report is based on data that were collected through the Human Trafficking Reporting System (HTRS) during a period of 21 months (January 2007–September 2008). The report contains information on 1,229 trafficking incidents from anti-trafficking task forces nationwide.

The following data were extracted from the report:59

Number of victims per incident

All sex trafficking incidents

Child sex trafficking incidents

Labor trafficking incidents

1 401 99 53

2 to 5 112 26 34

6 or More 26 5 15 Total incidents that

contain data on victims 539 130 102

No data reported 479 261 44

Citizenship status Labor trafficking victims

Sex trafficking victims

U.S. citizen 3 302 U.S. national 0 1 Permanent resident 0 4 Undocumented alien 50 161 Qualified alien 24 9 No data reported 236 593 Total 313 1070

Age Labor trafficking victims

Sex trafficking victims

17 or younger 9 184 18-24 27 251 25-34 47 124 35 or older 32 54 No data reported 198 457 Total 313 1070

59 Illicit drugs include marijuana, crack or powder cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, or other drug such as LSD.

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The combination of the first table with the totals in the second and third tables allows us to calculate the average number of victims per case, by taking only the data from incidents that contain data on victims. These are the results of the calculation:

• Labor trafficking—313 victims in 102 cases—an average of 3.07 victims per incident. • Sex trafficking—1,070 victims in 539 cases—an average of 1.99 victims per incident. • All trafficking—1,383 victims in 641 cases—an average of 2.16 victims per incident.

For the purpose of this report, we define domestic victims as U.S. citizens and U.S. nationals, and foreign victims as permanent residents, qualified aliens, and undocumented aliens. Of the total 77 victims of labor trafficking for whom citizenship status is known, 3 are domestic and 74 are foreign. Of the total 477 victims of sex trafficking for whom citizenship status is known, 303 are domestic and 174 are foreign. This results in the following proportions:

• Labor trafficking—96 percent of the victims are foreign, and 4 percent are domestic. • Sex trafficking—36 percent of the victims are foreign, and 64 percent are domestic. • All trafficking—45 percent of the victims are foreign, and 55 percent are domestic.

We can also see that within the population of sex trafficking victims, 70 percent are adults and 30 percent are minors.

Calculation of UCR estimate for forced prostitution

Breakdown of prostitution #: Based on the UCR but is modified and compiled by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) (Puzzanchera, C., Adams, B., and Kang, W. 2008. “Easy Access to FBI Arrest Statistics 1994-2006.” Online. Available: http://ojjdp.ncjrs.gov/ojstatbb/ezaucr/). For each year, OJJDP separates the adult and juvenile arrests. In addition, not all police agencies report to the UCR, and some only report for part of the year. OJJDP makes some reasonable imputations for nonreporting and underreporting agencies.

Using OJJDP’s compilation of the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) from 2000-–2006 to compute an average number of adult 18 and over prostitution/commercialized arrests in the United States each year. The number is:

(1/7) * (86,300 + 79,400 + 78,200 + 73,800 + 86,100 + 83,300 + 78,100) = 80,743

There are a number of caveats to consider regarding the proper use of these numbers:

1. Some juvenile trafficking victims may lie about their ages at arrest to receive services that would normally be reserved for adults (e.g. jail), and to protect their pimps from prostituting a minor or sex trafficking (far more serious offenses than adult prostitution). Unfortunately, we found no estimates of the magnitude of this problem.

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2. Crime in the United States also reports the number of other Sex Offense arrests per year. The definition from the 2006 Crime in the United States is:

Sex offenses (except forcible rape, prostitution, and commercialized vice)—Offenses against chastity, common decency, morals, and the like. Incest, indecent exposure, and statutory rape are included. Attempts are included.

Including arrests for these offenses would be inapplicable and are excluded in our estimates of sex trafficking.

Eliminating Solicitation Arrests from Prostitution/Commercialized Vice Arrests per Year

The number of prostitution/commercialized vice arrests include both provider and solicitation arrests. From expert opinion (Shively and Kling), and their knowledge of data on solicitation arrests in California, we would estimate roughly 90 percent of UCR arrests are arrests of providers (those selling sex, mostly women). We estimate 72,669 arrests were of providers:

80,743 prostitution/commercial vice arrests * 90% are providers = 72,669 arrests of providers

Accounting for UCR Reporting Only the Governing Offense

The UCR reports the governing offense, or what is typically the most severe charge made in any single arrest. For example, if someone were arrested for both prostitution (usually a misdemeanor) and cocaine possession (usually a felony), the arrest would usually be reported in UCR as a drug possession arrest rather than a prostitution arrest. Fortunately, the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) data give us an empirical basis for estimating how often this happens. In 2000—2002, ADAM surveyed women in booking facilities in 39 counties across the country. One of the ADAM survey questions records the three most severe charges associated with the instant arrest for the ADAM sample. From 2000—2002, 1,373 sampled booked arrestees had prostitution as their governing charge, and another 202 had prostitution as the secondary or tertiary charge. Therefore, we would expect roughly an additional 15 percent of arrests involving prostitution than reported by the UCR:

[(1,373 primary + 202 secondary/tertiary) / 1,373 primary] * 100% = 115% arrests of the UCR

Applying the 115 percent multiplier to the 72,669 provider arrests, we get 83,360 total prostitution/ commercialized vice arrests per year.

Removing Instances of Multiple Arrests by a Provider

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Anecdotally, we know that some providers are arrested more than once within a year. Knowing the number of times a provider is arrested within a year allows us to remove instances of multiple arrests by a provider. Additionally, multiyear studies that identify all prostitution arrestees may find that providers actually are arrested less than once a year. We found three sources on the frequency of arrest among commercial sex providers.

The first source comes from Street Prostitution in Raleigh, North Caroline (Weisel, et al. 2004):

[201 arrests over 17 months * (12 months/17 months)] / (148 Unique people generating the arrests) = 0.959 arrests per year

Another estimate of the number of arrests per year appears in We Can Do Better: Helping Prostituted Women and Girls in Grand Rapids (Raphael and Ashley, 2008):

[470 arrests over 24 months in 2000-2001 * (12 months/24 months)] / (70 Regular prostitutes known to police in Grand Rapids) = 1.675 arrests per year

A final estimate is derived from the ADAM data. One of the ADAM survey questions is the number of arrests each arrestee had during the 11 months prior to the arrest landing that person into the ADAM survey. Because there are a large number of women surveyed with prostitution charges that answer the question about arrest patterns in the 11 months prior to entry into the sample (551 over three years), we can use this figure as another multiplier. Two caveats:

1. The women answering about prior arrests had to have used at least one illicit drug60 over the 12 months prior to the ADAM survey, which may bias upward the number of arrests per year.

2. We do not take any heterogeneity of the number of arrests into account. We may compute a better estimate of the number of arrests generated by each arrestee (see William Rhodes, Ryan Kling, and Patrick Johnston. 2007. “Using Booking Data to Model Drug User Arrest Rates: A Preliminary to Estimating the Prevalence of Chronic Drug Use.” In Journal of Quantitative Criminology 23, no. 1), but have taken a simple average here.

Minding these caveats, we estimate 1.19 arrests per year:

(1/3) * (0.9 arrests/yr in 2000 + 1.1 arrests/yr in 2001 + 1.3 arrests/yr in 2002) * (12 months / 11 months) = 1.19 arrests/yr by arrestees involved in prostitution

Dividing 83,360 total prostitution/commercialized vice arrests per year, by the 1.19 arrests per year by arrestees involved in prostitution, we get 70,072 people with an appreciable probability of having a prostitution arrest within one year.

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