This fact sheet was written by consultants for the Human Trafficking Expert Consultant Network funded by the TIP Office. The purpose of the Network is to engage experts, particularly those with lived experience of human trafficking, to provide expertise and input on Department of State anti-trafficking policies, strategies, and products. The author has a range of expertise related to human trafficking, marginalized communities, trauma recovery, education, mental health care, and survivor leadership.
Child trafficking is a harrowing crime impacting children of all ages in the United States and around the world. According to the International Labour Organization, in 2022, an estimated 27.6 million people were exploited in forced labor globally, of which at least 3.3 million were children. Child trafficking can occur as sex trafficking and/or as forced labor, including domestic servitude and forced begging, and in the context of agricultural work, factory work, sextortion, child sexual abuse material, and sexual exploitation, to name a few.
Every country and culture has its own myths and misconceptions around human trafficking. While the information provided in this document is common in many areas, it is important to take a localized approach when examining the misconceptions around child trafficking to proactively enhance a clearer understanding of the issue and provide better targeted support to child survivors. Relying on misconceptions creates a false narrative, making it harder to identify both the recruitment tactics traffickers use, as well as identify children who are being victimized by human traffickers. The lack of focus on prevention and providing protection to child victims is a grave disservice to youth who are relying on safe adults to care for them.
Misconception 1: Traffickers are Strangers
There is a common misconception that a stranger with bad intentions forces children into trafficking situations. However, child victims are often forced into trafficking situations by people they have a connection with, know, and trust. This can include family members, friends, romantic partners, and employers. In these cases, the trafficker may begin grooming the victim at an early age. Familial trafficking – cases in which trafficking is facilitated directly by family members and/or caregivers – has been found in 44-60 percent of cases within the United States, inclusive of both sex and labor trafficking. In a 2023 study, the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at Baylor College of Medicine’s Anti-Human Trafficking Program found that out of 39 U.S. familial trafficking cases, the trafficker was a parent (66.7 percent), an uncle or aunt (12.8 percent), or other family members (3.2 percent). Additionally, generational exploitation takes place when there is a pattern of trafficking throughout multiple generations of the family, e.g. “this is what little boys in this family do.” In familial trafficking cases, the average age in which children are initially exploited in trafficking is four years old, while 13 years old is the average age of recruitment for other types of child trafficking. Familial trafficking is unique from other forms of trafficking, due to the relationship between a caregiver and a child. As with most children, victims of familial trafficking are taught to listen to their caregivers and the adults in their lives. Because children’s views of morality and ethics are shaped by adults, particularly before age eight, situations of familial traffickingcan often normalize exploitation. Additionally, the familial relationship may result in children having the desire or need to protect family members from legal consequences. As they seek acceptance, love, and connection, victims can become susceptible to those who gain their trust and love and then subsequently exploit those connections to subject them to trafficking. For this reason, children can also be coerced by friends, romantic partners, or employers.
Misconception 2: Kidnapping is the Main Form of Recruiting Children into Trafficking
Another belief is that children are commonly kidnapped for both sex and labor trafficking. According to the Human Trafficking Institute’s 2023 report, in the United States, kidnapping of children occurs in only an estimated 0.45 percentof trafficking cases; which means that, while it does happen, it is rare. More commonly, according to the International Office on Migration’s (IOM) Counter-Trafficking Data Collaborative (CTDC), findings indicate family members recruit children into trafficking due to generational exploitation, financial need, or the belief that they are contributing to the family. In addition, CTDC data indicates that intimate partners recruit minors, often with promises of love, belonging, and protection. The CTDC indicates that children are also recruited through individuals considered friends, often with promises of provision of basic needs especially for runaway children or those experiencing homelessness. Additionally, in 2020 there was a 22 percent increase in online solicitation and recruitment of children for both sex and labor trafficking, as well as broader child sexual abuse crimes. These recruitment methods can include promises of employment, material needs, finances, and relationships. Children can also be recruited through the promise of educational opportunities.
Misconception 3: Trafficking Only Involves Sexual Exploitation
Child trafficking includes both sex trafficking and forced labor and frequently occurs around the world in sectors such as agriculture, domestic work, construction, fishing, manufacturing, and in competitive sports. In addition, children have been forced to work in begging/peddling, street vending, door-to-door sales, and forced criminality, including drug trafficking. Child trafficking can also include some forms of child marriage, child soldiering, and be present in illegal adoptions for the purpose of exploitation. Of course, children are also exploited in sex trafficking. Child sex trafficking victims may be exploited in many ways and settings, including sexual servitude, some forms of child marriage, sex tourism, escort services, illicit massage businesses, brothels, sextortion, online and in private businesses, such as restaurants, family businesses, bars, or faith-based settings. In addition, child sex trafficking can occur at strip clubs, private residences, private clubs/parties, and on the street.
Misconception 4: Children Easily Recover from Exploitation
While children are overwhelmingly resilient, human trafficking is a severe violation of trust, love, and one’s body. It is a common misconception that once removed from the trafficking situation children recover quickly. Unfortunately, many children who have experienced human trafficking deal with long-term impacts due to their exploitation. Research reveals that 90 percent of trafficking survivors live with long-term mental health conditions. The experience of child trafficking often prevents the forming of secure attachments and feelings of safety throughout the individual’s life. Child trafficking victims frequently live with ongoing trauma symptoms, including complex post-traumatic stress and sleep disorders, such as frequent nightmares or waking in the middle of the night. Additional symptoms may include flashbacks, which can be visual, emotional, or somatic, making the survivor feel as though they are re-experiencing the exploitation. Those victimized are often hypervigilant, with many survivors experiencing depression, anxiety, and dissociation, including dissociative disorders. Survivors also can develop addictions, disordered eating, self-harm, and suicidality. Healing from the trauma of trafficking is a long-term process and requires early, specialized, trauma-informed, developmentally-informed, and culturally responsive services.
Recruitment of Children
The process of luring any person, through any means, is recruitment for exploitative purposes. Perpetrators of this offense recognize vulnerabilities in children and seek ways to exploit them through providing for their unmet physical, psychological, and relational needs or taking advantage of their position of authority in the child’s life. Recruitment can be executed by the primary trafficker and/or other adults that the perpetrator has compelled into forced labor and sexual servitude.
Just as trafficking looks different depending on the typology and age of victim, recruitment of children is different from that of adults. Among the differences is the fact that during developmental years, children are in a complex process of identity formation. On a basic level, this means they are moving into a place where they are seeking more autonomy. This push towards autonomy creates a unique situation where many children will do almost anything in an effort to create a sense of belonging. In children, the prefrontal cortex of the brain is not yet developed, affecting rational thinking and reasoning. Children and teens often make decisions based on emotions, impacting their ability to recognize people who seek to manipulate and exploit them. This vulnerability is heightened by the reality that children require adults to care for them and provide their basic necessities, creating a situation where relational, psychological, and physical needs are a prime target for those with ill intentions.
In addition to vulnerabilities, some children have additional risk factors that from a societal, historical, and marginalized lens make them an easier target for traffickers. Some individuals with increased risk factors include: indigenous and first nation youth, children with intellectual disabilities and learning disorders, children without homes, children who use the streets as a source of livelihood, foster youth, runaways, children who have experienced other abuses, children with substance use disorder, children born to people in active sex or labor trafficking situations, LGBTQI+ children, and high control religious groups. These risk factors coupled with vulnerabilities need to be acknowledged and addressed to better prevent and protect all children.
Often, labor and sex traffickers groom victims through befriending them, providing education or job opportunities or promising that their needs will be met, giving access to drugs and/or alcohol to develop addictions, alienating a child from their caregivers, isolating them from friends and family, and desensitizing their moral compass. Grooming can happen online and offline, including within families. Traffickers can take advantage of a child’s desperation to feel close to someone or of their relationship challenges with a caregiver. Other examples of recruitment methods include providing a job offer, a place to sleep, access to food, payment for school supplies and fees, or transportation to a loved one who lives in another city. Labor and sex trafficking recruitment commonly takes place at schools, places of work, online gaming and social media websites, at religious meeting places, markets, parks, bus stops, and through job offers.
When a child is being recruited, there are often changes in their demeanor, mental health, levels of secrecy, and relationships. For some children these changes could look like a decreased academic performance and/or a record of truancy; hiding messages on electronic devices; depression, self-harm, and suicidal ideation; saying that they need a job to pay someone back or assist in paying bills at home; having new friends that they do not want family or loved ones to meet; not being allowed to leave home; and/or substance dependency. Recruitment may result in neglect by one’s caregiver, experiences of violence, substance dependency, gender-based violence including rape, sexual and bodily injuries, forced pregnancies, sleep deprivation, and exposure to harsh outside elements, including extreme weather conditions. All of these experiences are traumatic and impact a child’s social, emotional, psychological, and physical development.