Sex trafficking is human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Perpetrators of the crime are called sex traffickers or sometimes pimps—people who manipulate victims to engage in various forms of commercial sex with paying customers. Sex traffickers use force, fraud, and coercion as they recruit, transport, and provide their victims as prostitutes. Sometimes victims are brought into a situation of dependency by their trafficker(s), financially or emotionally. Every aspect of sex trafficking is considered a crime, from acquisition to transportation and exploitation of victims. This includes any sexual exploitation of adults or minors, including child sex tourism (CST) and domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST). It has been called a form of modern slavery because of the way victims are forced into sexual acts non-consensually, in a form of sexual slavery.
In 2012, the International Labour Organization (ILO) reported 20.9 million people were subjected to forced labor, and 22% (4.5 million) were victims of forced sexual exploitation, 300,000 of them in Developed Economies and the EU. The ILO reported in 2016 that of the estimated 25 million persons in forced labor, 5 million were victims of sexual exploitation.Odhiambo, Agnes & Barr, Heather. (2 Aug 2019). "Opinion:Trafficking survivors are being failed the world over." Al Jazeera website Retrieved 4 August 2019.International Labour Organization. (19 September 2017). Press Release:40 million in modern slavery and 152 million in child labour around the world. International Labour Organization website Retrieved 4 August 2019. However, due to the covertness of sex trafficking, obtaining accurate, reliable statistics sometimes poses a challenge for researchers. The global commercial profits for sexual slavery are estimated to be , according to ILO."Human Trafficking by the Numbers". (7 January 2017). Human Rights First website Retrieved 2 December 2018.
Sex trafficking typically occurs in situations from which escape is both difficult and dangerous. Networks of traffickers exist in every country. Therefore, victims are often trafficked across state and country lines which causes jurisdictional concerns and makes cases difficult to prosecute.
Definition Global uses In 2000, countries adopted a definition set forth by the United Moms. The United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime, Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, is also referred to as the Palermo Protocol. The Palermo Protocol created this definition. 147 of the 192 member states of the UN ratified the Palermo Protocol when it was published in 2000; as of early 2026, 185 states are parties. Article 3 of the Palermo Protocol states the definition as:
Article 5 of the Palermo Protocol requires member states to criminalize trafficking based on the definition outlined in Article 3; however, many member states' domestic laws reflect a narrower definition than Article 3. Although these nations claim to be obliging Article 5, their narrow laws lead to a smaller portion of people being prosecuted for sex trafficking than would otherwise be prosecuted under the wider definition.
The UN established various anti-trafficking tools, including a Global Report on Trafficking in Persons and an Inter-Agency Coordination Group Against Trafficking in Persons. The Global Report on Trafficking in Person provides new information based on data gathered from 155 countries. It offers first global assessment of the scope of human trafficking and what is being done to fight it. The UN General Assembly passed several resolutions on measuring to eliminate human trafficking. In 2010, the UN Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons was adopted. Various other organizations have engaged in global efforts against sex trafficking. "The UN Protocol's is the bedrock of the international initiatives against human sex trafficking." This protocol defines certain elements of sex trafficking: "action", which describes the recruitment and transportation of victims, "means", which includes coercion, fraud, or abuse of power, and "purpose", which includes exploitation such as prostitution, forced labor or slavery, and the removal of organs. The UN requires member states to establish the trafficking of humans as a criminal offense.
United States An internationally recognized definition for sex trafficking was established with the Trafficking Act of 2000. The United States passed the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) to clarify confusion and discrepancies in regards to the criminalizing guidelines of human trafficking. Through this act, sex trafficking crimes were defined as "the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act". If the victim is a child under the age of 18 no force, fraud, or coercion needs to be proven based on this legislation. Susan Tiefenbrun, a professor at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law who has written extensively on human trafficking, conducted research on the victims addressed in this act and discovered that each year more than two million women throughout the world are bought and sold for sexual exploitation. To clarify previous legal inconsistencies in regards to youth and trafficking, the United States took legal measures to define more varieties of exploitive situations in relation to children. The two terms they defined and focused on were "commercial sexual exploitation of children" and "domestic minor sex trafficking". Commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) is defined as "encompassing several forms of exploitation, including pornography, prostitution, child sex tourism, and child marriage". Domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST) is a term that represents a subset of CSEC situations that have "the exchange of sex with a child under the age of 18, who is a United States (U.S.) citizen or permanent resident, for a gain of cash, goods, or anything of value".
In the United States, sex traffickers often find their victims in public places. Victims are often lured with the promise of money, housing, or jobs, such as modeling work. Vulnerability to certain approaches increase when victims are young or homeless. Emotional and physical coercion are used to build trust between a victim and their abductor. This coercion often makes the relationships between trafficker and trafficked and pimp and prostitute difficult to identify. Often, victims who partake in consensual sex work are tricked into thinking they will have freedom in their work, along with a large sum of money. After the victim has agreed to the pimp's offer, they are forcibly dissuaded from leaving by forcing addictive drugs, withholding money and physical/sexual abuse. Victims are often trapped by finances and basic survival, as perpetrators will often keep money, passports, and basic necessities as insurance. It is very common in the United States for pimps to own a business or store, especially nail salons and massage parlors. It is also very common for sex slavery businesses to be conducted near U.S. military bases."Sex Trafficking of Women in the United States." International Sex Trafficking of Women & Children: Understanding the Global Epidemic, by Leonard Territo, Looseleaf Law Publications, Inc., 2015, pp. 1–13.
Northern Virginia is one of the top sex trafficking hotspots in the United States. The National Human Trafficking Resource Center reported that in 2018, they received 198 reports of human trafficking from Northern Virginia. In 2017 Virginia was ranked 4th as the top ten federal court districts involving domestic sex trafficking cases where prosecutors were involved with minors.
Profile and modus operandi of traffickers Profile of traffickers United States A 2017 analysis of 1,416 child sex traffickers arrested in the United States in the last decade found that 75.4% of traffickers were male and 24.4% were female. The average age of male traffickers was 29.2 years and the average age of female traffickers was 26.3. Of those whose race was identified, 71.7% were African American, 20.5% were Caucasian, 3.7% were Hispanic, and the remaining classified as Pacific Islander/Asian and other.
Federal data from 2020 show similar patterns, with the average defendant in human trafficking prosecutions being a 36-year-old man, while women were more frequently represented in cases involving forced labor. Since the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 was enacted, fewer than one percent of federal human trafficking defendants have been corporate entities, with nearly all traffickers being private individuals. Most traffickers acted independently rather than as part of organized criminal networks, having pre-existing relationships with their victims, such as employers, partners, friends, or through social media.
According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, many human traffickers are financially motivated. While trafficking other people for their own monetary gain, some traffickers will also promise their victims things like financial stability and other basic necessities, including shelter. Making these promises to their victims sometimes help them recruit other people to be trafficked which expands the traffickers financial gains.
Pimp-controlled trafficking In pimp-controlled trafficking, the victim is controlled by a single trafficker, sometimes called a pimp. The victim may be controlled by the trafficker physically, psychologically, and/or emotionally. To obtain control over their victims, traffickers may employ force, drugs, and emotional tactics. In certain circumstances, it is common for them to resort to various forms of violence, such as gang rape and mental and physical abuse. Traffickers sometimes use offers of marriage or modeling careers to obtain victims. Their tactics may also entail intimidation, brainwashing and kidnapping.
Child grooming commonly accompanies sex trafficking. This entails an attempt to gain trust through inappropriate intimacy and emotional manipulation. The trafficker may express love and admiration, offer them a job or an education, or buying them a ticket to a new location. Once the victim becomes comfortable, the trafficker may request sexual acts from the victim. The trafficker may reference previous sexual acts when suggesting others in order to establish normalcy. Blackmail may also be used, especially when the encounter occurs over the internet. Occasionally the victims may be kidnapped Social media has been used to groom and advertise victims.
Once the victim is under the offender's control, various techniques are used to restrict their access to their social support network; traffickers may threaten physical punishment to the victim or the victim's family if they do not comply. Traumatized victims become psychologically attached to their captor.
In India, those who traffic young girls into prostitution are often women who have been trafficked themselves. As adults, these women use personal relationships and trust in their villages of origin to recruit additional girls. Migrant sex workers can be victims of human trafficking, even when they are consenting to be transported for sexual labor.
Gang-controlled trafficking Gang-controlled sex trafficking differs from other kinds in that it is conducted by gang members as a group. Gangs may see sex trafficking as a faster way to earn money than drug trafficking, and may believe it attracts less police attention.