Signs, myths, and facts about human trafficking. 

Workers' Rights
  1. Fair pay
  2. Be free from discrimination
  3. Be free from sexual harassment and sexual exploitation
  4. Have a healthy and safe workplace
  5. Request help from a union, immigrant, and labor rights group
  6. Leave an abusive employment situation
Red Flags Family, Friends, and Community Members Should Look for

Human Trafficking takes many forms, and the signs can be hard to spot. Some of the warning signs that a friend, family member, or co-worker is being trafficked:

  • No control of their passport or other identity documents
  • Frequent runaways or concerns or history of abuse and neglect
  • Growing debt that never seems to decrease
  • A job opportunity that seems too good to be true
  • Being showered with gifts or money or otherwise becomes involved in an overwhelming, fast-moving, and uneven romantic relationship
  • Developing a relationship that seems too close with someone they know solely on social media
  • Being recruited for an opportunity that requires them to move far away, but their recruiter or prospective employer avoids answering their questions or is reluctant to provide detailed information about the job
  • Lives where they work or are transported by guards between home and workplace
  • Appearing to be monitored by another person when talking or interacting with others
  • Labor trafficking:
    • Feel pressured by their employer to stay in a job or situation they want to leave
    • Owe money to an employer or recruiter or are not being paid what they were promised or are owed
    • Are living and working in isolated conditions, especially cut off from support systems
    • Are being threatened by their boss with deportation or other harm
    • Are working in dangerous conditions without proper safety gear, training, adequate breaks, or other protections
    • Are living in dangerous, overcrowded, or inhumane conditions provided by an employer
  • For sex trafficking:
    • Have a “pimp” or “manager” in the commercial sex industry.
    • Disclose that they were reluctant to engage in commercial sex but that someone pressured them into it.
    • Children who live with or are dependent on a family member with a substance use problem or who is abusive.
    • Work in an industry where it may be common to be pressured into performing sex acts for money, such as a strip club, illicit cantina, go-go bar, or illicit massage business.
Myths and Facts

Human Trafficking does exist in Austin and across the United States. Texas consistently has the second highest number of reports of human trafficking in the country. Human trafficking is not just sexual exploitation; trafficking cases have been reported and prosecuted in industries including restaurants, cleaning services, construction, factories and more.

  • MYTH: Trafficking is always violent: By far the most pervasive myth about human trafficking is that it always - or often - involves kidnapping or otherwise physically forcing someone into a situation. FACT: In reality, most human traffickers use psychological means such as tricking, defrauding, manipulating or threatening victims into providing commercial sex or exploitative labor.
  • MYTH: People being trafficked are physically unable to leave their situations/locked in/held against their will. FACT: That is sometimes the case. More often, however, people in trafficking situations stay for more complicated reasons. Some lack the basic necessities to physically get out - such as transportation or a safe place to live. Some are afraid for their safety. Some have been so effectively manipulated that they do not identify at that point as being under the control of another person.
  • MYTH: All human trafficking involves sex. FACT: Human trafficking is the use of force, fraud or coercion to get another person to provide labor or commercial sex. Worldwide, experts believe there are more situations of labor trafficking than of sex trafficking, but there is much wider awareness of sex trafficking in the U.S. than of labor trafficking.
  • MYTH: All commercial sex is human trafficking. FACT: All commercial sex involving a minor is legally considered human trafficking. Commercial sex involving an adult is human trafficking if the person providing commercial sex is doing so against his or her will as a result of force, fraud or coercion.
  • MYTH: Only undocumented foreign nationals get trafficked in the USA. FACT: There are thousands of cases of trafficking involving foreign national survivors who are legally living and/or working in the United States. These include survivors of both sex and labor trafficking.
  • MYTH: Trafficking only happens in illegal or underground industries. FACT: Human trafficking cases have been reported and prosecuted in industries including restaurants, cleaning services, construction, factories, and more.
  • MYTH: Only women and girls can be victims and survivors of sex trafficking. FACT: We know male survivors are underrepresented in trafficking reports. LGBTQ boys and young men are seen as particularly vulnerable to trafficking. Anyone of any gender can be trafficked.
  • MYTH: Human trafficking involves moving, traveling or transporting a person across state or national borders. FACT: Human trafficking is often confused with human smuggling, which involves illegal border crossings. In fact, the crime of human trafficking does not require any movement whatsoever. Survivors can be recruited and trafficked in their own home towns, even their own homes.
  • MYTH: Labor trafficking is only or primarily a problem in developing countries. FACT: Labor trafficking occurs in the United States and in other developed countries but is reported at lower rates than sex trafficking
  • MYTH: If the trafficked person consented to be in their initial situation, then it cannot be human trafficking or against their will because they “knew better.” FACT: Initial consent to commercial sex or a labor setting prior to acts of force, fraud, or coercion (or if the victim is a minor in a sex trafficking situation) is not relevant to the crime, nor is payment.
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