Human Trafficking Prevention & Intervention

What is Labor Trafficking?

Labor Trafficking is 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 (Trafficking Victims Protection Act, 2000).

Simply put, labor trafficking is the exploitation of a person through physical violence, lies, or threats for the purpose of compelled labor or services.

Labor trafficking occurs in Ventura County and communities across the United States and around the world. There is much less awareness of labor trafficking compared to sex trafficking so it is often underreported.

What Can Labor Trafficking look like?

• An employer paying less than initially promised or having them do work that they did not initially agree to
• Using physical violence or threat of violence to compel an individual to continue to work
• An employer threatening an employee’s family members or threatening to report the person to immigration authorities
• An employer charging an employee for food, housing and transportation with the intention of trapping the employee in a cycle of debt
• Employees working in dangerous conditions without adequate safety gear or other protections

* Please note that one indicator does not mean an individual is being trafficked.

Labor Trafficking can happen in any type of job or industry including the following:

• Agriculture
•  Hospitality
• Manufacturing
• Food Services
• Domestic Work
• Traveling Sales Crews