Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Sex trafficking involves some form of forced or coerced sexual exploitation that is not limited to prostitution, and has become a significant and growing problem in both the United States and the larger global community. Victims of sex trafficking acquire adverse physical and psychological health conditions and social disadvantages. Thus, sex trafficking is a critical health issue with broader social implications that requires both medical and legal attention.
Healthcare professionals can work to improve the screening, identification, and assistance of victims of sex trafficking in a clinical setting and help these women and girls access legal and social services. Human trafficking is a modern-day form of slavery that involves the illegal trade of human beings for the purpose of some form of forced exploitation.
The United Nations Office On Drugs and Crime UNODC defines human trafficking as any form of recruiting, transporting, transferring, harboring, or receiving a person by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, abduction, fraud, or deception. Human trafficking origins. Trafficking in Persons: Global Patterns.
The two most common purposes for human trafficking are sexual exploitation and forced labor Figures 2 , 3. Victims of sex trafficking are forced into one or more forms of sexual exploitation.
It is important to note that sex trafficking and prostitution are not synonymous and that prostitution is simply one type of work performed by victims of sex trafficking. Sex trafficking is an umbrella term that may include commercial sex work such as prostitution, but also pornography, exotic dancing, stripping, live sex shows, mail-order brides, military prostitution, and sexual tourism.
