Human Trafficking

It is estimated that thousands of children are trafficked into the United States each year, and potentially hundreds of thousands of children are trafficked within the US, for labor or commercial sexual services. These children suffer physical, sexual, and emotional violence at the hands of traffickers, pimps, employers, and others. Much of the current response to human trafficking in the United States has addressed survivors as one homogenous group, without allowing for the special needs of children. Furthermore, children and youth currently represent the smallest victim class of human trafficking victims identified by the United States. These children often fall through the cracks and do not receive the protections that they are afforded under international, federal, and (some) state laws.

In response to this systemic crisis, the Center for the Human Rights of Children collaborates with a continuously-expanding network of individuals and organizations on a number of different projects:

• Fall 2012 Human Trafficking Course
• Children's Rights Issue Briefing - "Raising Awareness: The Hidden Epidemic of Child Trafficking in the United States"
• Legal Services Assessment for Child Trafficking Survivors
• Alternative Report to the Periodic Report of the U.S. to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child
• Building Child Welfare Response to Child Trafficking (2011)
• Outcome Document: Human Trafficking and Exploitation of Children and Youth in the United States (2012 update of 2010 Conference Outcome Document)
• Human Trafficking County Report - Promising Criminal Justice Practices in Human Trafficking Cases: A County-Level Comparative Overview (2005-2010), with special emphasis on cases involving children