This blog series is written on behalf of MPI’s Anti-Human Trafficking Committee (AHT) and expands its efforts to increase awareness of all forms of labor trafficking and sex trafficking around the globe.

In 2017, the Polaris Project issued a report titled “The Typology of Human Trafficking,” which describes in detail the “business models” of human trafficking. As of 2020, profits were more than $150 billion globally, with more than 40 million people living as slaves. During the same period, $32 billion in profits were realized in the U.S. alone.

You might wonder why the statistical data is not more current. The long answer is it takes a great deal of time and organizations to come together to provide data that is of value to the issue. The short answer is once a victim has entered the “slave” system, it is hard to track them. Once a victim has been entered into the system, the chance of recovery/rescue of them (be they adult or children) is about 1%. According to findings of the United Nations Global Report on Human Trafficking, one of the most notable findings is that victims seeking to escape slavery relied on “self-rescue,” as available assistance fell short.

While we cannot save the world, we can work together and with other organizations to ensure that we are doing all that we can to erase this egregious violation of freedom.

If you find the statistical data to be discouraging, it is because it is ominous at its best. While we cannot save the world, we can work together and with other organizations to ensure that we are doing all that we can to erase this egregious violation of freedom. It affects children, males, females, those who identify as LGBTQ and more—and everywhere around the world. If there is a common link among them, that link is the vulnerabilities of the victims, which the traffickers use to acquire the victims.

MPI’s AHT focuses a great deal of time on the sexual exploitation issues because it often occurs at facilities of all kinds where large groups of people meet. The Super Bowl is always an event that attracts traffickers but so do the facilities where our members hold their meetings and live events. And it is that likelihood that brings greater attention from this committee. However, that is not to say that we do not focus on the other forms, and this blog series is intended to explore and raise global awareness of all human trafficking business models.

Let us look now at the “business models” of human trafficking we will discuss in future blogs. These are the categories in which humans are trafficked, some of which overlap into both labor trafficking and sexual exploitation.

Labor Trafficking:       
Domestic Work                                   
Traveling Sales Crews                           
Restaurants & Food Services                 
Peddling & Begging                             
Agriculture & Animal Husbandry           
Health & Beauty Services                     
Construction                                       
Hotels & Hospitality                             
Landscaping                                         
Illicit Activities – Drugs                         
Arts & Entertainment*                         
Commercial Cleaning Services,
Factories & Manufacturing,
Carnival, Forestry & Lodging,\
Healthcare and Recreational Activities*

Sex Trafficking:
Escort Service
Illicit Massage – Health & Beauty Business
Outdoor Solicitation
Residential
Bars, Strip Clubs & Cantinas (can be Labor)
Pornography (when minors involved it’s always human trafficking)
Personal Sexual Servitude
Remote Interactive Sexual Acts & Carnivals*
Illicit Activities – Drugs
Arts & Entertainment*

Those marked with an asterisk may currently have insufficient data to support statistics. Human trafficking involves exploiting men, women and/or children for the purposes of forced labor or commercial sexual exploitation. Human smuggling involves the provision of a service—typically transportation or fraudulent documents—to an individual who voluntarily seeks to gain illegal entry into a foreign country. Once in the country, they may move into human trafficking.

We hope the information contained in this blog series helps all MPI members to better understand the how, when, where and why of human trafficking and awareness efforts.

We hope the information contained in this blog series helps all MPI members to better understand the how, when, where and why of human trafficking and awareness efforts. In addition to information such as this blog, AHT has many other resources available to MPI chapters. We provide training for the CMM program for the second year in a row, we provide chapters with assistance in adding a web page on AHT to their websites and offer free virtual presentations to chapters for AHT presentations or travel/lodging expenses only for face-to-face presentations. Under a matching grant from ALHI announced at GMID, chapters can also apply for grants for AHT programs, which are not a requirement for all chapters. Contact anyone of us and you will be in contact with all of us. We are truly a cohesive team.