Instances of commercial sexual exploitation and sex trafficking of minors in the U.S. have been reported in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. (Source: Institute of Medicine and National Research Council)
A review of case files in major U.S. cities indicates police viewed 40% of youth involved in prostitution as offenders and only 60% as victims. According to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, any minor under the age of 18 years induced into commercial sex is a victim of sex trafficking—regardless of whether or not the trafficker used force, fraud, or coercion. (Source: Institute of Medicine and National Research Council)
The Polaris Project conducted an informal study to estimate the annual earnings of a sex trafficker controlling four young women and girls. One of his victims, a teenage girl, was forced to meet quotas of $500 per night, seven days a week. When multiplied by four, these quotas indicated the trafficker likely made well over $600,000 in one year.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) reports that one in five of the 11,800 runaways reported in 2015 were likely sex trafficking victims. Seventy-four percent of these likely sex trafficking victims were in the care of social services or foster care when they went missing.
Labor Trafficking Statistics
The International Labor Organization estimates 14.2 million people worldwide are forced into labor trafficking through activities such as agriculture, construction, domestic work and manufacturing.
As of September 30, 2016, the List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor, compiled by the U.S. Department of Labor, comprises 139 goods from 75 countries.
In a 2014 study by the Urban Institute, 71 percent of labor trafficking victims entered the U.S. on lawful visas. By the time of escape, 69 percent of both unauthorized and non-authorized victims no longer had visas.
Both Sex and Labor Trafficking Statistics
An estimated 17,500 foreign nationals are trafficked annually in the United States alone. The number of U.S. citizens trafficked within the country are even higher, with an estimated more than 200,000 American children at high risk for trafficking into the sex industry each year. (Source: polarisproject.org)
The International Labor Organization estimates a shocking 20.9 million women, men and children are trapped in jobs into which they were coerced or deceived and which they cannot leave. The figure means that, at any given point in time, around three out of every 1,000 persons worldwide are victims of human trafficking.
The International Labor Organization reports almost 19 million victims are exploited by private individuals or enterprises and over 2 million by the state or rebel groups.
The National Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC) hotline fielded 34,000 calls in fiscal year 2015.
The National Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC) has record of 780 cases of human trafficking in Virginia alone since 2007 and lists Virginia seventh among the top ten most trafficked regions.