Defining the Issue
The United States recognizes two primary forms of trafficking in persons: forced labor and sex trafficking. This site focuses primarily on forced labor, a crime whereby traffickers exploit and profit at the expense of adults or children by compelling them to perform labor. Several terms are used throughout RST such as trafficking in persons, human trafficking, and forced labor.
By Sector
Product
What is being produced, and especially how a particular product defines the nature of the work, may contribute to trafficking risks.
Operations
How a supply chain is set up and how workers are recruited, hired, and employed are factors of whether workers are better protected from or more exposed to risks.
Workforce Characteristics
Who the workers are, where they are from, their level of skill, their level of control over their lives, and pressures they are subject to are key to their degree of vulnerability to trafficking risks.
By Geography
Country
The political, socioeconomic, and legal profiles of a sourcing country all contribute to a vulnerable workforce.
Labor
The demographics of the workforce, what jobs they are qualified for based on education and skill, how replaceable they are, and especially what pressures they are under to find and keep almost any job due to financial needs, translate to their vulnerability to being trafficked.