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In December 2021, the White House released the National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking (“National Action Plan”), which calls on agencies to “strengthen efforts to identify, prevent, and address human trafficking in product supply chains and ventures.” The National Action Plan’s emphasis on supply chains reflects lessons learned from COVID-19, echoing the National Strategy for a Resilient Public Health Supply Chain (PDF) (“National Strategy”), published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in July 2021. Among other objectives, the National Strategy aims to “ensure equitable labor conditions by promoting best practices and U.S. adherence to child labor and forced labor laws and regulations” in health supply chains.
The goal of this information memorandum is for all stakeholders in the healthcare and anti-trafficking fields to better understand how the federal government has enforced forced labor laws through criminal prosecution, how health professionals who have experienced trafficking have used civil litigation to seek justice, and how federal courts have handled cases involving forced labor in healthcare settings.
The National Human Trafficking Training and Technical Assistance Center (NHTTAC) hosted a 90-minute webinar on emerging trends and case studies that address protective factors for children. The webinar highlighted identifying at-risk populations, including LGBTQIA2S+ youth, all-male youth, runaway and homeless youth, Native youth, and unaccompanied minors. This webinar was moderated by Jenna Novak (National Human Trafficking Training and Technical Assistance Center) and included Anna Smith, LCSWA, Erik Gray (Queers Uniting to End Exploitation), and Deanna Pruitt (Sasha Bruce Youthwork) as speakers on the topic.
At the end of the webinar, participants will be able to:
Define “disconnected youth” and understand why they are at risk of human trafficking.
Discuss trauma- and survivor-informed strategies to reduce risk factors and increase protective factors for youth, families, and communities.
Examine innovative models used to prevent trafficking of disconnected youth across the United States.
The National Human Trafficking Training and Technical Assistance Center (NHTTAC) hosted a 90-minute webinar on emerging trends and case studies that address protective factors for children. The webinar highlighted how systems can better work with at-risk populations, including LGBTQIA2S+ youth, all-male youth, runaway youth, youth who are experiencing homelessness, Indigenous youth, and unaccompanied children. This webinar was moderated by Jenna Novak (Deputy Director, NHTTAC) and included Suamhirs Piraino-Guzman (Licensed Behavioral Psychologist, King County Mental Illness and Drug Dependency), Sue Aboul-Hosn (Regional Human Trafficking Prevention Coordinator, Florida Department of Children and Families), and Kiricka Yarbough Smith (Director of Human Trafficking Programs, North Carolina Council for Women and Youth Involvement Grants/Department of Administration) as speakers on the topic.
At the end of the webinar, participants will be able to:
Understand how “disconnected youth” interact with systems.
Discuss trauma-informed and survivor-informed strategies that systems-based employees may use to reduce risk factors and increase protective factors for youth, families, and communities.
Examine innovative models within systems used across the United States to prevent the trafficking of disconnected youth.
The National Human Trafficking Training and Technical Assistance Center hosted a 90-minute webinar on emerging trends and case studies addressing economic mobility. The webinar highlighted survivor-informed models that organizations may implement on financial literacy and sustainable employment opportunities for people who have experienced trafficking. This webinar was moderated by Jenna Novak (Deputy Director, NHTTAC) and included Jill Brogdon (Vice-Chair, Colorado Human Trafficking Council), Tannia Ventura (Director of Partnerships and Education, FreeFrom), and Lenore Schaffer (Senior Manager of Economic Empowerment, Restore NYC) as speakers on the topic.
As a result of this webinar, participants will be able to do the following:
Understand institutional barriers to economic mobility and financial sustainability for individuals who have experienced human trafficking.
Share successful approaches to integrating financial literacy and financial capacity-building services into trafficking programming.
Discuss innovative programs that provide greater access to post-secondary employment opportunities.
Implicit bias impacts the way we make decisions, interact with others, and behave. Research shows that implicit bias is associated with the provision of lower quality health care, unequal disciplinary action in schools, discriminatory workplace practices, and racial disparity in criminal justice responses. Thus, it is important to be aware of and strive to reduce implicit bias to ensure that our decisions, interactions, and behaviors are fair and nondiscriminatory. The Implicit Bias Trainings Environmental Scan and Brief explores existing healthcare and social service implicit bias trainings, challenges and solutions associated with implementing implicit bias training, and evaluations of trainings.
This scan focuses specifically on understanding existing implicit bias trainings amongst populations impacted by human trafficking (e.g., race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation) and not solely implicit bias trainings associated with race and ethnicity. It is not the intent of this scan to explore the definition of implicit bias and the relationship between implicit bias, racism, historical context of racism, and structural inequality. See the “Potential Next Steps” section for an overview of opportunities to explore the topic of implicit bias trainings, racism, and structural inequality further given how conflated the terminology is across trainings.
Individuals who experience human trafficking often struggle to find safe and secure housing. Providing individuals who experience trafficking immediate access to emergency, transitional, and long-term housing is critical, because homelessness and housing instability put individuals at risk of being trafficked or experiencing other forms of interpersonal violence. The Housing Programs for Individuals Experiencing Housing Instability or Homelessness Environmental Scan and Brief explore housing programs and practices, barriers to housing, outcomes of adults and youth experiencing housing instability or homelessness who participated in housing programs, and potential solutions to housing barriers.
Individuals who experience human trafficking often experience a lack of long-term employment and a livable wage, wage theft, and illegal deductions from their paycheck. Providing better access to employment is critical, because the lack of stable employment and a livable wage put individuals at risk of being trafficked. The Programs for Increasing Access to Employment Environmental Scan Outline and Brief describe programs, practices, barriers to employment, potential solutions, and outcomes for those who have participated in employment programs.
The purpose of this report is to provide an overview of offender reentry; explore the intersection between human trafficking and prisons; explore how programs and services for offender reentry can support survivor reentry; discuss ways reentry programs can support self-sufficiency; and discuss recommendations for leveraging best practices from offender reentry programs to assist the reintegration of survivors of trafficking.
These recommendations were developed by fellows of Class 6 of the Human Trafficking Leadership Academy (HTLA), a fellowship organized by the National Human Trafficking Training and Technical Assistance Center and Coro Northern California. A team of allied professionals and survivor leaders worked together to respond to the following question “How can communities assess and respond to risk factors among migratory families in order to reduce vulnerabilities and prevent labor trafficking?”
The HTLA fellowship is funded by the Office on Trafficking in Persons (OTIP) in consultation with the Office on Women’s Health (OWH) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The recommendations and content of this report do not necessarily represent the views of OTIP, OWH, or HHS.
The goal of this literature review is to (1) provide an overview of peer support groups and associated outcomes for individuals who have experienced trafficking and substance use disorder; (2) explore how existing peer support group models can benefit individuals with co-occurring disorders who have experienced trafficking; and (3) discuss recommendations for leveraging promising strategies that align with the needs of individuals who have experienced trafficking. Limited research has been published on the use of peer support groups with individuals who have experienced trafficking, thus this literature review focuses on the ways peer support groups have been used with different populations who have experienced substance use and victimization.
