Asking the right question will help you determine if the person in front of you is a victim of trafficking who needs your help, such as:

• What type of work do you do?
• Are you being paid?
• Can you leave your job if you want to?
• Can you come and go as you please?
• Have you or your family been threatened?
• What are your working and living conditions like?
• Where do you eat and sleep?
• Do you have to ask permission to eat/sleep/go to the bathroom?
• Are there locks on your doors/windows so you can’t get out?
• Has your identification or documentation been taken from you?

Trafficking

• Is a process (not usually an event) that evolves into slavery or debt bondage.
• Has a strong economic motive … take away the probability and you take away the motive.
• Sex trafficking is mostly about profit, not sex.
• Labor bondage is completely about economics … make corporations responsible how they do business and how they police their sub-contractors, and it will help a lot.
• Trafficking is not smuggling. Smuggling involves the element of transportation, wiliness or consent and no implied coercion.  A traffic victim may have started out being smuggled, but it turns into bondage.
• Trafficking does not imply transportation being involved – trafficking is commercial selling or commercial profiting.

Three major contributors to making people vulnerable to being trafficked

• Escaping from a very difficult situation (like domestic violence or poverty)
• Seeking the Big City, bright lights, hopes and dreams for better life.
• Migrating due to poverty or war or seeking better life.

Traffickers often “coach” victims to answer questions with a cover story. They may have a well-rehearsed story but will be unable to provide details to simple questions that are easy fro free people to answer like:

• Where do you buy food?
• Where do you buy clothes?
• Where do you go to school?

If you come across a situation where you believe human trafficking is taking place, do not approach the trafficker, as this can be very dangerous. Call the National Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-3737-888. Be part of ending the nightmare of human trafficking.