1. It explains a lot about what trafficking is (and isn’t).

I bet you’ve heard words like “domestic servitude,” “labor trafficking,” “sex trafficking,” “child soldiers,” “debt bondage,” etc. in the discussion about human trafficking. They’re all used to describe kinds of trafficking, but what do they all mean? How are they different? Why do the differences matter? It’s all in there, along with stories of real people who’ve been through it.

Also, why is human smuggling not the same as trafficking? How is child labor different from forced child labor, and why is that distinction important? I tell ya, there’s some interesting information in there.

2. It focuses on supply chains.

In this day and age, we care about where our products come from. With the popularity of notions like Fair Trade, locally grown organic everything, and the debate about GMOs, we’ve come to care about where we get our stuff and what goes into it. So don’t you think it’s important to know if your favorite chocolate started with beans being harvested by forced labor? Or how your cigarettes got stuffed with tobacco? Or who made your clothes, carpets, and shoes? Or who mined the ore that made the parts that went into your car/computer/home, etc.? 

This year’s report discusses the importance of supply chains, and it challenges businesses to take responsibility for the people involved in producing their products, right from the raw material. We have become a deeply interconnected global society and this report recognizes those connections. I like that. 

3. It explains what the relevant laws and treaties are.

I know at least 20% of you just rolled your eyes and went, “Ugh, boring.” I get that. BUT, this part explains the why about this. It answers questions like:

- Why are they producing this report? (Spoiler alert: it was called for in the TVPA. I’m not going to define that. Google it for yourself.) 

- What are the Palermo Protocols? (They’re as important to this issue as the Geneva Conventions are to warfare.) 

- Why does the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child matter for child soldiers? (Here’s a bonus thing for you to look up: which two countries in the world haven’t ratified the UN CRC? You may be surprised at the answer to that.) 

You may not care about all the legal details, but the point is this: the international community is making laws and treaties to combat trafficking. This is the big-deal, high-level, global-scale substance of what is being done in the world to fight trafficking, and that’s pretty interesting.

4. It applauds successes.

The report honors eight people from around the world who are working to fight trafficking, highlights community efforts and advocacy groups, and tells stories about real life. That’s good, right?

And that’s all in the first 45 pages! 

After that, there are over 300 pages of country reports, each a page or two or three. Obviously, you don’t have to read all of these, but they’re there if you want. Pick two or three countries you’re interested in. Maybe start with the one where you live, and then the one you’d like to visit on your next vacation. Then perhaps one you’ve heard about in the news. Or one you’ve never heard of before. (Me: Comoros. Sorry, Comoros. I didn’t know you existed. This is a good example of how you can learn something from this report.) See how they’re doing, what efforts they’ve taken, what they could improve on, and where they land in the scheme of things.

Now, the report isn’t perfect. I think it did a good job with those four things, but there are two major drawbacks we need to be aware of:

1. Some of the ratings are controversial.

I mentioned Malaysia and Cuba above. I am not an expert in foreign policy or in the trafficking situations in either of those countries, so I really don’t have any wisdom on this. Here are three links to articles if you’d like to read up on it.

Vice on Malaysia
Reuters on Malaysia and Cuba
Commentary from our friends at Free the Slaves

The TL:DR version: some say Malaysia got upgraded to Tier 2 because of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal. Some argue that the reason for that is the TPP will help Malaysia to increase anti-trafficking efforts in the future. Some say Malaysia is legitimately doing better. Others argue that it was a political move so the deal would work. I don’t have the answer, but it’s worth recognizing that this report wasn’t written in a vacuum. It comes in the midst of all the complexities of international relations. It’s never going to be perfect, but it can be pretty thorough.

2. It’s (mostly) not data-driven.

There are some numbers in it – data about prosecutions, convictions, victims identified, and new/amended legislation. (See charts on pages 48 and 55-60.) But the tier ratings for each country weren’t decided that way. The TIP Office staff are dedicated people and they did their due diligence, but this isn’t an exact science. A lot of human trafficking isn’t caught or reported, so it can’t be captured in the data. I say take it for what it is: lots of information that is well-organized and aims to both educate the public and incentivize improvement worldwide. I’m all for that.

So there you have it, my take on the TIP Report. Some ups, some downs. It’s a lot of information, and not everyone is going to read it, but this is our government’s tool to track the human trafficking situation worldwide. If fighting trafficking is an interest of yours (and if you read this much of my blog, it must be), then you definitely want to have a look at this report. 


Rachel Boyce
Director of Operations

At Courtney’s House, we call our clients “survivors.” This is one of the staples of who we are as an organization, and it shows what kind of statement we want to make about the kids that we help. We call them survivors rather than victims, but sometimes it is hard to get people to recognize them as victims in the first place. We live in a world where men and women are questioned when they say they have been raped, and domestic violence puts many women and families on the streets. Why is it so hard to agree to help people who have been victimized, and have now survived?  And why are these victims treated as criminals? In some states, police officers arrest supposed child “prostitutes,” and that is why part of our work is to educate law enforcement to recognize when someone is being controlled by another.

Unfortunately, it isn’t just about recognizing if someone is being trafficked. Often law enforcement uses the threat of prostitution charges so that they can get the name of the pimp. As much as we want the pimp to be locked up, threatening a victim with arrest for prostitution is abusive, a hindrance to fostering trust between victims and authority figures, and another hurdle for getting that victim to begin to think of herself/himself as a survivor. (Source)  

The way to create change in our law enforcement’s treatment of survivors is to create change in the laws they are enforcing. We have made some great strides recently in legislation, but public support and pressure is what is going to make the most impact. However, we regularly encounter people that are not aware that sex trafficking is a problem in the United States. Part of this comes from the fact that people do not want to imagine people doing horrible things to other humans. People walk out of theaters during torture scenes, or refuse to show rape on television—it is difficult for us to watch other people in pain. If people have such a hard time watching it on the screen, they must jump at the chance to help someone who has actually been a victim of that kind of abuse, but instead those victims’ stories are questioned.

As we at Courtney’s House know, the victims are often the ones that get put into jail, and it takes a lot of therapy before they can accept that they were not guilty. People say that the victims are the ones selling their bodies, and it is their decision—but we know better. Almost always there is a pimp controlling them, but if someone is truly doing it on their own free will, what got them there in the first place? Ask yourself if you would ever sell your body for money; it is not about liking sex. These people put their lives on the line for money; they are abused and destroyed by the people who buy them. And their abusers are the ones that manipulate them into thinking that they did everything of their own choice. So when we support that idea, it makes it even harder for them to come to the realization that they were victims. Just taking at look at the media’s handling of trafficking cases, they consistently refer to the survivors as prostitutes, which has a connotation of choice. How bad is this problem? Take a look at the list I’ve compiled in the last few weeks:

1. “multiple adult women were compelled to engage in prostitution”

2. “A 14-year-old girl caught up in a prostitution ring helped police arrest her hustlers, who sold underage girls for sex out of local hotels and a D.C. apartment.”

3. “The court has acquitted one of the men suspected of having sex with a 16 year old girl in the Valkenburg teen prostitution case”

4. “Witnesses told investigators that Webster set all the prices for the women and took all the money the women received from the prostitution.” 

5. “Lala, who began working as a prostitute in 2005, when she was 16, and didn’t want her full name used. “You turn tricks, that’s all you do, and you’re lucky if you just run through them, and don’t get raped or robbed or beat up.”

6. “Earlier this month, a 21-year-old man was jailed for two years for encouraging the girl to become a prostitute”

As human beings we do very disgusting things to each other, and we cannot allow people to keep refusing to face the truth. Ignorance is not bliss if there are people suffering— the best thing you can do is eradicate this business instead of hiding away from it.

One of the worst things you can say when someone names someone as their rapist, is “Oh he/she would never do that.” That takes the attention away from the crime and is already giving credence to the claims of the attacker. Even if that is how you feel, these people cannot be dismissed like that. There must be serious attention paid to these survivors, and if less time was spent in surprise, and more time spent helping the survivor cope with what has happened, then maybe we could help more people.

Face it folks, people are doing worse things than can even be imagined to each other. We need to get out of this shock culture, and be there as human beings to help these victims claim their status as survivors. 


Jessica Matthews
Volunteer Coordination Intern