By Paulina Andrews and Emily Tegley

2022 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report

On July 19, 2022, the U.S. Department of State released the 2022 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report. The TIP Report is federally mandated by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA). Each year, the TIP Report evaluates global anti-trafficking efforts and ranks countries into three tiers based on whether the countries have met the TVPA’s minimum standards.

Ranking System:

The 2022 TIP Report’s three-tier system ranks countries based on each country’s efforts to prosecute traffickers, protect trafficking victims, and prevent human trafficking. The tiers are based on the country’s efforts to address human trafficking and not on the size of the country’s human trafficking problem.

Countries that have made efforts to fully meet the TVPA’s minimum standards are placed in Tier 1. Tier 2 status is reserved for countries that have not fully met the TVPA’s minimum standards but are “making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards.” The Tier 2 Watch List includes countries that have made efforts to meet the TVPA’s minimum standards, but: (1) “the estimated number of victims of severe forms of trafficking is very significant or significantly increasing and the country is not taking proportional concrete actions”; or (2) “there is a failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons from the previous year.” Countries that do not meet the TVPA’s minimum standards and are not working to meet the standards are placed in Tier 3. Countries in Tier 3 may not be eligible for non-humanitarian and non-trade related funding.

The 2022 TIP Report also emphasizes the importance of ethically engaging survivors, seeking survivors’ input in decision-making, and employing survivors in a trauma-informed work environment. To achieve these goals, the TIP Report provides recommendations such as: encouraging organizations to budget for hiring survivors; ensuring organizations have obtained informed consent from a survivor before sharing the survivor’s story; compensating survivors appropriately for their time; and fostering a safe, trauma-informed environment in the workplace. Furthermore, the TIP Report addresses how survivors have diverse backgrounds and encourages anti-trafficking efforts to acknowledge that there is no “‘typical’ survivor or story.”  On July 20, the U.S. State Department held a briefing on this year’s TIP report, where the panel echoed the importance of having survivor-informed programs and policies. In keeping with this goal, the U.S. State Department relied on the U.S. Advisory Council on Human Trafficking, an appointed group of survivor leaders who advise and make recommendations on federal anti-trafficking policies, as subject matter experts to aid with the introductory materials for this year’s report, which is a tool to begin a global conversation on the inclusion of survivor expertise. Further, the panel noted that a dramatic increase in governments actively seeking survivor input could already be seen.

The United States:

The United States maintained its Tier 1 status in 2022, indicating the United States government has made efforts to meet the TVPA’s minimum standards. The TIP Report notes that the United States has maintained prosecution efforts and passed additional legislation to protect victims. For example, the TIP Report cites legislation the United States Congress enacted requiring credit reporting companies to remove adverse credit activity from victims’ reports when that credit activity is connected to their victimization. Additionally, the TIP Report explains the United States has improved its overall protection efforts by increasing the number of victims served and continuing to fund anti-trafficking efforts. Lastly, the TIP Report praised the United States’ prevention efforts, including its three-year national action plan to combat trafficking and ongoing public outreach efforts.

However, the TIP Report makes clear that Tier 1 status does not mean “a country has no human trafficking problem or that it is doing enough to address the crime.” Thus, the United States’ Tier 1 status does not mean the United States has a perfect response to human trafficking, and the TIP Report highlights various areas the United States needs to improve. For example, while the TIP Report indicates that the United States continues to reduce demand, the report also notes that advocates argue this demand-reduction must be trauma-informed, must be survivor-informed, and that diverse experiences and voices must be prioritized. In addition, the TIP Report notes the United States’ response to protecting LGBTQI+ individuals and children who are aging out of services is insufficient.

Furthermore, the TIP Report highlights that trafficking survivors continue to face criminal charges resulting from their victimization. Comprehensive victim protection laws are essential to ensuring survivors are identified and equipped to heal from their trafficking victimization and, if they choose to do so, join anti-trafficking efforts. Additionally, the TIP Report notes that criminal records resulting from the traffickers’ victimization exclude survivors from employment opportunities, housing, higher education, government programs, and from meeting their basic needs. The TIP Report also cites cases where trafficking survivors lost custody of their children because the survivors were required to register as sex offenders due to offenses the survivors committed as a result of being trafficked. To address this issue, the TIP Report encourages state, local, and tribal authorities to “implement policies not to prosecute victims for unlawful acts traffickers compelled them to commit.”

Shared Hope International’s Work:

In 2011, Shared Hope launched the Protected Innocence Challenge project, finding most states failed to recognize the crime of child sex trafficking. Under the project, Shared Hope graded each state on the strength of their laws regarding criminalization of child sex trafficking, offender accountability, tools for investigation and prosecution, and victim protections. By 2019, states had made great progress in areas related to criminalization, but service responses lagged. Shared Hope then retired the Protected Innocence Challenge project and released the Report Cards on Child & Youth Sex Trafficking legislative framework, building on the original Protected Innocence Challenge project and preserving its most fundamental components, but including new policy priorities that focus largely on specialized service responses and access to justice. These policies put survivor protections at the forefront of Shared Hope’s ongoing advocacy efforts.

This advanced legislative framework can be used as a tool for lawmakers seeking to address many of the recommendations found in the 2022 TIP Report. For example, to address and respond to the harmful and re-traumatizing effects of arrest and prosecution, the advanced legislative framework recommends that states enact laws to prevent the arrest, detention, and prosecution of children who have committed crimes as a result of their victimization. Specifically, states can take concrete steps to prevent additional trauma by prohibiting the criminalization of minors under 18 for prostitution offenses, prohibiting the criminalization of sex trafficking victims for non-violent crimes and trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation offenses committed as a result of their victimization, and providing victims with an affirmative defense for violent felonies committed as a result of their trafficking victimization. The criminalization of survivors is concerning, and while there has been an increase in awareness, gaps still remain in written policies seeking to prevent the criminalization of survivors.

Additionally, Shared Hope’s JuST Response Council, a group of over 30 experts from around the country who collaborate to improve responses to child sex trafficking, released field guidance on responding to sex trafficking victim-offender intersectionality and the complexities of charging victims of trafficking with offenses committed as a result of being trafficked. The Victim-Offender Intersectionality Report discusses not only why criminalizing survivors is inherently unjust, but also offers approaches for applying a sex trafficking-informed lens.

Shared Hope Resources:

• Report Cards on Child & Youth Sex Trafficking and 2021 Toolkit
• Seeking JuSTice Report: Legal approaches to eliminate criminal liability for juvenile sex trafficking victims
• Responding to Sex Trafficking Victim-Offender Intersectionality: A Guide for Criminal Justice Stakeholders

Take Action:

• Get informed. Visit the U.S. State Department’s website to review the entire 2022 Trafficking in Persons Report.
• Advocate for change. Send your state’s report card to your legislators.
• Join the fight. Sign Shared Hope’s Stop the InJuSTice Campaign petition to encourage states to stop arresting and charging child sex trafficking survivors with prostitution.

As Congress heads into Summer Recess and 27 of the 46 states in session in 2022 have adjourned for the calendar year, Shared Hope is doing a legislative update blog series on state and federal laws that have been introduced and enacted with the potential to impact survivors of child and youth sex trafficking. In the first blog we focused on state non-criminalization laws. In this second blog we look at state laws that impact juvenile justice and access to services.

Another priority issue in this year’s state legislative sessions has been juvenile justice. Many children who have been commercially sexually exploited have been involved in the juvenile justice system, either prior to their exploitation or as a result of their victimization. It is critical that juvenile justice agencies, as child serving entities, know how to properly identify victims at risk of child sex trafficking and sexual exploitation and provide access to specialized services to ensure that they avoid harsh punitive measures. A number of states introduced legislation. Notably, Tennessee passed SB1037/HB1100 amends the Code to require the Department of Children’s Services, the Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, and other agencies to work together to develop a mechanism to identify and provide services to sexually abused or trafficked children. Additionally, Tennessee legislature passed SB2400/HB2147, which requires the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services to develop screening/assessment tools to evaluate at risk system-involved youth and require distribution to Department of Juvenile Justice for use with justice-involved youth. Additionally, SB2400/HB2147 provides certain protections to child sex trafficking victims in the courts, including raising the age in which minors can use CCTV in a courtroom to testify from 13 years old to 18 years old requiring the juvenile court to consider past trauma or abuse, including trafficking victimization, when deciding of whether to transfer a juvenile to adult court consistent with Shared Hope’s framework. Finally, SB2400/HB2147 provides affirmative defense for minor victims to trafficking charge and provides sentencing mitigation provision based on duress as a trafficking victim

Other notable juvenile justice legislation enacted this year by state legislatures include:

• California SB827 Repeals provisions that authorize a prosecutor to begin a criminal case against a minor in a criminal court and that would impose an adult sentence for a minor convicted in criminal court and not transferred to juvenile court; authorizes a person who is 19 to 24 years of age to petition for a return to a juvenile facility, to conform with the age of eligibility for a petition to transfer to an adult facility.
• Maryland HB459/SB691 raises the minimum age a child can be charged in juvenile court to 13, consistent with Shared Hope’s framework and international standards.
• Nevada AB230 eliminates the mandatory certification of a child as an adult for certain offenses and provides instead for the discretionary certification of a child for criminal proceedings as an adult for all offenses over which the juvenile court has exclusive jurisdiction.
• New York A8739 increases minimum age for juvenile court jurisdiction to 12 years of age and increases maximum age for juvenile court jurisdiction to include older minors (16 & 17) for certain offenses age for juvenile court jurisdiction.

Access to Services

Ensuring that comprehensive, trauma-informed, individualized services are provided to victims is vital. Without access to services, victims remain at risk of re-exploitation. Shared Hope supports states’ use of multiple entry points for child survivors to receive specialized services, including child welfare, juvenile justice, and non-system involved entry points such as regional navigators or Minnesota’s No Wrong Door model.

A number of states passed legislation that would expand access to services for children and youth survivors of sex trafficking. Tennessee passed sweeping reform, including SB2739/HB2591 which requires the Department of Children’s Services and the Department of Human Services to collaborate to provide recommendations to the General Assembly on resources and services specific to persons from 18 to 24 years of age who have been victims of child sex trafficking. Additionally, Tennessee passed SB2740/HB2592 which requires several states agencies to develop recommendations on the creation of multidisciplinary teams to provide responses specific to child sex trafficking cases and SB2400/HB2147 which requires human trafficking non-profits to sit on child welfare investigation MDTs for all child sex trafficking cases. SB2400/HB2147 also requires child welfare to determine specialized services for child sex trafficking victims and requires Department of Children’s Services to develop policy for serving foreign national child victims.

Other notable juvenile justice bills include Delaware’s HB271 which amends state law to requires the Delaware Department of Services for Children, Youth, and Their Families to provide transitional services beginning at 16 years old and expands eligibility from under 21 to under 23 years of age which was enacted and Maine’s HP605 which adds child sex trafficking to definition of abuse and removes caregiver barrier for child sex trafficking cases to ensure that victims are able to access services through a child welfare response.

Supporting Resources:

• JuST Response Council: Protective Response Model

To learn more about state legislation that addresses the needs of sex trafficking victims and to take action in support of this critical issue, please visit Shared Hope’s State Advocacy Action Center.

If you are a lawmaker or advocate seeking to craft strong laws to fight juvenile sex trafficking and wish to speak with Shared Hope’s Policy Team for technical assistance, please visit request a consultation.