U.S. Attorney’s Office Observes National Human Trafficking Awareness Month

“Whether it’s forced labor, domestic servitude, or sex trafficking, human trafficking is the exploitation of human beings for profit, and it has no place in today’s society,” said U.S. Attorney Nicholas Vassallo. “We remain dedicated to investigating and prosecuting traffickers within the borders of Wyoming.”

The Justice Department’s National Strategy to Combat Human Trafficking sets forth a comprehensive, multi-year strategy to enhance Department-wide efforts to combat all forms of human trafficking. Actions in 2023 to implement this National Strategy and to advance all aspects of the Department’s broad-based anti-trafficking mission include:

• Designation by the Attorney General of a National Human Trafficking Coordinator and a National Child Exploitation Coordinator to coordinate Department-wide and interagency implementation of strategies for countering human trafficking and child exploitation threats, respectively. 
• Establishment of a Human Trafficking Working Group of U.S. Attorneys through the Attorney General's Advisory Committee of U.S. Attorneys and its Civil Rights Subcommittee.
• Formation of a specialized Human Trafficking Program Management Team within the FBI’s Crimes Against Children and Human Trafficking Unit to develop and disseminate expertise and training on victim-centered, trauma-informed anti-trafficking strategies to FBI Field Offices nationwide and enhance coordination of human trafficking investigations, prosecutions, and victim services.
• Implementation of the revised Attorney General Guidelines for Victim and Witness Assistance, including delivery of survivor-informed training to all relevant Department personnel on enhanced protections for vulnerable victims and specialized issues impacting human trafficking victims.
• Training of all Department Immigration Judges on detecting human trafficking victims and indicators in immigration-related proceedings through the Executive Office for Immigration Review.
• Expanded efforts to combat forced child labor, including:
  • Leadership of the interagency Forced Labor Initiative Steering Group in conducting strategic assessments of forced child labor threats and guiding criminal forced labor investigations and prosecutions in relevant jurisdictions;
  • Participation in the interagency Child Labor Exploitation Task Force and issuance of guidance to all Office for Victims of Crime grantees, in collaboration with the Department of Labor, on identifying, assisting, and referring victims of forced child labor and child labor exploitation; and
  • Introduction of resolutions on combating forced child labor to the United Nations Convention on Transnational Organized Crime Working Group on Trafficking in Persons
• Sustained efforts to combat child sex trafficking, including through:
  • Release of the Department’s 2023 National Strategy for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction;
  • Operations conducted by the FBI and federal, state, local, and Tribal partners over a two-week period that identified and located 59 missing children and 59 victims of potential federal or state sex trafficking, sexual exploitation, or related offenses, as well as 126 suspects and 141 potential adult victims of such offenses; and
  • Issuance of an Office on Violence Against Women Training and Technical Assistance grant to implement the Building Capacity to Serve Youth Survivors of Sex Trafficking Project; youth sex trafficking grantees and service providers; deliver youth-centered, survivor-informed expertise; and enhance outreach to traditionally underserved youth populations.
• Enhanced responses to human trafficking affecting Tribal communities through training, technical assistance, and coordination among Tribal, territorial, federal, state, local, and non-governmental partners, including through the Tribal Consultation on Violence Against American Indian and Alaska Native Women; Not Invisible Act Commission; National Indian Country Training Initiative; and Strengthening Sovereign Responses to Sex Trafficking in Indian Country and Alaska program.
• Issuance of over $95 million in grant funding through the Department’s Office for Victims of Crime, as the largest federal funder of services for human trafficking victims and survivors, including grant funding for direct services and legal services and training and technical assistance to enhance grantees’ capacity to provide services to labor trafficking victims.
• National Institute of Justice-funded research and evaluation studies to inform evidence-based best practices involving multidisciplinary task forces, victim services, and responses to emerging forced labor and forced criminality threats.
• Continued collaboration among U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, the Civil Rights Division’s Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit, and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section and Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section to secure convictions, substantial sentences, and significant restitution awards in a wide range of human trafficking prosecutions nationwide.

Anyone who has information about a potential human trafficking situation or a person who may be experiencing human trafficking should contact the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888 or text 233733.

Information on the Justice Department’s work to combat human trafficking can be found at www.justice.gov/humantrafficking.