Trafficking Technology: A Look at Different Approaches to Ending Technology-Facilitated Human Trafficking

Abstract

In 2018, many believe that slavery is an antiquated concept. But as with anything else, if it has not become extinct, it has evolved with time. Human trafficking is no different. Each year, millions of men, women and children are trafficked in the United States, and internationally, and forced to work against their will. Through the rise of technology and an increasingly globalized world, traffickers have learned to use technology as a tool to help facilitate the trafficking of persons and to sell those victims to others they never could have reached before. But what are we doing about it?

Domestic and international laws provide the framework to fight human trafficking and end this type of slavery overall. In the United States, for example, the Trafficking Victim Protection Act sets a standard for the law federally and serves as a guideline for such legislation on the state level. But due to the variance between state and federal laws, and the rapid pace at which technology has transformed, the laws have failed to keep up with the needs of law enforcement to effectively detain and prosecute traffickers who utilize technology in their illegal work. This Comment delves into several current domestic and international laws aimed at preventing human trafficking, and discusses the measures by which we, as a global society, can take toward ending modern-day slavery.