
When people think of the word slavery what usually comes to mind is a historical event that involved the exportation and exploitation of human beings as forced labor with no freedom or choice. However, what people do not think of is that slavery still exists. It is just categorized as a new name, human trafficking. According to the U.S Government, human trafficking can be defined as; the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt, bondage, or slavery. It can also be explained as a form of exploitation where people from other countries are brought into the United States looking for a better life, but are tricked into working for unfair conditions with cruel employers. According to Neha Deshpande, "There are approximately 800,000 people trafficked across international borders annually and of these, 80% are women or girls and 50% are minors" (Deshpande). Traffickers usually recruit victims who are economically or socially vulnerable because they see them as easy targets. This usually includes women and girls who are susceptible to poverty, societal isolation, drug addiction, violence in the family, or history of criminal behavior (Deshpande). However, once women and girls become involved in this industry it is very hard for them to escape. There are many aspects to consider when thinking about the term human trafficking. Some cases can include sex slaves, illegal immigration, force or fraud, and some may have easily identifiable victims while others do not. Therefore, it is important to consider all of 

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these aspects to understand the whole picture. The Immigration and Nationality Act does not qualify the victims of human trafficking to be considered under the category of a particular "social group" which would grant them asylum. Because of this, victims are not even being tested or identified to protect them from deportation. However, in some cases if victims do get to go through the screening and identification procedure, there are many gaps and loopholes that leave victims who should be granted asylum up for deportation. For example, investigators only look at these victims as illegal aliens rather then interviewing them as victims. So, by looking at the Immigration and Nationality Act, previous victims of human trafficking, and the gaps throughout the screening and identification procedure which categorizes people as victims of human trafficking, it is evident that United States should be granting these victims asylum because they do fit under a specific social group and their long line of abuse should be put to rest. 

Many victims of human trafficking who have faced threats by human traffickers to force them into sexual slavery have been rejected for asylum by the US courts. The federal courts claim that these asylum requests do not meet the Immigration and Nationality Act's requirements that refugee's fall into a particular social group. However, the state law regarding refuges in the United States has been seen as inconsistent among the Circuit Courts with the legislative intent behind the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) of 1952 (Karevlis). For example, because Courts have different definitions of what constitutes a particular social group they are judging these victims under different circumstances. So a victim may get denied at one court system because he or she did not fit that court's description of a particular social group but could have 

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been granted asylum at another court based off of their definition. These inconsistencies that characterize the US asylum law have been making the system inherently unfair for asylum 

seekers, whose chances of success depend on which circuits and which individual judge reviews their case. The United States has given insubstantial consideration to the asylum claims of those in danger of becoming victims of trafficking (Karevlis). The term "particular social group" has perplexed the United States courts because this idea is not consistent. It has led courts to introduce a variety of tests to determine whether or not applicants meet asylum requirements. "This has led to inconsistent, and contradictory applications of the law" (Karvelis). By failure to consider these victims as a social group completely excludes them from asylum eligibility without even examining the circumstances (Karevlis). Therefore, it is necessary to clear up this misunderstanding of the definition of a "particular social group" in order to give these victims a chance. 

Many people think that slavery does not exist today. However, it does, and according to Kelly Karevlis, "human trafficking can be seen as a form of modern day slavery that includes rape, violence, psychological torment, and even infliction of disease and addiction" (Karevelis). Victims of human trafficking are economically powerless because many of them must turn over all their earnings to their traffickers. "In order to keep control and keep the victims captive traffickers usually use psychological manipulation, forced drug use, physical and sexual violence, and threats against the trafficked person family" (Karvelis). One example comes from an Albanian survivor of sex trafficking who stated that her trafficker "kept her in submission through physical abuse beatings, rape, and slicing her with knives". Along with all of the physical and psychological torture that these victims face, they also have the potential of 

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contracting life threatening sexually transmitted infections.  A Harvard School of Public Health study found that about "thirty eight percent of Nepalese survivors of human trafficking were found to have contracted HIV" (Karvelis). Sex trafficking primarily affects young women. The US Department of Justice states that, "eighty seven percent of sex trafficking victims are under the age of twenty-five". 

To look further into the problem with human trafficking it is important to look into specific examples of what victims have faced, like torture and manipulation. The most common form of coercion used among victims is debt bondage. "This is an illegal practice where the victims have to pledge personal services in order to repay some form of debt, such as transportation into a foreign country" (Deshpande). Sex traffickers will approach families living in poverty and seek to purchase young women with the promise of a better life in a richer nation. This is what Oksana, a former victim of sex trafficking experienced. Oksana was promised a good job with good pay when she came to the United States from Ukraine (Reilly). However, when she arrived in Philadelphia things were not as she expected. Oksana had been swept up into a human trafficking organization that smuggled Ukrainian migrants into the United States, where they were forced to work for little to no pay. Oksana, along with her co -workers, had experienced beatings and sexual assault from their boss. 

Another example comes from a woman named Noy Thurpkaew, who witnessed the effects of human trafficking first hand. Thurpkaew was raised in the United States by her aunt who came from Thailand at the age of nineteen. Her aunt was a victim of human trafficking and Thurpkaew witnessed the psychological issues that her aunt continued to face, and ever since Thurpkaew has dedicated her career to researching human trafficking. As Thurpkaew stated in 

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her TED Talk, " I remembered her being beaten and slapped by another member of my family for the smallest things like wanting to go out with her friends or being a little late" (Thurpkaew). Thurpkaew's aunt eventually ran away because of all the abuse she endured and this story highly influenced Noy Thurpkaew's life. This shows how human trafficking can be such an influential 

factor to people who have witnessed it, that they may end up revolving their life around trying to find ways to stop it. Not only do victims of human trafficking suffer, but also their family and friends who have either witnessed it or have to help them recover from their long line of abuse.

Along with the human trafficking victims from other countries, there is still human trafficking going on within the United States. As told by Holly Austin Smith, at fourteen years old she ran away with a man, who ended up being a manipulative and menacing pimp. She stated, "Within hours of running away, I was coerced into working Pacific Avenue in Atlantic City NJ until dawn the next day" (Smith). The following night, an officer recognized Smith as being underage and arrested her. Smith explained that although she was recognized as a victim, the specialized aftercare needed for a trafficking victim did not exist. If the United States cannot even help provide adequate care for the victims of human trafficking that are citizens of the US, it is hard to imagine how they could possibly help victims that are illegal immigrants. This is a problem because if United States citizens are not receiving the aftercare that they deserve then it is very likely that the United States is not helping people they see as illegal immigrants. This is why victims are scared to come forward, because they fear deportation and think that they will not be helped if they reach out to authorities.

A major problem in helping these victims that are of illegal immigration status, are the gaps within the screening process.  As stated in an article by Reilly, "There is a lack of sufficient 

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screening procedures within the federal agencies to identify immigrants who have been trafficked" (Reilly). This gap can leave people who would be eligible for federal protections open to deportation. Instead of giving these people a chance, victims are placed into deportation proceedings where they are then threatened by immigration officials or arrested and placed into a detention center for being unauthorized (Reilly). As stated by Dree Collupy, a partner and expert on asylum proceedings at Benach Ragland, an immigration law firm based in Washington D.C, "There is no standard screening process at all". The Center for Gender and Refugees Studies collected around fifty-two administrative and federal judicial decisions on asylum claims involving trafficking as of 2007 (Karevelis). Every case involved asylum claims by people who 

had been trafficked, forced into prostitution, or threatened. The outcomes included; "seven grants and four denials at the Asylum Office, thirteen grants and twenty six denials in immigration court, and three grants and nine denials at the Board of Immigration Appeals" (Karevelis). This low success rate for asylum grants goes back to the idea that these individuals do not constitute the correct "social group". 

Another problem with stopping human trafficking is that victims are scared to talk. "The fear of deportation and family separation has forced immigrant women to stay silent rather than report their workplace abuse and exploitation to authorities" (Williams). Many women report that their employers use their immigration status to control them stating things such as if they try and leave the police will find them and deport them. "While local human trafficking task forces are developing outreach plans, our own state governments are undermining these efforts with extremely harsh and indiscriminate crackdowns on immigrants" (Williams). Immigrants are constantly being arrested and deported without screening that would identify them as victims. 

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This illegal immigration issue also greatly impacts children and families. "Approximately five million US citizen children have at least one undocumented parent and about eighty percent of children of workers are less then ten years old" (Williams). When families experience long separations from other members in their family it can significantly affect economic hardship, psychological stress, and feelings of abandonments, which can lead to mental health problems. The American Psychological Association recently recommended that we should improve our detention centers and social service networks to better protect children and to maintain family units. They also explained how there is widespread psychological trauma caused by immigration enforcement including infant developmental delays to dismal academic performance (Williams). 

There are some people out there who view human trafficking as a myth. They feel as though the concept of trafficking is highly problematic. They state that the numbers regarding human trafficking come off as "fishy", explaining that journalists like to use big numbers to inform the public about the alleged scale of trafficking. For example, "The US Department of State, which seems to be leading the global struggle against trafficking, believes the number of people trafficked across national borders annually to be anywhere between 600,000- 800,000 people. The International Labor Organization on the other hand provided an estimate of the number of trafficking victims at any given time to be 2.45 million" (Dumienski). While these numbers rarely have identifiable sources or transparent methodologies behind them. In most instances, as researcher C. Bialik put it, these number are a "result of certain activists who pull their numbers out of thin air". The term human trafficking can be misleading because "some of them can involve force or fraud, and some of them can be based on consent; some of them have easily identifiable victims, and some do not; and some involve such offenses as forgery or 

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smuggling" (Dumienski). Therefore, human trafficking can be seen as any act of illegal migration that involves crimes against the migrant. There are also misconceptions that state how a helpless victim will be rewarded with no criminal charges and possibly legal status while an able bodied and successful but illegal migrant would be punished and persecuted as a criminal, which makes the situation unfair for all immigrants. 

Another standpoint against granting victims of human trafficking asylum comes from a man named Angelo Young, who reports on how two Texas lawmakers have become vocal proponents for wanting to deport children of human trafficking back to their native countries. As stated by a Texas lawmaker, "allowing all of these people asylum is causing an out of control gang violence in the United States" (Young). There are human rights groups that argue that the conditions in which children of human trafficking victims are living in is creating violent refugees and hurting our country. These people feel children of people who are victims of human trafficking are violent and have grown up in chaotic homes and should therefore be sent back to their native country. However, if the US created better specialized aftercare for victims and their families it would decrease the chaos and so called violence that these children have.  

In order to help victims, physicians, nurses, midwives, and other healthcare providers can play critical roles in helping to identify victims of trafficking by providing both assistance and advocacy for affected women and girls (Desphande). A provider can play an essential role by providing interventions to improve their physical and psychological health and advocating on their behalf to improve their social circumstances. Sex trafficking victims are often physically abused and tortured. Therefore, providers should screen women and girls for their physical injures such as broken bones, bruises, burns, scars, and dental problems to help them qualify for 

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asylum (Desphande). Looking into concussions and head traumas should also be taken into consideration because they can result in memory loss, dizziness, headaches, and numbness. Providers could also screen for unwanted pregnancies resulting from rape and prostitution. Although health care providers can greatly impact a victim's life, the main protection for victims would be to grant them T visas. This allows them to have temporary legal status for up to three years and then they can apply for permanent legal status (Reilly). During this period they must comply with any reasonable requests from a law enforcement agency in the assistance in any investigations or prosecutions of human trafficking. They may also seek continued presence; this offers temporary residence to anyone who law enforcement identifies as a victim of trafficking (Reilly). However, the process to obtain either of these things can take months or even years. Also, according to the State Department's report, "T visas were granted to six hundred and 

thirteen victims and seven hundred and eighty eight eligible family members in 2014, down from eight hundred and forty eight and nine hundred and seventy five respectively in 2013". The numbers are decreasing as the years go on, which is not helping to protect these victims. In order to increase the screening procedure of victims it is essential that law enforcement and service providers are using the standard screening and interview protocols. Most agencies receiving federal funding to address human trafficking are using these protocols while other agencies are not. These protocols not only need to be developed but they need to be made more available to a wider audience (Clawson). Several law enforcement officers involved with the interviewing process noted some limitations that included asking questions that are culturally inappropriate or ineffective and need revisions. For example, the change of certain terms and use of more open-ended questions. According to Clawson it is also important to emphasize "the use of interviewers 

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trained in the dynamic of trafficking, the impact of trauma on victims, and understanding of specific cultures" (Clawson). To try and help create a better identification process, the Vera Institute of Justice designed, field- tested, and validated a comprehensive screening tool to improve victim identification, victim services, and law enforcement efforts on a nation wide scale (Simich). This study worked with eleven victim service providers, and collected original data on more than two hundred and thirty cases from interviews with potential trafficking victims and case file reviews to determine if this tool could be reliable. The principal investigator, Laura Simich, stated, "the screening tool accurately measures several dimensions of human trafficking and is highly reliable in predicting victimization for both sex and labor trafficking" (Simich). The majority of the questions throughout this procedure consisted of three topics; migration, work, and working/living conditions. The results showed, "87% of the questions predicted 

trafficking victimization in general, 71% were significant predictors of labor trafficking, and 81% were significant predictors of sex trafficking" (Simich). With tools like this, the US can help improve the screening procedure and close the gaps within the process by truly taking the time to investigate victims and hear their story. 

Human trafficking is an on going problem and cannot just be simply stopped. However, if the United States can create better screening and identification procedures then it would help victims who should be granted asylum be saved from the misery of being deported back to their native country. These victims do constitute a specific social group underlined in the Immigration and Nationality Act and should therefore be allowed to go through a screening process to be granted asylum. Instead of treating these people as criminals and aliens, the US should open their arms and look for more ways to help.

