President Trump’s commitment to ending human trafficking is more than lip service—he’s done more to put human traffickers behind bars than any other past President.
Source: Statista Chart: Nearly A Third Of Human Trafficking Victims Are Children
Whether people agree with President Trump’s policies or personality or not is often a subjective issue.
However, one thing is certain–based on objective facts: President Trump has done more to put away human traffickers than any past President, and few in the media or chattering class are talking about it…let alone giving him credit for it
Aside from the high-profile case of Jeffrey Epstein, since President Trump took office in January 2017, there have been nearly 12,470 arrests for human trafficking, according to arrest records compiled by investigative journalist Corey Lynn, and over 9130 victims rescued.
Compare that to the 525 arrested in Barack Obama’s last year in office.
As there are different data sets to use as comparisons, Ms. Lynn uses the following definitions for human trafficking for her data set.
Image Source: CoreyDigs.com
Additionally, in December 2018, President Trump signed the Abolish Human Trafficking Act, which strengthens programs supporting survivors and resources for combating modern slavery, according to the White House.
In January, the President signed the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act which tightens criteria for whether countries are meeting standards for eliminating trafficking.
Trump also signed the Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Reauthorization Act, authorizing $430 million to fight sex and labor trafficking, as well as the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which establishes “new prevention, prosecution, and collaboration initiative to bring human traffickers to justice.”
Here are some “quick facts” on human trafficking compiled by the U.S. Institute Against Human Trafficking:
- Worldwide, there are 40.3 million victims, with 75% women and girls and 25% children, according to The International Labour Organization
- 8 million people are involved in forced sexual exploitation worldwide, with more than 1 million of those victims being children under the age of 18 years. [According to the International Labour Organization]
- Human trafficking is a $150 billion industry worldwide [According to the International Labour Organization]
- Human trafficking is modern-day slavery and involves the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act. [According to the Department of Homeland Security]
- Sex trafficking occurs when force, fraud, or coercion is used to cause a commercial sex act with an adult. Force, fraud or coercion need not be present for sex trafficking to occur with a child under the age of 18. When a commercial sex act occurs with a child under the age of 18, it is by definition sex trafficking. [According to the U.S. Department of State ]
- A commercial sex act is identified by the exchange of anything of value (eg. money, drugs, food, clothing, shelter) for a sexual act. [According to the Department of Justice]
