Civil Law

"The Migrant Division of Colorado Legal Services has received a grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Refugee Resettlement, to conduct outreach and education on human trafficking issues.

Human trafficking is a modern-day form of slavery. Victims of human trafficking are subjected to force, fraud, or coercion, for the purpose of sexual exploitation or forced labor. Victims are young children, teenagers, men and women.

After drug dealing, human trafficking is tied with the illegal arms industry as the second largest criminal industry in the world today, and it is the fastest growing.

The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) defines "Severe Forms of Trafficking in Persons" as:

Sex Trafficking: the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act , in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person forced to perform such an act is under the age of 18 years; or

Labor Trafficking: 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.

Trafficking Victims

Approximately 600,000 to 800,000 victims annually are trafficked across international borders worldwide, and between 14,500 and 17,500 of those victims are trafficked into the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of State. These estimates include women, men and children. Victims are generally trafficked into the U.S. from Asia, Central and South America, and Eastern Europe. Many victims trafficked into the United States do not speak and understand English and are therefore isolated and unable to communicate with service providers, law enforcement and others who might be able to help them.

Every year, 40,000 to 50,000 migrant farm workers come to Colorado, which lies along major interstate smuggling routes. The trafficking outreach project builds on thirty-five years of outreach to migrant camps to bring focused attention to human trafficking issues. CLS will educate and gather information from workers, service providers, colleagues and local government officials, with an ultimate goal of identifying trafficking victims, preventing future trafficking and bringing the perpetrators to justice.

For more information, contact attorney Patricia Medige, Colorado Legal Services, 1905 Sherman St., Ste. 400, Denver, 80203, or e-mail Pat at pmedige@colegalserv.org; tel: 303-866-9366.