FACT SHEET: Human Trafficking & Forced Labor in For-Profit Detention Facilities
Congress passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) to inject “new potency in the Thirteenth Amendment’s guarantee of freedom: whether on farms or sweatshops, in domestic service or forced prostitution.” Federal criminal law has long recognized forced labor under threat of criminal sanction as a form of involuntary servitude. In 2003 Congress added a powerful enforcement mechanism: a private right of action permitting victims to hold their traffickers accountable.
