LEBAU & NEUWORTH SEEK JUSTICE FOR HUMAN TRAFFICKING

The attorneys at Lebau & Neuworth have recently filed a case under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, alleging that its client (a young adult) was subjected to forced labor and involuntary servitude for over a decade. She was forced to work without wages for years and without means to escape the intolerable situation. The case is now pending in the federal district court in Maryland, and as the case develops, we will update this blog.

The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (“TVPA”) is a federal statute aimed at eliminating modern forms of slavery, both domestically and internationally. The TVPA provides a three-pronged approach that includes prevention, protection, and prosecution and prohibits both sex trafficking and labor trafficking.

Human trafficking refers to the process through which individuals are placed or maintained in an exploitative situation for economic gain. Trafficking can occur within a country or may involve movement across borders, and affects all regions and most countries. Women, men, and children are trafficked for a range of purposes, including forced and exploitative labor in factories, farms, and private households, sexual exploitation, and forced marriage.

Defining features of sex trafficking include the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, obtaining, patronizing, or soliciting of a person for commercial sex acts induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the victim who is manipulated to perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age (22 USC § 7102).  

Labor trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery, (22 USC § 7102).

Regarding involuntary servitude, the TVPA prohibits any form of servitude obtained through any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause a person to believe that if the person did not perform the work demanded of them, that person or another person would suffer serious harm or physical restraint; or the abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process. Examples of such a scheme or plan include taking and keeping a person’s passport or other legal documents so they cannot travel freely or threatening them with deportation if they do not perform the work demanded. The TVPA has a ten-year statute of limitations and provides for recovering civil damages.

If you or someone you know has been a victim of human trafficking or involuntary servitude, the attorneys at Lebau & Neuworth may be able to help. Please contact us at https://lebauneuworth.com for more information.