Executive Summary
Background
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Human trafficking. (2015), Available from: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/what-is-human-trafficking.html.
- (1)adult or child participates in commercialized sex, labor, organ procurement, or war, where induction for the adult (not necessary for child) is by force, fraud, or coercion;
- (2)recruitment processes involve obtaining persons through lure, ploy, harboring, capture, smuggling, and/or kidnap for recruitment;
- (3)procurement of services through force, coercion and/or fraud, involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, identity theft, slavery; and
- (4)transport locally, regionally, nationally, and/or trans-nationally (National Human Trafficking Resource Center 2014,
National Human Trafficking Resource Center. Comprehensive human trafficking assessment. (2014), Available from: http://mspny.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Trafficking-Assessment.pdf.
National Institute of Justice 2014).
- Anda R.F.
- et al.
- Anda R.F.
- et al.
National Conference of State Legislatures. Human trafficking state laws. (2016), Available from: http://www.ncsl.org/research/civil-and-criminal-justice/human-trafficking-laws.aspx.
New York Civil Liberties Union. Child abuse reporting and teen sexual activity: Clarifying some common misunderstandings (FAQ). (2017). Available from: https://www.nyclu.org/en/publications/child-abuse-reporting-and-teen-sexual-activity-clarifying-some-common-misunderstandings.
National and Global Policy Responses and Options
National Legislative Action
Polaris. Current federal laws. (2017). Available from: https://polarisproject.org/current-federal-laws.
Polaris. Current federal laws. (2017). Available from: https://polarisproject.org/current-federal-laws.
Global Organizations and Regulations
Responses from Professional Organizations
- •In 2008, 2010, and again in 2016, the American Nurses Association highlighted human trafficking as a public health and human rights crisis (American Nurses Association 2008,American Nurses Association 2010,ANA Center for Ethics and Human Rights 2016), aiming to ensure nurses have skill sets properly identifying and referring victims of human trafficking, and to advocate and support protection and prosecution legislation.
- •In 2014, Vera Institute of Justice completed research and published Trafficking Victim Identification Tool (Simich etal., 2014) and Toolkit to Combat Trafficking in Persons: Global Programme against Trafficking in Human Beings (
Simich, L., etal. (2014). Improving human trafficking victim identification—validation and dissemination of a screening tool. p. 455. Available from: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/246712.pdf.
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime 2006,United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime 2018). Although these toolkits address the complexity of a comprehensive and coordinated community response to combating human trafficking, still lacking are examples of the implementation of well-developed health care responses (Barrows and Finger, 2008,Dovydaitis, 2010,Isaac etal., 2011). - •In 2015, the American Public Health Association published Expanding and Coordinating Human Trafficking-Related Public Health Research, Evaluation, Education, and Prevention (American Public Health Association 2015). This policy statement advocates for the promotion of quality curricula, provision of guidance supporting survivor-centered and trauma informed care, and recommends specific actions to disseminate knowledge through societies, funding, and certification bodies.
American Public Health Association. Expanding and coordinating human trafficking-related public health research, evaluation, education, and prevention. (2015), Policy Statements and Advocacy]. Available from: https://www.apha.org/policies-and-advocacy/public-health-policy-statements/policy-database/2016/01/26/14/28/expanding-and-coordinating-human-trafficking-related-public-health-activities.
- •In 2016, the Association of Women's Health, Obstetric, and Neonatal Nursing adopted policy (Association of Women's Health Obstetric and Neontal Nurses 2016), and published Human Trafficking to promote and enhance nurses’ engagement in screening, familiarity with mandatory reporting, and efforts supporting human trafficking victims (Association of Women's Health Obstetric and Neontal Nurses 2016).
- •In 2017, the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners provided support with a human trafficking web page (National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners 2017) and annual meeting promotion of awareness.
National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners. Human trafficking prevention. (2017); Available from: https://www.napnap.org/human-trafficking-prevention.
- •In 2017, the Nurse Practitioners in Women's Health adopted policy recommending safety planning with community partnerships and developing evidence-based interventions (Nurse Practitioners in Women's Health 2017).
Nurse Practitioners in Women's Health. Human sex trafficking. (2017) Available from: https://www.npwh.org/lms/filebrowser/file?fileName=NPWH%20Position%20Statement%20on%20Human%20Sex%20Trafficking%20for %20public%20comment.pdf.
- •In 2017, the Emergency Nurses Association (ENA) published a resource web page (Emergency Nurses Association 2017), including ENA Connection and Human Trafficking: What Emergency Nurses Need to Know.
Emergency Nurses Association. Human trafficking. (2017); Available from: https://www.ena.org/practice-resources/human-trafficking.
The Academy's Position
Recommendations
- •Promote:
- ○The inclusion of advanced forensic nurses with expertise in human trafficking as members of private business boards; commercial bank boards; not-for-profit service organizations; and, government and other organization task forces, advisory boards, and technical working groups, specifically to influence health care policy, advocacy activities, and legislation related to human trafficking and to promote justice for victims of human trafficking.
- ○Faculty-led scholarship indexed in the Sigma Theta Tau International Virginia Henderson Repository to chronicle the intersection of nursing with human trafficking victims through qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods research.
- ○Awareness and education of human trafficking through collaboration with specialty nursing organizations, whose members are likely to encounter victims of human trafficking, on promoting awareness and education, particularly the organizations serving nurse practitioners and RNs intersecting with human trafficking patients.
- ○Existing legislation, awareness, and continued appropriations, including passage of SOAR Training on Human Trafficking 2017, among nursing educators and education organizations to integrate ahuman trafficking curriculum to promote strengths-based workforce to advance the health of persons affected by human trafficking through recognition, identification, and management.
- ○Advocate to place forensic nurses, acute care nurses, and community nurses on each state's and territory's Human Trafficking Task Force, joining attorneys, law enforcement, community programs responding to human trafficking, and organizations supporting the work of the interprofessional team committed to elimination of human trafficking.
- ○
- •Advocate:
- ○Promote nurse workforce development of human trafficking expertise with policy for foundation and commercial enterprises (National Institute of Nursing Research [NINR], Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Johnson & Johnson, Dove and others) to fund development of expertise through scholarship and leadership voices condemning human trafficking.
- ○For closure of legislative and regulation gaps, wherever found, including the gap in Title X practice guidelines, to formally include sex-trafficking of adolescents as child sex abuse, reportable under all state and territory statutes.
- ○To federal and state legislators to enact funded legislation that protects and facilitates rescue or elopement of children and other persons ensnared in human trafficking and to support federal and state agencies mandated in the response.
- ○For legislation, in collaboration with the Academy of Forensic Nursing, American Association of Nurse Practitioners, Nurse Practitioners in Women's Health, American Academy of Emergency Nurse Practitioners, Emergency Nursing Association, and others to require every emergency department to have a competent registered nurse 24/7/365 who has advanced nursing education in general forensic nursing principles, concepts, content, and practice to facilitate identification and rescue of persons affected by human trafficking across all developmental stages and in all presentations.
- ○
- •Encourage nurses to participate in review panels and technical working groups at the Health and Human Services/National Institutes of Health, NINR, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Department of Justice/NIJ/Office of Justice Programs to include programs that build strengths-based nursing workforce as collaborative members of response teams in the recognition, identification, and intervention strategies necessary to mitigate the biopsychosocial and spiritual impact on health following trafficking trauma.
- •Identify advanced forensic nurse educators for, and consultants to, local, state, tribal, and military law enforcement and criminal justice communities.
- •Urge Congress to support recommended appropriations with adequate funding and distribution in legislative initiatives for the Violence Against Women Act, Victims of Trafficking and Violence Prevention Act, and The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act among others.
Acknowledgments
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