Human Trafficking From the Texas Education Agency

• Human trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transporting, or procurement of a person for labor or services for the purpose of involuntary servitude, slavery, or forced commercial sex acts. While human trafficking is a global problem, it is also a Texas problem. School-aged children are vulnerable to the manipulation and exploitation tactics of traffickers. Unfortunately, law enforcement has confirmed cases of trafficking occurring on school grounds, at school events, and even carried out by classmates.
• Traffickers are brutal, and victims are often subjected to serious, life-altering manipulation, and control through the use of threats of violence, physical, sexual, or emotional abuse, and withholding of basic necessities. Many children do continue to attend school while being trafficked, and as such, are in contact with school personnel on a regular basis. This means that because of your role as an education professional, you may be in a position to identify and report human trafficking, thus facilitating the child’s rescue by law enforcement.