The framework we use to understand human trafficking strongly influences the strategies that we select to fight trafficking. We need a good framework to:

1. Distinguish between activities that are merely helpful and those that can achieve more fundamental systemic change for the better.
2. Indicate which of the systemic strategies will be most efficient and have the most impact, given limited resources and the nature of the particular trafficking networks.
3. Identify the vital strategic components and partners that are required for any larger plan to succeed.
4. Assess the impact of the strategies in relation to a clearly defined and pragmatic measure of success, e.g., reaching a tipping point for a country or region.

The following framework is a tool for assessing human trafficking and planning strategies that will eradicate it. Keep in mind that no single framework will work perfectly for all countries or trafficking networks—the framework must be modified to suit local conditions.

A Framework for Strategic Planning to End Human Trafficking

This framework reviews strategies at the policy level that are intended to institutionalize counter-trafficking measures in law and in government agencies, and at the ground-level, to ensure efficient and effective implementation of those measures in partnership with the citizen sector and communities. The strategies address the four major groups involved in the trafficking industry: traffickers, customers (who create demand), victims of the crime, and the support structure.

Traffickers
Who are the Traffickers?
Traffickers include those who may recruit, transport, receive, and exploit victims, often using force, threats, or other control mechanisms. Many traffickers belong to decentralized criminal networks rather than professional criminal groups. Traffickers may operate transnationally, or may engage in domestic trafficking within their own country. Often the traffickers and their victims share the same nationality, allowing the trafficker to better understand and exploit their victims. Sometimes traffickers are survivors of trafficking themselves, as in the case of many female brothel-keepers or the "bottom girl" in American street prostitution.

Driving Factors
Traffickers are driven by two primary factors: high profits and low risk. This combination is driving the explosive spread of trafficking, making it the fastest-growing criminal industry in the world, now second in size only to drugs and arms. The bar to entry into the industry is further lowered by the low start-up capital and skills required to generate profits. In many cases, a trafficker must simply be willing to exploit a vulnerable person and to tap the tremendous demand that usually exists.

Strategic Considerations
Altering the high profit/low risk equation is the key to changing market dynamics that drive trafficking. In many cases, a focused strategy that introduces obstacles to profit combined with more prosecutions and convictions is the most efficient approach to undermining the industry. This strategy is attractive because it requires fewer resources to reach a tipping point beyond which there is a system wide impact.

For example, if prosecutions are brought against just 10 of the brothels out of a population of 60 brothels that engage in trafficking during a one-year period, it is highly likely that, for many networks, the majority of remaining brothels would choose to relocate or shut down because of the increased risk. But if the same law enforcement resources were used to prosecute 50 customers out of a total 5,000 customers who use the brothels, the impact on overall demand would probably be far less (due to poor communication, less elastic response to risk, and better odds of avoiding prosecution).

In practice, there are obstacles that must be overcome to make this strategy succeed; these include corruption and scarce resources and low priority for law enforcement. But reforming the criminal justice system or applying political pressure may be more feasible than undertaking many of the steps required to radically reduce the demand that supports trafficking or the vulnerability of entire populations to trafficking. Such crackdowns can increase traffickers' risk but this can be offset, at least partially, by price increases that boost traffickers' profits. For this reason, a strategy of targeting traffickers should be accompanied by aggressive strategies that reduce demand.

Demand
Who Creates Demand?
Demand is created by customers who buy products and services, or people for commercial sex, from the trafficking industry. They could include the "Johns" (customers of commercial sex), companies that subcontract sweatshops, and end-consumers who buy cheap goods produced by trafficked labor. On a global scale, some countries are primarily destination regions and therefore act as demand agents.

Driving Factors
A desire for cheap goods and services or commercial sex drives the demand-side, facilitated by a disregard for the trafficking conditions from which the customer is benefiting. Some demand agents are fully aware of the exploitative nature of their actions, like many Johns or companies that subcontract sweatshops, while others may have failed to inform themselves about the source of the products they buy. In a transnational context, certain destination countries may "benefit" from increased revenue from taxes, sex tourism, or other sources associated with the receiving and exploitation of foreign national victims within their borders.

Strategic Considerations
Given the market dynamics that drive the trafficking industry, a demand-focused strategy is an essential component of a long-term systemic approach. In isolation, supply-side strategies, like the war on drugs, tend to simply cause traffickers to profit from the same market while going elsewhere for their supply.

A demand-focused strategy has the double benefit of shrinking the overall size of the industry while decreasing profits for traffickers, complimenting the trafficker-focused enforcement efforts that increase traffickers' risk. In a transnational context, focusing on destination countries is a highly efficient strategy when pursued together with the more numerous source-country initiatives. Demand-focused tactics include increasing awareness of the problem and imposition of criminal or civil penalties. Efforts to increase awareness may be effective with some end-consumers of goods like rugs and chocolate, but are likely to work in opposition to well-funded advertising campaigns and general consumer apathy.

Criminal and civil penalties are usually required to change the behavior of commercial sex customers or of companies that subcontract from traffickers. But enforcement of these penalties is often difficult because of the entrenched power or cultural acceptance that protects male customers and businesses. Also, law enforcement often perceives the resource investment-to-return ratio as being too high to prosecute commercial sex customers. Increased enforcement against traffickers may be more feasible in many countries given their more marginalized societal position, especially when there is political pressure to eradicate trafficking. But a demand-focus should be retained as a component of the overall strategy.

Victims of Trafficking
Who are the Victims of Trafficking?
Victims of trafficking often come from highly vulnerable populations including the poor, migrants, runaways or youth in state custody, minority or oppressed groups, women and children, and victims of violence, war, or natural disasters. Traffickers target members of these populations because they are often dependent on the traffickers, more vulnerable to control techniques, and unlikely to be protected by society.

Driving Factors
While victims of trafficking do not, of course, voluntarily participate in the crime, their circumstances often place them in positions of great vulnerability to traffickers. Some of the push factors include poverty and a lack of opportunity that encourage migration, often facilitated by smuggling networks that also may engage in trafficking, and familial abuse or neglect that propel youth onto the street or into state care. Many victims are also deceived by misconceptions about the opportunities and working conditions that await them when they migrate—a misconception that often is encouraged by the traffickers—or they overestimate their ability to avoid exploitation on arrival.

Strategic Considerations
Some people have asserted that the root cause of trafficking is poverty and inequality (because these conditions create a population that is vulnerable to crime). This assertion serves to blame the victims, quite unfairly, but also is both incorrect and strategically unwise. An analogous argument would be to blame poppies for the heroin trade, as opposed to those who create the demand for heroin and the drug traffickers who manufacture and distribute heroin to profit from meeting that demand. Strategically, the claim is unwise because it suggests that the eradication of human trafficking depends on eradication of poverty and inequality, an immensely challenging requirement when far more efficient strategies exist that are focused on demand and on the traffickers. The poverty-as-cause-of-trafficking argument is also sometimes used to avoid confronting the trafficking industry itself as well as the entrenched power groups that support trafficking including those who create the demand for trafficking.

Raising Awareness. Many trafficking prevention programs focus on raising awareness about trafficking among vulnerable populations in order to reduce the risk that they will be exploited. While this is an important activity to protect specific populations, there are strategic limitations that must be examined to realistically assess the likely impact on the overall trafficking markets in a region. This prevention strategy is unlikely to reduce overall trafficking if the demand-side and the traffickers themselves are not also directly addressed. The specific populations that benefit from this strategy may be better able to avoid certain recruitment techniques, but in compensation the traffickers may simply recruit from other populations. Some populations also may not be in a position to make meaningful choices, either because force is used against them or because of extreme poverty or discrimination.

Social Protection. Because of the factors already mentioned, measures to reduce poverty and inequality while increasing social protections are the key to shielding vulnerable populations. These measures create meaningful choices and reduce dependence on criminal groups like smugglers. This approach has the added advantage of introducing obstacles to trafficking that are likely to increase the associated costs and risks, making this an important complimentary strategy to activities focused on demand and traffickers.

Victim Protection and Services. Protecting victims and providing services to survivors is an essential goal for its own sake. The immediate protection of victims should be a priority for law enforcement, and governments and private foundations should fund comprehensive and specialized services for survivors. From a prevention perspective, however, victim protection is also important because it disrupts the criminal networks and is a prerequisite for prosecution and convictions. Strong protection measures combined with comprehensive after-care help empower survivors in prosecuting their traffickers while minimizing security risk and re-trauma. These measures also reduce the likelihood of re-victimization, a constant danger once survivors are freed from the traffickers.

The Support Structure
What is the Support Structure?
The support structure includes businesses and practices that facilitate human trafficking. This support structure, both in the criminal and noncriminal sectors, is essential to the trafficking networks, providing advertising, transportation, financial services, and spaces in which they operate. Practices that tolerate or even actively encourage trafficking also are part of this structure, and these can include police corruption, societal discrimination, and acceptance of abuse or acceptance of minors in the sex industry.

Driving Factors.
Businesses that support the trafficking industry generate millions in profits from their involvement. Some businesses are acutely aware of their involvement, like hotels, landlords, or advertisers, while others, like airlines and banks, may find it is more difficult to isolate the traffickers and customers among their clients. Unfortunately, the profits generated usually outweigh any reservations they may have about it, and because the facilitators are rarely if ever prosecuted for their role, they face negligible risk. Practices that facilitate trafficking, like corruption, are often motivated by profit or the vested self-interest of powerful groups like males who use the sex industry, or by corporate powers that tolerate horrific working conditions for the poor.

Strategic Considerations.
A variety of tactics can be used to attack the support structure, including legal actions, policy reform, and public awareness and pressure. Such action requires careful planning to assess which tactics are best because many are costly in terms of the resources required. Tactics should be evaluated on the basis of how well they achieve a measurable impact.

Legal Actions. Criminal prosecution of businesses that indirectly facilitate trafficking can be challenging, particularly considering how difficult it is to convict the traffickers themselves. Prosecutors may be reluctant to press charges because of businesses' power, the perceived difficulty of meeting the burden of proof, and the low priority given to prosecuting criminal networks. However, initiating a criminal prosecution can have a chilling effect on the activities of other businesses, even if a conviction is not won. Civil actions by victims may have a better chance of success given the lower standard of proof required for civil cases and the plaintiff's ability to file and follow-through with the lawsuit. However, defendants' resources may overwhelm those of the plaintiff if plaintiffs do not receive support from organizations such as a citizen sector organization. Civil actions can reduce businesses' profits and generate adverse publicity, discouraging future involvement in trafficking. Civil actions may also be used against the government in corruption or brutality cases, introducing incentives for internal reforms.

Policy and Institutional Reform. Changing long-standing attitudes or practices in society and the government sector often presents some of the most serious challenges to the anti-trafficking movement. But experiences in several countries during the past few years suggest that passage of new anti-trafficking legislation is an efficient means of achieving this change. In many cases, it is easier to change an enforcement practice (for example practices affecting children abused by the sex industry) by adopting a new legal paradigm than it is to attempt to alter enforcement of existing laws that have been traditionally neglected.