Help End Child Trafficking

A proposal to create new programs and strengthen laws to prevent trafficking, protect victims and prosecute perpetrators

Trafficking risks increased during the COVID-19 pandemic due to lockdowns, school closures and heightened poverty. Traffickers adjusted their business models to take advantage of pandemic conditions — targeting many children online — while at the same time, essential support services for victims had become limited.

Introduced by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA) in the 117th Congress, the Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Reauthorization Act of 2021 (H.R. 5150), a bipartisan piece of legislation, sought to provide funding to combat human trafficking in the U.S. and globally. Building on the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, this legislation set out to create new programs and strengthen laws to prevent trafficking, protect victims and prosecute perpetrators.

The Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Reauthorization Act of 2021 also sought to:

• strengthen the elementary and secondary school prevention education grant to prevent online grooming and trafficking of children through linguistically accessible, culturally responsive and trauma-informed approaches and scalable programs
• expand prevention efforts at USAID
• require a study to be conducted on the accessibility of mental health services for survivors of trafficking in the United States and provide recommendations on how to improve mental health access

UNICEF USA looks forward to the reintroduction of this legislation in the 118th Congress

UNICEF works in more than 190 countries to help children survive and to protect them from violence, exploitation, and abuse. To combat child trafficking, UNICEF strives to reduce factors that place children and families at risk in the first place.