Human Trafficking: Data Visualization

Emma Peterson

View code




The initial sharp increase in countries providing services for victims of human trafficking may be a result of the adoption of the United Nations adoption of the Palermo Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children in 2000. Up until this point, human trafficking had not been formally defined on the international stage. However, even 17 years following its adoption, most countries continue to lack services for victims. It is yet unclear as to why recent years have demonstrated somewhat of a plateau – or perhaps even a reversal – in progress on this front.



The 3P Anti-trafficking Policy Index was developed through the European Union, and aims to quantify the extent to which each country adheres to the requirements set forth by the United Nations Palermo Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children. Countries are given a score ranging from 1 (no compliance) to 5 (full compliance) on each of the following dimensions, for a total possible score of 15:

The Human Development Index was developed by the United Nations, and evaluates life expectancy at birth, average years of schooling, and gross national income per capita.

The tracking between these two indices may suggest that those countries with the resources to foster strong HDI scores are better equipped to comply with the Palermo Protocol. However, the variability in this trend is perhaps more interesting: why would two countries with similar HDI scores – even two countries in the same global region – differ in their willingness or ability to properly address human trafficking?



With a large majority of foreign victims entering the U.S. through the south, it makes sense that the largest number of human trafficking lawsuits has occurred in the south. However, the fact that sex trafficking cases greatly outnumber labor trafficking cases may be problematic. A 2005 study by the International Labour Organization found that less that half of worldwide trafficking victims are victims of sex trafficking. Either the U.S. diverges from that trend, or labor trafficking cases are not making their way to the courts for one reason or another.



HumanTraffickingData.org documents 869 human trafficking lawsuits over the course of the past two decades, involving 7,050 victims. Approximately 20% of those lawsuits involved foreign victims – comprising 66% of the 7,050 total victims. Many of these victims come from Latin America and the Caribbean. Among the victims whose entry point into the United States is known (which is not always the case), nearly 70% were forced into the U.S. via the southern border. A variety of legal and illegal methods are utilized in order to do so, including smuggling, legal visas, and fake identification.



While many of these rankings demonstrate fairly large year-to-year changes, Alaska and South Dakota stand out as having experienced the largest decrease and increase, respectively, in human trafficking cases since 2000. It is not immediately clear whether these shifts are primarily the result of changes in human trafficking patterns or changes in enforcement. It should also be noted that some states demonstrate relatively large jumps up and down the rankings, while others have remained fairly consistent over time. The reasons for this are yet unknown.



Perpetrators of any crime should receive similar sentences regardless of their own race or that of their judge. This doesn’t appear to be the case for human trafficking. While the lengthier sentences received by Black defendants may be the result of the same racial bias that affects sentencing for other crimes, the variation in sentencing based on the race of the judge is perhaps more unusual. The median sentence delivered by Asian is significantly lower than that of other judges



Two areas have deviated from the norm in terms of the volume of human trafficking cases they have processed since 2000: South Dakota, and Washington, D.C. While other states have processed significantly more cases in an absolute sense, controlling for population brings these two areas to light. It is again not immediately clear whether this pattern is driven by differences in enforcement or by actual trafficking patterns, though an initial search brings up articles like “Why sex traffickers love South Dakota” and “Washington D.C.’s serious sex-trafficking problem”.



Non-American victims of human trafficking in the U.S. are most likely to be trafficked from Latin America and the Caribbean. In fact, more foreign victims of human trafficking in the United States come from Jamaica than any other country – regardless of population.