Providing for the Needs of Victims of Human Trafficking Under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000: The Experiences of Service Providers in Missouri and Kansas

Background and Purpose: Human Trafficking (HT) is the illegal trade in human beings for purposes of reproductive slavery, commercial sexual exploitation, and forced labor. The crime of HT affects almost every country in the world (Europol, 2005). The U.S. is a major destination country for the victims of HT. About 14,500-17,500 are trafficked in to the U.S. each year. The government of the U.S. passed the TVPA of 2000 (U.S. Department of State, 2000) to combat HT and provided funding to local and state organizations to provide services to the victims of HT. The survey was conducted for the following purposes: 1) To provide information regarding the needs of trafficking victims and the services available to the victims in Missouri and Kansas; and 2) To develop a “Conceptual Model of Service Providers” which was tested on service providers that provide services to trafficking victims.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted to assess the needs of HT victims and services available in Missouri and Kansas. One hundred and six (106) service providers representing immigrant services, homeless shelters, children’s services, crime victims’ services, government and law enforcement among others completed the survey. The questionnaire for the study was developed based on previously used scales on human trafficking: Needs Assessment for Service Providers and Trafficking Victims Scale (Clawson, Small, Go & Myles, 2003) and Baseline Survey of Human Trafficking in Wisconsin (Office of Justice Assistance, 2008).

Results: Descriptive results indicated that respondents provided different services to trafficking victims which include food (57.1%, n=32), clothing (60.7%, n=34), shelter (57.1%, n=32), information and referrals (87.5%, n=49), language and translation service (51.8%, n=29), and transportation (58.9%, n=33).

Multivariate analysis results show that compared to the agencies that did not provide any services, those agencies that provided “most services” were 0.26 times less likely to report barriers and challenges to services; and 0.11 times less likely to perceive human trafficking victims’ needs as important. Furthermore, compared to the agencies that did not provide any services, agencies that provided “some services” were 0.3 times less likely to report barriers and challenges to services; and 0.16 times less likely to perceive human trafficking victims’ needs as important.

The path analysis results show that service providers’ knowledge of community resources plays a “mediating” role between barriers and challenges to services and number of services provided which is central to the Gateway Provider Model proposed by Stiffman et al (2004) study.

Conclusions and Implications: A service gap exists in terms of services and agencies available to provide services to trafficking victims in both Missouri and Kansas. There is a need for service providers to be offered training on both how to identify human trafficking victims and to better meet their needs. Future research should focus on ways of identifying trafficking victims and best models for service provision.