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In March 2009, this writer addressed it in an article titled, "Modern Slavery in America." It's disturbing and pervasive despite US laws prohibiting all forms of human trafficking through statutes created or strengthened by the 2000 Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act (VTVPA) providing for imprisonment for up to 20 years or longer as well as other penalties. Other laws were also enacted, including the 2003 Protect Act to end child exploitation.
Yet slavery exists in different forms, affecting farm workers, domestic help, factory and other sweatshop labor, restaurant and hotel work, guest workers on US military bases in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, and most of all for prostitution and sex services that exploit children as well as adults.
The International Labor Organization (ILO) defines forced labor as follows:
"....all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which said person has not offered himself (or herself) voluntarily."
Forced child labor is:
"(a) all forms of slavery or practices similar to slavery, such as the sale and trafficking of children, debt bondage and serfdom and forced or compulsory labor, including forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict;
(b) the use, procuring or offering of a child for prostitution, for the production of pornography or for pornographic performances;
(c) the use, procuring or offering of a child for illicit activities, in particular for the production and trafficking of drugs as defined in the relevant international treaties; (and)
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