Orphanage Trafficking Prevention and Protection Act

Bill: 119-hr-4732
Sponsor: full_name: Rep. Smith, Christopher H. [R-NJ-4]
Introduced: 2025-07-23
Policy area: International Affairs
Latest action: action_date: 2025-07-23
text: Referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Summaries:

tv_txt: I 119th CONGRESS 1st Session H. R. 4732 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES July 23, 2025 Mr. Smith of New Jersey (for himself, Mr. Mfume , and Ms. Salazar ) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs A BILL To expand the definition of severe forms of trafficking in persons to include the recruitment, harboring, transportation, transfer, or receipt of orphaned, abandoned, or minors living in public or private residential facilities, and for other purposes.

1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Orphanage Trafficking Prevention and Protection Act . 2. Findings Congress finds the following: (1) Orphaned, abandoned, and children living in public or private residential facilities, including institutions, children’s homes, orphanages, boarding schools, or group homes, are among the populations most vulnerable to trafficking in persons worldwide. According to the United States Department of State, children without parental care are at significantly higher risk of being trafficked for labor, sexual exploitation, forced begging, and other illegal purposes. (2) An estimated 5,400,000 children live in institutional care globally, many of whom are not true orphans but are separated from their families due to poverty, disability, or family breakdown. (3) Traffickers often target these children under the guise of education, caregiving, or adoption. (4) The Department of State’s 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report notes that orphanage trafficking —the recruitment of children into residential care for the purpose of exploitation and profit—occurs in multiple countries and is increasingly linked to international travel, and volun-tourism. (5) The Department of State’s 2019 and 2024 Trafficking in Persons Reports have identified patterns in which children are trafficked into orphanages to attract donations and international volunteers, with reports of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse in such institutions. (6) In some cases, children are fraudulently labeled as orphans and trafficked through inter-country adoption channels, undermining legitimate adoption systems and violating the Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption, done at the Hague on May 29, 1993. (7) Despite these documented abuses, current United States law does not explicitly recognize orphanage trafficking as a severe form of trafficking in persons, which, accordingly, may hinder efforts to prosecute perpetrators, protect victims, and condition foreign assistance. (8) Clarifying that the trafficking of orphaned, abandoned, or children living in public or private residential facilities, including institutions, children’s homes, orphanages, boarding schools, or group homes, constitutes a severe form of trafficking in persons under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 ( 22 U.S.C. 7101 et seq. ) is necessary to protect these children, enhance accountability, and strengthen United States anti-trafficking efforts. 3. Modification to definition of severe forms of trafficking in persons Paragraph (11) of section 103 of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 ( 22 U.S.C. 7102 ) is amended— (1) in subparagraph (A), by striking ; or at the end and inserting a semicolon; (2) in subparagraph (B), by striking the period at the end and inserting ; or ; and (3) by adding at the end the following new subparagraph: (C) the recruitment, harboring, transportation, transfer, or receipt of orphaned, abandoned, or persons living in public or private residential facilities who have not attained 18 years of age, by means of fraud, coercion, force, or abuse of a position of vulnerability, for the purpose of exploitation and profit, forced labor, involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, slavery, child labor, or sex trafficking. .