Trafficking in persons (TIP), or human trafficking, is both an international and a domestic crime that is often also associated with violations of labor, public health, and human rights standards. As such, the United States and the international community have committed to combating the various manifestations of human trafficking. Anti-TIP efforts have accelerated in the United States since the enactment of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA), and internationally since the passage of the U.N. Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (hereinafter, U.N. Protocol), adopted in 2000. Congress has been active in enacting anti-TIP laws, appropriating funds, and authorizing and evaluating anti-trafficking programs. Since 2000, Congress reauthorized the TVPA four times, most recently in 2013. This report focuses on international and domestic human trafficking and U.S. policy responses, with particular emphasis on the TVPA and its subsequent reauthorizations. The report begins with a description of key TIP-related definitions and an overview of the human trafficking problem. It follows with an overview of major foreign policy responses to international human trafficking. The report then focuses on responses to trafficking into and within the United States, examining the types of immigration relief available for trafficking victims in the United States and discussing U.S. law enforcement efforts to combat domestic trafficking. The report concludes with a discussion of the most recent TVPA reauthorization and an analysis of policy issues. Several international and domestic definitions are relevant to U.S. policy responses associated with TIP. These terms are variously used in international treaties as well as domestic statutes and are relevant for attempts to measure progress in combating the phenomenon. Article 3 of the U.N. Protocol defines "trafficking in persons" as: [T]he recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation includes, a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs. Often, the U.N. Protocol's definition of TIP is described as composed of three necessary elements: 1. the commission of specific acts (e.g., recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons); 2. the use of specific methods or means in the commission of the above-listed acts (e.g., threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power or position of vulnerability, giving or receiving payments or benefits to control another person); and 3. the primary purpose of committing the above-listed acts using the above-listed means is exploitation. The three-part U.N. definition clarifies that TIP is unique among other trafficking and commodity smuggling crimes, as it does not require that victims move across national borders to trigger the definition. Instead, the U.N. definition emphasizes the role of human exploitation and vulnerability as core components. A victim's consent in a trafficking scheme is irrelevant to the U.N. definition when exploitation occurs as a result of specified means of force, fraud, and coercion. Additionally, persons under the age of 18 who are recruited, transported, transferred, harbored, or received for the purpose of exploitation are considered trafficking victims. Federal statutes do not formally define human trafficking or trafficking in persons. Instead, Section 103(8) of the TVPA defines "severe forms of trafficking in persons" to mean: (A) sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age; or (B) the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery. This term, rather than the U.N. TIP definition of trafficking in persons, is applied in the context of U.S. anti-trafficking policies and programs—including in the State Department annual Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP Report), which measures and ranks foreign countries' progress to eliminate severe forms of trafficking in persons. Furthermore, a country's failure to achieve minimum standards of progress in combating severe forms of trafficking in persons has the potential to trigger restrictions that prohibit poor-performing countries from receiving certain types of U.S. foreign assistance. Several of the key terms used in the definition of severe forms of trafficking in persons are additionally defined or described by the TVPA, as amended, including the terms "coercion," "commercial sex act," "debt bondage," "involuntary servitude," and "sex trafficking." Coercion: "(A) threats of serious harm to or physical restraint against any person; (B) any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause a person to believe that failure to perform an act would result in serious harm to or physical restraint against any person; or (C) the abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process." Commercial Sex Act: "any sex act on account of which anything of value is given to or received by any person." Debt Bondage: 7 "the status or condition of a debtor arising from a pledge by the debtor of his or her personal services or of those of a person under his or her control as a security for debt, if the value of those services as reasonably assessed is not applied toward the liquidation of the debt or the length and nature of those services are not respectively limited and defined." Involuntary Servitude: "(A) any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause a person to believe that, if the person did not enter into or continue in such condition, that person or another person would suffer serious harm or physical restraint; or (B) the abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process." Sex Trafficking: "the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act." The TVPA's terminology is similar to the U.N. Protocol's, as both identify force, fraud, and coercion as prohibited means or methods for obtaining the services of another person and both do not require movement of persons across national borders as a necessary precondition for identifying human trafficking. The U.S. and U.N. definitions appear to differ somewhat with respect to the concept of exploitation. Notably, one of the specified examples of exploitation listed by the U.N. definition, the removal of organs, is not present in the U.S. definition of severe forms of human trafficking. Distinctions also exist between human trafficking and human smuggling. Human smuggling typically involves the provision of a service, generally procurement or transport, to people who knowingly consent to that service in order to gain illegal entry into a foreign country. In some instances, an individual who appears to have consented to being smuggled may actually be trafficked if, for example, force, fraud, or coercion are found to have played a role. "Forced or compulsory labor" is defined by International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention No. 29 as "all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily." The ILO definition is used in the context of some U.S. laws. The Trade Act of 1974, as amended (19 U.S.C. 2467), for example, identifies forced or compulsory labor, as defined by the ILO, as one of five "internationally recognized worker rights," which also include the right of association, the right to organize and bargain collectively, a minimum age for the employment of children, and acceptable conditions of work with respect to minimum wages, hours of work, and occupational safety and health. Separately, Section 222 of the TVPA of 2008 ( P.L. 110-457 ) amends Section 1589 of the U.S. Criminal Code (Title 18) to describe the means by which forced labor occurs: (1) by means of force, threats of force, physical restraint, or threats of physical restraint to that person or another person; (2) by means of serious harm or threats of serious harm to that person or another person; (3) by means of abuse or threatened abuse of law or legal process; or (4) by means of any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause the person to believe that, if that person did not perform such labor or services, that person or another person would suffer serious harm or physical restraint[.] Section 103(5) of the TVPA also defines "involuntary servitude" (see above), a term often used to describe forced labor in the U.S. context of human trafficking. The State Department also describes forced labor as a key form of human trafficking, which factors into its country assessments in the annual TIP Report. Section 402 of the Child Soldiers Protection Act (CSPA) of 2008 (Title IV of P.L.