Human trafficking in Virginia
Human trafficking in Virginia is the illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of reproductive slavery, commercial sexual exploitation, or forced labor as it occurs in the state of Virginia, and it is widely recognized as a modern-day form of slavery. It includes "the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons by means of 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 shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs." According to officials with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other law enforcement agencies, there is a growing problem with human trafficking in Virginia, particularly in connection with Latino gangs, including MS-13. Anti-human trafficking advocates argue that weak laws in Virginia are attracting traffickers from Washington D.C.  and Maryland which have passed stricter laws. The National Human Trafficking Resource Center reported receiving 624 calls and emails in 2015 about human trafficking in Virginia. History of slavery. African workers first appeared in Virginia in 1619, brought by English privateers from a Spanish slave ship they had intercepted. As the Africans were baptized Christians, they were treated as indentured servants. Some laws regarding slavery of Africans were passed in the seventeenth century and codified into Virginia's first slave code in 1705. Slavery became illegal during the years of the American Civil War (1861–1865). Demographics. Exact numbers are difficult  to obtain since human trafficking is illegal in Virginia. However, the National Human Trafficking Resource Center keeps statistics on the number of calls to their hotline and the number of cases. From December 2007 to June 2015, they received 2,803 calls on human trafficking in Virginia, which resulted in 628 cases. The most common type of trafficking was sex trafficking, domestic work and traveling sales crews. Laws in Virginia. Before April 1, 2015, Virginia was the only state in the nation that did not have any standalone human trafficking laws. SB 1188 and HB 1964 were passed on April 1 , 2015. They were the first bills in Virginia to define sex trafficking, establish penalties, criminalized child sex trafficking as a Class 3 felony without the need to prove force, intimidation or deception, and criminalized recruitment for commercial sex. It also provides provisions for protecting and identifying sex trafficking victims. Robert Dillard was the first man charged under this law.