The Report
The annual Federal Human Trafficking Report provides comprehensive data from every identified criminal and civil human trafficking case filed in the United States federal court system each year and highlights key findings and emerging trends about these cases, such as victim demographics, vulnerabilities, and methods of trafficking.
It is the only exhaustive review of federal trafficking prosecutions in the United States and was developed to fill a large gap in the U.S. anti-trafficking space – the need for reliable data in order to deepen understanding, inform conversion, and shape policies about effective means of combating human trafficking.
The Data
Some of the most commonly requested data from the Report is accessible on this website, including victim demographics, cases initiated in all districts, percentages of sex trafficking and forced labor cases, and victim and recruiter relationships. To view the entire Federal Human Trafficking Report, please visit here.
The Federal Human Trafficking Report’s findings are not a prevalence estimate of trafficking in the United States, but instead serve as an objective summary of how the Federal System holds traffickers accountable for their exploitable conduct. The report does not capture data from state prosecutions, state civil suits, or human trafficking cases that are not prosecuted.
From 2000 through 2023 there have been
Human Trafficking Prosecutions Filed
Victims in Human Trafficking Cases
Convicted Human Trafficking Defendants
The Methodology
Each year, HTI conducts an exhaustive process of identifying and reviewing every active human trafficking case in the federal courts, utilizing various databases, and cross-checking methods including PACER, WestLaw, the United States Attorney’s Officers, the Department of Justice, and numerous media outlets. The accumulated data is then reviewed, analyzed, cross-checked for accuracy, and organized into digestible findings, key trends, and other useful subsets of data and published in the annual Federal Human Trafficking Report.
How to Use this Data
Instructions for viewing this data:
- To view our data by topic, choose a category
- On each page, you will find an interactive window where you can filter data based on your interests
- You can also download a PDF with the data filters chosen