A large majority of Americans view human trafficking in the U.S. as a significant issue, a new survey has found, as concerns rise about the increasing number of people prosecuted for the crime nationwide.
About 80% of voters in the U.S. believe human trafficking is a “major problem” in the country and that not enough is being done to address it, according to a June national poll from the Convention of States Action and the Trafalgar Group.
Only 5.7% of people said human trafficking is not a major problem and that they think enough has been done to combat it, the poll results showed. About 14.2% of people said they were not sure.
Majorities of both Republicans and Democrats view human trafficking as a major problem in America, but a higher percentage of Republicans think so.
About 90% of Republicans believe the country has a big human trafficking problem, while 69% of Democrats agree. A larger percentage of Democrats disagreed, about 8% of Democrats to 3% of Republicans. A much bigger swath of Democrats were also unsure about the issue, about 23% of Democrats to just 7% of Republicans.
About 79% of independents said they view human trafficking as a major issue.
Women tended to view human trafficking in the U.S. as a more significant issue than men.
About 87% of women said they view human trafficking as a major issue. About 72% of men said they feel the same.
Black Americans were the most likely to see human trafficking as a major issue.
About 82% of blacks said they think the country has a major human trafficking issue, while about 76% of Hispanic Americans agreed, and about 80% of whites said so.
Most of the survey participants were white, about 71%, while 12% were black, and nearly 12% were Hispanic.
The pollsters surveyed about 1,088 likely general election voters from June 5 to 9. The margin of error was 2.9%.
Human trafficking in the U.S. can take many forms.
It involves forcing victims into commercial sex or forced labor in both legal and illegal industries, including retail, construction, drug smuggling, peddling, domestic work, and many other sectors, according to the State Department. It can also involve organ trafficking, such as selling human organs on the black market.
The U.S. is far better than the countries with the worst human trafficking problems, such as China, India, and Pakistan, but human trafficking in the U.S. has seen a sharp rise in recent years.
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A total of 2,198 people were referred to U.S. Attorneys for human trafficking in fiscal year 2020, up 62% from 1,360 people in 2011.
Meanwhile, the number of people prosecuted for human trafficking has jumped 84% from 729 in 2011 to 1,343 in 2020.
The states with the highest levels of human trafficking are California, Texas, and Florida, although major cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago also struggle with human trafficking activity.
In recent months, the worsening situation at the southern border has triggered concerns about the trafficking of migrants by human smugglers. Women and children smuggled across the border are particularly vulnerable to trafficking.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has already encountered more than 2,096,000 migrants at the border from October of last year to this May, up from fewer than 1,757,000 during the same period starting in October 2021.