Words we use, in plain language.

For immediate danger. Call 911 first if someone is at risk right now.

The three parts of the international definition: what was done (recruiting, moving, holding), how (force, fraud, coercion) and why (exploitation). For children, the "means" isn't needed.

Basis: Palermo Protocol, UNODC

Longer-term help after someone leaves trafficking: safe housing, medical and mental health care, legal help, and support with work and daily life.

Basis: Common practice

Sexual images of minors created or altered with AI. They are abuse material and can be reported.

Basis: NCMEC

The large round shield carried by ancient Greek citizen-soldiers. It was held on the left arm, so it also covered the person standing beside you. Why we chose it: every monthly gift to The Phalanx is one aspis, a shield held up for someone you'll never meet.

Basis: Greek history · How Tharros One uses the word

Making money from a venture you knew, or should have known, was trafficking people. It's a federal crime in itself.

Basis: 18 U.S.C. §§ 1589, 1591

Another name for debt bondage: work demanded to pay off a debt that keeps growing or never ends.

Basis: ILO

Tattoos or marks a trafficker uses to show "ownership" of a person.

Basis: DHS Blue Campaign

A letter from HHS that lets adult foreign survivors get federal benefits and services like a refugee would.

Basis: HHS OTIP

Marriage, formal or informal, before age 18. It can overlap with forced marriage and trafficking.

Basis: UNICEF

Survivors can sue traffickers, and anyone who knowingly profited, for damages in U.S. federal court.

Basis: 18 U.S.C. § 1595

A pattern of threats, monitoring and isolation that takes away a person's freedom, often without physical violence.

Basis: Polaris, NCTSN

Any sex act for which anything of value is given or received by anyone.

Basis: TVPA

Once force, fraud or coercion is used, a person's earlier "yes" doesn't matter. A person under 18 can't consent to commercial sex.

Basis: TVPA, Palermo Protocol

A free first conversation about your group's needs. It's where we share past work and references.

How Tharros One uses the word

Temporary permission to stay in the U.S. for trafficking victims who may be witnesses.

Basis: DHS

Child sexual abuse material: any sexual image or video of a minor. The term replaces "child pornography".

Basis: NCMEC

Commercial sexual exploitation of children: any sexual exploitation of a person under 18 for money, goods or anything of value.

Basis: OJJDP

NCMEC's national system for reporting online child sexual exploitation, including sextortion: report.cybertip.org or 1-800-843-5678.

Basis: NCMEC

Holding someone to a debt they can never pay off, such as travel, housing or "fees", and making them work it off. Also called peonage.

Basis: TVPA, ILO

Promising one job, pay or place and delivering another once the person is far from home or in debt.

Basis: ILO, FTC

The buying of commercial sex or cheap labor and goods that makes trafficking profitable.

Basis: UNODC

Holding someone's passport, ID or visa to control them. A federal crime in the U.S.

Basis: 18 U.S.C. § 1592

Forced labor inside a private home: nannies, housekeepers or caregivers who can't leave, aren't paid or are cut off.

Basis: Polaris, DOL

A company's steps to find, prevent and fix forced labor and other abuses in its business and suppliers.

Basis: OECD, UN Guiding Principles

The rule that employers, not workers, should pay the costs of recruiting them.

Basis: Leadership Group for Responsible Recruitment

Trafficking of a person by a parent, relative or guardian.

Basis: Polaris

Part of our team works in West Africa. We don't publish their names or their work, for their safety and that of the people they serve.

How Tharros One uses the word

Sextortion for money. It often targets teenage boys and moves fast, sometimes within hours.

Basis: FBI

Tracking payments and bank activity to find and disrupt trafficking. Banks report suspicious activity to FinCEN.

Basis: FinCEN

The three ways traffickers control people: violence or confinement, lies about the job or pay, and threats or pressure, including threats to family.

Basis: TVPA

Making someone, often a child, beg and hand over the money.

Basis: UNODC

Making someone commit crimes, like carrying drugs, theft or running scams.

Basis: UNODC, TIP Report

Work a person is made to do under threat of a penalty, which they did not freely agree to.

Basis: ILO Forced Labour Convention

Forced labor hidden in the making of goods we buy, often far down the chain.

Basis: ILO, DOL

A marriage a person did not freely agree to, or can't leave. Counted in global modern slavery estimates.

Basis: ILO, Walk Free

Our sessions never cost the group that hosts them.

How Tharros One uses the word

Sex or labor trafficking run by a gang, often alongside other crimes.

Basis: Polaris, DOJ

The ILO, Walk Free and IOM's periodic estimate of how many people are in forced labor and forced marriage worldwide.

Basis: ILO, Walk Free, IOM

Building trust with someone, often a young person, to lower their guard and then exploit them.

Basis: NCMEC

Giving a trafficked person a place to stay, or hiding them, to keep the exploitation going. Part of the legal definition.

Basis: TVPA, Palermo Protocol

Counts of calls, texts and cases reported to a hotline. They show who reached out, not how common trafficking is.

Basis: Polaris

Using force, fraud or coercion to make someone work or provide commercial sex. Any commercial sex involving a person under 18 is trafficking, even without force.

Basis: TVPA, DHS Blue Campaign

Identified victims are cases found and confirmed. Estimates try to count everyone affected. The gap between them is very large.

Basis: ILO, UNODC

Storefronts posing as massage or spa services where workers may be trafficked for sex and labor.

Basis: Polaris

The ILO's 11 signs of forced labor, such as deception, withheld wages, debt bondage, retained documents and abuse of vulnerability.

Basis: ILO

Threatening to report someone to immigration or have them deported, to keep them working or quiet.

Basis: DHS Blue Campaign

The National Hotline can bring an interpreter into a call in more than 200 languages.

Basis: National Human Trafficking Hotline

Being made to work by threats of serious harm or by the law being used against you.

Basis: TVPA

Cutting a person off from family, friends, language or help, so they depend on the trafficker.

Basis: Polaris

A person or agency that finds workers for employers. Unregulated recruiters are a major trafficking risk.

Basis: ILO

Making someone work or provide services through force, fraud or coercion, to hold them in servitude, debt bondage or slavery.

Basis: TVPA

We act only within the law, under proper authority, and in coordination with officials, in every country we work in.

How Tharros One uses the word

Sexual abuse of a child streamed live to paying viewers, often in another country.

Basis: IJM, ECPAT

Someone required by law to report suspected child abuse. Who counts varies by state; in Tennessee it is every adult.

Basis: State law

An umbrella term for forced labor, forced marriage, debt bondage and trafficking. Used in UK and Australian law and by many advocates.

Basis: ILO, Walk Free

A yearly report large companies must publish in some countries (such as the UK and Australia) on how they tackle forced labor.

Basis: UK Modern Slavery Act, Australian Modern Slavery Act

A free, confidential, 24/7 U.S. hotline funded by HHS: call 1-888-373-7888, text 233733, or chat. It is not law enforcement or immigration.

Basis: HHS

Survivors shouldn't be punished for crimes they were forced to commit while being trafficked.

Basis: UNODC, OSCE

Talking to a child online in order to commit a sexual offense or to meet them.

Basis: NCMEC

Trafficking a person so their organs can be taken. Part of the international definition.

Basis: Palermo Protocol

Totals from our own anonymous surveys at events and trainings. Groups appear only once 30 surveys count.

How Tharros One uses the word

Our booth at races and community events: the six signs, the hotline and a short survey.

How Tharros One uses the word

The 2000 UN treaty that set the first international definition of trafficking in persons.

Basis: UN, UNODC

An organization we work with on training or prevention. We don't publish partner names.

How Tharros One uses the word

A line of people standing shoulder to shoulder, each shield overlapping the next, strong only because no one stands alone. Why we chose it: it's the name of our monthly giving program. No single gift ends trafficking; many, held together month after month, protect people. We use it for protection, never for combat.

Basis: Greek history · How Tharros One uses the word

Sex trafficking run by one person who controls the victim through romance, debt, threats or violence.

Basis: Polaris

Teaching people to recognize the signs and reduce risk before exploitation happens.

How Tharros One uses the word

Counts of trafficking cases charged and won. They show law-enforcement effort, not how much trafficking exists.

Basis: TIP Report

A set amount of money a person must bring in each day or week, with punishment if they fall short.

Basis: Polaris

Our work helping people already being exploited reach safety, only where lawful and authorized, always with authorities, and always ending in a handoff to aftercare.

How Tharros One uses the word

The first stage: the offer, the friendship or the romance that draws someone in.

Basis: UNODC

Money a worker is charged to get a job. Big fees can turn into debt bondage.

Basis: ILO

The safe way to help: note what you saw and call the hotline or 911. Confronting anyone can put the person in more danger.

Basis: DHS Blue Campaign

A person moved out of a trafficking situation to safety and handed to aftercare (medical, legal and shelter support), in an operation authorized by, and coordinated with, the governing authorities. We count each person once. We never publish where, when or how.

How Tharros One uses the word

Hiring without fees, deception or document-holding, with clear contracts in a language the worker understands.

Basis: ILO, IOM IRIS

Money a court orders a trafficker to pay the survivor. In U.S. federal trafficking cases it is mandatory.

Basis: 18 U.S.C. § 1593

A trafficker poses as a boyfriend, girlfriend or partner to gain trust, then control.

Basis: Polaris

The conditions that let trafficking grow: poverty, conflict, discrimination, weak labor protections and demand.

Basis: UNODC, ILO

Young people away from home or without stable housing. Traffickers often target them.

Basis: National Runaway Safeline

State laws that treat young people in commercial sex as victims to protect, not offenders to charge.

Basis: Polaris, Shared Hope

A personal plan for staying as safe as possible while in danger, leaving, or after leaving.

Basis: National Human Trafficking Hotline

Sites where trafficked people, often lured by fake job ads, are forced to run online fraud.

Basis: UNODC, TIP Report

Sexual images a young person made of themselves, often under pressure. Sharing them is still illegal, and the young person is treated as a victim.

Basis: NCMEC

The U.S. legal term for sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion or of anyone under 18, and labor trafficking by force, fraud or coercion. It's what most federal protections are tied to.

Basis: TVPA

Making someone provide commercial sex through force, fraud or coercion, or any commercial sex involving a person under 18.

Basis: TVPA

Threatening to share someone's sexual images unless they send more images, money or something else.

Basis: FBI, NCMEC

Smuggling is moving someone across a border with their consent. Trafficking is exploiting a person and needs no border or movement at all.

Basis: DHS, UNODC

Every U.S. state has its own trafficking law alongside federal law. Penalties and protections vary.

Basis: Polaris, state law

Passing work down to other firms. Each extra layer makes abuse harder to see.

Basis: ILO, KnowTheChain

Supplying drugs or alcohol to create dependence, then using it to control the person.

Basis: Polaris, SAMHSA

Trading sex for basic needs like food, a place to sleep or safety. Not always trafficking, but a major risk, and for anyone under 18 it is trafficking.

Basis: Covenant House, NCMEC

We say "survivor" for a person who has experienced trafficking, and "victim" where the law or a crime is meant.

How Tharros One uses the word

Putting a survivor's safety, dignity and choices first, including whether and how their story is ever shared.

How Tharros One uses the word

Programs and policy shaped by people with lived experience of trafficking.

Basis: OVC

U.S. immigration status for trafficking survivors who meet its requirements, usually including help with an investigation (with exceptions).

Basis: USCIS

A free NCMEC service that helps remove sexual images taken before age 18 from participating platforms.

Basis: NCMEC

U.S. visas for seasonal work (such as H-2A farm and H-2B non-farm jobs). Workers tied to one employer can be vulnerable.

Basis: DOL, DHS

Greek for courage. Why we chose it: stepping in for someone else takes courage, and so does asking for help. It's the name of the organization and the standard we hold ourselves to.

Basis: Greek · How Tharros One uses the word

Our interactive map of trafficking topics, guides, laws and help lines, with learning paths and a globe view.

How Tharros One uses the word

Threatening harm to a person's family, at home or abroad, to keep them from leaving.

Basis: DHS Blue Campaign

The U.S. State Department's yearly Trafficking in Persons Report on every country's anti-trafficking efforts.

Basis: U.S. State Dept.

The report's rankings: Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 2 Watch List and Tier 3, based on government effort, not on how much trafficking there is.

Basis: U.S. State Dept.

A strong attachment to an abuser, built by cycles of harm and kindness. It can make leaving very hard.

Basis: Polaris, NCTSN

Working in a way that recognizes how trauma affects people, avoids causing more harm, and builds safety and trust.

Basis: SAMHSA

The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, the main U.S. federal anti-trafficking law, renewed and expanded several times since.

Basis: U.S. Congress

U.S. immigration status for victims of certain crimes, including trafficking, who help with an investigation.

Basis: USCIS

Most trafficking is never reported, out of fear, shame, distrust or not knowing it's a crime. That's why the numbers are low.

Basis: UNODC

Clearing a survivor's criminal record for offenses they committed because they were trafficked. Available in many U.S. states.

Basis: Polaris, state law

A trained person who supports a survivor through services, court and recovery, and speaks up for their needs.

Basis: OVC

Putting the needs, safety and wishes of the person harmed at the center of every decision.

Basis: DHS, OVC

Things that raise risk, like poverty, homelessness, past abuse, unstable immigration status or substance use.

Basis: Polaris, UNODC

The U.S. Department of Labor office that handles unpaid wages. Confidential, and immigration status doesn't matter.

Basis: U.S. DOL

Not paying workers what they're owed. Not trafficking by itself, but can be a sign. Report it to the DOL Wage and Hour Division.

Basis: U.S. DOL

Patterns that may point to trafficking, like someone else holding a person's ID or speaking for them. One sign alone proves nothing.

Basis: DHS Blue Campaign

A U.S. customs order that stops imports suspected of being made with forced labor.

Basis: U.S. CBP, Tariff Act § 307

Safe ways for workers to raise problems without being punished, like hotlines and worker committees.

Basis: ILO, Verité

Slavery, trafficking, sexual exploitation, use in crime, and work likely to harm a child's health or safety.

Basis: ILO Convention 182