On-Ramps, Intersections, and Exit Routes: A Roadmap for Systems and Industries to Prevent and Disrupt Human Trafficking

This report builds upon Polaris’s 2017 report, The Typology of Modern Slavery, which analyzed data, gleaned from nearly 10 years of operating the National Human Trafficking Hotline, to show that human trafficking in the United States consists of 25 distinct business models. For each, the Typology report illuminated the basic operational plan – the demographics of both victims and traffickers, and how victims are recruited and controlled.

The sectors explored in this report – the financial services industry, social media, transportation industry, hotels & motels, housing & homelessness systems, and health care – are not the only private businesses that intersect with human trafficking. Nor are they “to Polaris 2018 blame” in some way for human trafficking. Indeed, as you will read, many stakeholders in each of these systems and industries are already doing innovative work
or making powerful commitments to becoming part of the solution.