HEAL Trafficking Responds to NIH’s Strategic Plan

August 15, 2015

“HEAL Trafficking unifies and mobilizes interdisciplinary professionals combating human trafficking through a healthcare lens and serves as a centralized resource on health for the broader anti-trafficking community. Our members include leaders from clinical practice, public health, global health, academia, and government, working in 28 states and at the national and international levels. Among many other anti-trafficking activities, members of HEAL Trafficking have been active members of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Administration for Children and Families’ SOAR National Technical Working Group and the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Commercial Sexual Exploitation and Sex Trafficking of Minors in the United States. Our vision is “A world healed of trafficking.”

Human trafficking – including both sex trafficking and labor trafficking – has severe and long-lasting adverse consequences for the health, development, and well being of victims and survivors. Attention to human trafficking globally and in the United States has been increasing in the media and among the general public, NGOs, and governmental agencies at the international, national, state, and local level. Nevertheless, the body of reliable research-based evidence remains insufficient to determine many aspects of human trafficking including prevalence, physical and mental health consequences, and effective responses. For example, a 2013 study by the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, Confronting Commercial Sexual Exploitation and Sex Trafficking of Minors in the United States, included as one of its five overarching recommendations: “Strengthen Research to Advance Understanding and to Support the Development of Prevention and Intervention Strategies.” Similar research is needed with respect to the physical and mental health implications of both sex and labor trafficking for adult and minor victims and survivors. HEAL Trafficking strongly urges NIH to include human trafficking research in its strategic plan.”