Definitions of Human Trafficking - Minnesota

Defined in Child Protection Law

Citation: Ann. Stat. § 260C.007, Subd. 31

The term 'sexually exploited youth' refers to the following:

• A person who is alleged to have engaged in conduct that would, if committed by an adult, violate any Federal, State, or local law relating to being hired, offering to be hired, or agreeing to be hired by another individual to engage in sexual penetration or sexual conduct
• A person who is a victim of the crime criminal sexual conduct, criminal sexual predatory conduct, use of minors in sexual performances, or possession of child pornography
• A person who is a victim of the Federal offenses of child pornography or child sex trafficking
• A person who is a sex trafficking victim

Definitions of Labor Trafficking

Citation: Ann. Stat. § 609.281

The term 'labor trafficking' means the following:

• The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, enticement, provision, obtaining, or receipt of a person by any means, for the following purposes:
  • Debt bondage or forced labor or services
  • Slavery or practices similar to slavery
  • The removal of organs through the use of coercion or intimidation
• Receiving profit or anything of value, knowing or having reason to know it is derived from an act described above

The term 'debt bondage' means the status or condition of a debtor arising from a pledge by the debtor of the debtor's personal services or those of a person under the debtor's control as a security for debt, if the value of those services as reasonably assessed is not applied toward the liquidation of the debt or the length and nature of those services are not respectively limited and defined.

The term 'forced labor or services' means labor or services that are performed or provided by another person and are obtained or maintained through an actor's following actions:

• Threat, either implicit or explicit, scheme, plan, or pattern, or other action intended to cause a person to believe that, if the person did not perform or provide the labor or services, that person or another person would suffer bodily harm or physical restraint
• Physically restraining or threatening to physically restrain a person
• Abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process
• Knowingly destroying, concealing, removing, confiscating, or possessing any actual or purported passport or other immigration document, or any other actual or purported government identification document, of another person
• Use of blackmail

The term 'blackmail' means a threat to expose any fact or alleged fact tending to cause shame or to subject any person to hatred, contempt, or ridicule.

Definitions of Sex Trafficking of Minors

Citation: Ann. Stat. §§ 609.321; 609.322; 609.325

The term 'sex trafficking' means the following:

• Receiving, recruiting, enticing, harboring, providing, or obtaining by any means an individual to aid in the prostitution of the individual
• Receiving profit or anything of value, knowing or having reason to know it is derived from an act described above

A person commits the crime of 'sex trafficking in the first degree' if he or she does any of the following:

• Solicits or induces an individual younger than age 18 to practice prostitution
• Promotes the prostitution of an individual younger than age 18
• Receives profit, knowing or having reason to know that it is derived from the prostitution, or the promotion of the prostitution, of an individual younger than age 18
• Engages in the sex trafficking of an individual younger than age 18

Consent or mistake as to age shall be no defense to prosecutions under § 609.322.