Definitions of Human Trafficking - Missouri

Defined in Child Protection Law

Citation: Ann. Stat. § 210.110

The term 'abuse' includes any physical injury, sexual abuse, or emotional abuse inflicted on a child by other than accidental means by those responsible for the child's care, custody, and control. Victims of abuse or neglect also shall include any victims of sex trafficking or severe forms of trafficking, as those terms are defined in 22 U.S.C. § 7102(9)-(10).

Definitions of Labor Trafficking

Citation: Ann. Stat. §§ 566.206; 566.215; 566.200

A person commits the offense of trafficking for the purposes of slavery, involuntary servitude, peonage, or forced labor if he or she knowingly recruits, entices, harbors, transports, provides, or obtains by any means, including, but not limited to, through the use of force, abduction, coercion, fraud, deception, blackmail, or causing or threatening to cause financial harm, another person for labor or services, for the purposes of slavery, involuntary servitude, peonage, or forced labor, or benefits, financially or by receiving anything of value, from participation in such activities.

A person commits the offense of contributing to human trafficking through the misuse of documentation when he or she knowingly does any of the following:

• Destroys, conceals, removes, confiscates, or possesses a valid or purportedly valid passport, government identification document, or other immigration document of another person while committing offenses or with the intent to commit a human trafficking offense, pursuant to §§ 566.203 to 566.218
• Prevents, restricts, or attempts to prevent or restrict, without lawful authority, a person's ability to move or travel by restricting the proper use of identification in order to maintain the labor or services of a person who is the victim of a human trafficking offense

The term 'involuntary servitude or forced labor' means a condition of servitude induced by means of the following:

• Any scheme, plan, or pattern of behavior intended to cause a person to believe that, if the person does not enter into or continue the servitude, such person or another person will suffer serious physical injury or physical restraint
• The abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process

The term 'coercion' includes the following:

• Threats of serious harm to or physical restraint against any person
• Any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause a person to believe that failure to perform an act would result in serious harm to or physical restraint against any person
• The abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process

The term 'peonage' means illegal and involuntary servitude in satisfaction of a debt.

The term 'blackmail' means any threat to reveal damaging or embarrassing information about a person to that person's spouse, family, associates, or the public at large, including a threat to expose any secret tending to subject any person to hatred, contempt, or ridicule.

The term 'commercial sex act' means any sex act on account of which anything of value is given to, promised, or received by any person.

The term 'sexual conduct' includes sexual intercourse; deviate sexual intercourse; actual or simulated acts of human masturbation; physical contact with a person's clothed or unclothed genitals, pubic area, buttocks, or the breast of a female in an act of apparent sexual stimulation or gratification; or any sadomasochistic abuse or acts including animals or any latent objects in an act of apparent sexual stimulation or gratification.

The term 'sexual performance' includes any play, motion picture, still picture, film, videotape, video recording, dance, or exhibition that includes sexual conduct or nudity, performed before an audience of one or more, whether in person or online or through other forms of telecommunication.

Definitions of Sex Trafficking of Minors

Citation: Ann. Stat. §§ 566.210; 566.211

A person commits the offense of 'sexual trafficking of a child' in the first degree if he or she knowingly does any of the following:

• Recruits, entices, harbors, transports, provides, or obtains by any means, including but not limited to through the use of force, abduction, coercion, fraud, deception, blackmail, or causing or threatening to cause financial harm, a person younger than age 12 to participate in a commercial sex act, a sexual performance, or the production of explicit sexual material, or benefits financially or by receiving anything of value from participation in such activities

It shall not be a defense that the defendant believed that the person was age 12 or older.

A person commits the offense of 'sexual trafficking of a child' in the second degree if he or she knowingly does any of the following:

• Recruits, entices, harbors, transports, provides, or obtains by any means, including but not limited to through the use of force, abduction, coercion, fraud, deception, blackmail, or causing or threatening to cause financial harm, a person younger than age 18 to participate in a commercial sex act, a sexual performance, or the production of explicit sexual material, or benefits financially or by receiving anything of value from participation in such activities
• Causes a person younger than age 18 to engage in a commercial sex act, a sexual performance, or the production of explicit sexual material

It shall not be a defense that the defendant believed that the person was age 18 or older.