Frequently Asked Questions

In accordance with the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), federal, state, and local officials with information about foreign national minors who may have experienced human trafficking must refer cases to the Office on Trafficking in Persons (OTIP) for assessment within 24 hours. However, OTIP will accept case referrals even after the initial 24-hour period has passed. Therefore, federal, state, and local officials working with a foreign national minor in the United States (non-U.S. citizen or non-lawful permanent resident under 18 years) that have concerns that a minor may have experienced forced labor or commercial sex at any point in their life and in any country should take steps to report trafficking concerns as outlined on the Office on Trafficking in Persons' (OTIP) website.

You can contact the Office on Trafficking in Persons’ (OTIP) Child Protection Specialists by phone at call 202-205-4582 or email [email protected] during normal business hours (9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. eastern time).

OVC-funded anti-trafficking case managers should work to expeditiously assist clients with accessing benefits with their Office on Trafficking in Persons (OTIP) Eligibility and Interim Assistance Letters. Some benefits may be time-limited, so apply for benefits as soon as possible. To troubleshoot issues with accessing benefits or a non-work Social Security Number, contact OTIP’s Aspire and Trafficking Victim Assistance Programs (TVAP) at 800-307-4712, [email protected] or [email protected] to be connected to a Regional Coordinator in your client’s area.

No. OVC does not impose procedures or policies that require victims to take certain actions to be eligible for, or to receive services. This includes requiring a victim of human trafficking to collaborate with law enforcement officers as a condition of access to any shelter or any other direct services.

Through its cadre of training and technical assistance (TTA) providers, OVC provides practitioner-driven, evidence-based TTA that is responsive to the particular needs of victim service providers and system stakeholders, their communities, and the victims they serve. These providers strengthen the victim assistance responses to human trafficking, support multidisciplinary task forces and cross-sector collaboration, and build stakeholder capacity and leadership in identifying human trafficking victims and connecting them to services. Please consult OVC’s Human Trafficking Training and Technical Assistance webpage for information about available TTA, and locate upcoming training opportunities by conducting a search of OVC’s events page.

No. Unlike some other federal agencies that have the statutory authority to make victim determinations (i.e., issuing a T-visa or a certification letter for a foreign national trafficking victim), OVC does not have the authority to determine that individuals are trafficking victims, or to confer such authority on our grantees or any non-governmental organization. However, grantees may use OVC funds to support clients in applying for this remedy. (See the 2022 rule published by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for more information on survivors seeking to block adverse items on their credit reports that resulted from trafficking.)

The purpose of funds awarded under statutory authorities 22 U.S.C. § 7105(b)(2) and 34 U.S.C. § 20705 is to respond to all forms of human trafficking. Funds may be used in serving individuals when the grantee has reason to believe that the person is or might be a trafficking victim and is providing support or services tailored to that individual as they determine their eligibility for this program. 

Responding to human trafficking under an OVC award may involve limited training on other victimizations, especially those that may co-occur among a particular groups of victims, such as child sexual abuse materials (CSAM), but training and outreach conducted using OVC anti-trafficking funding should have the primary purpose of identification and referral of victims of human trafficking as defined in 22 U.S.C. § 7102(11).

OVC supports programs aimed at identifying and serving victims of trafficking, as defined in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, as a person who has been subjected to a “severe form of trafficking in persons,” meaning— 

• sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not yet attained 18 years of age; or
• the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.

Because this definition involves elements of force, fraud, and coercion except in the cases of sex trafficking of minors, additional investigative methods, intelligence gathering, training, and analysis are necessary to identify sex trafficking victims versus individuals voluntarily engaged in commercial sex. 

For example, approaches that do not align with the ECM model include those that target—

• the purchasers of commercial sex that fail to result in the identification of one or more actual victims of human trafficking prior to an operation OR otherwise fail to involve a connection to one or more actual trafficking victims.
• individuals engaged in commercial sex for arrest as a means for identifying victims of trafficking. Such efforts may compromise victim safety by failing to properly screen for sex trafficking victimization and may result in the arrest of victims of sex trafficking.

OVC ECM funding also does not support efforts or operations that are counter to a victim centered and trauma-informed approach. This includes policies and practices that may inadvertently re-traumatize victims and/or require a victim of human trafficking to collaborate with law enforcement officers as a condition of access to any shelter or other direct services.

OVC anti-trafficking funding is intended to identify and support victims of human trafficking. Consequently, OVC ECM award funds may not be used as part of efforts that focus solely on arresting and prosecuting buyers of commercial sex as these may be cases in which there are no victims of human trafficking or traffickers identified.

For the ECM Task Force co-leads (lead victim service provider and lead law enforcement agency) and broader task force membership to conduct an operation, there needs to be a reasonable connection to either a potential or confirmed trafficking victim, i.e., some knowledge, intelligence, or information, obtained in advance of the operation indicating that potential sex or labor trafficking is occurring.