Penalties for Sex Traffickers

Illustrative Examples: 

• “For the purpose of this Division, an offence against section 270.6 (sexual servitude offences) or 270.7 (deceptive recruiting for sexual services) is an aggravated offence if the offence was committed against a person who is under 18.” (See: Australian Criminal Code Amendment (Slavery and Sexual Servitude) Act of 1999)

• “(Placing or holding persons in conditions of slavery or servitude). – Whoever exerts on any other person powers and rights corresponding to ownership; places or holds any other person in conditions of continuing enslavement, sexually exploiting such person, imposing coerced labour or forcing said person into begging, or exploiting him/her in any other way, shall be punished with imprisonment from eight to twenty years. Placement or maintenance in a position of slavery occur when use is made of violence, threat, deceit, or abuse of power; or when anyone takes advantage of a situation of physical or mental inferiority and poverty; or when money is promised, payments are made or other kinds of benefits are promised to those who are responsible for the person in question. The aforesaid penalty becomes harsher, increasing by one third to 50%, if the offences referred to in the first paragraph above are perpetrated against minors under eighteen or for sexual exploitation, prostitution or organ removal purposes”. (See: Criminal Code of Italy in UNODC Anti-Human Trafficking Manual for Criminal Justice Practitioners, Module 1, 3, 2009)

• “(a) Whoever, while acting other than as a prostitute or patron, intentionally does any of the following may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than 20 years or to payment of a fine of not more than $50,000, or both:
  1. solicits or induces an individual under the age of 18 years to practice prostitution;
  2. promotes the prostitution of an individual under the age of 18 years;
  3. receives profit, knowing or having reason to know that it is derived from the prostitution, or the promotion of the prostitution, of an individual under the age of 18 years; or
  4. engages in the sex trafficking of an individual under the age of 18 years. (See: Minnesota Statute § 609.322, subd. 1(a), 2009)

• Sex Trafficking means to 1. “recruit, abduct, transport or transfer or harbour persons for the purpose of subjecting to forced labour or service, prostitution, enslavement or for removal of body organs, by getting their consent by means of threat, oppression, coercion or using violence, of abusing influence, of deceit or of abusing their control over or the vulnerabilities of these persons shall be sentenced to imprisonment up to eight to twelve years and a fine corresponding to 10,000 days. 2. The consent of the victim shall be irrelevant in cases where the acts that constitute a crime are attempted with the intentions described in paragraph 1. 3. In cases where minors below the age of eighteen are procured, abducted, transported or transferred or harboured with the intentions specified in paragraph one, the penalties foreseen in paragraph 1 shall still be applied to the perpetrator, even when no intermediary actions relating to the crime are committed. 4. Legal entities shall also be subject to security measures for such crimes. (See: Turkish Criminal Code, Art. 8)

• “If any of the following circumstances are present, the offences under article 8 shall be punishable by imprisonment for …and/or a fine of/up to…where the victim is a child.” See: UNODC Model Law Against Trafficking in Persons, Art. 9.

• “The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of a child [person under 18 years of age] for the purpose of exploitation shall be considered “trafficking in persons” even if this does not involve any of the means [of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person].” See: UN Trafficking Protocol, Art. 3.

• “Sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age.” (See: United States Trafficking Victims Protection Act, 22 U.S.C. 7102, (8)(A))

Illustrative Example: 

The Albanian criminal code provides that if the sex trafficking offence “causes serious consequences to health,” the punishment is not less than 15 years of imprisonment. If the sex trafficking offence causes death, the punishment is life imprisonment. (See:  Albanian Criminal Code, Article 110/a and 114/b)