continued to conduct a number of awareness activities for its personnel, including general awareness trainings, trainings specific to law enforcement and acquisition professionals, and increased efforts to train staff in field offices. NGOs noted prevention efforts should better emphasize victims’ rights and protections under federal law and should seek survivor input to better reach potential victims.
There were reports of abuses, including allegations of human trafficking, of workers in the United States on work-based or other nonimmigrant visas. In a March 2015 report, the Government Accountability Office recommended increased protections for foreign workers. NGOs reported the United States had insufficient laws regulating foreign labor recruiters and fraud was rampant among these recruiters. To reduce the vulnerability of migrant workers, NGOs called for the passage of a federal law that, in addition to prohibiting recruiters from charging fees to workers, would mandate recruiters disclose the terms of employment, register recruiters with the government, and subject recruiters to penalties for violating these protections. During the reporting period, DOL and DHS took steps to strengthen worker protections with respect to wages, working conditions, transparency around the identity of foreign labor recruiters, and benefits and remedies, including protection from retaliation, that must be offered to H-2B (temporary non-agricultural workers) and U.S. workers performing similar jobs. Both the H-2A (temporary agricultural workers) and H-2B programs prohibit directly or indirectly charging foreign workers job placement, recruitment, or other fees related to employment, and both require disclosure of the terms of employment.
In the J-1 Summer Work Travel Program, DOS prohibited jobs deemed dangerous to exchange visitor health, safety, and welfare, and continued to implement a program to monitor participant health, safety, and welfare. In summer 2014, DOS visited 676 exchange visitor sites in 33 states and, by early 2015, DOS had conducted 54 site visits in six states.
The government provided anti-trafficking training for its diplomatic personnel, aimed at preventing their engagement in or facilitation of trafficking crimes. DOS provided both classroom and web-based training for diplomatic security personnel, consular officers, and other employees.The government continued efforts to prevent forced labor of domestic workers employed by foreign mission personnel (or by foreign employees of international organizations) in the United States, including by prohibiting deductions from wages for food and lodging and requiring non-cash wage payments directly to the worker. In 2014, DOS briefed foreign embassy Deputy Chiefs of Mission reiterating U.S. requirements and the foreign missions’ responsibility for the welfare of these workers. Despite these efforts, NGOs raised concerns that foreign diplomats could evade current protection measures in place for foreign domestic workers and recommended the government take additional steps to protect domestic workers employed by foreign diplomats.
Civil enforcement of federal laws was a significant component of the government’s anti-trafficking efforts. DOL targeted industries employing vulnerable workers, and its field investigators were sometimes the first government authorities to detect exploitative labor practices. EEOC, which enforces Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other employment discrimination statutes, continued to litigate three cases involving human trafficking on behalf of over one thousand claimants.

Federal law allows for a trafficked person to independently file a civil cause of action. In 2015, a federal jury awarded $14 million in damages to five Indian guest workers victimized in a labor trafficking scheme in Mississippi who filed civil claims.This amount was the largest ever awarded by a jury in a labor trafficking case in the United States. NGOs noted the importance of state law provisions, such as California’s civil code, that allow for claims to be filed on behalf of trafficking victims.
U.S. laws provide extraterritorial jurisdiction over child sex tourism offenses perpetrated overseas by U.S. citizens. FBI made six criminal arrests resulting in six indictments and two individuals were convicted in child sex tourism cases in FY 2014. DHS took proactive steps to prevent child sex tourism in 2014 and shared information with foreign law enforcement counterparts about registered child sex offenders prior to their travel abroad (from the United States). DHS made more than 45 child sex tourism related arrests in FY 2014.
The U.S. government undertook efforts to reduce the demand for commercial sex and forced labor in the reporting period. DHS worked with city and state partners to raise awareness of trafficking in advance of the 2015 Super Bowl. DoD issued a new policy prohibiting U.S. military personnel in South Korea from paying for companionship of employees of so-called “juicy bars” because of the bars’ links with prostitution and sex trafficking. DoD investigated 39 cases of service members allegedly violating DoD’s prohibition relating to the procurement of commercial sex, up from 27 such investigations the previous year.
The government amended the Federal Acquisition Regulation in 2015 to strengthen protections against trafficking in federal contracts, including by prohibiting contractors and those in their supply chain from charging employees recruitment fees, using recruiters that do not comply with local labor laws of the country where the recruiting takes place, or using misleading or fraudulent recruitment practices. FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies investigated allegations of debt bondage and excessive recruitment fees that were required of third-country nationals working on certain U.S. government contracts abroad. There were no reports of civil actions or criminal prosecutions, or other sanctions against noncompliant employers and labor contractors, including debarment of noncompliant employers or labor contractors from U.S. programs.
DOL updated the list of goods it has reason to believe are produced by child labor or forced labor in violation of international standards to add alcoholic beverages and meat. DOL translated into three languages its web-based toolkit providing guidance to businesses and other stakeholders to address child labor and forced labor in global supply chains.
The Department of the Interior (DOI) provides services directly or through contracts, grants, or compacts to 566 federally-recognized tribes with a service population of about 1.9 million American Indian and Alaska Natives, known to include populations vulnerable to human trafficking. In FY 2014, DOI continued outreach to numerous federal, state, and tribal law enforcement agencies to determine how human trafficking affects tribal communities and to identify promising practices and needed services for victims. HHS continued to host community listening sessions with tribal leaders, integrated human trafficking as part of its tribal consultation activities, and issued an information memorandum on human trafficking to all 183 Administration for Native American grantees from across the nation and Pacific territories. HHS funded an

NGO providing education and work force development for young American Indian men at high risk for commercial sexual exploitation and piloted training for health care providers serving potential victims of human trafficking in the Bakken area of North Dakota. Challenges include a lack of a criminal justice infrastructure adequate to the needs of Indian country and a scarcity of social services for victims.