In Case You Missed It: U.S. Turns Back on Global Declaration Against Human Trafficking
In late November, the United Nations General Assembly, representing 193 countries, adopted a consensus declaration reaffirming its resolve to end human trafficking, which “constitutes a serious crime and a grave offense to human dignity…” The United States refused to sign the document, citing concerns that some references suggested a “one-world globalist approach.”
The 2025 Political Declaration is part of a quadrennial update to the landmark 2010 United Nations Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons, which underscored the urgent need for states to take action to prevent trafficking in persons, protect its victims, prosecute its perpetrators, and strengthen partnerships to accomplish those goals. Each quadrennial declaration serves to reaffirm states’ commitment to fighting human trafficking, and to highlight emerging threats (for example, the 2021 declaration highlighted the potential impact of COVID-19 on human trafficking).
The 2025 Political Declaration underscores “serious concern” and notes the “specific vulnerabilities of children, including children and youth with disabilities and unaccompanied children,” dovetailing with recent data showing that the number of children among detected victims has increased by one-third since 2019. The declaration also emphasizes the importance of universal ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by 196 countries. The United States is the only country in the world that has not ratified the Convention (the only other holdout, Somalia, ratified the convention a decade ago). (The United States has ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography.)
While the United States did not sign the declaration, it notably allowed the declaration to be adopted by consensus, while actively disassociating itself from several paragraphs, including those focusing on migrants and refugees, as well as a paragraph expressing “solidarity with and compassion for victims and survivors,” because the paragraph also notes the importance of victim-centered services, including access to sexual and reproductive healthcare.
After distancing itself from the declaration, the U.S. statement simultaneously highlighted the government’s work to address the issue of trafficking in so-called “scam centers,” where ringleaders falsely recruit people and force them to engage in criminal acts by defrauding others. The U.S. statement also notes its leadership on implementing laws to vacate convictions and expunge arrest records of trafficking victims who committed crimes as a result of their victimization. Earlier this month, the House of Representatives passed the Trafficking Survivors Relief Act, a federal vacature and expungement bill.
The consensus declaration is a welcome reaffirmation of the world’s commitment to combat human trafficking in all its forms. As an architect of the global treaty against trafficking (the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children), the United States should be leading the global fight, not turning its back on it.