Human trafficking in Brazil is an ongoing problem. Brazil is a source country for men, women, girls, and boys subjected to human trafficking , specifically forced prostitution within the country and abroad, as well as a source country for men and boys in forced labor within the country.
The United States Department of Homeland Security, describes human trafficking as "the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act. Human trafficking is a condemned violation of human rights by international law. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime , sex trafficking of Brazilian women occurs in every Brazilian state and the federal district. Sex trafficking is the "recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, obtaining, patronizing, or soliciting of a person for the purposes of a commercial sex act, in which the commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion Brazilian authorities have uncovered evidence that foreign organized criminal networks, particularly from Russia and Spain, are involved in sex trafficking of Brazilian women.
Transgender women are a population especially vulnerable to human trafficking in Brazil, due in part to the high number of trans people already in the commercial sex industry.
There is evidence that some Brazilian transsexuals have been subjected to forced prostitution abroad. Brazilian women and children are also subjected to forced prostitution in neighboring countries such as Argentina , Suriname , French Guiana , Venezuela , and Paraguay. To a lesser extent, women from neighboring countries have been identified in sexual servitude in Brazil.
In cases of sex trafficking to and within Brazil, it is common for traffickers to move victimized people from poorer, more rural states, to richer, more metropolitan areas. This move is in part motivated by child sex tourists, people coming to Brazil in order to take advantage of the more lax regulations and easier access to victims. Child sex tourists that come to Brazil are for the most part, from Europe. Under Brazilian law, the term "trabalho escravo" , or slave labor, can signify forced labor or labor performed during exhausting work days or in degrading working conditions.
