In 2000, Congress enacted the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) in response to the growing problem of human trafficking. The act defines human trafficking broadly as the exploitation of an individual for forced labor or a commercial sex act done under force, fraud or coercion. (Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000, Pub. L. No. 106-386, 114 Stat. 1464 (2000). Title 18 U.S.C. §§1581, 1583, 1584(a), 1589(a) and (b), 1590(a) and 1591(a) of the TVPA lay out provisions criminalizing specific human trafficking offenses: peonage, enticement into slavery, sale into involuntary servitude, forced labor, trafficking with respect to peonage, slavery, involuntary servitude, or forced labor, and sex trafficking).

Congress has amended The TVPA several times. Two relatively recent amendments provide a private right of action for victims under 18 U.S.C. §1595, as well as extraterritorial application to offenses taking place outside the United States under 18 U.S.C. §1596. Under 2008 amendments, Section 1595(a) provides a civil remedy against perpetrators, as well as anyone who “knowingly benefits, financially or by receiving anything of value from participation in a venture which that person knew or should have known has engaged in an act in violation [of the TVPRA],” William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (TVPRA) Pub. L. No. 110-457, 18 U.S.C. §1595(a) (emphasis supplied).