Trafficking in persons is a serious criminal activity and a pressing problem for the Western Hemisphere. This crime, which clearly violates basic human rights, involves the exploitation of victims generally through the use of forced labor or commercial sexual exploitation.

Often times LGBTI youth of the Americas become homeless because they are rejected by family members on account of their real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity and/or are victims of physical, emotional, or sexual abuse at home. Once on the streets, these children face beatings, mutilations, rapes, and a host of other crimes that no child should ever live through. Whether they choose to leave their homes or are thrown out by their families, caretakers or a foster care system, they find themselves with little or no access to food, shelter, clothing, or other basic necessities. On the streets, traffickers prey on their desperation to escape social alienation and maltreatment engaging them in survival sex. Many youth seem to accept survival sex and often violent experiences as part of a dark, but normal route to acceptance, whether this is on their own journey, or due to feelings of being unable to expose abuse for fear of retribution from family and society.