The Vermont Statutes Online

Title 13 : Crimes and Criminal Procedure

Chapter 060 : Human Trafficking

Subchapter 001 : CRIMINAL ACTS

• § 2651. Definitions

  As used in this subchapter:

  (1) “Blackmail” means the extortion of money, labor, commercial sexual activity, or anything of value from a person through use of a threat to expose a secret or publicize an asserted fact, whether true or false, that would tend to subject the person to hatred, contempt, ridicule, or prosecution.

  (2) “Coercion” means:

  (A) threat of serious harm, including physical or financial harm, to or physical restraint against any person;

  (B) any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause a person to believe that failure to perform an act would result in serious bodily or financial harm to or physical restraint of any person;

  (C) the abuse or threatened abuse of law or the legal process;

  (D) withholding, destroying, or confiscating any actual or purported passport, immigration document, or any other government identification document of another person;

  (E) providing a drug, including alcohol, to another person with the intent to impair the person’s judgment or maintain a state of chemical dependence;

  (F) wrongfully taking, obtaining, or withholding any property of another person;

  (G) blackmail;

  (H) asserting control over the finances of another person;

  (I) debt bondage; or

  (J) withholding or threatening to withhold food or medication.

  (3) “Commercial sex act” means any sexual act, sexual conduct, or sexually explicit performance on account of which anything of value is promised to, given to, or received by any person.

  (4) “Debt bondage” means a condition or arrangement in which a person requires that a debtor or another person under the control of a debtor perform labor, services, sexual acts, sexual conduct, or a sexually explicit performance in order to retire, repay, or service a real or purported debt that the person has caused with the intent to defraud the debtor.

  (5) “Family member” means a spouse, child, sibling, parent, next of kin, domestic partner, or legal guardian of a victim.

  (6) “Human trafficking” means:

  (A) to subject a person to a violation of section 2652 of this title; or

  (B) “severe form of trafficking” as defined by 22 U.S.C. § 7105.

  (7) “Labor servitude” means labor or services performed or provided by a person that are induced or maintained through force, fraud, or coercion. “Labor servitude” shall not include labor or services performed by a family member of a person who is engaged in the business of farming as defined in 10 V.S.A. § 6001(22) unless force, fraud, or coercion is used.

  (8) “Serious bodily injury” shall have the same meaning as in subdivision 1021(2) of this title.

  (9) “Sexual act” shall have the same meaning as in subdivision 3251(1) of this title.

  (10) “Sexual conduct” shall have the same meaning as in subdivision 2821(2) of this title.

  (11) “Sexually explicit performance” means a public, live, photographed, recorded, or videotaped act or show that:

  (A) depicts a sexual act or sexual conduct;

  (B) is intended to arouse, satisfy the sexual desires of, or appeal to the prurient interests of patrons or viewers; and

  (C) lacks literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

  (12) “Venture” means any group of two or more individuals associated in fact, whether or not a legal entity.

  (13) “Victim of human trafficking” means a victim of a violation of section 2652 of this title. (Added 2011, No. 55, § 2; amended 2013, No. 197 (Adj. Sess.), § 3; 2015, No. 133 (Adj. Sess.), § 1.)