Reference
Glossary
The terms behind the map, in plain language. For the fuller definitions and context, see the Not For Sale learning center, or explore the types and the cases.
Human trafficking
The recruitment, transportation, harboring, or receipt of people through force, fraud, or coercion for forced labor or sexual servitude.
Modern slavery
An umbrella term for practices where a person is controlled, coerced, or deceived into work or servitude they did not choose and cannot freely leave, including trafficking, forced labor, debt bondage, and forced marriage.
Sex trafficking
The recruitment, transportation, or control of a person through force, fraud, or coercion for commercial sexual services. Anyone under 18 involved in commercial sex is considered trafficked regardless of apparent consent.
Forced labor
Any work compelled through threat of punishment, violence, or coercion.
Bonded labor / debt bondage
Labor demanded as repayment for a debt whose terms are manipulated so it can never realistically be repaid.
Domestic servitude
Forced labor performed inside a private home, where isolation from outside contact makes it especially hard to detect.
Forced marriage
A marriage entered into without full, free, and informed consent, often functioning as a mechanism of labor or sexual control.
Child exploitation
An umbrella term, now split into two SlaveryMap filter types: Child Labor, and Child Soldiers and Forced Recruitment.
CSEC (Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children)
The commercial sexual exploitation of a person under 18. Treated as trafficking under international law regardless of any apparent consent.
Child labor
The use of children in work that deprives them of their childhood, education, or healthy development — mentally, physically, or morally harmful — existing on a spectrum from hazardous agricultural labor to forced participation in armed conflict.
Child soldiers and forced recruitment
The conscription, recruitment, or use of children under 18 by armed forces or groups, for combat, support roles, or sexual purposes. Typically occurs through abduction or coercion in conflict zones where state authority has collapsed.
Forced criminality
An increasingly documented form of trafficking in which victims are coerced into committing crimes — drug trafficking, petty theft, online fraud, or operating illegal scam centers — on behalf of their traffickers. Victims are frequently arrested and prosecuted for crimes they were forced to commit, compounding the harm.
Ecocide-linked slavery
Forced labor or trafficking that exists because an ecosystem was destroyed first: workers trapped in illegal mining, logging, or fishing operations that exist only because the surrounding environment was already degraded or seized. Not For Sale's core thesis: ecocide and modern slavery are frequently the same system, viewed from two different angles.
Organ trafficking
The illegal removal, sale, or transplantation of human organs, most often targeting people in desperate financial circumstances who are deceived or coerced into giving up organs.
State-imposed forced labor
Forced labor exacted directly by governments: compulsory prison labor that doesn't meet international standards, or civilian populations mobilized under threat of penalty for political or military purposes.
Survivor
Not For Sale's term for a person who has come through a trafficking situation, used instead of “victim” wherever possible, in recognition of their agency going forward.
Verified case
A case reviewed against its original source material and confirmed by two independent, signed-in members of the SlaveryMap community before being published on the map.