The Hijacking of Human Trafficking Legislation During its Creation: A U.S. Public Policy Study

The U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) was the first piece of legislation designed to combat human trafficking on all fronts, both domestically and internationally, and was upheld as a model worldwide. Although human trafficking as an issue seemed to appear out of nowhere onto the congressional agenda and a number of heated debates ensued during the making of the TVPA, the legislation passed quickly by an unlikely coalition of players. The purpose of this dissertation research (completed in 2007) was to gain insight into the forces which led to the making of the TVPA using the Advocacy Coalition Framework as a model. With the support of my research findings, I pose the question: was the TVPA created to protect victims of human trafficking or was the issue of human trafficking hijacked to push a greater conservative moral agenda including abolishing prostitution worldwide?