Anti-trafficking law is being rewritten on both sides of the Atlantic, but at very different speeds. The European Union’s overhaul reached its national-law deadline in July 2026. In the United States, the statute that built the modern anti-trafficking system — the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 — is operating without a full reauthorization while Congress debates it, even as a narrower survivor-relief law passed in January.
Underneath both sits a harder legal question that the scam-compound crisis has made urgent: what to do with victims who were forced to commit crimes.
Europe: the directive deadline has passed
Directive (EU) 2024/1712 amends the EU’s 2011 anti-trafficking directive and entered into force on 14 July 2024, giving Member States two years to bring it into national law. The key changes:
- A broader definition. Exploitation of surrogacy, forced marriage and illegal adoption must be treated as trafficking.
- Demand-side liability. Knowingly using services provided by a trafficking victim becomes a criminal offense.
- Online exploitation. Authorities get stronger tools to investigate and prosecute trafficking committed or facilitated through digital platforms.
- Victim support architecture. Each Member State must have a national anti-trafficking coordinator and a formal national referral mechanism.
Implementation is uneven. Cyprus opened consultation in June 2026 on an amending bill that would make the use of information and communication technology an aggravating factor, improve victim referral and strengthen professional training. Belgium’s independent rapporteur, Myria, noted that its criminal-code reform already covers illegal adoption and forced marriage but still has to add surrogacy, and urged clear guidance for prosecutors on the knowing-use offense and on non-punishment of victims.
Eurojust convened its specialized trafficking prosecutors in The Hague in June 2026 to prepare for the new rules, and the Commission is finalising an EU Strategy on Combatting Trafficking in Human Beings for 2026–2030. The next step is enforcement against laggards: the Commission typically opens infringement proceedings against states that miss transposition deadlines.
United States: reauthorization stalled
The Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Reauthorization Act (H.R. 1144), led by Rep. Chris Smith — author of the original 2000 statute — would reauthorize federal anti-trafficking programs through fiscal 2029 and expand prevention, survivor services and law-enforcement training. It cleared the House Foreign Affairs Committee by voice vote in 2025. In July 2026 it was scheduled for the House floor, then postponed. A related House bill (H.R. 2961) covers the domestic programs, including the National Human Trafficking Hotline, Justice Department victim grants with housing assistance, International Megan’s Law, and a new HHS employment and education program for survivors.
In the Senate, the International Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (S. 2647), sponsored by Sen. Jim Risch, sits with the Foreign Relations Committee. It would authorize about $102.5 million a year for the State Department’s principal international program, require briefings to Congress on tier upgrades, downgrades and waivers, and embed counter-trafficking requirements more deeply into U.S. foreign assistance.
Advocates at a July 2026 Capitol Hill briefing — including survivor leaders and faith-based coalitions — framed the delay as a missed opportunity to shift federal policy toward prevention. Sponsors have emphasized that the bill retains bipartisan support; the obstacle is floor time, not opposition.
A quieter win: the Trafficking Survivors Relief Act
One measure did pass. The Trafficking Survivors Relief Act became law on 23 January 2026. It lets survivors seek relief from federal criminal records that arose directly from their exploitation — arrests and convictions for acts traffickers forced them to commit. In enacting it, Congress acknowledged that such records block employment, housing and education and leave survivors more exposed to re-exploitation. Immigration practitioners are now assessing how the law interacts with T-visa eligibility for survivors with federal records.
Forced criminality and the non-punishment principle
The scam-compound crisis has turned an abstract principle into a daily operational question. The non-punishment principle holds that trafficking victims should not be prosecuted or penalized for offenses they were compelled to commit. In practice, people escaping fraud compounds are often processed as irregular migrants or suspects.
The UN Human Rights Office has called for anti-trafficking laws to recognize forced criminality explicitly and to guarantee non-punishment. IOM has made the same argument. The EU directive’s non-punishment provisions and the U.S. TSRA move in that direction — but neither resolves the jurisdictional problem of victims who are identified in one country, exploited in a second and deported to a third.
Immigration law as trafficking law
In the U.S., the T visa is the legal hinge between survivor protection and prosecution: it offers status to victims who cooperate with law enforcement. Its operation has changed sharply. More than 59,000 applications are pending and average processing reached 28.2 months by April 2026. Since March 2026, T- and U-visa applicants have been included in expanded State Department online-presence vetting. A May 2026 USCIS policy restricting adjustment of status drew concern from practitioners before officials signaled a partial walk-back; formal guidance had not followed as of mid-2026. (Our companion piece on U.S. capacity covers these changes in detail.)
What to watch
- European Commission transposition assessments and any infringement letters to Member States that missed 15 July.
- Adoption of the EU 2026–2030 anti-trafficking strategy.
- A House floor vote on H.R. 1144 and Senate committee action on S. 2647 before the 119th Congress ends.
- Early TSRA petitions and how federal courts interpret the “directly resulting” standard.
- National laws that explicitly recognize trafficking for forced criminality — the clearest legal response to the scam-center model.