This bill expands federal anti-trafficking law to explicitly recognize "orphanage trafficking" as a severe form of human trafficking. Currently, U.S. law doesn't specifically address the trafficking of children in orphanages and residential care facilities, which traffickers exploit by recruiting vulnerable children under the guise of education or care, then using them for labor, sexual abuse, forced begging, or fraudulent adoption schemes. The bill modifies the Trafficking Victims Protection Act to include the recruitment, harboring, transportation, or receipt of orphaned, abandoned, or institutionalized children under 18 through fraud, force, or coercion as a federal trafficking offense. By expanding this definition, the legislation aims to strengthen prosecutions against traffickers, better protect the estimated 5.4 million children living in institutional care globally, and enable the U.S. government to condition foreign aid on countries' efforts to combat orphanage trafficking. The bill was introduced in July 2025 and referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, with no specific funding or implementation timeline specified in the text.
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