The United Nations “Palermo Protocol” and the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 were not the beginning of legal responses to slavery and trafficking, but part of a long arc of anti-slavery legislation in the USA. Understanding the centuries-long continuity and interconnected nature of US abolitionism—predating the founding of the nation—is necessary to accurately evaluate present-day policies, activism, and efforts. The Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution ended legally sanctioned chattel slavery in the country and provided tools to address continuing forms of exploitation; it remains the cornerstone of US anti-slavery policy. The Amendment’s influence and legal precedents have been integrated into global anti-trafficking policy. The modern anti-trafficking movement is an at times uneasy amalgam of the civil rights approach of the Thirteenth Amendment and the commerce and morality-based approach of another set of laws that focused on cross-border movement for prostitution. Rivalries and competition among anti-trafficking actors often are arranged across this fissure; taking a longue durée historical approach to US abolitionism can mitigate such friction and galvanize meaningful steps forward in the ultimate aim of ending slavery in all of its manifestations.

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