When Sexual Harassment May Lead to a T Visa

During this hour, the following questions and answers will be reviewed in detail:

• Sexual harassment is insidious and may be a crime in the workplace, not just a violation of civil law or office policy
• Force, fraud or coercion to get someone to perform labor or sex in the workplace is human trafficking
• Most T visa cases related to sexual harassment can qualify under involuntary servitude or commercial sex trafficking
• Conditioning a paycheck on sex is offering something unwanted, of value, to a person, and the coercion or fraud to make that happen, makes this commercial sex trafficking
• Example: Boss closes door and employee is unfree to leave. He wants to sexually touch her and threatens her with deportation vs keeping her paycheck. Commercial sex trafficking. Also, in this example, she is physically unfree to leave the room which helps bolster an involuntary servitude, sexual slavery or commercial sex trafficking argument.
• Look at federal definition of coercion – it includes threats of reputational harm, abuse of the legal process = see how this can come up in sexual harassment context and meet requirement for coercion?
• Often the sexual harassment is the coercion, and also ends up being the involuntary servitude as well because they are requiring a person to endure work conditions or perform job duties connected to sexual harassment (examples to discuss)

Event Venue

Online