Is Britney Spears a Trafficking Victim?

Two recent reports based on data from the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline highlight how the pandemic exacerbated systemic issues while trafficking adapted to the changing contexts.

A collaboration between researcher and survivor expert Megan Lundstrom, Polaris, PayPal and Capital One, provides anti-money laundering professionals with new insights to interpret the stories told by the bank records and credit card transactions of people experiencing trafficking.

In a statement before a judge about her court-ordered conservatorship, pop icon Britney Spears likened her situation to a form of human trafficking. So is it? While we don't know the full extent of Spears' situation and cannot definitively say whether or not it amounts to trafficking, the level of financial and personal control that she described certainly resembles the forms of control and coercion tactics used in situations of labor trafficking.