Request for Assistance for Child Victims of Human Trafficking

The Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000, as amended, directs the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), upon receipt of credible information that a foreign national minor may have been subjected to a severe form of trafficking in persons and is seeking assistance available to victims of trafficking, to promptly determine if the child is eligible for benefits and services to the same extent as refugees. In 2015 HHS delegated this authority to the Office on Trafficking in Persons (OTIP). OTIP developed a form (Request for Assistance (RFA), OMB Control Number 0970-0362) for case managers, attorneys, law enforcement officers, child welfare workers, and other representatives to report these trafficking concerns to HHS in accordance with the TVPA of 2000, as amended, and allow for OTIP to review the concerns and determine eligibility for benefits. The information provided through the completion of the RFA form is essential for OTIP to make prompt determinations regarding a foreign national minor’s eligibility for assistance, to facilitate the required consultation process should the minor receive interim assistance, and to assess and address potential child protection issues. Without a form, OTIP would be limited to notifying potential requesters about the assistance the law permits and providing a phone number or email address at OTIP for further information. An OTIP Child Protection Specialist would then have to describe to each potential requester the information sought in the form, which would likely require multiple follow-up calls, and possibly multiple interviews with the child, which could re-traumatize the child. Furthermore, the absence of a form to collect information necessary to process a request for assistance could result in errors in the information collection causing a child that should be eligible for benefits and services as a victim of trafficking to be denied access to assistance. ACF has implemented changes to update gender collected data to denote sex as a biological variable in current approved information collection requests to comply with recent presidential directives.

The latest form for Request for Assistance for Child Victims of Human Trafficking expires 2027-08-31 and can be found here.