Our economic system depends on exploited labor and forced work that often meets the definition of human trafficking, asserts the sociologist and consultant on sex work, migration, and trafficking. But she finds that most lawmakers seem satisfied with lip service around ending human trafficking, while the policies they support maintain the status quo. In 2011, Barack Obama became the first U.S. president to declare January as National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention month. In Unbroken Chains, she returns repeatedly to the fact that federal legislation specific to human trafficking has not actually helped victims of human trafficking. There are laws against threatening people.”What is inadequate are the labor laws and regulations protecting people in agricultural and domestic work specifically, Ditmore says.