 
About the National Human Trafficking Resource Center
Overview of NHTRC
What is the National Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC)?
The NHTRC is a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)-funded program operated and implemented by Polaris Project for the purpose of providing a national, 24-hour, toll-free hotline number for the human trafficking field in the United States. The NHTRC is a core component of Polaris Project’s Training and Technical Assistance Program. By operating the national hotline, the NHTRC works to help improve the national response to protect victims of human trafficking in the U.S. by providing callers with a range of comprehensive services. Available services include crisis intervention, urgent and non-urgent referrals, tip reporting, and comprehensive anti-trafficking resources and technical assistance for the anti-trafficking field and those who wish to get involved. To perform these functions, the NHTRC maintains a national database of organizations working in the anti-trafficking field as well as a library of available anti-trafficking resources and materials. The NHTRC also works in collaboration with the infrastructure of the anti-trafficking movement in the United States, which includes HHS Rescue and Restore coalitions, DOJ-funded Human Trafficking Task Forces, FBI Innocence Lost Task Forces, Federal victims’ services and outreach grantees, statewide human trafficking task forces, community-based initiatives, and on-going research projects.
What is the NHTRC’s National Hotline Number?
1-888-3737-888 is the number to call to reach the National Human Trafficking Resource Center.
Who Can Call the National Human Trafficking Resource Center?
The NHTRC is equipped to handle calls from all regions of the United States from a wide range of callers including potential trafficking victims, community members, law enforcement agents, medical professionals, legal professionals, researchers, students, and policy-makers. Based on the past history of calls into the national hotline, we know that calls most frequently occur for the purposes of tips about potential trafficking situations, questions about human trafficking, training and technical assistance requests, emergency crisis response situations involving potential victims, and general information about how to get involved in the anti-trafficking movement.
How Does the National Human Trafficking Resource Center Respond to Calls?
The NHTRC is available to answer calls from anywhere in the country, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, every day of the year. Urgent requests are processed 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. Non-urgent requests are processed primarily between the hours of 9am and 9pm EST, Monday through Friday, during an extended business week. If a non-urgent request comes in after 9pm EST, on the weekend, or on a holiday, a message will be taken by the call specialist on duty, and a full-time program staff will respond to the request within one business day or, in the case of holidays, on the next business day. A chart detailing the available services of the NHTRC is available below:
Available Services
Crisis Calls from Victims: 24 hours/7 days
Reporting Tips/Intelligence About Trafficking Situations: 24 hours/7 days
Training & Technical Assistance Requests - URGENT: 24 hours/7 days
Training & Technical Assistance Requests – NON-URGENT: 9am – 9pm
Referrals- URGENT: 24 hours/7 days
Referrals- NON-URGENT: 9am – 9pm
General Information Requests: 9am – 9pm
What is the Need for the National Human Trafficking Resource Center?
More than six years after the passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000, the anti-trafficking field in the United States has made significant progress but also faces a number of persistent challenges. The NHTRC will help to address some of the common challenges within the field including low levels of victim identification and certification relative to the scope of the problem; a need for more common infrastructure to disseminate information and best practices to the growing field; a need for more coordinated training and technical assistance efforts; and a need for strengthened communications among federal, state, and local anti-trafficking initiatives within the government, non-government, and private sectors. As a whole, there is an urgent need for capacity building in the field to facilitate an increase in the number of victims identified, the number of traffickers brought to justice, and the number of survivors receiving critical social services. The NHTRC is part of Polaris Project’s Training, Technical Assistance, and Strategic Support Program (TTASP), which exists to help improve the systemic response to protecting victims of human trafficking in the United States.
What are the Goals of the NHTRC?
The National Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC) will help meet the following critical needs in the field through the following areas:
- Increase the effectiveness of trainings, technical assistance, and strategic support throughout all levels and sectors of the anti-trafficking movement;
- Increase the number of victims identified, provided with referrals, and served in the country;
- Develop new and cutting edge anti-trafficking strategies focused on regional suppression of anti-trafficking networks;
- Improve local, regional, and national levels of coordination and communication; and,
- Provide more accessible and comprehensive promising practices, including practitioner-based training, technical assistance, and strategic support.
The overall effectiveness of the anti-trafficking field in the U.S. is a collective effort of thousands of organizations and stakeholders that each have an important role to play. Using a strengths-based model, the NHTRC seeks to foster increased local ownership and engagement by connecting callers with anti-trafficking practitioners in communities nationwide who are best equipped to understand local needs and serve victims in their area. All calls that come into the NHTRC are categorized into the following six “Call Types” and often referred to local entities for a localized response: Potential Victim/Crisis Calls; Tip/Intelligence Calls; Training and Technical Assistance Requests; Referral Requests; General Information Requests; and Unrelated Calls.