Litigation Byte

Trafficking Victims Protection Can Extend to Employee Training Programs

November 25, 2025

In a recent decision, the Northern District of Illinois denied a beauty salon’s motion to dismiss claims under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA), 18 U.S.C. §1595(a), the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA), and various Illinois state law claims. The court found that the plaintiff plausibly alleged that the salon’s employee training program amounted to forced labor.

The TVPA is a criminal statute. Individuals cannot bring civil suits based on violations of that law, including forced labor. However, in passing the TVPRA a few years later, Congress created a way for individuals to bring private lawsuits for violations of the TVPA.

The salon hired women in their late teens and early twenties with little or no professional experience to work at the salon and learn the beautician trade. The Plaintiff was a recent high school graduate who was hired on as a beautician assistant. Several months into her tenure, she and other beautician assistants were compelled to sign a document titled “Employee Training and Reimbursement Agreement” (the Agreement). That Agreement provided that if an employee quit or was terminated from the salon “within one calendar year of completion” of the training program, then the employee “agrees to repay the cost of the training.” This also applied if the employee failed to complete the training.

On paper, the training appeared to take about a year. In reality, it was highly subjective, lacked tests or milestones, and could be extended indefinitely at the salon’s sole discretion. The salon’s manager reminded employees, including the Plaintiff, that “if I have to fire you or you quit, you owe me $5,000.” The salon enforced the Agreement against one employee who quit and called a meeting with the remaining employees to inform them of that enforcement, stress that they would not be released from their contracts, and state that the salon believed it was likely to prevail in recovering the alleged costs of the training program.

The Plaintiff worked for two years without completing the training program. When she did quit, one business day later, she received a letter from the salon’s attorney demanding that she pay $4,248.60 within fourteen days of receipt.

The Plaintiff filed suit under the TVPRA and TVPA, alleging that the threat of the penalty in the Agreement, coupled with the questionable training program, constituted compelled labor. They alleged that the salon violated the TVPRA through its violation of the TVPA, specifically 18 U.S.C. §1589(a). That subsection prohibits “knowingly providing or obtaining the labor or services of any person. . . by means of serious harm or threats of serious harm to that person or another person [or] by means of the abuse or threatened abuse of law or legal process.” “Serious harm” within the meaning of the statute includes physical, psychological, financial, or reputational harm that would “compel a reasonable person of the same background and in the same circumstances to perform or continue performing labor or services in order to avoid incurring that harm.”

The court found that, to a recent high school graduate like Plaintiff and other beautician assistants, the repeated threats of enforcing the Agreement and its penalty, coupled with the subjective and interminable training program that on its own terms could prevent the Plaintiff from complying with the Agreement, were sufficiently plausible to survive the motion to dismiss phase. The court did concede that discovery may prove otherwise, but it found that the Plaintiff’s allegations were sufficient to demonstrate that the salon’s threats and questionable training program compelled Plaintiff’s labor and, in doing so, violated the TVPA and TVPRA.