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Arizona scores poorly in efforts to reduce international trafficking in women and girls, a national advocacy group has concluded.

The Center for Women Policy Studies this week gave the state a failing grade in four of five categories reviewed in a nationwide analysis of state legislatures' failure to clamp down on the illegal activity.

Arizona received a "C" thanks to passing a law in 2005 that made trafficking a felony and brought the state in line with the federal government's passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act in 2000.

But the center failed the state in the areas of victims' assistance and protection services, existence of state task forces, and regulation of international marriage brokers and travel service providers that expedite sex tourism.

The report card found that 27 states have enacted some form of legislation to combat trafficking while 23 states received a grade of "F" for failing to take any action.

"Arizona is not unique," center president Leslie Wolfe said about what she described as a growing global problem that merits more scrutiny. The Washington, D.C., nonprofit works to get anti-trafficking legislation passed.

"The victims worldwide are mostly women and children," she said, adding that they are coerced or pushed into leaving their countries. "There are a lot of ways in which force and deception work."

The State Department estimates that about 800,000 victims of human trafficking cross international borders each year. Roughly 14,500 to 17,500 end up in the United States.

While many of the victims arrive in the country illegally, Wolfe said they should not be placed in the same category as illegal border-crossers who come into the country voluntarily in search of work.

The fear factor is a key difference between the two types of illegal entrants, said Mark Bratman of the Arizona League to End Regional Trafficking. The group is based in Phoenix but its programs and services reach out throughout the state.

"The fear of the human-trafficking victim comes from being controlled by the traffickers — they are very scary people," said Bratman, manager of the anti-trafficking program.

He called the crime a modern-day form of slavery that is difficult to monitor. "We need more information, and we need more people involved to understand it."

By criminalizing human trafficking, the state Legislature has taken a step in the right direction, Bratman said, adding that now the state must focus on prosecutions and statewide action to study and combat the crime.

Rep. Linda Lopez, a Tucson Democrat, said she plans to introduce legislation next session to create a task force on human trafficking.

The task force would be composed of victim advocates, law-enforcement officials and others who would make recommendations to the legislators.

Noting that this country is a major destination for human traffickers, Lopez said U.S. lawmakers have a responsibility to respond.

"Elected officials at all levels of government must do what we can to prevent women and girls from being forced into involuntary servitude, brothels, sweatshops and other deplorable conditions," she said.