1.This Act may be cited as Child Protection Compact Act of
2011
.
2.
(a)Congress makes the following
findings:
(1)The use of
children for commercial sexual exploitation is a global phenomenon. Human
trafficking affects millions of children worldwide.
(2)Many countries
with a high prevalence of trafficking in children lack financial resources,
legal expertise, technical capacity, and other resources to appropriately
protect and rescue these children, despite a demonstrated political will to do
so.
(3)The Department of
State's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons placed 132
countries, out of 175 countries ranked, on Tier 2 or Tier 2 Watch List in its
2010 Trafficking in Persons report.
(4)As a party to the
Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially
Women and Children, Supplementing the United Nations Convention Against
Transnational Organized Crime (the Palermo Protocol
), the United
States has pledged to establish policies and programs to prevent and combat
trafficking in persons and to protect victims of trafficking from
revictimization and to share information, as appropriate, with law enforcement,
immigration and other relevant authorities of other states parties with a view
to combating trafficking in persons.
(b)The purpose of this Act is to provide incentives to Tier
2 countries and Tier 2 Watch List countries to protect and rescue children
subjected to severe forms of trafficking in persons through the establishment
of Child Protection Compacts between the United States and select, eligible
countries with a significant prevalence of trafficking in children, in order
to—
(1)address
institutional weaknesses within the government that result in the failure to
protect vulnerable children and to rescue and properly rehabilitate
victims;
(2)increase local
government capacity to apprehend perpetrators who engage in severe forms of
trafficking in children and bring perpetrators to justice in national courts of
law; and
(3)ensure
transparency and accountability in achieving the goals stipulated in the
Compact over the course of its three-year implementation.
3.In this Act:
(1)The
term Ambassador means the Ambassador-at-Large of the Department of
State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.
(2)Appropriate
congressional committeesExcept as otherwise provided, the term
appropriate congressional committees means the Committee on
Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Foreign
Relations of the Senate.
(3)The term child protection means efforts
to prevent and respond to violence, exploitation, and abuse against
children.
(4)The
term Child Protection Compact or Compact means a
Child Protection Compact described in section 6.
(5)The
term minor means an individual who has not attained the age of 18
years.
(6)National action
plan for traffickingThe term national action plan for
trafficking means any strategy or long-term plan created by a national
government that defines specific goals to—
(A)reduce the number
of trafficking victims;
(B)increase the
number of prosecutions of traffickers; and
(C)ensure proper
mechanisms to rehabilitate and reintegrate survivors of human
trafficking.
(7)National child
protection strategyThe term national child protection
strategy means any plan developed by a national government in
consultation with multilateral bodies or nongovernmental organizations,
including a plan derived from a preexisting process or created as part of a
Child Protection Compact, that outlines—
(A)short-term and
long-term goals for improving child protection and preventing child
exploitation within a country;
(B)the government
ministries responsible for implementation of the plan; and
(C)how coordination
will take place between implementing ministries.
(8)The
term Secretary means the Secretary of State.
(9)Severe forms of
traffickingThe term severe forms of trafficking in
persons means—
(A)sex trafficking
in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in
which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age;
or
(B)the recruitment,
harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or
services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of
subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.
(10)Tier 2
countries and Tier 2 Watch List countriesThe terms Tier 2
countries and Tier 2 Watch List countries mean those
countries that the Secretary of State has listed pursuant to section
110(b)(1)(B) of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (22 U.S.C.
7107(b)(1)(B)) as countries to which the minimum standards set forth in section
108 of that Act are applicable and whose governments do not fully comply with
such standards but are making significant efforts to do so.
4.Authorization of
Assistance
(a)Subject
to subsection (b), the Secretary is authorized to provide assistance under this
section for each country that enters into a Compact with the United States
pursuant to section 6 to support policies and programs that assist the country
to eradicate severe forms of trafficking of children and are in furtherance of
the purposes of this Act.
(b)Avoidance of
duplication of effortsTo avoid duplication of efforts, the
Secretary shall exercise the authority of subsection (a) only in coordination
with the Administrator of the United States Agency for International
Development, the Attorney General, and the Secretary of Labor.
(c)Assistance under this section may be provided in the
form of grants, cooperative agreements, or contracts to or with eligible
entities described in subsection (d). Assistance under this section may not be
provided in the form of loans.
(d)An eligible entity referred to in subsection (c)
is—
(1)the national
government of the eligible country;
(2)regional or local
governmental units of the country; or
(3)a
nongovernmental organization or a private entity with expertise in the
protection of vulnerable children, the investigation and prosecution of those
who engage in or benefit from child trafficking, or rescue of child victims of
trafficking.
(e)Number and
amount of compactsSubject to the availability of appropriations,
the Secretary shall determine the number of Compacts based on the established
need of the countries determined to be most eligible based on the criteria
described in section 5. The amount of any single Compact shall not exceed a
total of $15,000,000.
(f)Disbursements shall be made to the eligible
entities on an annual basis pursuant to the terms of the respective
Compacts.
5.
(a)Determination by
the secretaryThe Secretary, acting through the Office to Monitor
and Combat Trafficking in Persons, shall work in consultation with the Bureau
of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor and the Department of Labor’s Bureau of
International Labor Affairs, and the relevant offices at the Department of
Justice and the United States Agency for International Development, to select a
country for purposes of entering into a Compact based on whether the country
meets the initial criteria listed in subsection (b) and the selection criteria
listed in subsection (c). The determination pursuant to subsection (c) shall be
based, to the maximum extent possible, upon objective, documented, and
quantifiable indicators.
(b)
(1)A country may be considered for a Compact if—
(A)the country is
eligible for assistance from the International Development Association, and the
per capita income of the country is equal to or less than the historical
ceiling of the International Development Association;
(B)subject to
paragraph (2), the country is not ineligible to receive United States economic
assistance under part I of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2151
et seq.) by reason of the application of any provision of the Foreign
Assistance Act of 1961 or any other provision of law; and
(C)the country is a
Tier 2 country or Tier 2 Watch List country.
(2)For the purposes of determining whether a country is
eligible for receiving assistance under paragraph (1), the exercise by the
President, the Secretary of State, or any other officer or employee of the
United States of any waiver or suspension of any provision of law referred to
in such paragraph, and notification to the appropriate congressional committees
in accordance with such provision of law, shall be construed as satisfying the
requirement of such paragraph.
(c)A country should be selected for purposes of entering
into a Compact on the basis of—
(1)a
documented high prevalence of trafficking of children within the country;
and
(2)demonstrated
political will and sustained commitment by the government to undertake
meaningful measures to address severe forms of trafficking of children,
including—
(A)enactment and
enforcement of laws criminalizing trafficking in children with punishments
commensurate with the crime, including, when necessary, against complicit
government officials;
(B)cooperation with
local and international non-governmental organizations with demonstrated
expertise in combating trafficking in children; and
(C)the treatment of
child trafficking victims in accordance with Article 6(3) of the Protocol to
Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and
Children, Supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational
Organized Crime.
6.Child Protection
Compacts
(a)The
Secretary, acting through the Ambassador, may provide assistance for a country
under this Act only if the country enters into an agreement with the United
States, to be known as a Child Protection Compact
, that
establishes a 3-year plan for achieving shared objectives in furtherance of the
purposes of this Act.
(b)The
Compact should take into account, if applicable, existing national child
protection strategies and national action plans for human trafficking of the
country and shall contain—
(1)the specific
objectives that the country and the United States expect to achieve during the
term of the Compact;
(2)the
responsibilities of the country and the United States in the achievement of
such objectives;
(3)the particular
programs or initiatives to be undertaken in the achievement of such objectives
and the amount of funding to be allocated to each program or initiative;
(4)regular outcome
indicators to monitor and measure progress toward achieving such objectives,
including indicators for each program or initiative;
(5)a
multi-year financial plan, including the estimated amount of contributions by
the United States and the country, if any, and proposed mechanisms to implement
the plan and provide oversight, that describes how the requirements of
paragraphs (1) through (4) will be met, including identifying the role of civil
society in the achievement of such requirements;
(6)where appropriate,
a process or processes for consideration of solicited proposals under the
Compact as well as a process for consideration of unsolicited proposals by the
Secretary and national, regional, or local units of government;
(7)the strategy of the
country to sustain progress made toward achieving such objectives after
expiration of the Compact; and
(8)a list of civil
society and nonprofit organizations that the government will partner or consult
with to develop and sustain the child protection and prosecution capacity in
the country.
(c)Assistance for
development of compactNotwithstanding subsection (a), the
Secretary may enter into contracts or make grants for any eligible country for
the purpose of facilitating the development and implementation of the Compact
between the United States and the country.
(d)Definition of
program or initiativeIn this section, the term program or
initiative may include the following:
(1)Evaluation of
legal standards and practices and recommendations for improvements that will
increase the likelihood of successful prosecutions.
(2)Training
anti-trafficking police and investigators.
(3)Building the
capacity of domestic non-governmental organizations to educate vulnerable
populations about the danger of severe forms of trafficking and to work with
law enforcement to identify and rescue victims.
(4)Creation of
victim-friendly courts.
(5)Development of
appropriate after-care facilities for rescued victims or other rehabilitation
and reintegration services for children, which may include education,
vocational training, and psychosocial counseling, as appropriate.
(6)Development and
maintenance of data collection systems to monitor victims.
(7)Development of
regional cooperative plans with neighboring countries to prevent cross-border
trafficking of children and child sex tourism.
(8)Development of
programs and practices that address demand, including educational curricula,
social marketing campaigns, and specific law enforcement activities targeting
demand.
7.Suspension and
termination of assistance
(a)Suspension and
termination of assistanceThe Secretary may suspend or terminate
assistance in whole or in part for a country or entity under section 4 if the
Secretary determines that—
(1)the country or
entity is engaged in activities which are contrary to the national security
interests of the United States;
(2)the country or
entity has engaged in a pattern of actions inconsistent with the criteria used
to determine the eligibility of the country or entity, as the case may be;
or
(3)the country or
entity has failed to adhere to its responsibilities under the Compact.
(b)The
Secretary may reinstate assistance for a country or entity under section 4 only
if the Secretary determines that the country or entity has demonstrated a
commitment to correcting each condition for which assistance was suspended or
terminated under subsection (a).
(c)Congressional
notificationNot later than 3 days after the date on which the
Secretary suspends or terminates assistance under subsection (a) for a country
or entity, or reinstates assistance under subsection (b) for a country or
entity, the Secretary shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees
a report that contains the determination of the Secretary under subsection (a)
or subsection (b), as the case may be.
8.Congressional
Notification and Annual Report
(a)Congressional
consultation prior to compact negotiationsNot later than 15 days
prior to the start of negotiations of a Compact with a country, the
Secretary—
(1)shall consult with
the appropriate congressional committees with respect to the proposed Compact
negotiation; and
(2)shall identify the
objectives and mechanisms to be used for the negotiation of the Compact.
(b)Congressional
notification after entering into a compactNot later than 10 days
after entry into force of a Compact with a country, the Secretary shall provide
notification of the Compact to the appropriate congressional committees,
including a detailed summary of the Compact and a copy of the text of the
Compact.
(c)
(1)Not later than 180
days after the date of the enactment of this Act, and annually thereafter for
the next 5 years, the President shall transmit to the appropriate congressional
committees a report on the assistance provided under section 4 during the prior
fiscal year.
(2)The report shall include the following:
(A)The amount of
obligations and expenditures for assistance provided to each eligible country
during the prior fiscal year.
(B)For each country,
an assessment of—
(i)the
progress made during each year by the country toward achieving the objectives
set out in the Compact entered into by the country; and
(ii)the
extent to which assistance provided under section 4 has been effective in
helping the country to achieve such objectives.
9.It is the sense of
Congress that, of the total amounts to be appropriated for fiscal years 2012
through 2014 for the Department of State and foreign operations, up to
$30,000,000 should be used to carry out the purposes of this Act.