[Senate Hearing 106-705]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 106-705
INTERNATIONAL TRAFFICKING
IN WOMEN AND CHILDREN
=======================================================================
HEARINGS
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NEAR EASTERN AND
SOUTH ASIAN AFFAIRS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 22 AND APRIL 4, 2000
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/
senate
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
63-986 CC WASHINGTON : 2000
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
JESSE HELMS, North Carolina, Chairman
RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware
CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland
GORDON H. SMITH, Oregon CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut
ROD GRAMS, Minnesota JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin
CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming PAUL D. WELLSTONE, Minnesota
JOHN ASHCROFT, Missouri BARBARA BOXER, California
BILL FRIST, Tennessee ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey
LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island
Stephen E. Biegun, Staff Director
Edwin K. Hall, Minority Staff Director
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NEAR EASTERN AND SOUTH ASIAN AFFAIRS
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas, Chairman
JOHN ASHCROFT, Missouri PAUL D. WELLSTONE, Minnesota
GORDON H. SMITH, Oregon ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey
ROD GRAMS, Minnesota PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland
CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Tuesday, February 22, 2000
International Trafficking in Women and Children
Page
Gupta, Ruchira, journalist and documentary film maker............ 60
Prepared statement........................................... 64
Haugen, Gary A., director, International Justice Mission,
Washington, DC................................................. 36
Prepared statement........................................... 39
Inez, a trafficking survivor..................................... 26
Lederer, Dr. Laura J., director, the Protection Project, the
Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Washington,
DC............................................................. 29
Prepared statement........................................... 33
Loy, Hon. Frank E., Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs;
accompanied by: Teresa Loar, Director, the President's
Interagency Council on Women; Hon. Harold Koh, Assistant
Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor; and
Wendy Chamberlin, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau
of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs,
Department of State, Washington, DC............................ 6
Prepared statement........................................... 9
Ralph, Regan E., Human Rights Watch, Washington, DC.............. 43
Prepared statement........................................... 48
Tuesday, April 4, 2000
International Trafficking in Women and Children: Prosecution,
Testimonies, and Prevention
Ashcroft, Hon. John, U.S. Senator from Missouri, prepared
statement...................................................... 75
Bethell, Dr. Lauran D., director, New Life Center, Chiang Mai,
Thailand....................................................... 98
Coto, Virginia P., Esq., director, Florida Immigrant Advocacy
Center, Miami, FL.............................................. 100
Khodyreva, Natalia, president, Angel Coalition, St. Petersburg,
Russia......................................................... 102
Lederer, Dr. Laura J., director, the Protection Project, the
Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Washington,
DC; accompanied by: survivor Marsha, Russia; survivor Olga,
Ukraine; and survivor Maria, Mexico............................ 86
Prepared statement........................................... 87
Wellstone, Hon. Paul, U.S. Senator from Minnesota, prepared
statement...................................................... 74
Yeomans, William R., Chief of Staff, Civil Rights Division, U.S.
Department of Justice, Washington, DC.......................... 76
Prepared statement........................................... 79
(iii)
INTERNATIONAL TRAFFICKING
IN WOMEN AND CHILDREN
----------
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2000
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Near Eastern
and South Asian Affairs,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:00 a.m. in
room SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Sam Brownback
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Senators Brownback and Wellstone.
Senator Brownback. I will call the hearing to order. We
have got a full set of witnesses to testify today on a very
important topic, so we will try to get through this. I would
appreciate it if the witnesses, as you do testify, if we could
be pretty pointed and succinct so that we can have as much time
for questions as possible. It is an extremely important topic.
I believe it is an issue of first impression for a hearing in
the Senate, so we have got a lot of ground to cover on this
first hearing.
As we begin the 21st century, the degrading institution of
slavery continues throughout the world. I was introduced to
this problem by the human rights advocacy work that we picked
up and we started dealing with the Sudan. Among other
extraordinary human rights abuses, thousands of Sudanese women
and children have been abducted into slavery as a form of
payment or ``booty'' to marauders of civilian villages in the
longest-running civil war in Africa that continues even today.
I have seen the pictures of the brands on their cheeks and
arms which attest to ownership by a master. I have heard the
personal testimonies of their nightmare existence. So I joined
with many others in a campaign of awareness to end the
continuing practice of slavery in the Sudan. This advocacy
prompted me to examine other forms of modern day slavery which
still exist. I am very pleased to chair this hearing on the
international trafficking of women and children. This includes
both trafficking for purposes of forced prostitution as well as
forced labor involving slavery-like conditions. This practice
which we will examine this morning may be the largest
manifestation of slavery in the world today. It is my
understanding this is the first time this issue has been
presented at a hearing in the U.S. Senate.
Every year, approximately 1 million women and children are
forced into the sex trade against their will, internationally.
They are usually transported across international borders so as
to ``shake'' local authorities, leaving the victims defenseless
in a foreign country, virtually held hostage in a strange land.
It is estimated that at least 50,000 women and children are
brought into the United States annually for this purpose. The
numbers are staggering and growing. Some report that over 30
million women and children have been enslaved in this manner
since the 1970's. I believe this is one of the most shocking
and rampant human rights abuses worldwide.
One of two methods, fraud or force, is used to obtain
victims. The most common method, fraud, is used with villagers
in underdeveloped areas. Typically, the buyer promises the
parents that he is taking their young daughter to the city to
become a nanny or domestic servant, giving the parents a few
hundred dollars as a down payment for the future money she will
earn for the family.
Then the girl is transported across international borders,
and deposited in a brothel, and forced into the trade until she
is no longer useful, getting sick with things like AIDS or
other illnesses as well. She is held against her will under the
rationale that she must work off her debt which was paid to the
parents, which typically takes several years.
The second method used for obtaining victims is force,
which is used in the cities more often, where a girl is
physically abducted, beaten, and held against her will,
sometimes in chains.
There is one other very compelling motivation for me to
convene this hearing, and that is that it happens in the United
States as well, impacting even citizens in my own State of
Kansas. Some marketers of children in this country keep them
locked up for days and weeks at a time, police report, and they
state--the police report quotes, ``To keep the youths under
control and stay one step ahead of the law, pimps often move
from city to city.'' This way, the children form no trusting
relationships, and are kept penniless, unable to escape.
I recently met with homeless advocates and youth workers
from my home State of Kansas, even, who described the methods
of procurement. They promise girls, and also boys, a job doing
grass-roots advocacy for some type of political reform at a
specified eastern college. The children are then taken to an
entirely different town, and forced into prostitution. As the
Senator from Kansas, I have a personal interest to stop this
practice in my State, across the country, as well as to alert
children everywhere that it occurs.
We are only just beginning to learn and to understand the
methods of this industry. The routes are now being mapped out
by Dr. Laura Lederer, who will be testifying here today. She is
at the Harvard project. The routes are specific, and definable.
They include Burma to Thailand, Eastern Europe to the Middle
East, and Nepal to India, among many routes that we will learn
about.
Legislation is presently being considered in the House on
this issue, which has been introduced by Congressman Chris
Smith and Congressman Sam Gejdenson, known as the Trafficking
Victims Protection Act of 1999, H.R. 3244. Senator Wellstone
has also introduced legislation. There is presently no
comprehensive scheme to penalize the full range of offenses
involved in elaborate trafficking networks. Solutions are in
order, and I hope this hearing will be a first step toward
those solutions.
As with any important issue, there are always controversies
concerning the means to address the problem, but let me
encourage you today to make a record today, those of you
testifying, regarding the terrible suffering of those forced
into this practice. One further note. I have a short 2 hours,
and several witnesses, so we may have to limit some of the time
spent with individual witnesses. Let me further say, I am
looking forward to the testimony here.
About a month and a half ago I traveled to India, Pakistan,
and Nepal, and in both India and Nepal met with NGO's and
nongovernmental organizations in India fighting this terrible
blight, and in Nepal I met with a number of girls who had been
tricked, taken against their will into the sex trafficking,
into India, and then were returning to Nepal to a safe house
there, two-thirds of them coming back with AIDS and/or
tuberculosis, many of them tricked into the trade at ages 11,
12 years of age, coming back at the ages of 16, 17 years of
age, basically coming back to die a horrible death, being
tricked and taken at their youth for what, and into what, and
into a horrible existence.
This may be one of the most horrible things I have seen
anywhere in the world that I travel, and I think it is time
that we shine a light on what is taking place, and that we
start to remediate what has been occurring.
With that, I want to turn the floor over to Senator
Wellstone, who has been a leader in this effort, and who is a
long-time advocate of it, and quite knowledgeable.
Senator Wellstone.
Senator Wellstone. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me also
thank all of the witnesses today. I agree with the chairman, we
are going to have some powerful testimony, and having just
listened to you, Senator Brownback, I think this is something
that the two of us can work together on, and I believe we can
make a difference, and I think other colleagues will join us.
This is an important hearing, as it seeks to investigate I
think one of today's most serious and pressing violations of
human rights, and I put it in a human rights context, the
trafficking of persons, particularly women and children, for
purposes of sexual exploitation and forced labor.
Despite increasing U.S. Government and international
interest, trafficking in women and children has grown over the
past decade, becoming more insidious and more widespread. I
believe, Mr. Chairman, that it is one of the darkest aspects of
globalization of the world economy. Every year, the trafficking
of human beings affects millions of women and children
throughout the world, women and children whose lives have been
disrupted by economic collapse, civil wars, or fundamental
changes in political geography such as the war in Kosovo and
the disintegration of the Soviet Union. They have fallen prey
to traffickers.
According to the State Department, between 50,000 women, or
somewhere around 50,000 women are trafficked each year into the
United States alone, 50,000 into our country. They come from
the Philippines, Thailand, Russia, the Ukraine, and other
countries in Asia and the former Soviet Union.
Since I began, Mr. Chairman, working on this issue several
years ago, I have met, along with my wife Sheila, trafficking
victims and advocates from around the world. They have told me
again and again that trafficking is induced by poverty, lack of
economic opportunities for women, the horrible low status of
women in many cultures, and the rapid growth, I am sorry to
say, of sophisticated and ruthless international crime
operations.
Upon arrival in countries far from their homes, victims are
often stripped of their passports, held against their will in
slave-like conditions, and sexually abused. Rape, intimidation,
and violence are commonly employed by traffickers to control
their victims and to prevent them from seeking help. That is
the common practice. Through physical isolation and
psychological trauma, traffickers and brothel owners imprison
women in a world of economic and sexual exploitation that
imposes constant fear of arrest and deportation as well as
violent reprisals by the traffickers themselves, to whom the
women must pay off ever-growing debts.
As many of you know, these vents are occurring not just in
far-off lands, but here at home in the United States as well.
Last year, in the Kudhina case, six men admitted in a Florida
court to forcing 17 women and girls, some of them as young as
age 14, into a prostitution slavery ring. The victims were
smuggled into the United States from Mexico with the promise of
steady work but instead were forced into prostitution. The ring
was discovered when two 15-year-old girls escaped and went to
the Mexican Consulate in Miami.
Even closer to home, a forced prostitution ring was busted
a couple of years ago which imprisoned Russian women in a
massage parlor in Bethesda, Maryland.
Trafficking in persons is a human rights problem that
requires a human rights response, and yet more often than not
our Government and other governments have hounded the victims
and let the traffickers go free. The women are treated as
criminals and not as the victims of gross human rights abuses,
and that is exactly what has happened to them.
In order to reverse this ineffective and often cruel
approach toward trafficking victims and go after the root
causes of trafficking, like economic distress and the low
status of women, I introduced the first bill in the Congress to
comprehensively address the problem and was joined, and we will
be joined by other Senators, notably Senators Boxer, Feinstein,
Snowe, and others.
Moreover, the committee is going to be taking up S. 1842,
the Comprehensive Antitrafficking in Persons Act at our next
committee business session. I think there is some work we could
do together on this before committee. I would very much like to
do this in a bipartisan way with you, Mr. Chairman.
The legislation focuses on prevention of abuse, protection
and assistance for victims, and the prosecution of traffickers.
I think those are the three key ingredients. The bill should
ensure the State Department and our law enforcement agencies
will be fully engaged on the issue, and I know Secretary Koh
has made his absolute commitment that our immigration laws do
not encourage rapid deportation of victims--that is one of the
things that people have to worry about--and that the
traffickers are severely punished, and that trafficking victims
receive the needed services and the safe shelter. Further, this
legislation provides, and we have to do this, the needed
resources to programs which will assist the victims both here
in our country and abroad.
In conclusion, or in closing, I want to thank all the
advocates who are here today who have worked so hard on this
issue, and I urge the administration to support legislative
efforts in the Senate so that we can move quickly to end this
brutal practice once and for all.
I just want to say to you, Mr. Chairman, that I agree with
you about the importance of this hearing, and I think that both
of us can make a commitment to everybody here that this is not
symbolic. It is not a hearing and goodbye, you put it away. We
are committed to trying to do something about this, and I think
we will.
Thank you.
Senator Brownback. Thank you, Senator Wellstone. That is a
powerful statement. It is excellent work you have done for a
long period of time, and yes, this is not going away. I look
forward to working on legislation this year, to getting it
through the Senate, through the House, and to the President.
This is a problem that has gone on long enough, and I am
hopeful that there is a strong enough coalition of people that
we are going to be able to move this legislation on forward.
Today, we are about making a record of what has occurred.
We have an excellent set of witnesses. The administration will
be testifying first. Under Secretary of State for Global
Affairs Frank Loy will be the first witness, and I understand
we'll have Teresa Loar and Harold Koh answering questions, is
that correct, but not testifying? Is that correct?
Mr. Loy. Yes, but also Deputy Assistant Secretary Wendy
Chamberlin, on my far left, from the Bureau of International
Narcotics and Law Enforcement.
Senator Brownback. We look forward to your testimony, and
for the questions. I think there is a number of questions both
of us have that we would like to have answers.
We will have two other panels. Before we go with our first
panel I would like to start with a short video clip that has
been put forward by the Global Fund for Women that I think
highlights and puts the overall issue in context, and so if we
could start with that video. Shawn, if you want to turn that
on, I would appreciate that.
[A video was shown.]
Senator Brownback. There is more to the tape. I just want
to give a flavor. That was put forward by the International
Fund for Women.
Mr. Loy, we are distressed by this and by what has taken
place, and we would like to know what the administration's
plans and targets are to deal with this, and hopefully working
with us as we develop comprehensive legislation to deal with
the problem. Mr. Loy, the floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK E. LOY, UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR
GLOBAL AFFAIRS; ACCOMPANIED BY: TERESA LOAR, DIRECTOR, THE
PRESIDENT'S INTERAGENCY COUNCIL ON WOMEN; HON. HAROLD KOH,
ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DEMOCRACY, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND
LABOR; AND WENDY CHAMBERLIN, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY ASSISTANT
SECRETARY, BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS AND LAW
ENFORCEMENT AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Loy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Senator
Wellstone, for giving me this opportunity, and good morning.
I am very pleased to be able to talk about this really
deeply disturbing subject, and particularly in the context of
the kind of cooperative spirit that you have already indicated.
We are all interested in not having a symbolic hearing or a
symbolic process, but actually getting results.
I know, Mr. Chairman, that this issue is fresh in your mind
because you have had what I understand to be a very productive
trip to South Asia, where you were actually able to witness
both the cruelty of the practice we have just seen on the video
and that you have alluded to, and some of the efforts we are
taking to combat it.
I am joined this morning by Ms. Teresa Loar, the Director
of the President's Interagency Council on Women, by Assistant
Secretary Harold Koh, Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human
Rights, and Labor, and by Ms. Wendy Chamberlin, Deputy
Assistant Secretary for International Narcotics and Law
Enforcement.
I have prepared a rather full statement for today's hearing
which chronicles the history of our efforts to deal with this
and also describes the problem in some detail, and with your
permission I will submit that for inclusion in the record.
Senator Brownback. It will be put in the record.
Mr. Loy. This morning I will be very brief in defining the
problem and describing what our strategy is in combating it.
First, though, let me commend both you and Senator Wellstone
for your commitment to address this horrific problem. Your
work, Mr. Chairman, with your new role in the OSCE, is most
welcome, and Senator Wellstone's efforts on this issue are
well-known and have been extremely helpful.
I also want to say how pleased we were that you were able,
Mr. Chairman, to travel to South Asia to meet with the NGO
communities and the activists and police officials there, and
to get a first-hand view as to how the scourge of trafficking
is ruining lives. Your statement was very eloquent in
describing that situation, and it is clear that that trip
provided some important insights into how the problem develops.
Mr. Chairman, it is a very sad fact that in this moment of
history people still inflict upon one another unspeakable,
almost unimaginable horrors. For as long as that is so, we, as
civilized people, have a responsibility to speak out against
them and to cast a light upon those acts and to do everything
within our power to eradicate them from our world.
It seems almost incomprehensible that at the dawn of the
21st century the primitive and barbaric practice of buying and
selling human beings occurs at all, yet it is a very common and
unfortunately growing reality. Because it is clear that both
you and Senator Wellstone understand the basic problem, and
because we have seen the video, I will not delve into the
gruesome details as to how traffickers ply their nefarious
trade, or upon the cruel misfortunes that befall their victims.
I commend my written testimony to you and to other members of
the committee who are interested in a more detailed discussion
of this issue.
I do want to talk first of all about what is trafficking.
It is, among other things, the recruitment, the transportation,
the transfer, the harboring or receipt of persons by threat or
by use of abduction or force, fraud, deception, or coercion for
the purposes of forced labor, domestic servitude, debt bondage,
and compelled participation in prostitution and pornography.
You have raised the question how widespread this practice
is, and because it is an underground activity, reliable numbers
are obviously difficult to achieve. We estimate conservatively
the number of people trafficked across borders every year is in
the range of 700,000. From that, one can reasonably extrapolate
that all trafficking, be it across borders or within countries,
claims between 1 and 2 million victims per year. These are
staggering numbers.
As this hearing will illuminate, trafficking is a complex
problem. Although it is sometimes characterized as a women's
issue, its impact involves children and men as well. The
origins are economic, the poverty of victims and the greed of
the traffickers. Its consequences include the horrendous human
rights abuses that Senator Wellstone referred to.
It also includes a growth of both transnational organized
crime and local crime, and one of the consequences is increased
public health problems and the corruption of public officials.
The link between trafficking and these issues underscores its
significance as an important foreign and domestic policy
concern.
Another fixture that adds to the trafficking growth is the
low social status of women in many countries. Children, girls
in particular, are pulled out of school early, enhancing the
likelihood that they will end up in the clutches of
traffickers. In some places girls are considered to have less
value than a household appliance. I gather that during your
recent trip, Mr. Chairman, you learned that some parents were
not above selling their daughters, sometimes for as little as
U.S.$50.
What is the United States strategy for combating
trafficking? Generally, the President, the First Lady, the
Secretary of State, and the Attorney General all have shown
tremendous commitment to this issue. The basic strategy was set
forth by the President in a directive of March 11, 1998, and
the Department of State, the Department of Justice, and other
relevant agencies have made significant progress since then in
advancing the antitrafficking strategy set out in that
directive.
Our strategy consists of what we call the three P's,
prevention of trafficking, protection of and assistance to its
victims, and prosecution and enforcement against the
traffickers. I will mention here just a few examples of the
bilateral and the multilateral projects we have undertaken in
furtherance of this strategy of the three P's. A fuller
description is in my written testimony.
During her meetings with foreign leaders, and particularly
recently leaders of Italy, Finland, Ukraine, Israel, and the
Philippines, Secretary Albright has made it a priority to raise
trafficking at the highest levels. One result of her
discussions have been five concrete bilateral working
relationships with these countries focusing on prevention,
protection, and prosecution.
Furthermore, as you know, the administration has been
working with about 100 other countries to fashion an
international protocol on trafficking in persons. Once this
enters into force the protocol will arm countries with quite
powerful weapons for tracking down and punishing traffickers,
and for helping their victims.
Furthermore, we fund public awareness campaigns throughout
source countries, particularly of the former Soviet Union and
Eastern Europe, and these warn potential victims of the methods
that traffickers use and, we hope, educate them to be cautious.
Next month, the United States and the Philippines will co-
host the Asian regional initiative to combat the trafficking of
women and children. The 23 Asian and Pacific Nations will
develop a regional strategy to prevent trafficking, to protect
victims, and to prosecute traffickers. In the South Asia region
the U.S. mission in Nepal has been carrying out an
antitrafficking program since 19989. U.S. Government agencies
cooperate with the Nepalese Government on a range of prevention
and victim protection and prosecution initiatives, and to
encourage regional cooperation in one major area the State
Department is developing a specific South Asia antitrafficking
strategy that will include regional and country-specific
programs
These are but a few of our international antitrafficking
programs designed to carry out the three-P strategy, and more
are described in my written testimony.
Mr. Chairman, the question arises, what can Congress do to
address the trafficking problem? This administration is deeply
appreciative of your interest, both of your interests and the
interest of others on both sides of the aisle who have
sponsored legislation on trafficking. Such legislation is
urgently needed, and the administration has worked diligently
on a bipartisan basis to help craft a bill that squares with
our policies.
We need a bill that gives us the tools to promote
effectively this three-P strategy of prevention, of protection,
and prosecution. Senate 1842 goes the furthest in providing
such tools. Some believe we should add a fourth pillar to the
three-P framework, the imposition of economic sanctions on
countries that are not doing enough to address trafficking.
Because that is an important issue let me spend a moment or two
talking about it.
We understand the motivation behind this proposal, but we
believe sanctions would be a mistake. In our view, sanctions do
not help with effective protection or prosecution. More
specifically, we have four problems with the idea of sanctions.
First, trafficking is essentially a private criminal activity.
Even though we know that trafficking is at times abetted by
corrupt officials, sanctions would not in most cases hurt the
criminals.
Second, most countries are in the early stages of
responding to this problem, whose magnitude has exploded only
recently. Governments have been willing to acknowledge the
seriousness of the problem and to work with us to combat it. If
a sanctions regime were created, Governments might try to
downplay the seriousness of the problem in order to avoid the
economic or political impact of sanctions. Thus, sanctions
could actually jeopardize the emerging fragile governmental
efforts to work together to fight trafficking through law
enforcement, through collaboration and training, through public
awareness campaigns and victim assistance campaigns, and
reintegration programs for victims.
Third, I believe sanctions would, in fact, hurt the victims
of trafficking by diminishing the economic opportunities
available to them, and thereby increasing the likelihood that
they will be preyed upon.
And fourth, sanctions would likely deflect the country's
attention from the problem and instead cause them to attack
those who raise the profile of the problem, who raise the
profile of trafficking, and they would tend to describe them as
enemies of the common good.
Specifically, the imposition of sanctions, or even the
threat of them, would hamper the work of the NGO's who are
absolutely key actors in the fight against trafficking and aid
to its victims. Those NGO's would be perceived by their own
governments as adversaries rather than as allies in the fight
against this scourge.
Mr. Chairman, this is not just speculation. Just last week
I met with women NGO representatives from Russia and Ukraine,
two major trafficking countries. They told me in no uncertain
terms that economic sanctions against their government would
cripple the NGO community's effort to respond to trafficking
through education of women and girls through aid to victims,
through provision of information, of law enforcement and other
services. One of those, the representative of one of those
NGO's is in the room, and you will have an opportunity to hear
from her later on.
Mr. Chairman, in conclusion, the Clinton administration I
believe has moved aggressively and with great conviction to
prevent trafficking, to protect its victims, and to prosecute
traffickers. We want to do more, and we want to do it with you.
Trafficking, as has been said by both you and Senator
Wellstone, is one of the most egregious human rights abuses of
our time. It is slavery, pure and simple. It is slavery in the
21st century. Its existence is intolerable, and it is repugnant
to the United States Government and to civilized people
everywhere. We look forward to working with you to try to
eradicate it.
Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to
testify. I would be happy to answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Loy follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Frank E. Loy
Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, good morning. I am
grateful for the opportunity to testify today on the growing global
problem of trafficking in persons, especially women and children.
And I know that this is fresh in your mind after, what I
understand, was a productive trip to South Asia during which you were
able to witness some of the efforts that we are supporting to combat
trafficking. In addition, Mr. Chairman, your efforts to address this
important issue in the context of your new role with the OSCE is most
welcome. Your advocacy and attention to the needs of victims will
continue to be crucial to accomplishing our shared goals.
I am joined here today by Theresa Loar, Director of the President's
Interagency Council on Women, Harold Koh, Assistant Secretary of State
for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor and Wendy Chamberlin, Deputy
Assistant Secretary for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement.
Sometimes humans inflict upon each other unspeakable, nearly
unimaginable, horrors. Yet it is important--indeed we have a
responsibility--to speak about such disturbing circumstances--to cast
light upon reprehensible acts--to better understand how to eradicate
their insidious presence from this world.
Trafficking in persons is one such chilling reality. How does one
make sense in this modern day and age of the persistent and growing
practice of trafficking? It seems impossible that there is an enormous
trade in the buying and selling of human beings. And yet it is all too
true. The stories of trafficking victims are filled with suffering,
misery, violence and death. It is one of the most egregious human
rights abuses of our time and its existence is intolerable and
repugnant to the United States Government. We are here today to talk
about it in hopes of working with you to continue progress toward its
eradication.
As this hearing will illuminate trafficking is a very complex
problem. Although it is sometimes characterized as a ``women's issue''
it in fact involves not only women, but also children and men. Its
origins are economic and social. Its consequences include human rights
abuses, increased public health problems, the growth of both
transnational and local organized crime and corruption of officials.
The link between trafficking and theseconsequences underscores its
significance as an important foreign and domestic policy concern.
It is impossible to overstate the horror of trafficking. It is
reported that in some villages in parts of Southeast Asia there are few
young women and girls left. Where have they gone? The answer is that
agents for traffickers descend upon villages and harvest these children
like a profitable crop to take to market--sometimes abducting them, and
often luring and enticing them with tragically false promises,
sometimes simply buying them from desperate parents--to sell into
brothels or to force them to perform a wide range of labor and forms of
servitude.
The frightening ease of purchasing a child is documented in the
film ``Selling of Innocents'' by Ruchira Gupta, who I understand will
testify later in this hearing.
In another common trafficking scenario, in Cambodia and Viet Nam
for example, men and women are trafficked for begging schemes. Mothers
with infants are particularly targeted by the traffickers. Old women
also are abducted and forced to beg. Sometimes traffickers will maim
the elderly they traffic to increase sympathy and make them more
effective beggars. You are familiar with the trafficking case where
hearing impaired Mexicans--men and women--were trafficked to New York,
held in slave-like conditions, and forced to beg by ``selling''
trinkets in subways and on the streets.
In Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, thousands of young
women, yearning for economic independence within economies that offer
few jobs, decide to leave their homes for promised jobs in other
countries. Traffickers may operate through nominally reputable
employment, travel or entertainment companies, or marriage agencies.
Victims are lured with false advertisements and promises of jobs as
models, dancers, waitresses, and maids. Traffickers offer prospects for
travel and exciting cultural experiences. Corruption among government
officials often facilitates the success of these trafficking schemes.
Once the women arrive at their destination, their passports are
confiscated by the traffickers and the victims are subjected to extreme
physical and mental abuse, including rape, torture, starvation,
imprisonment, death threats and physical brutality to ensure that they
comply with the demands of the traffickers.
Even with escape, there is rarely healing or recovery. Individuals
trafficked into the sex industry are coerced by their criminal captors
to engage in activities that will expose them to deadly diseases,
including HIV and AIDs. We understand that of the thousands of women
and girls trafficked from Nepal annually--many of whom are in their
early teens and younger--of the few hundred who may escape--more than
65 percent are HIV positive.
This is only a small sampling of the types of trafficking cases
that are reported. The criminals are sophisticated and trafficking
variations seem endless.
Last March, the Secretary of State met with trafficking victims in
northern Thailand. She saw firsthand the heart-breaking devastation
suffered by these young women--indeed mostly girls--who had their
childhood robbed from them when traffickers had sold them into
prostitution. The stories of the horror these girls faced reinforced
the Secretary's strong resolve to build consensus around the world to
make sure that laws are strengthened so that there will be no safe
havens for traffickers and so that trafficking victims can get the
protection and assistance they need.
Similar haunting stories have been echoed by other victims to
United States officials in countries such as Italy, the Philippines,
the Ukraine, Albania, Nigeria, Thailand, and Mexico. Girls told of
being forced into domestic servitude where they were beaten and raped.
The suffering of boys was evident from their mangled bodies, their
growth stunted, spines bent almost in half from the oppressive weights
they were forced to carry in the construction industry until they were
rescued.
One does not come away from hearing of these experiences unchanged.
These encounters have deepened United States commitment to marshal the
full breadth of government resources available to confront and stop
trafficking. The Secretary of State has made her views crystal clear:
``[The] women who have been victimized deserve to have their voices
heard. And if we apply a standard of zero tolerance to those who sell
illegal drugs, we should be at least as tough in opposing those who buy
and sell human beings.''
what is the nature and magnitude of trafficking?
At its core, the international trade in persons is about abduction,
coercion, deception, violence and exploitation.
A trafficking scheme involves a continuum of recruitment,
abduction, transport, harboring, transfer, sale or receipt of persons
through various types of coercion, force, fraud or deception for the
purpose of placing persons in situations of slavery or slavery-like
conditions, servitude, forced labor or services. Examples include, but
are not limited to, sexual servitude, domestic servitude, bonded
sweatshop labor or other debt bondage.
Trafficking affects men, women and children. Men and boys are often
trafficked into forced labor, and begging schemes. Women and girls are
the primary targets of trafficking, sometimes for forced labor and
domestic servitude and often for sexual activities. It is important to
note that while trafficking is generally considered to involve force,
coercion or deception, there is a solid international consensus that
any scenario in which a minor is entangled in sexual activity--
prostitution or participation in pornography--is trafficking. Thus, the
elements of force, coercion or deception are irrelevant in such
settings.
The underground nature of trafficking makes it virtually invisible
and obtaining reliable estimates of the magnitude of trafficking has
been difficult. However, it appears that 1-2 million persons are
trafficked annually.
Because of the absence of any U.S. Government figures on
trafficking, the Clinton Administration became the first to attempt to
quantify trafficking in women and children. Created to work under the
auspices of the National Security Council and as part of the
President's International Crime Control Strategy Initiative, an
interagency working group was tasked with focusing attention on
transnational crime implications of trafficking.
This process has produced the first preliminary U.S. Government
estimates of trafficking to the United States. We now believe 45,000-
50,000 women and children are trafficked annually into the United
States, primarily from Latin America, Russia, the Newly Independent
States and Southeast Asia.
Sex trafficking is only one form of the problem. Approximately half
of the 50,000 trafficked to the United States each year are for bonded
sweatshop labor and domestic servitude. Trafficking into the commercial
sex industry, then, is merely one form of a broader range of
trafficking exploited by organized criminal enterprises.
Indeed, traffickers are often engaged in more than one kind of
trafficking because they follow the profits. For example, we see cases
where girls are lured from a village where some are forced to work in
domestic servitude or carpet weaving, while others are culled out and
sold to brothels. Thus, if we are to be effective in our fight against
trafficking, we cannot limit our efforts to one form of trafficking
over another form.
Alarmingly, the trafficking industry is one of the fastest growing
and most lucrative criminal enterprises in the world. Profits from the
industry are enormous, generating billions of dollars annually to
organized criminal groups. Trafficking in women and children is now
considered the third largest source of profits for organized crime,
behind only drugs and guns. Traffickers know that throughout the world
they can reap large profits while facing a relatively low risk of
prosecution. Moreover, it has been observed that, unlike drugs or
firearms, trafficking ``in women and children doesn't require capital
to start. There are indications that these growing profits are feeding
into criminal syndicates'' involvement in other illicit and violent
activities.
what are the root causes of trafficking?
While there are numerous contributing factors, economic desperation
of victims and potential victims is at the core of trafficking. The
trafficking industry is driven by poverty and economic desperation,
most particularly among women and girls who have little or no access to
economic opportunities, support services, or resources, including
credit, land ownership and inheritance.
The low social status of women in many countries contributes as
well. Children, and girls in particular, are pulled out of school
early, enhancing the likelihood that they will end up in the hands of
traffickers. In some places, girls are considered to have less value
than a household appliance. The First Lady, who cares deeply about this
issue, observed one chilling manifestation of trafficking:
There are girls that I've met in Northern Thailand, when I
visited their village I could tell by looking at their parents'
homes which ones had sold their daughters into prostitution.
The homes were bigger, nicer, they sometimes even had an
antenna or satellite on top.
what is the united states strategy for combating trafficking?
The President, the Secretary of State, and the Attorney General
have all shown tremendous commitment to this serious human rights
issue. The Departments of State and Justice, and other relevant
agencies, have made significant progress over the past two years to
advance the United States anti-trafficking strategy set forth in a
Presidential directive of March 11, 1998 on Steps to Combat Violence
Against Women and Trafficking in Women and Girls.
Policy Framework
Pursuant to that Directive, the Clinton Administration adopted a
comprehensive and integrated policy framework that guides the
development of our policies both domestically and internationally. It
consists of the ``three P's'' of:
(1) Prevention,
(2) Protection and assistance for victims, and
(3) Prosecution of and enforcement against traffickers.
The Presidential memorandum directed the President's Interagency
Council on Women, chaired by the Secretary of State, to lead the
development and coordination of the USG's domestic and international
policy on this issue. The Council coordinates the efforts of the
Departments of State, Justice, Labor, and Health and Human Services,
USAID and the former U.S. Information Agency.
As a result of the leadership of the Secretary and the work of the
Council, the full machinery of the Department of State is seized of the
importance of this issue, including the relevant regional bureaus, and
functional offices and bureaus such as the Office of the Senior
Coordinator for International Women's Issues and the Bureaus of
Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, International Narcotics and Law
Enforcement, Consular Affairs, Diplomatic Security and Population,
Refugees and Migration.
The Department of Justice deserves much credit for its important
efforts in this area as well. We are pleased to be able to work closely
with that Department through the Council on a range of projects to
advance these policies.
The following is a non-comprehensive summary of some of the
Department of State's activities in this area.
Bilateral Initiatives
We have seen how powerful it is to have the American Secretary of
State raise this issue with heads of government and her fellow foreign
ministers. During her meetings with leaders of Italy, Finland, Ukraine
and Israel, the Secretary has made it a priority to raise trafficking
at the highest levels. As a result of her discussions, the United
States has initiated four concrete bilateral working relationships with
these countries focusing on prevention, protection and prosecution.
In Ukraine, we have supported prevention, protection and
enforcement initiatives by sponsoring information campaigns,
economic alternative programs for victims and training for law
enforcement officers there.
In July 1999, we completed the second meeting of the U.S.-
Italy Working Group on Trafficking in Women and Children. This
initiative focuses on protection of victims, cooperation with
NGO's, training for law enforcement and strengthening
cooperation between U.S. and Italian criminal justice systems.
U.S. and Italian embassies in Lagos are working with the
Nigerian government to develop a public awareness campaign to
prevent trafficking in Nigeria. Plans are also underway for
American NGO's to travel to Italy soon to learn more about the
victims protection services available there. In conjunction
with the U.S.-Italian initiative, members of the Council
interagency team have consulted with officials from The Holy
See on protection programs sponsored by the Vatican.
With Finland, we are collaborating on the prevention of
trafficking and violence against women in the Baltic countries
of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
The United States and Israel are exploring ways to work
together to reduce trafficking to Israel. The Department has
shared information on trafficking legislation and Israel is
beginning the development of public awareness programs.
In South Asia, Mr. Chairman, as you have seen first hand,
trafficking is robbing the lives of young women and even girls.
Thousands of women and children are trafficked annually from Nepal and
Bangladesh to the brothels in India and Pakistan. Many are now HIV
positive. The problem is deeply rooted in the poverty, illiteracy, and
low status of women and girls, coupled with a growing international
organized criminal element in South Asia.
I understand you visited Maiti Nepal, a shelter for rescued girls
in Katmandu, where many of the young girls are HIV positive yet are
striving to create a life for themselves. Supporting shelters like
these represents one of the very real ways that we can address this
problem.
Indeed, Mr. Chairman, in South Asia, as you have seen, we are
supporting various initiatives to address trafficking. In fact, we have
issued a comprehensive South Asia Regional Strategy to Combat
Trafficking of Women and Children which is currently being implemented
throughout the region. The strategy incorporates our Embassies'
evaluations and action proposals related to the three pronged approach
of prevention, protection, and prosecution. The FY 2000-01 budget for
South Asia includes over $2 million in State and USAID funds for these
efforts. Given your interest in South Asia, we would be happy to
discuss our strategy and programs with you in more detail.
Again, this only highlights some of the United States efforts
underway internationally. Other initiatives include efforts in Russia
and the NIS, the Czech Republic, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania,
Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Thailand and the Philippines.
Multilateral Initiatives
Several important multilateral initiatives are also underway. These
include partnerships with the United Nations, European Union, ASEAN and
the OSCE. The United States played a lead role in negotiating the
International Labor Organization's adoption, of Convention No. 182 on
the worst forms of Child Labor and reaffirmed its commitment to this
effort by becoming one of the first countries to ratify the Convention.
At the April 1998 session of the United Nations Commission
for Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (Crime Commission),
the U.S. introduced a resolution on trafficking in women and
children. The resolution proposed that a protocol on
trafficking in women and children be developed in conjunction
with the proposed UN Convention on Transnational Organized
Crime. This resolution was subsequently adopted and the U.S.
and Argentina introduced a draft protocol at the first
negotiating session in January 1999. Negotiations on the
protocol have been underway since that time and the member
states of the United Nations will resume negotiations again in
June.
The United States and the European Union co-sponsored public
awareness campaigns to warn young women in Eastern Europe about
the dangers posed by traffickers. The Department's Bureau of
International Narcotics and Law Enforcement developed a
brochure entitled ``Be Smart, Be Safe'' that is targeted to
potential victims. It describes the tactics that criminals use
to traffic women, the risks of trafficking, and what women can
do to protect themselves.
The OSCE membership includes origin, transit and destination
countries. The OSCE thus is proving to be an excellent forum in
which to address trafficking. At the November 1999 OSCE summit,
the United States underscored the threat of trafficking in the
OSCE region and joined other summit participants in calling for
the implementation of the Action Plan to Combat Trafficking by
all OSCE member states.
In July 1998, the Secretary of State raised the issue of
trafficking at the ASEAN conference and invited countries in
the region to work with the United States to reduce
trafficking. The United States and the Philippines will co-host
a regional East Asian meeting in Manila in the Spring of 2000
called the Asian Regional Initiative to Combat the Trafficking
of Women and Children (ARIAT). Over twenty Asia and Pacific
nations have been invited to discuss national action plans to
combat the trafficking of women and children and to develop a
regional strategy to prevent trafficking, protect the victims
of trafficking, reintegrate trafficking victims into society,
and prosecute the traffickers.
Expanded Human Rights Reporting on Trafficking
The Department recognized the importance of matching the growth of
trafficking around the world with more extensive reporting.
Consequently, the Department, through the Bureau of Democracy, Human
Rights and Labor, has expanded its reporting of trafficking of persons,
especially women and children, in the annual Country Reports of Human
Rights Practices. The more detailed picture of trafficking that will
emerge will help policymakers understand the phenomena and craft sound
policies in response.
International Training and Research
I would also like to take this opportunity to underscore the
important work of the Department of State's Bureaus of International
Narcotics and Law Enforcement and Consular Affairs in improving
training for law enforcement on trafficking. Trafficking-specific
training is being provided for foreign law enforcement--including
border enforcement, consular anti-fraud and visa officials--to
recognize trafficking cases and to respond appropriately to help
protect victims.
The involvement of law enforcement in developing and promoting
protection of the victims of trafficking, even when the victims have
crossed international borders and are in undocumented status, is ground
breaking and will be crucial to success in this area.
The Administration has funded several research projects to increase
our understanding of trafficking. Later in this hearing, you will
receive testimony from Laura Lederer, affiliated with the Women and
Public Policy program at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, whose
research is funded by the State Department's Bureau of International
Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. We contracted this work to
survey current laws around the world on trafficking and sexual
exploitation.
what can congress do to address the trafficking problem?
While important progress on this issue has been made, much work
remains to be done. Congress is essential to the success of these
efforts.
Internationally, we need to achieve consensus on the U.N.
trafficking protocol being negotiated. The United States will seek
agreement later this year on this historic international instrument of
cooperation to aid the fight against trafficking. The protocol will
build on our policy framework of prevention, protection and
prosecution. It will require countries to make trafficking a crime and
will set new standards for countries of origin, transit and destination
to prevent trafficking, punish traffickers and protect victims. It will
also call for extensive law enforcement collaboration to attack the
traffickers. Because trafficking is a global problem, the nations of
the world are linked as countries of origin, transit, and destination
and inevitably will succeed or fail in combating it together.
Domestically, legislation is urgently needed. Such legislation
could and should build on the prevention, protection and prosecution
framework and expand and strengthen the tools available to advance the
United States agenda on trafficking in other countries. Thus, any
legislation should enhance our global efforts pursued through the
protocol and the other bilateral, multilateral and regional initiatives
described above. U.S. legislation should be carefully crafted to
encourage and support strong action by foreign governments and to
promote and facilitate the excellent work being done in this area by
nongovernmental organizations around the world.
Specifically, the Administration believes that the following
elements would be most helpful in domestic legislation:
Prevention.--Prevention measures should include initiatives
to provide economic opportunities and increase awareness among
potential trafficking victims. Expansion of trafficking
information and research collected domestically and in
cooperation with our international partners is also needed.
Protection and Assistance.--Protection and assistance for
victims is critical. Currently there is no effective structural
framework for protection and assistance in the United States
for trafficked victims. There are very few shelters or other
support services designed to meet the particular needs of
trafficked women. Moreover, victims are generally ineligible
for assistance because most are in the United States
unlawfully. In the past, the standard response was immediate
deportation.
Legislation is necessary to remedy this. One of the most
important measures would be eligibility for temporary residency
(through creation of a humanitarian, non-immigrant visa
classification) for trafficking victims identified in the
United States to allow them to obtain assistance and to aid in
the prosecution of traffickers. Current statutory barriers for
trafficking victims should be eliminated to permit eligibility
for existing programs.
Similarly, our domestic legislation should provide for
support for developing countries to undertake or expand
initiatives to protect and reintegrate trafficking victims.
Prosecution and Enforcement.--Strengthened enforcement and
prosecution against traffickers is crucial because trafficking
is growing, in part, because it remains a high profit,
relatively low-risk criminal enterprise. There exists little
deterrence to counter the greed of the traffickers. Imposing
tougher penalties--up to life imprisonment--for traffickers and
amending the law so that traffickers will not escape
prosecution and conviction, are among the objectives sought by
the Administration through legislation. Also, restitution
should be made available statutorily to trafficked victims. To
expand the possibility of redress, trafficked victims should be
able to bring private civil lawsuits against traffickers.
Supporting Stronger Action by Other Countries.--A key element
of any legislative approach taken by the U.S. Government is
that it should foster and encourage efforts by other countries
to combat this transnational problem through the framework of
prevention, protection and prosecution. This can be done
through authorizing programs to enhance public awareness of the
dangers of trafficking, through law enforcement training and
collaboration and support for victim protection and
reintegration. Another way in which this can be accomplished is
by supporting and reinforcing our efforts through the protocol
to persuade all the countries of the world to adopt the
prevention, protection and prosecution framework. Any domestic
legislation should avoid any provisions, however well-
intentioned, that could have the effect of discouraging
international collaboration and resolve to acknowledge and
combat trafficking.
why mandatory sanctions would be counterproductive?
Given the fact that in order to tackle the problem of trafficking
we need the cooperation and support of all countries, some say we
should inflict economic sanctions on countries that are perceived not
to be doing enough to address the problem. We strongly disagree for
four reasons:
Economic sanctions would exacerbate the root causes of
trafficking by making the targeted countries poorer and leaving
the victims even more vulnerable to traffickers;
Sanctions imposed on countries would not punish the
principal perpetrators--organized crime syndicates--but
governments and people;
In the face of a sanctions regime governments may seek to
downplay the seriousness of the problem of trafficking to avoid
either the direct or political consequences of sanctions, thus
chilling the growing phenomenon of international collaboration;
and
If a sanctions regime is developed, governments and local
populations could come to view the important work of local
activists and NGO's to raise the profile of the problem of
trafficking as a threat and cease collaboration with these
important grassroots efforts.
In short, we believe creating a sanctions regime for this problem
would be profoundly counterproductive. Sanctions simply would not
contribute to prevention, protection or prosecution. And, most
importantly, sanctions would not help in the process of building an
international effort to combat the transnational problem of
trafficking.
As we have raised this issue around the world, we have found that
we are joined by NGO's in every country that are pushing their
governments to combat trafficking. We have also found that government
leaders, as they learn about the issue, want to do something about it.
Like the United States, these countries are in the early stages of
trying to address trafficking. Because these emerging efforts are
fragile, our goal should be to facilitate and encourage them by helping
expand such programs as public awareness and education, law enforcement
training, and helping governmental and non-governmental institutions be
more efficient and forceful agents of reform. Creating a sanctions
regime could these fragile collaborative efforts.
Mr. Chairman, it is also essential to bear in mind the critical
role played by NGO's in the efforts against trafficking. NGO's have
courageously convened forums, produced moving documentaries and
accurately reported the horrors faced by trafficking victims. At the
Vital Voices Women in Democracy Conference in Vienna in July 1997,
members of the President's Council met networks of NGO's working here
in the United States and in the former Soviet Union. We heard from
Ukrainian grandmothers who told us in tears of their anguish when young
women from their villages were tricked into trafficking schemes. The
NGO communities we have worked with include human rights groups,
women's groups, service providers and faith groups. We have engaged
with these communities in meetings across the United States and
overseas and have benefited from this partnership. If we are to defeat
the traffickers and provide protection to the victims, one thing is
clear--we will need to build on and support the efforts of the
grassroots NGO's committed to address this terrible scourge.
Just last week, I met with women's NGO representatives from Russia
and the Ukraine, two major trafficking source countries. They told me
in no uncertain terms that economic sanctions against their governments
would cripple the NGO communities' efforts to deal with trafficking--
efforts that include educating women and girls, aiding victims and
providing information to law enforcement. These NGO's fear that in
calling public attention to the problem they would be accused of
causing the imposition of economic sanctions or political isolation.
They are justifiably concerned that that would undercut their ongoing
cooperative work with governments. We have heard this same message of
concern about sanctions from many NGO's who work in the field and are
active in victims assistance from around the world, including those in
South Asia.
The Russian and Ukranian NGO representatives were equally, if not
more, wary of ``targeted'' sanctions that would, for example, cut off
support for law enforcement training programs. In short, their reaction
to such an approach was that the traffickers would applaud the
implementation of such sanctions, since the very people who might
challenge them would be hamstrung. While they have no illusions about
the danger of official corruption, it was obvious to them that working
cooperatively with foreign law enforcement and providing training to
their law enforcement officials to prosecute traffickers effectively is
far more likely to reduce trafficking in their countries than cutting
off those training funds.
Sanctions simply are not the answer to the problem of trafficking
and the imposition of a sanctions regime could compromise the important
work currently underway, to combat trafficking.
next steps on legislation
The Administration has worked and hopes to continue to work
diligently on a bipartisan basis to assist Congress to craft effective
legislation. We believe that the current version of S. 1842, goes the
furthest in providing needed tools to address trafficking.
While we have deep concerns about certain provisions of the current
House bill, sponsored by Congressman Smith of New Jersey and
Congressman Gejdenson of Connecticut, other portions of that bill
mirror Administration proposals. We hope that disagreement over its
proposals for economic sanctions, new unfunded reporting requirements
that duplicate existing obligations and current reporting, and creation
of a new trafficking office without appropriating funds for that
purpose, will not impede our shared objective of enacting effective
trafficking legislation this year.
conclusion
The Administration has moved aggressively to combat trafficking and
protect its victims. Mr. Chairman, we want to work with you to do more.
We must get the world's attention to achieve a global consensus as we
head into the 21st century that trafficking, a form of modern day
slavery, is unacceptable. As Secretary of State Albright has said,
``Our goal, ultimately, is to mobilize people everywhere so that
trafficking in human beings is met by a stop sign visible around the
equator and from pole to pole.''
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much, Mr. Loy, for
testifying and for presenting a very clear statement, too, of
the extent of the problem and the nature of it.
Let's run the clock back and forth at 7 minutes here. I do
want to make sure--we have got two other panels--we get plenty
of time for the other panelists to testify as well.
Mr. Loy, is the problem continuing to grow? I would like to
get from you or from your staff people, when did this thing
start to explode, and are we capped out, or is this just
continuing to grow at the present time?
Mr. Loy. Mr. Chairman, the numbers started to grow in the
nineties, early in the nineties. We have taken some care to get
the best snapshot of numbers that we have. It is a little hard
for me to predict whether it will grow or not, but certainly
the trend line has been up. I am hoping that as the world
catches up with the phenomenon in terms of education and in
terms of prosecution, that we will cap it, but I do not think I
would want to predict which way the numbers will go.
Senator Brownback. Ms. Loar, do you have a comment or
thought on this?
Ms. Loar. Well, of course I agree with my boss, but let me
just add to that that we think some of the reasons why this
human rights violation has increased so dramatically in the
last few years has been sort of the breakdown of borders, the
increase of cross-border trade, and the fact that it is so
economically lucrative, and the fact that many women and girls
in the world find themselves in a very desperate economic
situation does point to increases in this human rights
violation, in this crime.
The fact that victims' groups, those who are supporting
victims, including some of the people you are hearing from
today, have their hotline, the calls on their hotline go up on
a regular basis, the fact that victims' groups come forward to
the U.S. Government and to others who are looking for help I
think is an indication that it is becoming more visible. Yes,
you have said your work here and the work of others to shine a
light on it is helping it come out of the shadows. It is hard
to tell if that is increasing, or if it is just becoming more
visible.
Senator Brownback. What is the extent of this as a money-
making source for organized crime? What is the extent of that
involvement, and where is it on their scale of money- making
sources?
Mr. Loy. I do not have very good numbers. I am going to ask
Ms. Chamberlin to speak to this, but one interesting aspect of
your question is that organized crime tends to go where the
money is, and we have had a number of examples where there has
been a shift from drugs to trafficking in persons, sometimes
from guns to trafficking in persons, because it was felt that
that was safer. There was less likelihood of prosecution. So it
is somewhat interchangeable.
Wendy, do we have numbers?
Ms. Chamberlin. I am sorry, we do not have numbers.
Senator Brownback. Would you identify yourself?
Ms. Chamberlin. I am the Principal Deputy Assistant
Secretary in the International Counternarcotics and Law
Programs Bureau, commonly known as Drugs and Thugs.
The bureau started out--
Senator Brownback. Drugs and Thugs. That is something to
tell your mom.
Ms. Chamberlin. The evolution of our bureau's interest
actually speaks to this problem. We had started out primarily
as a bureau interested in counternarcotics abroad. We have
found over time that if you are interested in counternarcotics
and stopping at that, it leads naturally into organized crime
issues, and larger crime issues, as has organized crime in this
issue.
I am echoing a point that Under Secretary Loy just made,
but we have found that many of the drug-trafficking groups are
shifting away from trafficking narcotics to trafficking people,
women and children, for the reasons that are Under Secretary
Loy just mentioned. It is a reusable commodity. You can sell it
more than once. The penalties are low in many countries around
the world, and governments and law enforcement agencies
particularly are not quite as sensitized to the danger and the
horrific nature of the problem.
This has led us to focus more on this problem
internationally, and has led naturally to our interests in
promoting the U.N. Transborder Organized Crime Convention that
is being negotiated in Vienna now, because that focus is on
organized crime and their involvement in this issue.
Senator Brownback. So if I could, are they focusing,
refocusing their asset base, then, to--you are saying away from
drugs and into the international trafficking on an increasing
basis?
Ms. Chamberlin. Yes, sir, very much so.
Senator Brownback. May I ask you, just as an economic
matter from them, are they sourcing people and then selling
them, or are they sourcing them and then putting them in their
own brothels in places around the world? Just how are they
actually doing this transaction?
Ms. Chamberlin. There are a lot of questions we simply do
not know that we need to know, and we are beginning to work in
a more focused way with law enforcement agencies in other
countries so we can answer just those questions, but what we
are seeing is organized crime groups, Asian, for example,
coming out of China, the Snakeheads, that are very much
trafficking not just labor but women and children and men into
their own distribution systems within the United States and
other countries abroad, the U.K., Italy, others, where it
quickly becomes coercion, coercion for labor, coercion also for
sexual purposes, so the answer to that is yes, it is a network.
Mr. Loy. There is a particular example that maybe Ms. Loar
might refer to.
Ms. Loar. Senator Brownback, one of the things we have
found in the cooperative arrangements we have with particular
countries, coming out of Secretary Albright's bilateral
discussions on this with foreign ministers, is the willingness
and the interest of the anti-organized crime efforts within
countries to work with the U.S. Government on this.
A particular case is in the case of the Government of
Italy, where the Anti-Mafia Commission has been very actively
engaged in sharing information with us, and us with them, about
activities relating to organized crime elements. We hope to
learn a lot more about that. We know that the Government of
Italy looks at the trafficking in women and children as
seriously as they do any of the other organized crime
activities they have focused on.
Senator Brownback. Paul, we will bounce back and forth. I
would like to go another round after this.
Senator Wellstone. That is fine. As I am listening to the
discussion I am thinking to myself that it is interesting, we
are--I mean, I certainly know that our Government in an
important way is trying to make a difference, but I also think
it is clear that right now I think we just have a further
hemorrhaging that is going on, and so what is the role of
organized crime in relation to trafficking, and in relation to
the global markets?
I gather we are just starting to get a handle on this, and
frankly I think it is important that we recognize, and I have a
couple of questions I want to put to you, Mr. Koh, that we can
talk about trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation,
prostitution, but also for slavery. I mean, it is the same
issue when women are brought here or some other country and
beaten up and threatened and forced into labor, and the other
thing I will just mention, because I do not want to take up a
lot of time, but I think it is also in these estimates, just
taking the United States, 50,000 women and children, I think it
would be larger if we included men.
I mean, we also--the case of deaf Mexican men that were
brought over here and exploited, and I am not sure whether we
have got those statistics or not, or collecting that data.
Maybe I will get back to that question.
But given all this, let me just raise a couple of
questions. First of all, Secretary Koh, what do you think would
be the key components of U.S. legislation that could really
make a difference in terms of the P's, the preventing, the
prosecuting, and the protecting of human rights, and
trafficking persons?
What do you see as being the key components of a piece of
legislation that could make a difference, and I appreciate
Secretary Loy's mentioning S. 1842, and I am willing to improve
upon it and work with my colleague here, but could you kind of
outline for us what you consider to be the key components?
Mr. Koh. Yes. Let me go back first of all, Senator, to
Senator Brownback's question. I think part of the phenomenon is
the transnational nature of the phenomenon suggests that both
the supply is increasing in the source countries, partly
spurred by the collapse of the Eastern bloc, the transit
countries have weaker restraints because of more sophistication
on the part of smugglers and transnational networks, and then
the growing demand in the recipient countries, thus leading to
a growing market for this activity, thus making it more
economic to shift activity of existing criminal syndicates away
from guns and drugs toward trafficking of women and children as
a more profitable enterprise.
I think the critical point, then, is because what we have
is a vicious cycle, how do we break the vicious cycle, and that
is where we think that the most forward-looking piece of
legislation going to this issue is S. 1842, because I think
that what is necessary is to attack all the different pieces of
the problem.
The first and most important, obviously, is providing
protection to those individuals who are caught up in the
trafficking game, and that is where the visa provisions, the
humanitarian visa, the witness provisions make it clear that
they are not the problem and, indeed, they can be a source of
information, and bringing evidence to bear.
You mentioned the deaf Mexican workers. Before I came to
this job I was one of the counsel to the deaf Mexican laborers
who were in New York. Many of them were under severe coercion,
and it was the fact that there was a possibility of visa relief
which made it possible for them to come forward to testify
against those who had subjected them to this kind of atrocity.
I think on the prosecution side the most critical element
is cooperation in a transnational protocol and extradition and
prosecution arrangement that can get countries working together
from all three, source, recipient, and transit countries, and
that is where the protocol negotiations in Vienna are so
important.
I think the important thing, Senator, is that what we are
building here is a regime. This is a critically important
moment for regime-building which requires both a multilateral
framework, the prosecutorial framework with legislation on top,
that supplements that regime rather than disrupting it.
And then finally, I think on the prevention side steps at
public education, awareness, development of economic
alternatives. When I traveled with Secretary Albright last
March to Thailand we saw the Hill Tribes Institute. I am sure
you have seen this yourself, Senator Brownback, in your
travels, efforts to steer individuals who might be enticed into
this, or deceived into this kind of activity, into different
lines of work so that they never become part of the supply in
the first place.
I think this is the key part, is protecting the victims,
giving them economic alternatives, and going hard after the
traffickers. That is where--some of the alternative techniques
that are being proposed, reporting mechanisms, we believe that
there is in fact a lot of information out there. The question
is how to get that information into the right hands.
The mandatory sanctions mechanism, as my boss, Under
Secretary Loy, pointed out, could end up disrupting the
cooperative arrangements that we need to bring about a
prosecutorial regime.
So the question is, how do you get the legislation and the
multilateral arrangements working together.
Senator Wellstone. Let me, since you raise that question
about the need to sort of build this relationship with kind of
a multi-nation response, can I just ask you to speak to what is
certainly a thorny question for me, and that has to do with
whether or not we are talking about voluntary prostitution
versus forced prostitution, this whole key question. I would
like for you to, if you do not mind, work through this for us.
I mean, can you sort of spell out for the two of us what
you see as being the critical kind of key question here, either
one of you? You know what I'm talking about. I can sort of put
the question a different way, but I would like for you to speak
to this, because I hear from more people that are working on
this--I see more division around this question than any other,
and I would like to get your testimony on this.
Mr. Loy. Let me start off on this, and then I might ask
Secretary Koh to follow up. The United States has perhaps the
strongest anti-prostitution laws of any industrialized country.
Certainly they are very strong, and our position is very clear
that prostitution is a practice we would like to eliminate. We
abhor it, and we certainly do not want in any way to endorse
it, or to help it.
The issue arises in important part in the protocol that is
being negotiated that Ms. Chamberlin referred to. That protocol
deals with trafficking, and trafficking is described therein as
basically trafficking across borders by reason of force or
deception or coercion, and does not include voluntary acts.
We want to focus on trafficking because it is every bit as
bad as we have all heard and said today, and we recognize that
if we seek to enlarge the concept and deal not only with
trafficking as thus described but also with prostitution
generally, that we will lose a number of key participants in
the international effort to write this protocol.
Just as Harold as said, this system will only work if
countries on the source end, on the transit end, on the
recipient end get together and deal with this together, so we
want a protocol that is as wide as possible in its adherence,
and we do not want to lose any countries that would not sign
the protocol because their laws, for example, do not
criminalize.
Senator Wellstone. Mr. Chairman, I actually will not take
my additional 7 minutes, but let me, if I could just follow up,
because I find this to be--this has to be put in some kind of--
I appreciate what you say, but I still need for you all to
speak to the obvious concern that this becomes a big loophole.
Somebody signs a consent form before they come--there seems to
be all sorts of loopholes for the basic human rights violations
that we are trying to prevent, and I want you to speak to how
we make sure that indeed we are dealing with the blatant
violation of human rights of women if we have language that
talks only about forced prostitution as opposed to voluntary
prostitution.
Mr. Loy. Let me just add one more thing before I turn it
over to my colleagues. Both the proposed law and the proposed
protocol would not in any way--would not in any way undo or
modify or change any present legislation, or any present
international agreement that deals with prostitution, so we
would not undo anything.
We would add a whole layer of prosecution, and if you talk
to the prosecutors you will find that under the proposed
protocol and the law the prosecutions would be simpler, not
more complicated, and so it does not seem to me that anybody
who is at present in any kind of a risk of being prosecuted
would be let off by reason of what we propose.
Senator Wellstone. What I am worried about here is--and I
want you to work through this for me, because if you have
language that focuses on just forced prostitution the question
becomes, what if a woman knows, in fact, before she comes to
another country she is going to be a prostitute, but then her
human rights are violated, is it a human rights violation or
not? What if somebody signs a consent?
I just would like for you to try to speak to this in as
specific a way as you can. Secretary Koh, do you want to add to
this?
Mr. Koh. Senator, our core principles are pretty clear,
first that as Secretary Loy said, we ourselves have the
strongest domestic regime against prostitution that you could
imagine, secondly that we are seeking a comparable regime on
trafficking which is overlapping but not identical to
prostitution, and third, that we are trying to get the
strongest international criminal regime against sexual
exploitation that the diplomatic traffic will bear.
Now, the key in trafficking is not the act itself of sexual
exploitation. It is the act of the use of force, or fraud, and
artifice, to get people across borders, and the question is,
how do you develop an effective regime that reaches that when
it is done for all kinds of different purposes, and the goal is
to try to cast the net as broadly as possible, and to
criminalize as many different kinds of acts which are the end
goal for that kind of activity.
Now, with that, we have to look at what other nations are
willing to subscribe to. I think we would all agree that if we
could get a drug trafficking regime that reached 18 out of 20
drugs, we would try to get that if we could, and we would try
to push it and use it as the regime to build up to all 20, and
I think that is essentially what we are attempting here.
I think we do not agree that their use of the term forced
or not is itself going to be a major loophole. There are many
ways, and my colleague, Deputy Assistant Secretary Chamberlin,
can reach that, whereby the act of proving trafficking can be
done without getting into the issue of whether the prostitution
which is at the end state is itself forced or voluntary, or,
quote, voluntary.
I think the key is whether the trafficker themselves are
engaged in an act of transporting someone across international
borders by illegal techniques for illegal profit, and then
whether the act for which they are doing so fall within what we
would hope would be a very broad definition of sexual
exploitation.
Senator Brownback. That is a key point, because virtually
everything I have read on this, and the girls that I have
talked to that have returned from this, many thought what they
were going into in the first place was fine. They were
voluntary with it. They were going to get a domestic job
somewhere, going to a carpet factory. Even the trafficking in
this country, it starts out, I agree with this, but then it
ends up at the other end in the most horrible forced slavery
situation, and so we really have to get at, I think, the end
issue here, and not at whether it is voluntary or not in the
beginning of it.
I wanted to ask a couple of questions, and then we will go
on to the next panel. I hope we do not lose sight, in our
discussions here on legislative points and whether this is the
way to go or that one is, of that 13-year-old girl that is
locked in a brothel in Bombay and beaten regularly, submitting
to this trade and returning to Nepal with tuberculosis and
AIDS. I hope we keep focused on that is what this is about.
To me, this is an important piece of legislation that
should and can move this year and get to the President's desk,
or we can fight about it a lot, and I can spend quite a bit of
time blaming you guys for it, which I think there is plenty of
blame to go around of why this thing is growing the way it is,
or we can blame Congress for why haven't we acted sooner on an
exploding problem.
But I would hope what we would do is, we would work
together on a piece of legislation, move it, move it
aggressively, move it rapidly, that we would not have a lot of
stumbling blocks put in place by different people, or who is
going to get credit for dealing with this or that, but that we
would get it done, because otherwise this thing is going to
just continue to explode.
It looks to me like it is a very profitable area. It is an
area that the rings can move people into and not be subject to
criminal prosecution in sometimes the host country, because
prostitution is not illegal, and so that you have found a good
profit center, and that is a horrible thing that is taking
place. If they are shifting those resources we should be very
aggressive on this front end of dealing with it, and so I hope
you will work with us very carefully and closely.
And I do not think we are going to get a bill through that
you may agree with everything on. I would doubt it. I would
hope we could work with you early on, and I know Senator
Wellstone is anxious to get something on through, that you
would work with us on getting something that can make it on
through the legislative process and we can get it to the
President that does address the issue.
And Mr. Loy, we have met previously, and I hope you will
work with us on that so we can move this early, and the
administration can put its weight behind moving this type of
legislation.
Mr. Loy. Mr. Chairman, I am absolutely committed, and we
are all committed to moving an effective piece of legislation
through the Congress, and we know that we will have a
cooperative spirit on the part of the Senate.
I do want to commend you for focusing on that 13-year- old
girl that you were referring to earlier, and I think we have to
remember what this is all about, and the victims we are trying
to help, and that is why I think it is particularly important
what Assistant Secretary Koh said earlier, that we have a
historic moment to build a regime.
It is kind of an academic term in some ways, but it is
exactly right here, a domestic and international regime in
which we can fight this effectively, and we have to make sure
those two pieces work together, because that way we will be
able to prosecute the traffickers, and we will have a system
whereby the victims will be helped, and we are absolutely
committed to making that work.
Mr. Koh. And Senator, if I could just add, I think the key
to the approach that we are supporting is that the victims and
survivors be the target of the protection and prevention
efforts, but it is the traffickers who are the target of the
prosecutorial efforts. In other words, in the prosecutorial
extraditions phase of this operation, we are not looking at the
state of mind of the victim, because as you said, the state of
mind of the victim may be clouded, misled, change over time.
Senator Brownback. She may be an 11-year-old girl. She
probably is, which I have a 13-year-old daughter, and she can
move--her mind can frequently be clouded.
Mr. Koh. Well, I have a 13-year-old daughter as well, and
she actually has a quite unclouded mind, but nevertheless, the
main point I think is in the prosecutorial side of this,
targeting the traffickers. The name of the game is two things,
first, cooperation, multilateral cooperation, and secondly
focusing on the state of mind and overt acts of the
traffickers, because their use of force or fraud or artifice of
transporting people across borders, that is what establishes
the criminality of what they do, not some assessment of the
state of mind of the victim.
Senator Brownback. The number Paul and I both use is 50,000
trafficked into the United States annually. Does the
administration have a number, a good educated guess of the
number trafficked into the United States annually?
Ms. Loar. That 50,000 is the administration's educated
guess on that, and that is something that is being tracked and
looked at, but that 50,000 number is the current snapshot we
were able to take.
Senator Brownback. And where is the primary source that
these poor individuals are coming from?
Ms. Loar. From the former Soviet Union, from Southeast
Asia, from South Asia, from Africa. There has been a great
increase. Well, it is hard to measure, since these are numbers
that are being looked at very carefully now, but a lot of the
numbers are coming from the former Soviet Union.
Senator Brownback. And that is--you listed several places.
Did you list those in orders of number?
Ms. Loar. Not necessarily.
Senator Brownback. But the former Soviet Union is the
largest in the administration's estimate?
Ms. Loar. I am not sure we could quantify that. We would
have to look at that.
Senator Brownback. Are most of these coming into the United
States through organized crime apparatuses as well?
Ms. Loar. I am going to turn to Ambassador Chamberlin on
that one.
Senator Wellstone. Keep in mind when you answer that that I
am also interested in whether we are including men, or whether
we are even collecting any data. We are talking about forced
labor conditions as well. I am interested in whether the
statistics include men or not.
Ms. Chamberlin. My understanding is the statistics do not
include men, that the statistic would be even larger were we to
include men, and we ought to. My understanding also is that--it
is once again developing--is that the primary source of
trafficked people into the United States is still Southeast
Asia, with Southwest Asia and the former Soviet Union States a
close second, but with the Nigerian organized crime groups
becoming more active, as well as--you know, it is where we find
poor people.
Senator Brownback. How are they getting here? How are they
bringing them into the United States, the crime syndicates?
Ms. Chamberlin. In the case of Asia, there are quite active
Chinese groups involved in smuggling. They smuggle in men, but
they smuggle in women and children as well, in containers--you
have been reading some of the articles lately--through working
with other corrupt officials in the Caribbean and Latin
America, with phony visas and phony passports, through a
variety of methods, in onesies and twosies, pretending to be
spouses with phony documentations, coming in from Southeast
Asia. That is a favorite way. In a variety of different ways,
sir.
Ms. Loar. May I just add to that that some of the people,
the victims who are trafficked do come in on visitors' visas,
and our embassies around the world are very much alerted to
this, and there are fraud alerts, and there are discussion
points where our consular officers issuing visas around the
world have a focus on this and are looking for patterns, and
they share information with each other, and so that part of it,
the prevention part, right at the very root, as to whether or
not someone gets a U.S. visa, our embassies are very actively
engaged in.
Senator Brownback. Do you have names of any of the
syndicates that are moving people illegally into the United
States that are particular targets of the administration?
Ms. Chamberlin. The Russian syndicates, yes, sir, are
moving in very aggressively, particularly.
Senator Brownback. Can you give me names? Have you named
some of the syndicates? Can you identify those here?
Ms. Chamberlin. We will provide you a report, sir. I will
work with my colleagues at the FBI who I know are currently
investigating this right now, and we can get you better data.
Senator Brownback. All right. Well, this has been a very
illuminating panel, and I appreciate greatly--I feel like we
just scratched the surface of a terrible blight, and it is kind
of a big sore that you open up, and you see all of the poor
people's faces that have been victimized by this, and misused,
and abused, and thrown away.
Thank you very much. We look forward to working with you
further on this topic.
Mr. Loy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Senator Wellstone.
Senator Brownback. The second panel is Dr. Laura Lederer,
Director of the Protection Project, Kennedy School of
Government at Harvard University, Gary Haugen with the
International Justice Mission, and Regan Ralph of Human Rights
Watch, and I would note for the press that we will be having a
victim testify at this panel. She is in disguise, does not want
to be identified by name or visually, and she will be leaving
immediately afterwards, after her testimony, and we wanted to
try to protect her identity as much as possible.
Because of the size of the panel, and we do have a victim
here to testify, who I believe will need a translator to
testify, I think we will go forward with the victim to actually
testify, and there will not be questions of the victim, and she
will be allowed to leave immediately afterwards. If that is OK
with you, Paul, we will proceed that way, then we will go to
the rest of the panelists, and we appreciate very much your
cooperation as well. Please--and would you like to introduce--
Dr. Ledrere. Mr. Chairman, yes, and Senator Wellstone, I
would like to introduce Virginia Coto of the Florida Advocacy
Immigrant Center, and Inez, who is going to tell you her story,
and Virginia is going to act as her translator.
Senator Brownback. Please proceed. We will have her written
statement for the record, too. Thank you.
Senator Brownback. If I could insert myself, if you have a
written statement, if you can simultaneously just go through
that and present that for her, and you read it into the mike so
that--and I do not know if our transcriber can handle this. We
will see how good his Spanish and English is simultaneously,
but that might help things. She does not need to speak into the
mike for it.
STATEMENT OF INEZ, A TRAFFICKING SURVIVOR
Inez. Good morning. I would like to thank the Foreign
Relations Committee for the opportunity to speak to you on
behalf of trafficking survivors. My name is Inez. I am in
disguise today because I am in fear that my captors would
recognize me and thus place my life and that of my family in
danger.
My story begins in the fall of 1997, in Veracruz, Mexico. A
friend and neighbor approached me and told me about the
opportunities for work in the United States. She told me she
worked in the United States at a restaurant and had made good
money. At the time, I was working with my family harvesting
lemons. I was eager to assist my family financially, so I
decided to learn more about this job opportunity.
My friend set up a meeting with two men who confirmed the
job openings for women like myself at American restaurants.
They told me they would take care of my immigration papers, and
that I would be free to change jobs if I did not like working
at the restaurant.
I decided to accept the offer. I was 18 on September of
1997, when I was brought into the United States through
Brownsville, Texas. My friend who told me about the job
traveled with me. We were transported to Houston, Texas, where
a man named Rogerio Cadena picked us up and transported us to a
trailer in Avon Park, Florida. This is when I was told my fate.
I would not be working in a restaurant. Instead, I was told I
owed a smuggling fee of $2,500, and had to pay it off selling
my body to men.
I was horrified. I asked my friend what this was all about.
She said she had already worked in the brothels and it did me
no good to complain. I was told that if I did not pay, the
bosses would go after my family in Mexico, since they knew
where they lived. I was also told that it did me no good to try
to escape, because I would be found and beaten.
Next, I was given tight clothes to wear and was told what I
must do. There would be an armed man selling tickets to
customers in the trailer. Tickets were condoms. Each ticket
would be sold for $22 to $25 each. The client would then point
at the girl he wanted, and the girl would take him to one of
the bedrooms. At the end of the night I was to turn in the
condom wrappers. Each wrapper represented a deduction to my
smuggling fee. After 15 days, I would be transported to another
trailer in a nearby city. This was to give the customers a
variety of girls, and so we never knew where we were in case we
tried to escape.
I could not believe this was happening to me, but even
worse was that some of the girls were as young as 14 years old.
There were up to four girls in each trailer at one time. we
were constantly guarded and abused. If any one of us refused to
be with a customer, we were beaten. Most of the customers were
drunk or high. This was very frightening to us, because they
often would beat us as well. Sometimes we would tell them about
our situation and plead with them to help us escape. The men
would agree to help us, but we had to perform certain sex acts
which were not part of the regular fee. They did not care about
us. They wanted their money's worth.
On other occasions, if we declined a customer ourselves,
the bosses would beat us severely or show us a lesson by raping
us. One of the girls was even locked in a closet for 15 days.
We worked 6 days a week and 12-hour days. We mostly had to
serve 32 to 35 clients a day. Weekends were even worse. Our
bodies were utterly sore and swollen. The bosses did not care.
Often, when our work night was over, it was the bosses turn
with us. If anyone got pregnant, we were forced to have
abortions. The cost of the abortion was then added to our
smuggling debt.
The brothels would always be in very isolated areas. We
were transported every 2 weeks to different brothels in order
to give the clients a variety. We never really knew where we
were. We were not allowed to go outside of the trailer. We were
only allowed to use the telephone once a week to call our
families in Mexico. However, the bosses stood next to us to
ensure that we never revealed the truth about our situation.
On other occasions we were taken to bars for the purpose of
recruiting customers. At the bars, the bosses forced us to
perform sex acts with customers in their cars.
I was enslaved for several months. Other women were
enslaved for up to a year. The INS, FBI, and local law
enforcement raided the brothels and rescued us from the
horrible ordeal. We were not sure what was happening on the day
of the raids. Our captors had told us over and over never to
tell the police of our conditions. They told us that if we told
we would find ourselves in prison for the rest of our lives.
They told us that the INS would rape us and kill us, but we
learned to trust the INS and FBI and assisted them in the
prosecution of our enslavers.
Unfortunately, this was difficult. After the INS and FBI
freed us from the brothels, we were put in a detention center
for many months. Our captors were correct. We thought we would
be in prison for the rest of our lives. Later, our attorneys
were able to get us released to a women's domestic violence
center where we received comprehensive medical attention,
including gynecological exams and mental health counseling.
Thanks to the United States Government, some of our captors
were brought to justice and were sent to prison, unfortunately
not all. Some of them are living in Mexico in our home town of
Veracruz. They have threatened some of our families. They have
even threatened to bring our younger sisters to the United
States for them to work in brothels as well.
I would have never, ever have done this work. No one I know
would have done this work. I am speaking out today because I
never want this to happen to anyone else. However, in order to
accomplish this goal women like me need your help. We need the
law to protect us from this horror. We need the immigration law
to provide victims of this horror with permanent legal
residence.
We came to the United States to find a better future, not
to be prostitutes. If anyone thinks that providing protection
to trafficking survivors by affording them permanent residency
status is a magnet for other immigrants like myself, they are
wrong. No woman or child would want to be a sex slave and
endure the evil that I have gone through. I am in fear of my
life more than ever. I helped to put these evil men in jail.
Please help me. Please help us. Please do not let this happen
to anyone else.
Thank you.
Senator Brownback. Thank you for coming forward and being
willing to have your testimony stated so that we can hear and
we can shine that light on what takes place in so many
horrifying situations.
Is she willing to answer any questions?
Inez. Sure.
Senator Brownback. First, we are deeply grateful to you for
being willing to subject yourself to this and the fear that
goes with what you have been through, and God bless you for
doing that, because you are speaking out for millions of women
around the world that this has happened to them as well.
How did they sneak you across the border? How did that
occur?
Inez. In a van they brought me to the border. I was brought
across the border and then transported in another van to
Houston, and then Florida.
Senator Brownback. Was it an organized operation, an
organized group?
Inez. Yes.
Senator Brownback. And the name of that group has been
brought forward and prosecuted already. Can you say the name of
the group that did the organization in bringing you across the
border?
Inez. It is the family, the Cadena family, of which Rogerio
Cadena has been prosecuted in the United States and is in
prison. Ivet Cadena is in Veracruz, Mexico, as are other family
members and other ring members.
Senator Brownback. Do you know other women, do you know
personally other women who have been tricked into the sex
traffic in the United States as well?
Inez. Yes.
Senator Brownback. Many?
Inez. Yes.
Ms. Coto. If I may, I represent 14 of the women. In the
Cadena family that were prosecuted in Florida, after the 16
indicted, 7 were prosecuted and imprisoned, and the rest are
still at large, living in her same home town, in Veracruz. Ivet
I believe was finally detained in Mexico. I am not sure of the
status at this point.
But there is actually 17 in this case. They know of at
least 25 women, some are in Mexico, and I represent 14, but
there are some still in the United States as well.
Senator Brownback. Is this a growing activity from Mexico
into the United States from the organized rings of bringing
people in and then tricking them into the sex trade? Does she
know, or do you?
Ms. Coto. I do not know. I think Dr. Lederer might respond
to that.
Senator Brownback. I have asked more questions than I
should have. Paul.
Senator Wellstone. I think, Senator Brownback, there are a
couple of things, that this is less a question of--I think, Ms.
Inez, you have given us some very important direction. There
are several things you have said that are very important to
take note of. One is that when women are put in this situation,
as happened to you, they are not going to be able to step
forward if what they have to worry about is either being
deported or put in detention camp, and that is one thing we
have to make sure that does not happen.
Instead, what we should be getting to women is the medical
services and counseling and help. The second thing, and I think
in the bill that I have this is perhaps a weakness we need to
look at, which is, we talk about these protections for women,
and also women being able to stay in our country, but that is
if they cooperate with the prosecution, but some women may not
be able to do that because literally their loved ones could be
murdered back in the countries they come from, and so I think
we have to sort of come up with another standard to provide
protection, if that makes sense to those of you who are in this
room.
And then finally, I just would like to thank you again,
because I think quite often we think this all happens in other
countries and not here in the United States, but it does happen
here. Thank you again for your courage.
Senator Brownback. Dr. Lederer, and I apologize to the rest
of the witnesses for the break we had, but I thought it was
important that we have Inez here to testify. I really
appreciate her testimony.
Dr. Lederer, please proceed with your testimony. We are
going to run the clock, so you will have a 7-minute time frame,
so you will know, not that that is iron-clad, but it will give
you a little bit of an idea. Thank you for being here.
STATEMENT OF DR. LAURA J. LEDERER, DIRECTOR, THE PROTECTION
PROJECT, THE KENNEDY SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT AT HARVARD
UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON, DC
Dr. Ledrere. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and subcommittee
members. It is a pleasure to be here. I am Laura Lederer,
Director of the Protection Project of the Kennedy School of
Government, Harvard University, and I am happy to be here to
share some of the preliminary findings from our project.
For the last 4 years I have been documenting the laws on
trafficking, slave trading, kidnapping, rape, as well as
prostitution and surrounding activities, including pimping,
pandering, procuring, soliciting, brothel and body health laws
and other statutes.
In addition, I have been tracking the ways that countries
address child prostitution, child pornography, corruption of a
minor, child access to pornography, and I have collected
statutes on all of these issues from over 230 countries and
territories around the world.
I have also been examining the range of penalties, defenses
to the charges, sentencing patterns, extra territoriality and
extradition treaties, law enforcement capability, victim
assistance programs, and other related matters.
And finally, we have been documenting the age of majority,
the legal age for marriage, the legal age for consent to sexual
relations, and other ages that are relevant to commercial
sexual exploitation of women and children.
The collection of the data has been taking place through a
series of questionnaires and the preliminary work of the
project is complete. We hope to have the entire first phase of
documentation finished by the end of this year, and my
testimony today is based on the information we have gathered
over the past several years and addresses the scope of the
problem of trafficking worldwide.
Let me begin by adding to what has already been said about
the definition. I will not repeat Mr. Loy's legal definition,
but rather say that trafficking is a global human rights
problem of which the majority of victims are women and
children, and let me illustrate what trafficking is by telling
you Lydia's story, which is an amalgamation of several true
stories of women and children who have been trafficked in
Eastern Europe in recent years.
Lydia was 16 and hanging around with friends on the
streets, and here you can fill in the name of any of the sender
countries in Eastern Europe, the Ukraine, Russia, Romania,
Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Latvia, when they were
approached by an older, beautifully dressed woman who
befriended them and told them they were so nice-looking she
could get them part-time jobs in modeling.
She offered to take them to dinner, bought them some small
gifts, and when dinner was over she invited them home for a
drink. Taking that drink is the last thing that Lydia
remembers. The woman drugged her, handed her and her friends
over to another agent who drove them, unconscious, across the
border and into--and here you can fill in any of the other
countries that are receiver countries, Germany, the
Netherlands, Italy, any of the Middle Eastern countries, as far
as Japan, Canada, and the United States.
When Lydia woke, she was alone. She was in a strange room
in a foreign country. Her friends were gone. A man came into
the room and told her she belonged to him. I own you, he said.
You are my property, and you will work for me until I say to
stop. Don't try to leave. You have no papers. You have no
passport. You don't speak the language.
He told her if she tried to escape his men would come after
her and beat her. He told her her family back home would be in
danger. He said she owed his agency $35,000, which she would
work off in a brothel by sexually servicing 10 to 20 men a day.
Stunned and angry and rebellious, Lydia refused, and this
is not an uncommon story. The man hit her, beat her, raped her.
He sent friends in to gang-rape her. She was left in a room
alone, without food and water, for 3 days. Frightened and
broken, she succumbed.
For the next 6 months she was held in virtual confinement.
She was guarded 24 hours a day, even when she went to the
bathroom. She was forced to prostitute herself. She received no
money. She had no hope of escape. She was rescued when the
brothel was raided by police. They arrested her and charged her
with working without a visa. They arrested the brothel manager
and charged him with procuration, but he was later released.
They did not attempt to arrest the brothel owner or to identify
the traffickers.
The young women were interviewed, and those who were not
citizens of the country were charged as illegal aliens,
transferred to a women's prison, where they awaited
deportation.
A medical examiner there found that Lydia had several
sexually transmitted diseases. She had scar tissue from three
forced abortions. In addition, she was addicted to drugs, she
was physically weak, she was spiritually broken. There was no
one to speak for her.
She feared her future because she knew her keepers. They
had the networks, the power, and the resources to track her
down, to rekidnap her, to bring her back again. They could hurt
her family, and had an interest in doing so because, unlike
drugs, where the product can be sold only once, when you
commodify a human being, that person can be sold over and over
and over again. The risk is low, the potential profits are
high, and girls like Lydia are a real target.
There was no one who seemed to care about Lydia's life. The
authorities do not have the resources or the interest in
tracking down the organizations of individuals in the
trafficking chain, from the woman who drugged her to the agent
who brought her across the border, to the agent who broke her
will, to the brothel managers, brothel owners, and then those
on top who are creaming profits from this operation.
In addition, there are corrupt law enforcement officials
involved, because the process of getting Lydia and the other
thousands of women who are being moved across borders, and
keeping the brothels running, involves pay-offs to local border
patrols in both countries, as well as to visa officials and
police in the country of origin and in the destination country.
In short, Lydia is without protection, and the traffickers
have bought theirs.
Now multiple Lydia's story by hundreds of thousands, and a
picture of the scope of the problem emerges. UNICEF is
estimating 1 million children forced into prostitution in
Southeast Asia alone, and another million worldwide.
An estimated 250,000 women and children from Russia and the
Newly Independent States of Eastern Europe are trafficked into
Western Europe, the Middle East, Japan, Canada, and the United
States each year. An estimated 500,000 children per year from
Brazil are trafficked into prostitution, making Brazil the
Thailand of South America. In addition, thousands of women and
children from Central American countries like Guatemala and El
Salvador are being trafficked for purposes of commercial sexual
exploitation.
We heard from the Department of State that over 50,000
women and children are trafficked into the U.S. per year, and
there are countless thousands of others in Africa, where we
know the problem is great but we have very little statistical
information to guide us.
Where are these women and children trafficked? I have
produced some maps.
Senator Brownback. We have some easels over there, if that
can help you, or if you just want to hold them up we can do
that as well.
Dr. Ledrere. I actually had a packet for the Senators so
they could follow.
Senator Brownback. I have that packet. I think that is in
our notebooks.
Dr. Ledrere. These maps show the trafficking is not just a
problem in the few regions we have heard of, such as Eastern
Europe and Southeast Asia, but in fact when you take into
account the sender, receiver, and transit countries, almost
every country in the world has a trafficking problem right now.
For example, trafficked women and children from Russia,
Eastern Europe, and the Newly Independent States have been
found in over 40 countries worldwide. Women and children from
Southeast Asia are trafficked as far as Canada, the United
States, Japan, and the Middle Eastern countries, as well as to
neighboring nations in Southeast Asia. Central American women
and children have been discovered in Mexico, the United States,
and Canada, but in addition they are also trafficked across the
Atlantic Ocean to Spain, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands,
and other Western European countries.
Senator Brownback. Hold on just a second here. Can we get
these charts up? You have done a lot of work on pulling those
together. Just tell us where you are in your booklet that you
have got here. I am on tab 5.
Dr. Ledrere. Tab 4 is the trafficking from Russia and the
Newly Independent States. Every line you are seeing on this
map, or these maps, represents a police arrest in the country
of a trafficking network involving traffickers from several
countries, and moving large numbers of women and children, so
these are the trafficking routes from Russia and the Newly
Independent States that you are looking at.
The next tab is trafficking from Asia and Southeast Asia to
various Western European, U.S., and Middle Eastern countries,
and I should say that these routes are by no means
comprehensive. What we are doing is tracking the police arrest
records when they have a press release, footnoting them and
putting them on, so there may be many, many other places that
these women and children are being trafficked to.
The next is the trafficking routes to the middle East come
from the Eastern European countries, Southeast Asia, and
Africa, into mostly the Gulf States in the Middle Eastern
countries, and finally the trafficking routes in Africa, and
here we have done a lot of work over the past couple of months
to document trafficking within Africa to various African States
that are then transit States to Western Europe, a lot of
trafficking to Western Europe, a lot of trafficking from Africa
to the Middle Eastern countries and to the U.S. and Canada.
And finally, with the help of the Intelligence Division at
the State Department we did create--the last tab is the
trafficking routes into the United States. We have not
completed where they are coming from, but these are the 20
largest cities that we know are destination points in the
United States for women and children who are being trafficked,
and there is one more map, the last tab, Mr. Chairman, which is
the male tourist routes to sex destinations.
From almost every conceivable first world or developed
country men are traveling to the Caribbean, to Africa, to Asia,
and Southeast Asia for if not professionally organized sex
tours, then just on their own, to use and abuse women and
children in brothels in these areas, so the women are children
are trafficked sometimes within borders to brothels, and then
the men are traveling, are doing the traveling themselves to
the women and children.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Lederer follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Laura J. Lederer
introduction
Mr. Chairman and subcommittee members, it's a pleasure to be here.
I am Laura Lederer, Director of the Protection Project at the Kennedy
School of Government, Harvard University. I am happy to be able to
share some of the preliminary findings of the Protection Project.
The purpose of the Protection Project is to build a comprehensive
database of laws and related materials on the commercial sexual
exploitation of women and children. For the last four years I have been
documenting the laws on trafficking, slave trading, kidnapping, and
rape, as well as prostitution and surrounding activities, including
pimping, pandering, procuring, soliciting, brothel and bawdy house
laws, and other related statutes. In addition, I have been tracking the
ways countries address child prostitution, child pornography,
corruption of a minor, and child access to pornography. I have
collected statutes on these issues from over 230 countries and
territories around the world.
In addition, I have been examining the range of penalties, defenses
to the charges, sentencing patterns, extra territoriality and
extradition treaties, law enforcement capability, victim assistance
programs, and other related matters. Collection of data has been taking
place through series of questionnaires. The preliminary database is
complete; we are hoping to finish the entire first phase of
documentation by the end of this year. My testimony is based on the
information we have gathered over the past several years and addresses
the scope of the problem worldwide.
what is trafficking?
Before I begin, let me add to what has already been said about the
definition of trafficking. Trafficking is a global human rights
problem, of which the majority of victims are women and children. Let
me illustrate what trafficking is by telling you Lydia's story--an
amalgamation of several true stories of women and girls who have been
trafficked in the Eastern European area in recent years.
Lydia was 16 and hanging around with friends on the streets in [and
here you can fill in the name of any of the sender countries--the
Ukraine, Russia, Romania, Lithuania, the Czech Republic] when they were
approached by an older beautifully dressed woman who befriended them
and told them that they were so nice looking, she could get them part
time jobs in modeling.
She took them to dinner, bought them some small gifts, and when
dinner was over, invited them to her home for a drink. Taking that
drink is the last thing Lydia remembers. The woman drugged her, and
handed her and her friends over to another agent, who drove them,
unconscious, across the border into [and here fill in any one of the
receiver countries--Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, the Middle East--
even as far as Japan, Canada, or the United States].
When Lydia awoke, she was alone, in a strange room, in a foreign
country. Her friends were gone. Awhile later a man came into the room
and told her that she now belonged to him. ``I own you,'' he said.
``You are my property and you will work for me until I say stop. Don't
try to leave. You have no papers, no passport, and you don't speak the
language.'' He told her if she tried to escape, his men would come
after her and beat her and bring her back. He told her that her family
back home would be in danger. He told her that she owed his agency
$35,000 which she would work off in a brothel by sexually servicing 10-
20 men a day.
Stunned, angry, and rebellious, Lydia refused. The man then hit
her, beat her, and raped her. He sent friends in to gang rape her. She
was left in a room alone, without food and water, for three days.
Frightened and broken, she succumbed. For the next six months, she was
held in virtual confinement and forced to prostitute herself. She
received no money. She had no hope of escape. She was ``rescued'' when
the brothel was raided by the police. They arrested the young women and
charged them with working without a visa. They arrested the brothel
manager and charged him with procuration, but he was later released.
They did not attempt to arrest the brothel owners or to identify
the traffickers. The girls were interviewed, and those who were not
citizens of the country were charged as illegal aliens and transferred
to a woman's prison, where they awaited deportation. A medical examiner
found that Lydia had several sexually transmitted diseases. She had
scar tissue from three forced abortions. In addition, she was addicted
to drugs, was physically weak, and spiritually broken. There was no one
to speak for her. She feared the future because she knew her keepers.
They had the networks, the power, and the resources to track her down,
kidnap her, and bring her back again. They could hurt her family and
had an interest in doing so, because unlike drugs, where the product
can be sold only once, when you commodify a human being, she can be
sold over and over again. The risk is low and the potential profits are
high, so girls like Lydia are a real target.
There is no one who seems to care about Lydia's life. The
authorities don't have the resources or the interest in tracking down
the organizations of individuals in the trafficking chain--from the
woman who drugged Lydia, to the agent who brought her across the
border, to the agent who broke her will, to the brothel managers and
brothel owners. In addition, some corrupt law enforcement officials
must be involved because the process of getting Lydia (and the other
thousands of women and children being moved) across the border, and
keeping the brothels running involves payoffs to local border patrols
for both countries, as well as to visa officials and police in the
country of origin, and local police in the destination country. Lydia
is without protection; the traffickers have bought theirs.
scope of the problem
Now multiply Lydia's story by hundreds of thousands and a picture
of the scope of the problem emerges.
UNICEF estimates that 1 million children are forced into
prostitution in Southeast Asia alone, and another 1 million
worldwide.
An estimated 250,000 women and children from Russia, the
Newly Independent States, and Eastern Europe are trafficked
into Western Europe, the Middle East, Japan, Canada, and the
United States each year.
An estimated 500,000 children per year from Brazil are
trafficked into prostitution, making Brazil, according to
experts, the ``Thailand'' of South America.
In addition, thousands of women and children from Central
American countries such as Guatemala and El Salvador are being
trafficked for purposes of commercial sexual exploitation.
According to the Department of State, over 50,000 women are
trafficked into the United States per year.
And then there are the countless thousands of women and
children in Africa, where we know the problem is great, but
have little accurate statistical information to guide us.
Where are these women and children trafficked? The Protection
Project has created a set of trafficking maps to begin to delineate the
trafficking routes and patterns. The maps show that trafficking is not
just a problem in a few regions, such as Eastern Europe or Southeast
Asia. In fact, when you take into account the sender, transit, and
receiver countries, almost every country in the world has a trafficking
problem of one sort or another. For example, trafficked women and
children from Russia, Eastern European countries and the Newly
Independent States have been found in over forty countries worldwide.
Women and children from Southeast Asia are trafficked as far as Canada,
the United States, Japan, and the Gulf States of the Middle East, as
well as to neighboring nations. African women and children are
trafficked to wealthy Middle Eastern countries, Western European
countries, as well as North America. Central and South American women
and children have been discovered in Mexico, the United States, and
Canada, but in addition, they are also trafficked across the Atlantic
Ocean to Spain, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands, and other Western
European countries. Every line you see on these maps represents a
police arrest of a trafficking network involving traffickers from
several countries and moving large numbers of women and children.
Accounts of the arrests police have made show that women are being
sold for as much as $16,000 each to brothel owners. When rescued, women
tell stories of debt bondage and sexual slavery in which they were
forced to work off a $20,000; $30,000; or $40,000 ``debt'' to
traffickers by servicing dozens of men a day. These numbers and the
accompanying accounts illustrate that trafficking of women and children
for purposes of prostitution has become a contemporary form of slavery.
The numbers may soon be on par with the African slave trade of the
1700s.
why document the laws?
We must document the laws of individual countries because the
trafficking is international but all the laws addressing the problem
are national. There are virtually no international laws with
enforcement capability. While the United Nations conventions such as
the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the
Elimination on All Forms of Discrimination against Women play an
important role in setting international norms, they have no enforcement
capability by themselves. Countries must draft and pass penal code
statutes that specifically address each of these commercial sexual
exploitation issues if they wish law enforcement officers to have the
tools to arrest, charge, and prosecute traffickers.
Once we have documented all the laws, we can examine them for their
strengths and weaknesses. For example, we have found that the penalties
for procuration with movement, an older type of trafficking law, are
most often 1 to 3 years. This is a very light sentence for this type of
crime. On the other hand, we have also documented draconian sentences
(such as beheadings) for maintaining a brothel. A comparative analysis
of the present laws can help us draft a set of model statutes for
consideration by countries which wish to strengthen their existing
laws, or draft new laws to address new forms of trafficking.
the three p's: prevention, prosecution, and protection
The best legislation would cover what we call ``The Three P's''--
prevention of trafficking, prosecution of traffickers, and protection
(social services and other programs) for trafficking victims.
We have found that more than 154 countries currently have
legislation that at least minimally targets the prosecution of
traffickers by prohibiting the procuration of women and children for
the purposes of prostitution or forced labor. Most of these laws were
drafted between 1912 and 1960 to address early waves of trafficking.
They are mainly laws prohibiting procuration, procuration with
coercion, and/or procuration within and across borders. However, these
laws are often poorly, if ever, enforced.
In fact, we find that the prostitution laws, which are aimed at
women and children, are enforced, while the procuration laws, aimed at
the traffickers, are almost never invoked. The third party in the
trafficking triangle, the customer, is virtually ignored in the laws of
most countries. This is another area where creative legislation could
help to produce demand reduction in the long term.
To date, few countries have developed programs to prevent
trafficking by educating women and children about how to avoid being
trafficked, educating men and boys not to sexually exploit women and
children, educating government officials about how to prevent
trafficking, or providing economic opportunities that will make women
and children less vulnerable to the lies and promises of traffickers.
In addition, few countries have the kinds of laws that protect
victims of trafficking, or services that will help them recover and get
on with their lives. As a result, women who have been forced into
prostitution often end up in jail awaiting deportation, and go back to
their homeland sick, drug-addicted, unemployed and unemployable, and
filled with shame and fear. Some have suggested that we make use of
women's shelters for domestic and other forms of violence, but our
preliminary research shows that trafficking for purposes of
prostitution is a particular kind of crime that produce a particular
kind of victim, one who needs comprehensive services, in many services
that we do not currently have available in the forms required.
Finally, countries wishing to eliminate trafficking must work on
all three ``P's.'' For example, prevention programs without protection
(social services) for those already trafficked would not solve the
problem. And even the best protection programs such as those being
developed in certain Western European countries are little more than
immense mop-up jobs at the back end without vigorous efforts to
prosecute traffickers and stop the trafficking.
conclusion
As a number of witnesses have pointed out, trafficking often
originates in countries with poverty and few opportunities for women.
But regardless of the root causes, it is important for countries to
draft, pass, and enforce strict laws prohibiting trafficking and its
surrounding activities. A country's laws and law enforcement efforts
make a statement about its priorities. Based on our preliminary
findings, we expect that trafficking will continue to increase in the
absence of specific, strict, enforceable laws aimed at prevention,
prosecution, and protection.
Mr. Chairman, as someone who has worked in this field for 20 years,
it is exciting to see the subcommittee's leadership on this important
issue. I am happy to see it recognized as a major human rights
priority. It is time to move beyond conferences, travel tours, and
expressions of shock to a coordinated effort to criminalize the conduct
of these interlocking rings of businessmen, modem Mafia, and corrupt
government officials. The United States is perhaps the only country
right now that can play a leadership role in encouraging countries to
address the problem of trafficking. U.S. leadership is important not
only because of our interest in promoting basic human rights, but also
because it serves the American national interest. One of the hallmarks
of the 21st century will be the emancipation of women worldwide. The
issue of commercial sexual exploitation of women and children is one
that is perhaps last, but definitely not the least, to be examined and
addressed by our society. Your effort, Mr. Chairman and subcommittee
members will put America on the right side of history as women gain
equality and dignity. We are the people who can help young women and
girls like Lydia--by drawing attention to their plight, helping nations
strengthen their laws to catch and prosecute traffickers, and finding
the ways to prevent and protect young women and children from
commercial sexual exploitation.
Senator Brownback. Is this an active tourist industry that
is advertised, that is well-known, the male tourist routes to
sex destinations?
Dr. Ledrere. Well, I am not an expert on the sex tourism
industry. I know that there has been quite a bit of work done
on the industry in Japan, but there has been some government
attention to that recently, and I know that in our own country
the Justice Department is focusing some investigation on a few
of the industries that are out. Most of them are fairly well-
hidden and just known underground by those who know what they
want to do.
Senator Brownback. Well, thank you very much, Dr. Lederer,
and we will have questions for you. That is excellent
testimony. We want to follow up with that.
Mr. Haugen, you have worked a lot in this area as well. We
look forward to your testimony.
STATEMENT OF GARY A. HAUGEN, DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE
MISSION, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Haugen. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and Senator
Wellstone as well. I appreciate your leadership on this issue.
Just to explain a little bit about who I am, Gary Haugen is my
name. I am the Director of the International Justice Mission,
and the reason we have come to know something about this issue
is that we receive referrals of human rights abuses from faith-
based workers who are sent overseas as missionaries, relief and
development workers, or doctors, and they see human rights
abuses in the communities where they are working but do not
know what to do with them, so we give them a place to send
those concerns, and we deploy investigators to try to bring
relief.
Of course, it turns out, in the world we live in, as you
know, much of what would come our way is forced prostitution,
international trafficking for sexual purposes. So, what I have
to offer today is perhaps some insights into how this actually
works in the streets where the massive numbers occur.
That is to say, as Dr. Lederer pointed out, there are a
million children this year who will be forced into
prostitution, and they will come largely from South Asia and
Southeast Asia. These are the places where our investigators,
who are law enforcement professionals, generally have been
infiltrating the brothels, identifying specific children and
women who are being held, using surveillance equipment to
document that, and then working with secure police authorities
to get them taken out.
So I would like to just add some comments about how this
actually works in the streets so that from that we can
understand how we might effectively obstruct it, and I think
the most powerful way is to try to give three very brief
vignettes.
The first one is a girl named Jayanthi, and that is her
face, and I think she should be present here with us, a 14-
year-old girl living in a poor village north of Bombay. She
gets on a train to go back to her village, because she has made
some money doing some domestic service. Four women give her
some tea that has been drugged. She falls asleep. She is
transported to Bombay. She is sold into a brothel for a few
hundred dollars, locked away in a third floor windowless room,
and beaten for 3 days until she relents. She is beaten with
plastic pipes and electrical cord, burned with cigarettes. She
is actually bitten, whatever it takes to make her succumb to
the rape of the customers. From that point on, from the point
when she was 14 years old to the age of 17, she must service
about 20 customers a day.
The other is a girl named Sumita, 12 years old, also living
in a poor village outside Bombay. Her mother dies. Her father
wants to marry her off to an older man in the village. She does
not want that. She gets on a train, goes to Bombay, she is
alone and penniless in Bombay. A man notices her at the train
station, says hey, there is a job in a restaurant, come with
me. He takes her over to a place where he sells her into a
brothel. She again is just beaten until she submits, and must
service many, many customers a day.
Then the next example is a woman who has actually testified
before the U.S. Congress, and her name is Anita. She also was
just on a bus in Nepal, taking her vegetables to market. She
was drugged, transported to Bombay, sold into the brothel, and
beaten again until she relents.
All of them eventually get out, partly through the work of
the International Justice Mission to get them out, and through
them we learn something of how this operates, and this is the
fundamental point that I want to make, is that the driving
force behind international sexual trafficking is the toleration
of forced prostitution on a massive scale in these large
cities.
You think about it. Why does the international trafficker
go to all the trouble of transporting a woman or a child to a
location in order to sell her? Why does he try to make money
that way? It is because he has the complete confidence that
there will be a buyer for his merchandise, someone who is not
at all concerned, oh dear, you've brought me a woman who is
forcibly trafficked into prostitution, I don't know what to do
with her.
No. It is a very frequent trade. The way this operates is
that if you run a brothel, you are just trying to meet the
demand of men wanting to buy sex. Now, there are two ways you
can meet that demand. You can offer them relatively voluntary
commercial sex workers, or you can meet the demand through
someone who has been trafficked in by force.
It costs less to offer up a slave for that. Of course, the
risk is that you might get caught, but if there is no risk of
being caught, then you are always generally going to choose, to
the extent you can, the merchandise of the trafficker. As this
operates, therefore, if there is a free and flourishing trade
in forced prostitution, it will attract people to traffic women
and children from across the borders by force.
Imagine this. If the brothel, however, is completely afraid
of local law enforcement shutting them down and getting in
trouble, they will say, take that child or woman away from
here. I cannot buy that. Then the trafficker has no place to
take the child, and they do not get into the business.
Which leads me to my central point that I would like to
make. It is that forced prostitution, and therefore
international sexual trafficking, comes down to whether or not
local law enforcement tolerates forced prostitution. You can
imagine how completely impervious a brothel-keeper is today to
international treaties, international covenants, congressional
legislation, if he is not going to get into trouble today from
somebody.
So the question is, how do you actually move law
enforcement from friend of forced prostitution to foe of forced
prostitution. Because in the cities where we operate you see
the police, and you watch them, they collect their bribes. You
can set your watch by their arrival. You can see them in the
brothels collecting their bribes in kind. You can see them
delivering food. You know that certain police actually bribe
their way within the police jurisdiction so they can be
assigned to the red light district, because that is where they
can make the most money.
And so how do you switch law enforcement from being the
necessary partner of forced prostitution to being the foe of
it, and there is a number of things in our written testimony
addressing this, but there are two key factors from what we can
learn from our own experience.
The first is that police respond to whatever the priorities
are of the senior political authorities. That is to say, the
police are part of a command structure. You need to do what the
authorities above you set forth as a priority. So how do you
shift priorities? It is our strong feeling that there is
definitely a consensus among senior political leaders in these
countries that this is a good idea, to fight forced
prostitution, but the number of good ideas on their plate is
large.
The question is, how do you move it from being just a good
idea to an urgent priority? We feel from our experience with
these authorities that they will only move this to a matter of
urgency if they feel something bad will happen if they do not.
Because the victims themselves exercise no political influence
of any substance or tremendous power. So, they need to feel
that there is something that will happen negative to them that
matters to them if they do not take this seriously.
But even if it becomes a priority, the second issue is that
you have to give law enforcement tools to fight. You have to
give them training and resources, and here I think there are at
least two very positive areas where U.S. policy can make a
difference.
I believe it is necessary to actually have some reduction
in the positive nature of the relationship with the United
States. If by some clear and minimal benchmark those
authorities are not willing to do some very minimal things,
which at least at bottom ought to be getting their law
enforcement out of the business. This is not hard to document.
We could go to any of these jurisdictions, and it would be very
easy to see the law enforcement involvement.
But the second is, you cannot be just a foe. You cannot be
just a negative with them. That will not be well-received.
There are also ways for us to relate positively to law
enforcement. All of the work that we do on extraction actions
to get these children out is done in cooperation with good
people within local law enforcement in these jurisdictions in
Asia and South Asia. So, it is important to strengthen them,
give them opportunities to form special units to actually be
able to take these children out. For example, law enforcement
overseas generally never conducts undercover operations, very
simple things that could be improved upon.
So our emphasis here is, I think, to try to offer the
insight, and the way to shut down international trafficking is
to shut down the center, the magnet that provides the incentive
for international traffickers, and the way to do that is
impossible without impacting the local law enforcement in the
streets.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Haugen follows:]
Prepared Statement of Gary A. Haugen
international sexual trafficking of women and children
My name is Gary Haugen and I serve as the President of the
International Justice Mission. I would like to extend my sincere thanks
to Chairman Brownback for convening this hearing and for inviting me to
participate.
It takes a great deal of courage to initiate public discussion of
sexual trafficking. We are quite naturally repulsed by the revolting
nature of the evil, and overwhelmed by the magnitude of the problem.
Instinctively, no one wants to look upon the rapes, beatings, and
psychological horror of sexual trafficking, and no one wants to
confront the numbing statistics about the hundreds of thousands of
women and children who are subjected to these abuses each year around
the globe. Moreover, these abuses are never likely to personally
threaten us, our loved ones, our neighbors, or anyone who might vote
for us. Consequently, it's hard not to turn away from a problem so
ugly, so big, so remote.
In my opinion, it takes extraordinary leadership to look this evil
squarely in the face, and to find beyond its ugliness the beauty and
worth of these women and girls who are more like us and our own than we
dare to imagine, who suffer these abuses one at a time, and who suffer
largely because good people do nothing.
Accordingly, I am grateful to Senator Brownback and this Committee
for the courage manifest in convening this hearing, for listening to
the stories of these women and children, and for changing everything by
agreeing that we will no longer do nothing.
By way of background, the International Justice Mission (IJM) is an
international human rights agency that provides a hands-on, operational
field response to cases of human rights abuse referred to us from
faith-based ministries serving around the world. Churches in America
send out tens of thousands of doctors, teachers, missionaries and
humanitarian aid workers around the world. Frequently these workers
observe severe human rights abuses in the communities where they serve.
These workers refer these cases to us, and then we conduct a
professional investigation to document the abuses and mobilize
intervention on behalf of the victims.
Many of these cases referred to us involve women and children being
held in forced prostitution. Accordingly we deploy criminal
investigators to infiltrate the brothels, use surveillance technology
to document where the women and children are being held, and then
identify secure police contacts who will conduct extraction actions
with us to get the children out. We then coordinate referral of these
children for appropriate after care. We find that a significant
percentage of these women and children have been trafficked across
international borders.
So, I offer these remarks today not as a public policy expert but
as the director of an agency with hands-on experience in the underworld
of sexual trafficking especially in South Asia and Southeast Asia. Our
mission is simple: we find where the women and children are being held
in forced prostitution, we remove them, and we secure them in places of
compassionate after care.
Accordingly, I hope to offer some insights from our experience in
the field about the dynamics of international sexual trafficking.
Perhaps the best way to do so is by introducing you to three women from
South Asia--``Jayanthi,'' ``Sumita,'' and ``Anita''.
``Jayanthi'' grew up in a poor rural area in India north of Bombay.
When she was 14 years old and riding a train back to her home village,
four women tricked her into drinking some drugged tea and transported
her unconscious to Bombay. The women knew that they would find a ready
buyer for their merchandise within the brothels of Bombay's red-light
district. Indeed, like thousands of other women and girls each year,
``Jayanthi'' was sold into a Bombay brothel for a few hundred dollars
where she was locked away in a windowless room and beaten until she
agreed to provide sex to the customers. Through beatings with plastic
pipe, metal rods, and electrical wires, Jayanthi was forced to provide
sex to about 20 customers a day for the next three years.
``Sumita'' was 12 years old when she arrived as a penniless runaway
at Victoria station in Bombay. Her mother had just died, and when
Sumita learned that her father was trying to marry her off to an older
man in the village, she jumped on a train for Bombay. Arriving alone
and destitute in the city, ``Sumita'' was spotted by a man at the train
station who offered to get her a job at a restaurant. She eagerly
followed him across town and soon found herself not in a restaurant,
but in a brothel where she was effortlessly sold into prostitution for
less than $200. After days of beatings ``Sumita'' said she felt like
``a bird with broken wings'' and submitted to the customers.
``Anita'' was a twenty-six year old mother of two in Nepal when she
was abducted off a bus while on her way to the vegetable market. The
traffickers drugged her and loaded her onto a train bound for India
where they knew they could readily sell her into a brothel in Bombay.
When ``Anita'' regained consciousness across the border, she could feel
small plastic bags bound to her waist beneath her garments. Her
kidnapper told her that bags of Hashish had been strapped to her body
and warned that if she sought help from the police, they would throw
her into jail for smuggling drugs across an international border.
Accordingly, ``Anita'' silently and fearfully endured a five-day train
ride to Bombay, where she was indeed sold into a brothel. Amidst crying
and howling, ``Anita'' was locked away in a windowless second-story
room for four days and beaten with metal rods until she submitted to
the rape by her first customer. From then on, she was forced to service
about four customers per day.
Eventually, the International Justice Mission was able to
facilitate the release of these young women from these brothels, and
the interrelationship of their stories help us understand the dynamics
of international sexual trafficking.
Obviously, if we want to help the victims of international sexual
trafficking and shut down the business, we need to understand how it
works. Accordingly, our experiences in the field teaches us four
principles:
1. International sexual trafficking is driven by what is
tolerated in the country of final sale--the country where the
customer actually purchases sex for money. In other words, it
is the country that effectively tolerates forced prostitution
at the point of final sale that drives the market demand for
international sexual trafficking.
2. Whether forced prostitution is effectively tolerated is
driven by the quality and vigor of local, street level, law
enforcement.
3. The quality and vigor of local law enforcement's response
to forced prostitution is driven by (1) the priorities of
senior level political authorities, (2) the clarity and
comprehensiveness of the criminal law and (3) the quality of
resources and training provided to local law enforcement.
4. All efforts to combat international trafficking are
impacted by the victim's eagerness to seek help and to
cooperate in prosecution, and the greatest obstacles to such
cooperation are the immigration laws and authorities that treat
the victims as criminals.
I would like to elaborate on each of these points:
1. International sexual trafficking is driven by what is tolerated in
the country of final sale--the country where the customer
actually purchases sex for money.
Traffickers abduct and fraudulently transport women and children
across national borders because they are confident there is a willing
buyer to pay them for their effort. They know there is a brothel owner
who will eagerly receive their human contraband and pay handsomely for
it. Of course, the brothel keeper eagerly receives the women and
children who have been trafficked by force, fraud or coercion because
the brothel owner knows that forced prostitution is effectively
tolerated. There is a willing buyer for these women and children
because the brothel keepers feel perfectly comfortable trading in the
sale of human beings. They operate without fear of effective criminal
sanction.
It is the sheer ease with which forced prostitution operates in
certain countries that creates the financial incentive for
international traffickers. This is why the stories of ``Jayanthi'' and
``Sumita''--the two victims of domestic sexual trafficking--are so
important to ``Anita's'' story of international sexual trafficking. The
ease and dependability with which ``Jayanthi'' and ``Sumita'' and
thousands like them are sold into forced prostitution provides the
international sexual trafficker with the necessary confidence that
there will be a thriving market for his merchandise.
In the red-light districts that the IJM infiltrates in South Asia
and Southeast Asia, tens of thousands of women and children are bought
and sold with the same ease with which you and I might haggle over a
used car.
Of course, the coercive nature of the sex trade is powerfully
masked behind dark, padlocked doors and hidden corridors. The
deprivations of food, the beatings with electrical wires, metal rods,
and leather straps, the cigarette burns, and the brutal rapes are
conducted in the hidden rooms and upper floors where, if you can get to
them, you can find women and children locked in literal cages. This we
have seen with our own eyes. Down below and up front, at the more
public street level in the red-light district, the girls who have been
beaten into resignation mingle with women who have chosen to be
prostitutes and together they present a seemingly harmless and willing
face for the commercial sex trade. You would utterly miss the point if
you began to ask them whether they were working as prostitutes
voluntarily, for most would shrug their shoulders and say ``Yes.'' But
ask them to tell you about their first customer, and there always is a
first customer, and you are likely to get a very different story. A
story of abduction and kidnapping. Or a story of fraudulent marriage in
which they were taken from their family and simply sold into a brothel.
A story of being lured into town with promises of work in a restaurant
or hair salon only to be sold into a brothel, beaten into submission,
subjected to a nightmare beyond imagining, and in time resigned to
their despoiled life.
Obviously, such a vast and brutal industry is able to operate only
because it is tolerated by the civil authorities of the country. At the
International Justice Mission, we work in jurisdictions in Asia where
the police bribe their way within the police department in order to get
assigned to the red-light district because that's where they can make
the most money protecting the brothels. We sit and watch the police
arrive on schedule to pick up their weekly bribes, or find them,
without much embarrassment, receiving their payment in-kind. We see
police delivering food to the brothels so the keepers don't have to let
the girls out for meals. We know there are doctors that oversee the use
of drugs to stupefy trafficking victims, and almost anyone from the
highest concierge to the lowest cab driver is eager to help you find
``little girls.''
This is the environment that provides the dependable market for
international sexual trafficking. Ratchet up the cost of doing business
in forced prostitution, and you dry up the demand for women and girls
who have been coercively or fraudulently trafficked. The brothels won't
want them because they will be too much trouble; but, at the moment,
they're no trouble at all.
2. Whether forced prostitution is effectively tolerated is driven by
the quality and vigor of local, street level, law enforcement.
Brothel keepers are impervious to the power of the international
community's resolutions, treaties, covenants and protocols unless they
impact the conduct of the police officers or constables in their
streets. Unless the brothel keeper actually gets in serious trouble
with the civil authorities, he's going to keep doing what he's doing.
There is just too much money to be made. In most countries, the problem
is not so much with the criminal laws addressing forced prostitution
(although important improvements need to be made here as well) the
problem is with the enforcement of the law. Ask the victims of sexual
trafficking here about the meaning of their country's laws against
forced prostitution or international laws against sexual trafficking.
They will tell you that the only law they know is the man who walks
their streets with a stick and a gun.
International sexual trafficking depends upon a flourishing local
trade in forced prostitution, and you cannot combat forced prostitution
at a distance. Public policy must reach the dirty streets, or it won't
reach the victims of sexual trafficking.
How then do we invigorate local law enforcement against forced
prostitution? This question leads to our third point.
3. The quality and vigor of local law enforcement's response to forced
prostitution is driven by: (1) the priorities of senior level
political authorities, (2) the clarity and comprehensiveness of
the criminal law and (3) the quality of resources and training
provided to local law enforcement.
It is possible for U.S. Government policy to affect local law
enforcement. Every local law enforcement jurisdiction around the world
makes a choice between being the friend of forced prostitution or the
enemy of forced prostitution. Of course, choosing to do nothing is
choosing to be its friend. Therefore, there must be forces at work to
move local law enforcement to change sides, to become the enemy of
forced prostitution. In this process, the influence of U.S. policy is
limited, but it can be part of a combination of forces that eventually
tip the local scales of decision-making toward a decision to fight.As
mentioned, however, there are three primary forces working on local law
enforcement: () political priorities of authorities at the top of the
chain of command, (2) clarity and comprehensiveness of the law, and (3)
local law enforcement resources and training. This is where an
appropriate combination of carrots and sticks in U.S. policy can make a
difference. First, every law enforcement officer is part of a chain of
command. Eventually, the enforcement officer in the street manifests
the priorities of those at the top of the chain of command. If forced
prostitution is not an absolutely urgent priority of the most senior
political and public authorities in the country, then the powerful
market forces at work on the street will always make local law
enforcement the active or passive friend of forced prostitution.
And, as it turns out, U.S. policy toward a country can have a very
powerful effect upon the priorities of a nation's most senior
authorities who sit on top of local law enforcement's chain of command.
And here it must be observed that these public officials will move an
issue from the ``good idea'' column and into the ``urgent priority''
column only when they think something bad will happen if they don't.
This is why senior government authorities may be pushed to the point of
making forced prostitution an ``urgent priority'' through a sense that
something bad is going to happen in their relationship with the U.S.
Government if they don't.
Let's face it. The victims of forced prostitution generally come
from the most powerless and vulnerable sectors of the society. This is
especially the case, in developing countries. The victims are first and
foremost, the poor, the children, and the women. They simply do not
constitute a powerful or even significant political constituency. And
yet, if the goodies that flow from a country's relationship with the
world's only remaining superpower and the world's largest economy are
jeopardized by a failure to respond to an issue, then that issue can
take on an utterly fresh sense of urgency. This is where the stick of
negative consequences in U.S. policy can have a powerful and
occasionally decisive impact. It can reorganize the priorities of
senior officials. And they in turn will reorganize the priorities of
those who report to them.
The first and most basic reorganization of priorities should be as
follows: the U.S. Government should insist that local law enforcement
get out of the business of forced prostitution. Everywhere that the IJM
confronts forced prostitution in the world we find police taking
protection bribes from the brothels, assisting in the harboring of
victims, tipping off brothels about police raids, and even occasionally
operating the brothels themselves. Active police complicity is not hard
to find, it's hard not to find. In countries where there is rampant
forced prostitution, credible evidence of police collusion would not be
difficult for any U.S. Embassy to document. And on the basis of such a
finding, it seems a rather modest requirement to insist that countries
that seek aid and good relations with the United States not be active
collaborators in the business of rape for profit.
Finally, even urgent law enforcement priorities cannot be
vigorously and effectively pursued without clear and comprehensive
criminal laws or without resources and training that equips street
level law enforcement to be effective. This is the carrot of U.S.
policy. We can assist in the development of clear and comprehensive
statutory definitions of the crimes of forced prostitution and sexual
trafficking. The U.S. Government can provide targeted assistance to
foreign governments for resourcing and training special units to fight
forced prostitution and international sexual trafficking. All of the
work that the IJM has done in physically rescuing women and girls from
forced prostitution we have done with the assistance of select trusted
contacts within local law enforcement overseas. Local law enforcement
can be equipped to respond effectively--and there certainly is no hope
of actually addressing the problem if they are not properly equipped
and trained to do so.
This calibrated combination of U.S. policy initiatives can make a
real difference in the quality and vigor of the response by local law
enforcement to forced prostitution.
4. All efforts to combat forced prostitution are impacted by the
victims' eagerness to seek help and to cooperate in
prosecution.
All law enforcement depends upon the support of the community and
the cooperation of victims. But there is no way to reasonably expect
victims to cooperate with law enforcement unless two conditions are
met: (1) local law enforcement must get out of the business of
protecting and profiting from forced prostitution, and (2) victims must
be provided with a safe environment in which they can feel freely
empowered to participate of their own volition in the justice system.
First, local law enforcement must get out of the business of
protecting and profiting from forced prostitution. One must understand
that the law enforcement personnel that most victims of sexual
trafficking are familiar with are the ones they see turning a blind
eye, taking a bribe, or catching and returning the runaway to the
brothel. Unless U.S. policy places strong pressure on foreign
governments to prosecute vigorously and severely those police who
participate in and profit from the sex trade, then one cannot
reasonably expect much cooperation from the victims of that environment
who are trafficked to our own shores.
Secondly, victims must be provided a safe environment in which they
can feel freely empowered to participate of their own volition in the
justice system. It is well-known that the greatest ally of
international sexual trafficking has been the way government
authorities have treated the victims of sexual trafficking as criminals
rather than as the vulnerable rape victims that they are. This allows
the trafficker to easily coerce his victims with horror stories of what
will happen to them if they try to escape or go to the authorities.
Here the United States has an opportunity to set a standard of
compassion and generosity for the world by the way we treat women and
girls who are trafficked into our own country from foreign lands. We
can adjust our immigration laws in a way that creates a safe, non-
coercive environment for the victims, an environment that vastly
enhances the chances of their cooperating in the prosecution of the bad
guys. In addition, we can support those vital after care facilities
that give these devastated women and children a concrete vision of a
life worth living.
Mr. Chairman, you and your colleagues in the United States Senate
are taking important, historic first steps to address a desperate
problem that has devastated the lives of countless women and children.
Women and children with real faces, real lives. Women and children like
``Anita,'' ``Jayanthi,'' and ``Sumita.''
Mr. Chairman, members of this Subcommittee: hear their stones. And
use the power, wealth and influence entrusted to the United States of
America to change the dynamics of abuse, to turn the tide of power to
the side of these who need our compassion and protection and against
those who prey most brutally upon the vulnerable.
Thank you very much.
Senator Brownback. You have to get it to where the problem
hits, or we have got to do that.
Ms. Regan Ralph with Human Rights Watch I believe is here
to testify as well, and a good Kansan, Paul, I might mention,
as well, from Leawood, Kansas.
STATEMENT OF MS. REGAN RALPH, HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, WASHINGTON,
DC
Ms. Ralph. Thank you. I have prepared a longer written
testimony. I will do my best to keep my oral remarks to 7
minutes or less, with my eye on the lights.
What I would like to do first is introduce myself. My name
is Regan Ralph, and I am the executive director of the Women's
Rights Division of the Human Rights Watch. It is a pleasure to
be here today, and I appreciate the attention Senators
Brownback and Wellstone are paying to this growing human rights
problem of trafficking in persons.
What I would like to do today is quickly highlight what we
have seen in many years of monitoring and researching the
global trafficking of primarily women and talk about the
consistencies that we see in that documentation, and I will
echo some of the things that have already been discussed.
I then would like to speak briefly about a particular case,
based on recent research Human Rights Watch has conducted on
the trafficking of Thai women primarily into the sex industry
in Japan, and then, time allowing, I will talk about some key
things we think need to happen both domestically and
internationally to improve our opportunities to prevent this
abuse from happening in the first place and protect the rights
of victims once it does.
Human Rights Watch has been involved in documenting and
monitoring serious human rights violations for many years. We
have reported on the traffic of women and girls from Bangladesh
to Pakistan, from Burma to Thailand, and from Nepal to India.
We have also conducted extensive research regarding other
incidences of trafficking, including trafficking of women from
Thailand to Japan and from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet
Union to Bosnia.
In our documentation we have found that while the problem
varies according to the context, certain patterns definitely
emerge. While our research has focused on the trafficking of
women and children into the sex industry, it is worth noting
that there are numerous credible sources that are increasingly
reporting that similar patterns to those I will discuss in the
trafficking of men, women, and children into forced marriage,
bonded sweat shop labor, and other kinds of work.
In all cases--and here I want to underscore what Mr. Haugen
said--the coercive tactics of traffickers, including deception,
fraud, intimidation, isolation, threat, and the use of physical
force and/or debt bondage are at the core of the problem, and
must be at the center of any effort to address it.
In a typical case, a woman is recruited with promises of a
good job in another country or another area of her country and,
lacking any better options at home, she agrees to migrate. We
have also documented cases in which women are lured with false
marriage offers, or even vacation invitations, or in which
children are bartered by their parents for a cash advance and/
or promises of future earnings, or in which victims are
abducted outright.
Next, an agent makes arrangements for the women's travel
and job placement, obtaining the necessary travel
documentation, contacting employers or job brokers, and hiring
an escort to accompany the woman on her trip. Once these
arrangements have been made, the woman is escorted to her
destination and delivered to an employer, or to another
intermediary who then brokers her employment. The woman has no
control over the nature or the place of her work, no control
over the terms or conditions of her employment.
Many women learn they have been deceived about the nature
of their work, the work that they will do. Almost all have been
lied to about the financial conditions of their employment, and
every single woman that we've interviewed has found herself in
a coercive and abusive situation from which they see escape as
being both difficult and dangerous.
The most common form of coercion that Human Rights Watch
has documented is debt bondage. Women are told that they must
work without wages until they have repaid the purchase price
advanced by their employers, an amount far exceeding the cost
of their travel expenses. This amount is routinely augmented
through arbitrary fines and dishonest account-keeping.
Employers also maintain their power to resell women into
renewed levels of debt. In some cases, women find that their
debts only increase and can never be fully repaid. In other
cases, women are eventually released from that debt, but only
after months or even years of coercive and abusive labor. To
prevent escape, employers take full advantage of the women's
vulnerable position as migrants. They do not speak the local
language, are unfamiliar with their surroundings, and fear
arrest and mistreatment by local law enforcement authorities.
These factors are compounded by a range of coercive tactics
used by traffickers, including constant surveillance,
isolation, threats of retaliation against the woman and her
family members at home, and the confiscation of passports and
other documentation.
I am sorry to have to say that government efforts to combat
traffic in persons have been by and large entirely inadequate.
In many cases, corrupt officials in countries of origin and
destination actively facilitate trafficking abuses by providing
false documents to trafficking agents, turning a blind eye to
immigration violations, and accepting bribes from trafficked
women's employers to ignore abuses.
We have even documented numerous case in which police
patronize brothels where trafficked women worked, despite their
awareness of the coercive conditions of employment, and in
every case we have documented, officials' indifference to the
human rights violations involved in trafficking have allowed
this practice to persist with impunity.
Trafficked women may be freed from their employers in
police raids, but they are given, very seldom, access to any
services or redress, and instead often have faced further
mistreatment at the hands of authorities. Even when confronted
with clear evidence of trafficking in forced labor, officials
focus on the violations of their immigration regulations and on
anti-prostitution laws rather than on violations of the
trafficking victim's human rights. Thus, the women are targeted
as undocumented migrants and/or prostitutes. The traffickers
either escape entirely, or face minor penalties for their
involvement in illegal migration for the business of
prostitution.
These policies and practices are not only inappropriate,
they are ineffective. By making the victims of trafficking the
target of law enforcement efforts, governments only exacerbate
victims' vulnerability to abuse and deter them from turning to
law enforcement officials for assistance. By allowing
traffickers to engage in slavery-like practices without
penalty, governments allow the abuses to continue with
impunity.
Today I would like to talk about a specific example based
on recent research, and that is trafficking of Thai women into
the sex industry in Japan. The testimony I am submitting for
the record has information about other particular cases,
including the trafficking of women from Eastern Europe and the
former Soviet Union into Bosnia, the trafficking of Burmese
women into Thailand, and the trafficking of Nepalese women into
India.
We have carried out over the past 5 years an extensive
investigation into the trafficking of women from Thailand into
Japan. We interviewed numerous trafficking victims directly and
received information regarding many more cases from local
advocates. Our findings indicate that thousands of Thai women
are trafficked into forced labor each year, their rights
violated with impunity, as the Japanese and Thai Governments
fail to respond adequately to the problem.
I have information from some of those cases, but I think
what I will focus on is the response of the Thai and Japanese
Governments to this problem. These government officials are
clearly aware of these abuses. They have not, however,
translated such awareness into effective measures to provide
women with the means to protect themselves from abuse or to
seek redress for violations. When Japanese authorities raid
establishments that employ trafficked women, the women are
arrested, detained in immigration facilities, and summarily
deported with a 5-year ban on reentering the country.
This punitive treatment is applied regardless of the
conditions under which the women migrated and worked in Japan,
and even where there is clear evidence of trafficking and/or
forced labor. Trafficking victims have no opportunity to seek
compensation or redress, and no resources are provided to
ensure their access to medical care or other critical services.
Moreover, their traffickers and employers have little fear of
punishment. If arrested at all, they are charged only with
minor offenses, for violations of immigration, prostitution, or
entertainment business regulations.
The Thai Government has also taken note of this problem and
responded with some laws and policies, but because they have
failed to address the fundamental issue of women's status at
home--should I just stop, or keep going?
Senator Brownback. No, go ahead. finish your statement.
Ms. Ralph. Because they have failed to address the
fundamental problem of women's inequality at home and to
provide information about women's rights if they work overseas,
women continue to be willing take the risk.
In addition, the government has adopted overly broad
policies aimed to prevent potential trafficking victims from
traveling abroad. For example, the passport applications of
women and girls aged 14 to 36 are subjected to special
scrutiny, and if investigators suspect that a woman may be
going abroad for commercial sexual purposes, her application is
rejected. This policy, however well-intended, trades one human
rights problem for another by discriminating against women
seeking to travel and limiting their freedom of movement.
It also makes women who want to migrate even more dependent
on the services of trafficking agents, because it is difficult
for them to obtain travel documents by themselves.
Like I said, I think I will skip over the direct
testimonies of people that we spoke to and I will just put them
in my written testimony. Needless to say, they underscore all
of the problems that I have outlined in a general way.
I would like to, if I might, speak briefly to the question
of what do we do about this problem. Human Rights Watch
commends the U.S. Government for prioritizing trafficking in
persons as the domestic and foreign policy concern. We
particularly recognize the efforts of Senator Wellstone, who
has played a key role in mobilizing government efforts to
combat trafficking in persons in a way that promotes and
protects the rights of women and particularly trafficking
victims.
As it works to design and implement multilateral approaches
to combating trafficking in persons, Human Rights Watch urges
the U.S. Government to promote human rights, and especially
women's human rights, as the cornerstone of such efforts. This
is of crucial importance in the negotiations for a protocol
against trafficking in persons supplementing the U.N.
Convention on Transnational Organized Crime. The final shape of
this protocol will have significant implications for the
effectiveness of multinational efforts to prevent and prosecute
trafficking abuses, as well as for the protection and redress
available to victims.
The United States is also involved in a number of other
important discussions that will strongly influence the ways in
which governments respond to trafficking. In March of this
year, the United States is cohosting the Asian regional
initiative against trafficking women and children in Manila,
where Asian and Pacific nations will discuss national action
plans and develop a regional strategy.
At the G-8 summit in Okinawa in July the Group of Eight
will have the opportunity to continue their discussions about
their joint efforts to combat trafficking in persons.
Last month, Human Rights Watch sent an observer to a
symposium on trafficking in persons in Tokyo that the Japanese
Ministry of Foreign Affairs organized. This effort is
definitely moving forward.
We hope that President Clinton, in his public and private
remarks at the Okinawa summit, will stigmatize governments that
are complicit in trafficking or that tolerate trafficking. He
should also use this opportunity to revisit the plans that the
G-8 has already made to encourage governments to enact domestic
legislation necessary to prosecute traffickers and protect
their victims.
We have a number of recommendations that we think should
apply in any international fora where standards are made to
improve the protection of human rights trafficking victims. The
first is one that I have heard here this morning, which is to
be sure that we define trafficking to encompass all forms of
forced labor and servitude in any occupation or labor sector,
including trafficking into forced marriage.
We also strongly recommend that efforts be made to actively
investigate, prosecute, and punish those involved in the
trafficking of persons in countries of origin and destination,
and impose appropriate penalties. It is very important that
trafficking victims themselves not be subjected to prosecution
for anything that happens as a consequence of having been
trafficked, either for having broken local laws, be it
immigration or prostitution laws. it is also important to
ensure, and I think this is something that Senator Wellstone
has noted in his legislation, that victims have the opportunity
to seek remedies and redress for the human rights violations
that they have suffered. That would include making sure they
have an opportunity to seek compensation for damages, unpaid
wages, and restitution. This is important, because if
trafficking victims are deported, wherever they sit they cannot
participate in efforts to hold their traffickers to account,
and they can never get the redress and restitution that they
deserve.
It is also imperative that we take strong protections to
ensure the physical safety of trafficked persons. That fact was
underscored by the testimony of Inez here this morning. These
people are at risk, sometimes in the country of destination and
often in the country of origin.
Finally, I think it is important for international efforts
to address trafficking to protect women's rights and to address
the inequalities of women's status and opportunity that makes
them vulnerable to trafficking in the first place. There are,
we know, increasing incidences of trafficking being reported in
this country as well. We think it is important that the U.S.
Congress enact legislation both to incorporate the standards I
have outlined and to address a number of the key limitations
that exist in our enforcement regime here in the United States.
The first is, we need to ban all forms of involuntary
servitude and debt bondage as forced labor in this country.
Right now, the laws are interpreted as applying to debt bondage
only when it is enforced through law or physical force. As we
have demonstrated this morning, there are many different
tactics that traffickers use to make sure that women will not
escape their slavery-like conditions. They should be able to
seek redress for those violations under U.S. law.
It is critically important that victims of trafficking get
access to legal assistance, translation services, shelter and
health services, and finally, it is important, again, to make
sure that those victims are not victimized again by being
detained inappropriately or being prosecuted for their
purported crimes.
Trafficking in persons is a profound human rights abuse. It
is time for governments to act seriously against this problem.
This is also, I think, a crucial moment in the fight against
trafficking, with efforts underway in domestic regional and
international fora to define what the appropriate action is in
response to it. We commend you for your leadership on this
issue, and echo what others have said. It is imperative for us
to be a leader on this issue right now.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Ralph follows:]
Prepared Statement of Regan E. Ralph
My name is Regan Ralph, and I am the Executive Director of the
Women's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch. It is a pleasure to be
here today, and I appreciate the attention this committee is devoting
to the growing human rights problem of trafficking in persons.
Trafficking in persons--the illegal and highly profitable transport
and sale of human beings for the purpose of exploiting their labor--is
a slavery-like practice that must be eliminated. Human Rights Watch has
been involved in documenting and monitoring this serious human rights
violation for many years. We have reported on the trafficking of women
and girls from Bangladesh to Pakistan (Double Jeopardy), from Burma to
Thailand (Modern Form of Slavery), and from Nepal to India (Rape for
Profit). We have also conducted extensive research regarding other
incidences of trafficking, including the trafficking of women from
Thailand to Japan and from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union
to Bosnia. Reports resulting from these investigations are forthcoming.
The number of persons trafficked each year is impossible to
determine, but it is clearly a large-scale problem, with estimates
ranging from hundreds of thousands to millions of victims worldwide.
The State Department estimates that each year, 50,000-100,000 women and
children are trafficked into the United States alone, approximately
half of whom are trafficked into bonded sweatshop labor or domestic
servitude. Trafficking is also a truly global phenomenon. The
International Organization for Migration has reported on cases of
trafficking in Southeast Asia, East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East,
Western Europe, Eastern Europe, South America, Central America, and
North America. And press reports in the past year have included
accounts of persons trafficked into the United States from a wide
variety of countries. In August 1999, a trafficking ring was broken up
in Atlanta, Georgia that authorities believe was responsible for
transporting up to 1000 women from several Asian countries into the
United States and forcing them to work in brothels across the country.
Four months later, a man pleaded guilty to keeping five Latvian women
in involuntary servitude in Chicago. He had recruited the women from
Latvia with promises of $60,000-a-year wages. But when they arrived, he
pocketed most of their earnings and forced them to work by confiscating
their passports, keeping them under constant surveillance, and
threatening to kill them and have their families murdered if they
disobeyed him.
trafficking patterns
In Human Rights Watch's documentation of trafficking in women, we
have found that while the problem varies according to the context,
certain consistent patterns emerge. Furthermore, while our research has
focused on the trafficking of women and children into the sex industry,
reporting from numerous credible sources shows similar patterns in the
trafficking of women, men, and children into forced marriage, bonded
sweatshop labor, and other kinds of work. In all cases, the coercive
tactics of traffickers, including deception, fraud, intimidation,
isolation, threat and use of physical force, and/or debt bondage, are
at the core of the problem and must be at the center of any effort to
address it.
In a typical case, a woman is recruited with promises of a good job
in another country or province, and lacking better options at home, she
agrees to migrate. There are also cases in which women are lured with
false marriage offers or vacation invitations, in which children are
bartered by their parents for a cash advance and/or promises of future
earnings, or in which victims are abducted outright. Next an agent
makes arrangements for the woman's travel and job placement, obtaining
the necessary travel documentation, contacting employers or job
brokers, and hiring an escort to accompany the woman on her trip. Once
the arrangements have been made, the woman is escorted to her
destination and delivered to an employer or to another intermediary who
brokers her employment. The woman has no control over the nature or
place of work, or the terms or conditions of her employment. Many women
learn they have been deceived about the nature of the work they will
do, most have been lied to about the financial arrangements and
conditions of their employment, and all find themselves in coercive and
abusive situations from which escape is both difficult and dangerous.
The most common form of coercion Human Rights Watch has documented
is debt bondage. Women are told that they must work without wages until
they have repaid the purchase price advanced by their employers, an
amount far exceeding the cost of their travel expenses. Even for those
women who knew they would be in debt, this amount is invariably higher
than they expected and is routinely augmented with arbitrary fines and
dishonest account keeping. Employers also maintain their power to
``resell'' indebted women into renewed levels of debt. In some cases,
women find that their debts only increase and can never be fully
repaid. Other women are eventually released from debt, but only after
months or years of coercive and abusive labor. To prevent escape,
employers take full advantage of the women's vulnerable position as
migrants: they do not speak the local language, are unfamiliar with
their surroundings, and fear of arrest and mistreatment by local law
enforcement authorities. These factors are compounded by a range of
coercive tactics, including constant surveillance, isolation, threats
of retaliation against the woman and/or her family members at home, and
confiscation of passports and other documentation.
Government efforts to combat trafficking in persons have been
entirely inadequate. In many cases, corrupt officials in countries of
origin and destination actively facilitate trafficking abuses by
providing false documents to trafficking agents, turning a blind eye to
immigration violations, and accepting bribes from trafficked women's
employers to ignore abuses. We have even documented numerous cases in
which police patronized brothels where trafficked women worked, despite
their awareness of the coercive conditions of employment. And in every
case we have documented, officials' indifference to the human rights
violations involved in trafficking has allowed this practice to persist
with impunity. Trafficked women may be freed from their employers in
police raids, but they are given no access to services or redress and
instead face further mistreatment at the hands of authorities. Even
when confronted with clear evidence of trafficking and forced labor,
officials focus on violations of their immigration regulations and
anti-prostitution laws, rather than on violations of the trafficking
victims' human rights. Thus the women are targeted as undocumented
migrants and/or prostitutes, and the traffickers either escape
entirely, or else face minor penalties for their involvement in illegal
migration or businesses of prostitution.
These policies and practices are not only inappropriate, they are
ineffective. By making the victims of trafficking the target of law
enforcement efforts, governments only exacerbate victims' vulnerability
to abuse and deter them from turning to law enforcement officials for
assistance. By allowing traffickers to engage in slavery-like practices
without penalty, governments allow the abuses to continue with
impunity.
trafficking in women: case studies
Drawing on Human Rights Watch research, I will provide a few
specific examples that illustrate the pattern outlined above. I will
then offer recommendations for measures the U.S. Government can take to
combat this modern form of slavery and provide redress for its victims.
Thailand to Japan
From 1994 to 1999, Human Rights Watch carried out an extensive
investigation of the trafficking of women from Thailand into Japan's
sex industry. We will be publishing a report on trafficking into Japan
later this year. We interviewed numerous trafficking victims directly,
and received information regarding many more cases from local advocates
and shelter staff in Japan and Thai and. Our findings indicate that
thousands of Thai women are trafficked into forced labor in Japan each
year, their rights violated with impunity as the Japanese and Thai
governments fail to respond adequately to the problem.
Statements by the Thai and Japanese governments have made clear
that they are well aware of these abuses. However, this has not been
translated into effective measures to provide women with the means to
protect themselves from abuse or to seek redress for violations. When
Japanese authorities raid establishments that employ trafficked women,
the women are arrested, detained in immigration facilities, and
summarily deported with a five-year ban on reentering the country. This
punitive treatment is applied regardless of the conditions under which
the women migrated and worked in Japan, and even when there is clear
evidence of trafficking and/or forced labor. Trafficking victims have
no opportunity to seek compensation or redress, and no resources are
provided to ensure their access to medical care and other critical
services. Moreover, their traffickers and employers face little fear of
punishment. If arrested at all, they are charged only with minor
offenses for violations of immigration, prostitution, or entertainment
business regulations.
The Thai government has adopted laws and policies aimed to combat
trafficking in Thai women and assist victims in returning home.
However, law enforcement efforts have so far proved ineffective, and
women's vulnerability to trafficking persists. Many women continue to
lack viable employment opportunities at home, and, at the same time,
have no information about how to protect their rights overseas. In
addition, the government has adopted overly broad policies aimed to
prevent ``potential'' trafficking victims from traveling abroad. For
example, the passport applications of women and girls ages fourteen to
thirty-six are subjected to special scrutiny, and if investigators
suspect that a woman may be going abroad for commercial sexual
purposes, her application is rejected. This policy, however well-
intended, trades one human rights problem for another by discriminating
against women seeking to travel and limiting their freedom of movement.
It also makes women who want to migrate even more dependent on the
services of trafficking agents, because it is difficult for women to
obtain travel documents by themselves. Finally, the Thai government
makes no effort to assist trafficked women in seeking redress.
The women we interviewed described the shock, horror and, often,
powerlessness they felt when they discovered that contrary to their
promises of lucrative jobs, they were saddled with enormous ``debts''
and would not receive any wages until these amounts were repaid. This
would require months--or even years--of unpaid work under highly
coercive and abusive conditions. Those who had been promised jobs in
factories or restaurants faced an additional blow when they learned
from their employers or coworkers that their debt had to be repaid
through sex work.
The women had been recruited for work in Japan by friends,
relatives, or other acquaintances, who told them about high-paying
overseas employment opportunities. The recruiters introduced them to
agents who handled their travel arrangements and hired escorts to
accompany the women to Japan. In some cases, the women became
suspicious about their job offers during--or even before--their travel
overseas, but once their agent had initiated the arrangements, they
were closely supervised and felt they could not safely change their
minds. Upon their arrival in Japan, the women were delivered to brokers
who sold them into debt bondage in the sex industry. Most worked as bar
``hostesses,'' entertaining customers at the bar and accompanying
customers to nearby hotels to provide sexual services. While in debt,
they could not refuse any customers or customers' requests without
their employers' permission, and they often endured violence and other
abusive treatment at the hands of both customers and employers. The
women were also subjected to excessive work hours and dangerous health
risks--including the risk of contracting HIV and other sexually
transmitted diseases.
Excerpts from a few of their stories provide an idea of the
slavery-like conditions they endured. In Thailand, Lee\1\ had an
alcoholic and abusive husband and three young children she was
struggling to feed. When a recruiter offered to find her a job as a sex
worker in Japan, she agreed. She told us, ``I knew there would be some
debt for the airplane ticket and all, but I was never told how much.''
She found out after she arrived in Japan and was taken to a room by a
broker to be sold. In her words, ``There were lots of women and people
came to choose women and buy them. I was bought on the third day, and
told that my price''--and therefore her debt--``was 380 bai
[approximately US$30,000]. After three or four days of working at the
bar, I realized how much 380 bai was. The other girls said to me,
`That's a lot of debt and you're old. You'll never pay it off.' Then I
prayed that it would only take six or seven months to pay it off, and I
went with all of the clients I could.''
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\1\ All names of trafficking victims have been changed to protect
the identities of the women.
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Human Rights Watch also interviewed a woman who was promised a job
in a Thai restaurant in Japan, but instead was taken to a bar where the
other Thai ``hostesses'' told her she would have to work as a
prostitute. She recalled, ``They told me there was no way out and I
would just have to accept my fate. I knew then what had happened to me.
That first night I had to take several men, and after that I had to
have at least one client every night.''
Another woman we interviewed was released from debt after eight
months of grueling, unpaid labor. According to Khai, ``I had calculated
that I must have paid it back long ago, but the [bar manager] kept
lying to me and said she didn't have the same records as I did. During
these eight months, I had to take every client that wanted me and had
to work everyday, even during my menstruation.'' Despite the terrible
and coercive conditions, including physically abusive clients, Khai did
not try to escape. Her manager had threatened to resell her and double
her debt if she ``made any trouble,'' and forbade her from going
outside without supervision. The manager had also confiscated her
passport, and, Khai explained, ``Without my documents I was sure I
would be arrested and jailed by the police.''
Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union to Bosnia
In March 1999, Human Rights Watch traveled to Bosnia to document
the incidence of trafficking in women from Eastern Europe and the
former Soviet Union. We interviewed trafficking victims, local and
international officials, and local advocates. We also looked through
police and court records and went to Ukraine to interview staff from La
Strada, an NGO which has assisted many women returning from Bosnia. Our
research indicated that since the end of the war in Bosnia and
Herzegovina, thousands of women had been trafficked into Bosnia for
forced prostitution.
At the time of our investigation, Bosnia was under the authority of
a combination of local and international agencies. Our conversations
with local police, representatives from the Joint Commission Observers,
and members of the International Police Task Force indicated that all
of these officials were well aware of the trafficking problem. They
knew that foreign women were working in slave-like conditions across
Bosnia, unable to leave the brothels. Nonetheless, little was done to
prevent the trafficking of women into forced prostitution, or to
provide redress or protection for victims. We even found evidence that
some officials were actively complicit in these abuses, participating
in the trafficking and forced employment of the women and/or
patronizing the brothels.
The women had traveled from Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Romania, and
Hungary, lured by promises of legal work and safe passage. When the
women arrived in Bosnia, brothel owners seized their passports and
subjected them to slavery-like practices. They were treated like
chattel, often resold from brothel owner to brothel owner, and the
promises of good incomes turned out to be lies: instead of being able
to remit money home to their families and children, the women found
themselves forced to work without wages. As Vika told Human Rights
Watch, ``They tricked me. Everything was fine at first. But when we
wanted to leave, the owner sold us for 1500 DM [approximately US$900].
The new owner told us that we had to work off three more months. He
said he would sell us to another man.'' Most of the women had agreed to
jobs in the sex industry, but when brothel owners refused to pay them,
some women refused to work, incurring violent punishment. According to
one woman interviewed by Human Rights Watch, ``Every time I refused to
work, they beat me.''
When authorities encountered trafficked women during brothel raids,
they treated them like criminals, compounding the human rights abuses
they had endured at the hands of their traffickers. The women were
arrested, fined for their illegal immigration status and their illegal
work as prostitutes, and then deported. And in early 1999,
``deportation'' in the Bosnian context--a country without an
immigration law--translated into being dumped across a border. From the
Federation, women found themselves dumped in Republika Srpska. And vice
versa. This pseudo- deportation scheme only facilitated the trafficking
cycle. Women dumped across the internal borders could be quickly picked
up and re-sold.
Burma to Thailand
Trafficking in persons is not a new phenomenon, and research
conducted by Human Rights Watch in the early 1990s revealed similar
patterns of human rights abuses, as well as similar levels of
indifference--and even outright complicity--on the part of law
enforcement officials.
More than six years ago, Human Rights Watch reported on the
trafficking in Burmese women and girls into brothels in Thailand. We
interviewed thirty trafficking victims in Thailand, and obtained many
additional interview transcripts from a local NGO. Nyi Nyi's case was
typical: She was recruited from Burma at age seventeen by a friend who
had worked in Thailand. She had no idea what type of work she would do,
but she agreed to go. When she met the agent, he gave her 15,000 baht
(approximately US$600), which she gave to her sister. Then the agent
sent Nyi Nyi to a brothel in northern Thailand, in a truck driven by a
police officer. When Nyi Nyi arrived, she learned that the 15,000 baht
from the agent was a ``debt,'' which she would have to repay through
prostitution. Nyi Nyi could not speak Thai, did not know where she was
in Bangkok, and was always afraid of being arrested by the police. She
never dared to talk to anyone, and she was relieved that the police who
came to the brothel as customers never chose her. After about a year of
working almost every day, she was told that she had repaid her debt,
but did not have enough money to pay for a return trip to Burma. So she
continued to work, and a short time later she was arrested during a
brothel raid. The police initially promised that she would be taken
back to Burma in a few days, but instead Nyi Nyi was sent to a
reformatory for prostitutes, where she was confined for the next six
months.
Nepal to India
In 1995, Human Rights Watch released another report on trafficking
in persons, this one based on interviews with women and girls who had
been trafficked from Nepal to India. Some were tricked by fraudulent
marriage offers, others were sold by relatives, and a few were
abducted. All ended up in the hands of trafficking agents who brought
them to brothels and sold them into debt bondage. One of the women we
interviewed explained that her husband had left her, and when a
neighbor told her about an Indian man who wanted to marry her, she
agreed. A meeting was arranged, but instead of eloping, her ``fiance''
drugged her and took her to a brothel in India. At the brothel, she was
told that she had to work to pay off her purchase price of Rs.20,000
(approximately US$666). Each day she was forced to sit in a room in the
brothel with the other women, and when a customer chose her, she could
not refuse; those who tried were beaten and verbally abused. After
working for ten years, serving nine or ten customers a day, she was
still in ``debt.'' She told us, ``Nobody was allowed to leave after
four years like people say they are.'' Finally she met a Nepali man at
the brothel, and with his help, she managed to escape.
u.s. policy--recommendations
Human Rights Watch commends the U.S. Government for prioritizing
trafficking in persons as a domestic and foreign policy concern.
Senator Paul Wellstone has played a key role in mobilizing government
efforts to combat trafficking in persons in a way that promotes and
protects the rights of women and particularly trafficking victims. His
leadership led to new legislation requiring the Department of State to
increase and improve its reporting on trafficking in its annual Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices. We hope that additional attention to
this issue will help to close the gaps in the U.S. State Department's
reporting on this subject. The report on Japan released last year, for
example, alluded to the mistreatment of illegal workers, but
trafficking and debt bondage were not mentioned, and the report
asserted that ``there are presently no known cases of forced or bonded
labor'' in Japan.
In 1998, President Clinton identified trafficking in women and
girls as a ``fundamental human rights violation,'' and tasked the
President's Interagency Council on Women with the challenging task of
developing and coordinating government policy on this issue. Currently,
the U.S. Government is involved in several important initiatives. These
include participation in the negotiation of a protocol on trafficking
supplementing the Convention against Transnational Organized Crime;
implementation of foreign aid programs designed to prevent trafficking,
assist victims, and prosecute traffickers; and consideration of
legislation in the U.S. Congress against trafficking in persons.
As it participates in efforts to design and implement multilateral
approaches to combating trafficking in persons, Human Rights Watch
urges the U.S. Government to promote human rights, and especially
women's human rights, as the cornerstone of such efforts. This is of
crucial importance in the negotiations for a protocol against
trafficking in persons supplementing the United Nations Convention
against Transnational Organized Crime. The final shape of this protocol
will have significant implications for the effectiveness of
multinational efforts to prevent and prosecute trafficking abuses, as
well as for the protection and redress available to trafficking
victims.
The United States is also involved in a number of other important
discussions that will strongly influence the ways in which governments
respond to trafficking in persons. In March of this year, the United
States is co-hosting the Asian Regional Initiative Against Trafficking
in Women and Children (ARIAT) in Manila, where Asian and Pacific
nations will discuss national action plans and develop a regional
strategy. At the G8 summit in Okinawa in July, the Group of Eight will
have the opportunity to continue their discussions about joint efforts
to combat trafficking in persons. Last month, Human Rights Watch sent
an observer to a symposium on trafficking in persons in Tokyo that the
Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs sponsored in preparation for the
G8 discussions. We hope that President Clinton, in his public and
private remarks at the Okinawa summit, will stigmatize governments that
are complicit in trafficking or tolerate trafficking. He should also
use this opportunity revisit the plan of action to combat trafficking
in persons adopted by the G8 Ministerial Meeting in Moscow last
October, encouraging governments to enact domestic legislation
necessary for the effective investigation and prosecution of those
involved in trafficking and pressing for the inclusion of concrete
measures to protect the rights of all trafficking victims.
The United States should take advantage of all channels and
opportunities to promote a human rights approach to trafficking based
on the following recommendations:
Defining ``trafficking'' to encompass trafficking
into, all forms of forced labor and servitude--in any
occupation or labor sector--including: trafficking into forced
marriage. The definition should also be limited to situations
involving coercion, in recognition of men and women's ability
to make voluntary decisions about their migration and
employment, with coercion understood to include a full range of
abusive tactics used to extract work or service.
Actively investigating, prosecuting, and punishing
those involved in the trafficking of persons in countries of
origin and destination, and imposing penalties appropriate for
the grave nature of the abuses they have committed. Particular
attention should be paid to evidence of collaboration by
government officials in the facilitation of trafficking abuses.
Exempting trafficking victims from prosecution for
any immigration violations or other offenses that have occurred
as a result of their being trafficked.
Ensuring that trafficking victims have the
opportunity to seek remedies and redress for the human rights
violations they have suffered, including compensation for
damages, unpaid wages, and restitution. This requires
guaranteeing victims' access to legal assistance,
interpretation services, and information regarding their
rights, and allowing all trafficked persons to remain in the
country during the duration of any proceedings related to legal
claims they have filed.
Taking strong precautions to ensure the physical
safety of trafficked persons. This includes witness protection
measures for those who cooperate with law enforcement efforts
and asylum opportunities for those who fear retaliation in
their countries of origin. Countries of origin, transit, and
destination must also cooperate to ensure the safe repatriation
of trafficked persons, working together with non-governmental
organizations to facilitate their return home.
Protecting women's rights and addressing the
inequality in status and opportunity that makes women
vulnerable to trafficking and other abuses. States should
support policies and programs that promote equal access to
education and employment for women and girls. They should also
provide women with information about their rights as workers
and how to protect these rights overseas. Programs should be
designed and implemented with the cooperation of local non-
governmental organizations.
There is increasing evidence that trafficking is on the rise in the
United States as well. To effectively respond to the trafficking of
persons into this country, we urge the U.S. Government to enact
domestic legislation that incorporates the standards outlined above. We
welcome recent indications that law enforcement officials are
increasingly charging traffickers with offenses appropriate to the
serious nature of their crimes, but much remains to be done to improve
the protections and services available to trafficked persons. Such
measures are crucial for upholding the rights of victims and for
encouraging them to cooperate in the investigation and prosecution of
traffickers. In particular, we hope that such legislation will address
this issue by:
Banning all forms of involuntary servitude and debt
bondage as forced labor. U.S. statutory proscriptions on
peonage and involuntary servitude have been narrowly
interpreted to include only those situations in which victims
are made to work through force of law or actual or threatened
physical force. This excludes many of the slavery-like
practices that Human Rights Watch has found common in cases of
trafficking, in which labor is extracted through non-physical
means such as debt bondage, blackmail, fraud, deceit,
isolation, and/or psychological pressure.
Providing victims of trafficking with access to
legal assistance, translation services, shelter, and health
services, and ensuring that all trafficked persons are allowed
to remain in the United States throughout the duration of any
civil or criminal proceedings against their abusers.
Preventing the further victimization of trafficked
persons by guaranteeing their immunity from prosecution for
immigration violations or other crimes related to their having
been trafficked, and taking adequate measures to ensure the
protection of their physical safety. Such measures should
include opportunities for all trafficking victims who fear
retaliation upon return to their home country to apply for
permanent settlement on that basis.
Trafficking in persons is a profound human rights abuse, and women
are particularly vulnerable to this practice due to the persistent
inequalities they face in status and opportunity. It is time for
governments to take this problem seriously. Concrete steps are needed
to prevent trafficking, punish traffickers and the corrupt officials
who facilitate their crimes, and provide protection and redress for
victims. This is a crucial moment in the fight against trafficking,
with efforts underway in domestic, regional, and international fora to
define appropriate state actions. it is imperative that the United
States take advantage of this moment to demonstrate its leadership on
this critical human rights issue.
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much. I have a few
questions if I can. Dr. Lederer, as you have looked at the
criminal cases around the world that you have tracked, take me
through how the economic transaction--and this is an awful
thing that occurs, but obviously there is a lot of money
involved in it somewhere. What is the economic nature of it?
How much is typically paid for the person that is trafficked?
What are they? What is the taker, or the brothel-owner, what do
they take out of this? How does the economic transaction occur,
so we can get some idea of the magnitude of the dollars
involved.
Dr. Ledrere. I wish I could be specific, but I cannot. I
think we are really on the front end of that kind of research
right now. We have anecdotal information from the women and
children who have been trafficked about what they were told
they would owe in terms of debt bondage. We have anecdotal
information from brothel-owners who were arrested about how
much they paid for a woman.
Senator Brownback. Can you give us some of those anecdotes?
Dr. Ledrere. Well, the range is anywhere from, as Inez
said, $2,500 to $40,000 in debt bondage.
Senator Brownback. That they are paid?
Dr. Ledrere. That they owe. That they are told that they
owe.
Senator Brownback. As a result of their transporting?
Dr. Ledrere. That is right, that they are told they must
work off. There is money being made also--sometimes the
traffickers are collecting from the people that they're
trafficking and then collecting from the brothel-owners, or
those who they are dropping off, to collecting from agents and
so on, so that I cannot put an exact number on it. I think the
range is really great.
Senator Brownback. Regan, or Gary, do either of you have
anecdotal information about, here is how this transaction
progressed?
Ms. Ralph. Just to give you an example of the Thai women
working in Japan, we have documented, I would say short of a
hundred but upwards of 60 to 80 cases of women who had been
trafficked, and every single one of those cases the women were
transported probably at an expense at the maximum of a couple
of thousand dollars, and they immediately incurred a $35,000
debt upon beginning their employment.
Senator Brownback. That is what they were told?
Ms. Ralph. That is what they were told. Obviously, there is
a figure in there. That is the figure that the person running
the brothel paid to the person who escorted them.
Senator Brownback. How much is that figure?
Ms. Ralph. The women are not in a position to know that.
What they know is the basic bottom-line expenses they incurred,
and a number of the women tried to keep track of their expenses
to offer evidence to the contrary with what the brothel-owner
was maintaining, but they have no way of knowing exactly what
the brothel operator's economic arrangements are.
Senator Brownback. What is the brothel operator taking in
per day from these Thai women?
Ms. Ralph. It varies enormously. I can't, off the top of my
head, even recall whether there was a mean in terms of what the
income is, but these women work 7 days a week, and many of them
are required to take birth control pills so that they will be
able to work every single day of the month, so the intake is
very high.
Mr. Haugen. I think it is very important to distinguish
this trafficking from where it occurs in developing countries,
and in more industrialized, prosperous countries, because the
massive numbers are in the developing countries, that is,
poorer countries, and in those massive numbers it is actually
quite small in terms of the monetary benefit, but the numbers,
the volume of victims is huge. All three of the women that we
described were trafficked--that is, the trafficker only got a
few hundred dollars for them, so all of his expenses, all of
his profit came in a few hundred dollars for him, the
trafficker.
Now, the brothel-keeper is going to get a continuing cash
flow, but these people are offered--the victims are offered for
sex at just perhaps a few dollars per occasion, so in
developing countries, where the numbers are most massive, it is
such an easy tolerated trade in forced prostitution that it
does not cost very much to transport these victims, and it is
just the sheer volume of the numbers that allows it to flourish
under a tolerated circumstance within the urban center.
Senator Brownback. I do not want to emphasize this into a
dollar and cents or a money issue, because it is not at all,
but what I am sensing, and what I have seen on the ground in
India and Nepal is that there is a lot of money at stake, and
there is a lot of money that is flowing associated with this
even in a developing country. The standards of living and the
income levels are lower, but the amount is still very, very
significant.
Mr. Haugen. My only point, Senator, if I might, is that the
numbers are very significant in terms of dollar value because
of the volume. But that it is not as difficult a thing to shut
down as you might think, as one might think, if you simply
ratchet up the cost of the people in the urban center who are
operating it. And the way to ratchet up that cost is to get
them in trouble for doing it, but right now there is no risk of
that.
Senator Brownback. Dr. Lederer, let me ask you, how would
you characterize the process so far in getting countries to
notice this problem and take effective measures against it?
Dr. Ledrere. I do agree with Ms. Loar and Mr. Loy that
countries are expressing a real interest in stopping
trafficking in their women and children. We have collected the
laws that countries have right now at present, so that we can
get a lay of the land, if you will, and almost every country
has some kind of law in place right now that they could use to
arrest, charge and prosecute a trafficker, and so I believe it
is a matter of figuring out how to bring the political will to
bear, if you will, on those countries and I agree with Mr.
Haugen that that has to come from the top down, that if the
people who are in charge in these countries say we are going to
take these laws and enforce them, we are going to strengthen
the laws we already have, we are going to begin to see some
progress.
Senator Brownback. My limited experience with other
governments on this is primarily South Asia, and while I found
a knowledge base that it was going on, I didn't find much of an
interest or commitment level. It is kind of like, well, look, I
have got 50 things to deal with here, and this is in the mid-
thirties of my area of interest. If you are going to ask me to
rank--and nobody did, and I did not ask them to rank it, but it
was not on their agenda issue basis.
Now, one thing I think we can work with them closely on is
trying to create a better overall economic climate in some of
these developing countries to create opportunities and lessen
the grinding poverty that is a feeding ground for this as well,
and as well we clearly need to work and encourage and have
better recognition of the status of women in many countries,
that just--we need to continually push. The United States is
the human rights leader. We are the ones, we have to stand up
and make these things an issue, because finding other places
just do not make them that much of an issue.
Senator Wellstone.
Senator Wellstone. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all I
want to thank all of you for your testimony. I think this has
been one of the really best hearings I have ever been at in the
Senate, and Regan, I appreciate your comments. Thank you very
much.
One of the things--and I want to do this in reverse. I want
to sort of just ask one question to you all, but listening to
you and trying to sort out some of the differences from the
first panel, I think the key is, with 1842 I do not consider
this a one-person thing, and I am committed to working with
Senator Brownback, and I think there is a worthy effort going
on in the House, and if we can get this in pretty much
identical form we are going to pass this, and I think that is
going to be our responsibility to do that as legislators, and I
think we can.
Therefore, I want to now go to one of the thorny questions,
or at least a question that I think we have got to try to
confront and come to terms with, and it has to do with the
whole issue of sanctions, because, Gary, I was listening to
you, and I guess my question for you, and it might be a
question for Regan as well, and it might be a question for
Laura, is, what specific kind of sanctions should we be
thinking about that you think would be most effective in
actually deterring the traffic?
In other words--because I think that is what you are
talking about, and this is, I think, an honest--I mean, I think
there are some good people with good faith who do not agree on
this question, and I am sort of interested in maybe your being
able to lay out some of the specific sanctions that you and
Regan, and maybe Laura, think would really work.
Mr. Haugen. If the only topic is what will work, then the
question is, what do the authorities overseas care about the
most, and you effect those sanctions on the basis of some
minimal benchmarks. The minimal benchmark from my perspective
is, is there credible evidence of local law enforcement
involvement in forced prostitution. That, from my perspective
and experience, is not hard to find.
So if you identified what they care about the most, and you
say, our relationship is going to be somewhat dependent on
whether or not there is obvious evidence to us that your local
law enforcement is engaged, then that will work the most.
Now, whether that works with other people's other
priorities is another question. I was listening carefully to
Secretary Loy's four objections. The first was that these are
essentially private actors, and that sanctions will not affect
them. Well, you know that would not work in drugs. If the
police are turning their backs on it or they are participating
in it, to say that that is primarily a private actor problem is
not true.
He says the countries are in the early stages of addressing
it, and they might play it down if we try to bring them to task
for it. That is to say that we could not succeed in the battle
for truth about what was happening. Also, he says that
sanctions hurt the victims by diminishing their economic
opportunities, making them more vulnerable.
You see, there is a confusion about poverty. Poverty did
not send these three women that we described into forced
prostitution. Coercion did. Poverty is a factor only because
law enforcement does not go to where the poor are. In other
words, there is plenty of law enforcement in a jurisdiction,
but they are not going to bother to rescue these girls. It is a
matter of changing the priority of law enforcement.
The third was that it deflects attention from the NGO's who
are trying to raise the profile on this, and makes us enemies.
As one NGO, I am willing to sort of--from our perspective, the
reason we are raising the profile is so that there is action
that makes a difference to help these girls and women get out.
If it means that our action actually our advocacy turns the
local authorities into changing their priority and actually
affecting law enforcement in the streets, that is why we are
here.
Senator Wellstone. Well, you literally do that. You are on
the ground. You literally go into these places and get women
out. That is what you do now.
Mr. Haugen. I would more commend our investigative folks in
the field.
Senator Wellstone. That is incredible, what you do.
Regan.
Ms. Ralph. Just a couple of comments. I think it is
important, as Gary and Senator Brownback said, to get
governments to pay attention to this. This is a serious human
rights problem. After today, I do not think there is any
dispute about that.
Another thing I want to underscore, based on our research,
is that there is often government complicity and involvement in
trafficking. It may be isolated, but as long as it is there it
needs to be dealt with effectively, and that requires a regime
that from the top down looks for this abuse and rubs it out
where it finds it.
I want to say two things, though, about sanctions
generally. I think it is worth looking at, at least the
possibility of targeted sanctions to be as effective as
possible, and I say that for two reasons.
One is that we have seen evidence where in our initial work
back in the early 1990's and looking at the trafficking of
Burmese girls and women into Thailand the U.S. Government
brought this up very sharply with Thai officials and their
response was to crack down on trafficking. The result of that
crackdown was that hundreds of women were rounded up in
brothels and deported, period. There was very little response
to the human rights abuses the women had suffered, and almost
no dent made in the problem.
Another concern--and I understand Gary's point, but I think
it is worth saying that there are women who are making choices
to migrate. They may not be making choices to migrate into sex
work, but in some cases they may be, and in all of those cases
they are leaving their families and their communities behind
because they think they are going to find economic conditions
better, labor conditions better in some other place, and that
is about getting out. What are the options available to women
on the ground in the situation they are in?
So to the extent local groups are saying wait a minute, we
do not want sweeping economic bad news coming down on the tops
of our citizens, that is something worth listening to, I think.
Senator Wellstone. I appreciate that.
Mr. Haugen. If I could just add to that, it is true
economic vulnerabilities create vulnerability to force
prostitution, but even when there is fraud and so forth there
is the coercive moment. There is the moment when they find out
what the truth is, and then they either comply or they get
smacked, and that is the hidden truth in every case.
Senator Wellstone. Well, I think--and Laura, did you have a
quick response?
Dr. Ledrere. I just think there has to be some kind of
strong enforcement mechanism. Part of the problem with the U.N.
conventions is that while they set an international norm there
is no enforcement capability. There is no teeth to these. Each
country has to have a law that they enforce, and one thing that
the United States can do with some form of penalties, if you do
not want to call it sanctions, is to provide that enforcement
mechanism, or that reason why they should do something.
Senator Wellstone. I think that what we are going to have
to do, and I think this is just a part of our negotiation to
get this right, is, it is sort of what kind of sanctions. We
just have to get it right in terms of what we are talking
about, and it is just going to have to be, I think, a
compromise, but I think this has just been superb testimony,
and almost more important than your testimony is who each of
you are and what you actually do, and so I just would like to
thank you, and I said to Sam earlier, I think we are committed
to making this happen.
Senator Brownback. That is right. We will get it moving,
and I want to add my thanks to each of you for who you are and
what you do. God bless you.
And Gary, you have been in my office giving me a lock off
of a brothel door that bound behind it a 14-year-old girl, and
that sort of work that you are doing on the ground for people
is just really appreciated, each of you what you are doing, and
I look forward to the day where this problem is far diminished
from where it is today, and instead of it explosively going up,
we are going explosively down and shutting this trafficking
down, and each of you will be heroes when that day comes.
Thanks for being here and for excellent testimony.
We have a final panelist that will be testifying. It is a
journalist that I met while I was in India, and she has done a
documentary film on the international sex trafficking that has
occurred in India, and I found her very knowledgeable on this
topic, Ruchira Gupta. She is here in the United States, I
believe, presenting the work that you have been doing, and I
think will have part of the clips here, and we look forward to
your comments and testimony as well.
Senator Wellstone. Mr. Chairman, will there be a chance for
me to view this? I actually have a younger grandson visiting,
and I promised I would have lunch with, so will there be a
possibility?
Senator Brownback. Well, will he be able to have a copy of
this video, or is this the only copy you have?
Ms. Gupta. Sharon has the copy. She can lend it to you.
Senator Brownback. We will make that available to you.
Please have a seat. We are delighted you are able to join
us. The last time we met was in Delhi, so it is good to be able
to see you here in Washington. Thanks for your work, and Paul,
thanks for being here and your work on this, and I look forward
to us getting this resolved and moving the legislation forward.
STATEMENT OF RUCHIRA GUPTA, JOURNALIST AND DOCUMENTARY FILM
MAKER
Ms. Gupta. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank the committee
for giving me this opportunity to talk about trafficking, which
has been an issue which has obsessed me for the last 7 years as
a journalist, as an activist, and right now I am working with
UNICEF as a consultant to write the media policy on violence
against women, and so in many different incarnations, many
different caps.
I have a written testimony which I am also going to submit
along with what I speak here.
Senator Brownback. That will be included in the record.
Ms. Gupta. 7 years ago I began researching the issue of
prostitution while I was in Nepal. I was actually working on a
different story. I was looking at how villages manage their
natural resources in Nepal when I stumbled on rows and rows of
villages which did not have any girls from age 15 to 45, and
when I asked where these girls were I was told they were in
Bombay, and why? Why so many girls in Bombay?
I began to inquire further, and I was told that there was
the local procurer, there was the local agent, there was a
middle man who would take them across the border, and the whole
trafficking chain was in existence and institutionalized. I was
horrified by the scale and the gravity of the situation.
I then went down to Bombay to look at the situation more,
and I found that there was a huge red light area, perhaps the
biggest in Asia right now, which was a criss-cross of 12 lanes
between two central stations, right in the heart of Bombay, and
one of my clips right in the beginning from the documentary
that I produced later called The Selling of Innocents, I would
show you a street in Bombay in this red light area with girls
standing and begging for clients under duress, and many of them
were under age. You will see how there is a police station
nearby where policemen ignore what is happening to these girls.
Senator Brownback. Let's go to the video.
[A videotape was shown.]
Senator Brownback. How much is that in U.S. dollars, 3,000
rupees?
Ms. Gupta. Less than $100. About $85. As you can see, most
of the girls here are under age, and in the course of my
investigation I found all over India and in some brothels in
Thailand as well that the girls were first brought in when they
were between 7 and 15, and they might have grown older in the
profession but they did not last beyond the age of 35.
Many of them were forced to stay inside locked rooms for 5
years, kept in debt bondage, not given any outings, no access
to health care, with small windows. They were subjected to
repeated rapes. They had to service 15 to 20 clients a day.
They had to have children, forced children sometimes, because
that way the brothel owners would feel they could keep them in
captivity longer, and they were subjected to tuberculosis, HIV,
they were in complete bondage.
Many of them had been inside a small room for so long in a
place like Bombay, which is right next to the sea, and not
seeing the sea for 3 years. Some of them spoke about stories of
how they tried to escape, and they were beaten, bruised, locked
up and brought back again. They were forced also to be
subjected to drugs and alcohol so that they became dependent on
these, and they were literally used like sex slaves.
There was violence done to their bodies. There were
cigarette bumps stamped on them, and bottles shoved up their
vaginas, people wrote names on their skin, and they had no
recourse to any legal or social counseling, health care,
nothing.
At the end of their lives inside the brothel they were
literally thrown out with no savings, sometimes life-
threatening diseases, with children, and they had to find a way
back home. When I went back to Nepal I found that the way back
home was also not that easy. There was stigma. They were
revictimized when they tried to go back to their villages.
There was no way that they could go back into their communities
again.
When they tried to stay in shelters, some shelters tried to
keep them for some time, but again the shelters were
overstretched and did not have enough finances, and the
government would not pay enough attention or was not serious
enough about looking after the girls who came back.
There is this case in 1997 where 126 Nepali girls were
rescued from a brothel in Bombay and they were all underage.
They were tested for HIV without their knowledge after their
rescue operation. They were locked up inside an institution
which was supposed to be a juvenile health care center in
Bombay, and both the governments, the Indian Government and the
Nepalese Government wrangled over their status. The Nepali
Government did not want them back because they said, why should
we get back these HIV-ridden girls, and the Indian Government
said, they are not our citizens so we have to send them back to
Nepal.
So far no law has been defined about what happens to these
girls. It was through the cooperation of some NGO's at the
ground level that these girls were sent back. Estimates are--by
NGO's again, not by governments--that 5,000 to 7,000 Nepali
girls are trafficked across to India every year, and there is
almost 200,000 Nepali girls in India right now engaged in
prostitution.
Also, other estimates by Child Prostitution in Asian
Tourism, which is an international NGO, says that 1 million
children are trafficked into prostitution every year in Asia
alone, and they also estimate that about 30 million children
are engaged right now in prostitution all over Asia.
What is also happening is that girls and children are not
differentiated. Governments are applying the same law in India
and Nepal, Bangladesh, and Thailand, to both girls and
children, and they say that if women are choosing prostitution
as a survival strategy, that even girls who are 14 or 15 could
choose to do so and they sometimes turn a blind eye when they
find a girl who is 15 or 16.
There are some movements which are very, very positive in
this case, which I found also by doing this, and I should
mention that. In Nepal, in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Thailand,
Cambodia, there are laws which governments have created to
protect child rights. There is a movement to define the
juvenile justice systems by the police in South Asia.
There is a signed convention which has come up, and the
convention is how governments are going to work together to
traffic children, and also children who want to go back home,
but these movements need to be supported with larger budget
allocations with special emphasis on prevention and protection
programs, advocacy. Advocacy and awareness programs and peer
education has been very successful in Nepal and Thailand.
Protection of the survivors of trafficking and supporting them
and their families in the process of law enforcement has been
very, very useful in nailing criminals.
The accountability of spending on these issues will take
the budget much further, and this is where--I heard you talking
to different NGO's based in the U.S.A. about what kind of
measures would work to make governments take this problem more
seriously, and I think one of these is emphasis on how do they
spend their money? Where is the money going to? Can it be spent
on women's programs? Can awareness programs be created so that
the status of the girl child is raised in Asia.
Right now, one of the big reasons besides poverty for the
trafficking of girls is that the status of the girl child is
low. She becomes the first resource of poverty, and parents are
willing to part with her and send her off to far countries or
brothels because they feel if they send one daughter off they
could support four more, and this has to be addressed, how to
change the way parents and communities and society looks at
girl children.
The rest of my testimony is here. I have given statistics,
and I have given reasons why children are being trafficked
besides sexual exploitation, adoption, child labor, marriage,
begging, and now even organ trade. I found this girl in
Katmandu. She was 14 years old. She had just come back from a
brothel in Bombay. Her stomach was sticking out, and she kept
saying it was hurting, and we sent her off to a doctor and he
found one of her kidneys was missing.
So there is a whole range of issues why trafficking is
happening. The victims of trafficking are often trying to
escape from poverty. The children most likely to be trafficked
are girls. They are also sometimes from tribal groups or from
minorities, and this also is an issue which needs to be looked
at, is how are governments looking at their minorities? Are
they pushing them into these situations?
Some children, even their parents are sometimes lured by
promises of education, a new skill or a good job. Other
children are kidnapped outright. Sometimes parents actually
negotiate with the trafficker and take less than $80, as I
mentioned earlier, so that they can survive for another year,
because they live in villages where there are no irrigation
schemes, where there is no income from anything. They have to
walk 2 or 3 hours to fetch even a pot of water, and they have
no access to health care. Meals which would go for one meal in
a developed, industrialized country, they stretch it over 3
days between five people.
So there are all of these reasons why trafficking happens,
but law enforcement is also not taken seriously in the context
of poverty, and governments tend to think that if a father or a
mother is selling off her daughter or sister or whatever, and
she is reaching Bombay and she can get two square meals a day,
then why try to implement a law, and I think this is a fallacy
because the girls end up in debt bondage, they are exploited,
there is violence, and finally they are dead at the age of 35.
There is high mortality among women in prostitution.
Children lose contact with their families. They are taken into
an entirely new situation. Sometimes they do not even know the
language of the place they are in. They are vulnerable to many
kinds of abuse, besides sexual abuse, which they have to go
through every day all the time.
They have no documents. I found Bangladeshi girls in Bombay
who had to change their names to Hindu names so that people
would not know they had come from Bangladesh, and they would
not be sent back as illegal immigrants or be locked up inside
juvenile homes.
Different cultural situations also produce different types
of exploitation. In India there is a system called the Davdu
system, where girls have to serve as temple prostitutes. They
are submitted to temple priests, and the priests then send them
on to brothels in Bombay, so these are things which the
government has to look at more seriously. The Davdu system has
been banned by law in India, but it still continues because the
law is turning a blind eye. They do not want to take on
something that is culturally sanctioned.
There are organized criminal networks, and there is a nexus
between the police, politicians, and mafia in India through
which the trafficking chain operates. There are very senior
politicians who have given protection to traffickers just
because they are strong for them during the elections, or they
are election agents, people who are distributing campaign
tickets or whatever for them, and so sometimes they make a
phone call to the local police station and ask for the
trafficker who is finally being let out.
Of course, the whole convention of the rights of the child
needs to be emphasized to every government in Asia. They have
not taken it seriously. Many of them, all Asian governments
have ratified it, but they have not taken this seriously
because they feel that this is in a vacuum. There is no teeth
to it.
Of course, there are sanctions necessary in some contexts.
In other contexts sanctions are not necessary. When I think
about Nepal, or when I think about India, I don't think
sanctions would be the best recourse for systems of
trafficking. I can put the face of the 14-year-old girl right
in front of me and see how would sanctions help her.
The destitute poverty in Nepal would increase. Parents
would not even know why the poverty had increased. They would
still be looking for a way to feed their families. They would
still have the same attitude to girl children, and they would
make the girl go to Bombay and sell her for even less money.
When you think about a military dictatorship like Burma,
where girls have been trafficked across to Thailand, and in
Thailand girls have been rescued from brothels by the
government in police raids, rescued in quotes, and sent back to
Burma, they have been locked up in rooms and they have been
treated to extreme human rights abuses.
You have to think about this country by country and look at
this issue very carefully, but there are certain measures which
have worked, and those measures could be looked at, like peer
education, changing attitudes toward girls, strengthening law
enforcement.
That would be just some of my testimony today.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Gupta follows:]
Prepared Statement of Ruchira Gupta
Seven years ago, I was researching a story on how villagers manage
their natural resources in Nepal when I came across rows of villages
which did not have any girls or women from age 15 to 45. Every time I
asked about the whereabouts of these girls, I was told they were in
Mumbai. When I inquired further I was told about the local procurer,
the middleman, the agent who took them across the border, the border
policemen who took payoffs and the trafficker who sold them to brothel
keepers in Mumbai. The whole trafficking chain was completely
institutionalized. It was protected by some members of the police,
politicians and the Mafia. And the victims of this flesh trade were
girls as young as seven.
I began to research this story further and followed the trail to
the brothels of Mumbai. I found the largest red-light area in Asia
called Kamatipura--a criss cross of 12 lanes between two railway
stations. Women and girls are kept locked in small four by four foot
rooms, with no windows and made to service 15 to twenty men a day for
less than one US Dollar. They are subjected to rape, physical abuse,
torture, violence, repeated abortions and life-threatening diseases
like HIV, TB and Hepatitis. They were sold, seduced, tricked, duped,
coerced or forced into this life of sexual slavery. The trafficker paid
less than a hundred US Dollars for them.
NGOs estimate that between five to seven thousand Nepali girls are
trafficked every year to India. NGOs in Bangkok say at least 10,000
girls and women entering Thailand from poorer neighboring countries and
ending up in commercial sex work. Now girls are trafficked for cheap
labor, begging chains and the organ trade as well. In Asia alone about
a million women and children are trafficked every year. In the former
Soviet states and Eastern European countries there are job placement
agencies or marriage bureaus which serve as fronts for prostitution
rings.
Trafficking--especially for commercial sexual exploitation--has
become a worldwide, multi-billion-dollar industry. Boys and girls are
favored targets for sexual exploitation and groups with low social
standing are often the most vulnerable, such as minorities and
refugees. Illicit traffic is expanding through the use of child
pornography on the Internet, and low cost Internet advertising of the
commercial sex trade, attracting sex tourists and pedophiles.
UNICEF's Carol Bellamy has called on governments to enforce both
their national laws and to accept their obligations under the
Convention on the Rights of the Child. Every government in the Asia-
Pacific region has ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child,
legally binding them to protect their children from all forms of
economic and sexual exploitation.
Societies must recognize that the root causes of trafficking often
lie in unequal treatment of women and girl-children, discrimination
against minorities, and economic policies which fail to ensure
universal access to education and legal protection.
There are however, positive movements against child trafficking in
India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam,
Ukraine, Russia and Sri Lanka. These include creating special bodies to
protect child rights, the reform of juvenile justice systems, the
training of police and judicial authorities and crack downs on those
who sexually exploit children.
These movements need to be supported with larger budget allocations
with special emphasis on prevention and protection programs. Advocacy
and awareness programs and peer-education have been very successful in
Nepal and Thailand. Protection of the survivors of trafficking and
supporting them and their families in the process of law enforcement
has been very useful in nailing criminals. A demand for transparency
and accountability of spending on these issues would take the budget
further.
nature of the issue
Trafficking is a term used to describe the illegal
trade across borders of goods--especially contraband, such as
drugs-- for profit. Over the last decade, the concept has been
expanded to cover the illegal transport of human beings, in
particular women and children for the purpose of selling them
or exploiting their labor.
In 1994, the United Nations General Assembly defined
trafficking as the ``illicit and clandestine movement of
persons across national and international borders, largely from
developing countries and some countries with economies in
transition with the end goal of forcing women and girl children
into sexually or economically oppressive and exploitative
situations for the profit of recruiters, traffickers, crime
syndicates, as well as other illegal activities related to
trafficking, such as forced domestic labor, false marriages,
clandestine employment and false adoption.''
There are no accurate statistics of how many people
are involved, but it is estimated that in the last 30 years,
trafficking in women and children in Asia for sexual
exploitation alone has victimized over 30 million people. In
comparison, 12 million Africans were sold as slaves to the New
World between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. (Center
for International Crime Prevention).
National and international legal structures are
inadequate to deal with the trafficking in human beings.
While there are different patterns of exploitation in
different parts of the world, children are trafficked for a
number of purposes, including:
--sexual exploitation;
--adoption;
--child labor (e.g., domestic work, begging, criminal
work like selling drugs);
--participation in armed conflicts;
--marriage;
--camel racing
--organ trade
The victims of trafficking or their care givers are
often seeking escape from poverty. The children most likely to
be trafficked are girls, those from tribal groups and ethnic
minorities, stateless people and refugees. (According to the UN
special rapporteur)
Some children (or their parents) are lured by promises
of education, a new skill or a ``good job'' other children are
kidnapped outright, taken from their home villages or towns and
then bought and sold like commodities. Often they are crammed
into boats or trucks without enough air, water or food. When
their smugglers are threatened by discovery, the children may
be abandoned or even killed. If they reach their destination,
they end up in situations of forced labor, forced prostitution,
domestic service or involuntary marriage. They are virtual
slaves, who have been stripped of their human rights.
Children who are trafficked lose contact with their
families. They are taken into an entirely new situation, often
to another country, to a place where they don't know anyone and
don't speak the language. They are vulnerable to many kinds of
abuse, including sexual abuse. It is difficult for them to seek
help not just because they are children but because they are
often illegal immigrants and have false documents or no
documents.
Boys who are trafficked in armed conflicts are usually
used as soldiers, while girls are usually forced to be servants
who are often used sexually by the soldiers as well.
Different cultural situations produce different types
of exploitation. In India, for example, the caste system and a
history of bonded labor mean that tribal and low-caste children
are more likely to be trafficked than others. In West Africa, a
long tradition of sending one's children to work in the home of
a better-off relative or friend has facilitated the trafficking
of ever-increasing numbers of children, especially for domestic
work
Child trafficking works through personal and familial
networks as well as through highly organized international
criminal networks. Recruiters are often local people.
Trafficking routes change rapidly to adjust to changing
economic or political circumstances or the opening of new
markets. However, the main trafficking routes are from south to
north and from east to west:
--from Latin America to North America, Europe and the
Middle East;
--from countries of the former Soviet bloc to the
Baltic States and Western Europe;
--from Romania to Italy, and through Turkey and Cyprus
to Israel and the Middle East;
--from West Africa to the Middle East: from Thailand
and the Philippines to Australia, New Zealand and
Taiwan;
--from Cambodia, Myanmar, and Viet Nam to Thailand;
--from Nepal and Bangladesh to India; and from India
and Pakistan to the Middle East.
Poor economic conditions, poverty, unemployment, an
upsurge in international organized crime, the low status of
girls, lack of education, inadequate or non-existent
legislation and/or poor law enforcement--all contribute to the
increase in child trafficking. Trafficking becomes intensified
in situations of war, natural disaster and lax regard of human
rights.
Statistics
Between 5,000 and 7,000 Nepali girls are trafficked
every year across the border to India.
Most of them end up as sex workers in brothels in
Bombay and New Delhi. An estimated 200,000 Nepali women, most
of them girls under 18, work in Indian cities. (Estimates by
Maiti Nepal, Child Workers in Nepal and National Commission for
Women in India)
An estimated 10,000 women and girls from neighboring
countries have been lured into commercial sex establishments in
Thailand. Recent Thai Government policy to eradicate child
prostitution means that fewer girls are being trafficked from
northern Thailand and more girls and women are being brought
from Myanmar, southern China, Laos and Cambodia. (Estimates by
ECPAT (End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism))
China's Public Security Bureau reported 6,000 cases of
trafficking of children in 1997, with a steady increase in
girls aged 14 and 15. (Oxfam)
UNICEF estimates that 1,000 to 1,500 Guatemalan babies
and children a year are trafficked for adoption by foreign
couples in North America and Europe.
Girls as young as 13 (mainly from Asia and Eastern
Europe) are trafficked as ``mail-order brides''. In most cases
these girls and women are powerless and isolated and at great
risk of violence. (Quoted by La Strada, Ukraine and Sanlaap,
India)
Large numbers of children are being trafficked in West
and Central Africa, mainly for domestic work but also for
sexual exploitation, to work in shops or on farms, to be
scavengers or Street hawkers. Nearly 90 per cent of these
trafficked domestic workers are girls.
Children from Togo, Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana are
trafficked to Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Cameroon and Gabon.
Children are trafficked both in and out of Benin and Nigeria.
Some children are sent as far away as the Middle East and
Europe.
unicef policy
UNICEF is guided by the Convention on the Rights of
the Child (CRC), which has been ratified by all countries
except US and Somalia. Articles 9 and 10 of the CRC state that
a child must not be separated from his or her parents against
their will, except where it is in the best interests of the
child. Article 11 commits States to combat the illicit transfer
of children abroad. Article 35 asks States to adopt appropriate
national, bilateral and multilateral measures to prevent the
abduction, sale or trafficking of children for any purpose or
in any form. For children who do not live with their parents,
Articles 20 and 21 declare the best interests of the child to
be paramount, and note the desirability of continuing the
child's ethnic, religious, cultural and linguistic background.
Article 21 provides that international adoption must not
involve ``improper financial gain''.
Articles 32, 34, 36 and 39 which provide for
protection against economic ,sexual and all other forms of
exploitation, and the child's right to physical and
psychological recovery and social reintegration are also
relevant to the protection of child victims of trafficking.
The UNICEF strategy for addressing child trafficking
focuses on four main areas:
--raising awareness about the problem;
--providing economic support to families;
--improving access to and quality of education; and
--advocating for the rights of the child.
Measures aimed at preventing the trafficking of
children include increased educational opportunities for
disadvantaged children, particularly girls; support to families
at risk, appropriate social welfare, training of law
enforcement officials and judicial authorities. It is also
essential to raise awareness of the media, communities and
families on the rights of child victims of any form of
trafficking.
A proposed Optional Protocol to the CRC would
reinforce the protection offered to children who are at risk of
or exposed to sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking.
UNICEF holds that any new policy on trafficking must
build on standards already adopted by the international
community, including the CRC.
UNICEF provides input to the Office of the High
Commission on Human Rights (OHCHR) ``Project Against
Trafficking in Persons''.
A proposed UN Convention on Transnational Organised
Crime is now being drafted with a special protocol on
trafficking, UNICEF has emphasized the importance of not
criminalizing the victims of trafficking. Children, who are the
victims, must be protected. Similarly, where children are
trafficked, particularly when they find themselves in an
unfamiliar country, the first priority must be to treat them in
an environment which fosters the health, self respect and
dignity of the child (as outlined in the CRC).
Child victims of any form of trafficking require
special protection and need to be treated with respect and in a
manner consistent with their age and special needs. They are
entitled to legal protection and to help integrating back into
their communities.
If children are used as witnesses, officials should
secure their testimony in a manner which does not cause them to
be re-traumatized and ensure their protection throughout the
criminal proceedings and ensure their protection throughout the
criminal proceedings and beyond as necessary.
States should ensure that parents are provided with
the necessary legal aid and financial assistance for a child's
participation in legal proceedings.
States should ensure that child victims have access to
assistance that meets their needs, such as legal aid,
protection, secure housing, economic assistance, counseling,
health and social services, physical and psychological recovery
services and that they are not discriminated against. Special
assistance should be given to those who are suffering from HIV/
AIDS. Emphasis should be placed upon family and community-based
rehabilitation or placement in foster families rather than
institutionalization.
Children should be given an opportunity to express
their views, particularly within the framework of any
administrative or judicial proceeding affecting them; and no
child should be discriminated against, including on the basis
of gender, national or social origin. This is consistent with
article 2 and 13 in CRC.
Efforts against trafficking should be aimed
particularly at preventing vulnerable groups of children from
becoming victim. While it is true that boys are increasingly
involved in child prostitution and child pornography, girls
comprise the majority of victims. Gender discrimination can
place girls at greater risk of sexual exploitation, and also
creates specific needs for their rehabilitation.
measures adopted
UNICEF supports major studies of trafficking that are
taking place around the world, including a study of trafficking
in the NAFTA region underway at the University of Pittsburgh.
UNICEF provides input to ``The Global Program Against
Trafficking in Human Beings'', a three-year study undertaken by
the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime
Prevention. It focuses on the role played by organized crime,
trafficking patterns, the nature of the criminal syndicates
involved, the role of corruption, the impact of clandestine
migrant communities, the trafficking of women and children for
purposes of forced/exploitative labor, commercial sexual
exploitation and unlawful adoption. UNICEF is concerned to
ensure that the human rights aspects of the issue are not
overwhelmed by the study's focus on the criminal aspects.
In the Asia and Pacific Region, UNICEF is a partner in
a number of projects that specifically address the trafficking
of women and children. They include:
--the Mekong Regional Law Center project, ``Illegal
Migration: The Case in Trafficking of Women and
Children'' (Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand,
Viet Nam), which aims to develop a practical program to
improve legislation and law enforcement in the area of
trafficking;
--the ESCAP (Economic and Social Commission for Asia
and the Pacific), Human Resources Development Section
of the Social Development Division, ``Project for the
Elimination of Sexual Abuse and Sexual Exploitation of
Children and Youth in Asia and the Pacific''(Cambodia,
China, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, Viet
Nam, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka),
which will build capacity of local government and NGO
personnel through research and networking, raising
awareness of policy-makers, development of curriculum
and training materials and sub-regional training;
--the ILO-International Program for the Elimination of
Child Labor (IPEC) project, ``Combat Trafficking in
Children and Women for Labor Exploitation in the Mekong
Sub-region and South Asia'', which aims to develop best
practice guidelines based on the evaluation of pilot
activities and train trainers as well as to offer
direct socioeconomic alternatives to child and women
victims of trafficking and to those at risk;
--the UNDP project, ``Trafficking in Women and Children
in the Mekong Sub-region'', which will do an inventory
of UN agency, government, NGO and CBO activities
addressing trafficking; assess gaps in these
activities; establish mechanisms to improve
communication and coordination; identify research needs
and begin research;
--the International Organization for Migration (IOM)
project, ``Return and Reintegration of Trafficked Women
from China to Vietnam, Thailand to Cambodia and
Cambodia to Vietnam'', which will build research
capacity, train border police and provide psycho-social
recovery assistance to trafficking victims.
UNICEF participates in the Regional Working Group on
Child Labor (involving ILO/IPEC, Save the Children Alliance,
and Child Workers in Asia).
UNICEF supports the International Network for Girls
(INFO). Organized by the NGO Working Group on Girls, the
network comprises 400 NGOs in 86 countries who work with and
for girls. Sexual exploitation and trafficking are two of its
highest priorities.
In Benin, UNICEF supports the Project on Children in
Need of Special Protection. The project raises awareness about
child trafficking and exploitation and the hazards trafficked
children face. The project also advocates for children's rights
in the CRC; has set up eight educational facilities for girl
domestic workers; provided community support, giving women
access to loans to finance income-generating activities; and
promoted girls' education.
In Cambodia in July 1999 the Cambodian National
Council for Children has launched a National 5-year plan
against child sexual exploitation and trafficking.
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much, and I am glad you
have that obsession within you, the calling to expose this,
because it is an extraordinary issue.
As I stated at the outset of this hearing, I do not know if
I have seen a worse situation, a worse thing anywhere in the
world than what is taking place now.
This hearing has been an excellent one, I think, of
exposing and just trying to bring some light to the subject. I
have been sitting here listening to your testimony and others,
thinking about what the Pope wrote to the U.S. Congress at the
national prayer breakfast. In his letter he said, one of our
great dedications should be to make the world better for the
human species, and I look at this and I think, my goodness,
there is probably not a worse thing in the world for the human
species than what is taking place here. There are so many young
girls, so many children just around the world, and if we are to
ever try to make the world better for the human species, here
is a clear area for us to start, and to start addressing.
It has been an excellent hearing. We will hold the record
open for the requisite number of days for additional testimony
and for people who desire to submit for the record.
We will be working on legislation that, as I have stated
several times, and Paul has as well, that we hope to be able to
move through the Senate, and I would hope any groups either
watching this or in the audience that are willing to work in
pushing this legislation forward will be helpful in doing this
this year, that this not be a project over a period of several
years, that it be a this-year project, that we get it done,
passed, and signed into law so that we can add emphasis on this
horrible blight that is taking place on humankind.
Thank you all for your attendance. We are adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:45 p.m., the subcommittee adjourned.]
INTERNATIONAL TRAFFICKING IN WOMEN AND CHILDREN: PROSECUTION,
TESTIMONIES, AND PREVENTION
----------
TUESDAY, APRIL 4, 2000
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Near Eastern
and South Asian Affairs,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:15 p.m., in
room SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Sam Brownback
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Senators Brownback and Wellstone.
Senator Brownback. I call the hearing to order.
I am very pleased to be holding these hearings today, with
Senator Wellstone, entitled ``Trafficking of Women and
Children: Prosecution, Testimonies, and Prevention.'' This is
the second hearing we have held on this subject, and today we
will hear testimony on the details of prosecuting traffickers,
personal stories from victim survivors, several of which Paul
and I have just recently met with here in the anteroom, and
restoration of survivors through aftercare and civil suits to
obtain financial restitution. I hope these proceedings will
help pry open a door of freedom just a little further for those
who are presently trapped and in despair.
We must continue to speak out about this insidious practice
called trafficking. Every time we expose its tactics, through
hearings, conferences and other gatherings, another ray of
light invades the darkness. I want to encourage many of you
sitting in this audience today to not give up your selfless
advocacy that you have done for so many years.
I want to particularly add a note to Senator Wellstone's
wife, who has done much in that effort in that regard, as well.
Thank you for your tireless advocacy. You are challenging the
shame and the ignorance which still pervades this subject. It
is a long road ahead, but a worthy road, which leads to freedom
and to dignity.
Many remain who are lost. We think there are millions
worldwide who are suffering in the trafficking networks,
enslaved, held against their will, including children.
Conservatively, at least 700,000 women and children are forced
into trafficking each year, which is an overwhelming number,
but it is possible to take one person at a time, just like we
are doing today, and to hear their story and the rays of life
that they bring forward to tell about this terrible thing that
is happening across the world.
Dr. Laura Lederer has expended tremendous efforts to bring
the survivor witnesses to this hearing today. We will hear
testimony from three survivors, all of them women, who were
trafficked against their will. Dr. Lederer, thank you for your
generosity of heart and determination of spirit. These
witnesses would not be here today but for you. Dr. Lederer is
in the back visiting with her witnesses.
International sex trafficking is the new slavery. It
includes all the elements associated with slavery, including
being abducted from your family and home, taken to a strange
country where you do not speak the language, losing your
identity and freedom, being forced to work against your will
with no pay, being beaten and raped, having no defense against
the one who rules you, and eventually dying early because of
this criminal misuse.
Now, imagine this happening at a very young age and having
your entire life stolen from you in this brutal way. I have
visited with young girls and women before that this has
happened to, and we will hear from several today. This is one
of the cruelest human rights abuses existing. Moreover, it is
growing now, which has increased dramatically this growth in
this area over the last 10 years. It is a new phenomena and
does not really look like anything we have seen before.
That is why we have invited our first panel, Bill Yeomans,
the Chief of Staff of the Civil Rights Division of the
Department of Justice, who will discuss the parameters of
prosecution and additional legal tools needed to stem the
trafficking trade.
Our second panel is comprised of three witness survivors,
one from Mexico and two from Russia, who will share their
stories of entrapment and escape. The third panel will include
two aftercare providers who help victims restore their lives
once they leave trafficking in Russia and Thailand, and one
civil attorney who represented the Mexican women who were
abducted in Florida, escaped, sued, and finally received a
civil judgment against their captors.
I would like to make a very important request, if I could,
of those in the crowd and those filming this. Please do not
take any photos of the women on the second panel who are
survivors of trafficking. They have come here at great personal
risk to themselves, and photos could be used to bring to them
and their families great harm. So I would ask you please not to
photograph them.
I want to thank you all for your attendance here today, and
I look forward to the testimony and some questioning. First, I
want to turn it over for an opening statement to Senator
Wellstone, who has worked on this issue for several years
tirelessly, and we have been working together on this issue,
and I am delighted to be able to join him in his leadership on
this very important subject.
Senator Wellstone.
Senator Wellstone. Thank you, Senator Brownback.
And, Mr. Yeomans, thank you for being here, and to all.
Let me just ask unanimous consent that my full statement be
included in the record so that I can be briefer and we can go
forward with the excellent testimony.
Senator Brownback. Without objection.
Senator Wellstone. I do want to thank the chairman, Senator
Brownback, for his commitment, not only to hearings but to
passing legislation that is going to make a difference. We are
working together, and I think we will have a very good piece of
legislation. We are going to work very hard together to make
that happen. And it is a good coalition. Senator Brownback and
I do not agree on all issues--that may be the understatement of
the year--but we do agree on this.
Senator Brownback. We agree on this one.
Senator Wellstone. And after having worked on this for
several years, Senator Feinstein and Senator Boxer and Senator
Snowe have been there, but I do not think I have ever found
anybody that has been more committed to this issue and working
harder than Senator Brownback.
I think, Mr. Chairman, that we are seeing more and more of
a focus on the trafficking of women and children for purposes
of prostitution, sexual exploitation, forced labor, but it
continues to be, in spite of the focus, I think we also have to
admit to a reality which today I think is one of the darkest
aspects of the globalization of the world economy. It is
becoming more insidious and it is becoming more widespread in
this last decade. I think that is what we have seen.
Now, Mr. Chairman, there was just this past weekend in the
New York Times a very important piece dealing with a CIA report
or analysis of the international trafficking of women in the
United States, which was called a, quote, contemporary
manifestation of slavery. And they were talking about 50,000
women and children each year brought to the United States of
America--that is our country--and maybe as many as 2 million
women that are trafficked throughout the world economy. And we
intend to do something about it.
We are not having these hearings and asking today women to
come at real peril to themselves and to make this kind of
sacrifice for symbolic political reasons. We are doing it
because we intend to pass some legislation that can make a
positive difference.
I want to just conclude by saying that I cannot emphasize
enough that this trafficking is a human rights problem and it
requires a human rights solution. And all too often what
happens is that our government and other governments today,
with the status quo, end up either deliberately or, more often,
just because of the way the laws are right now, what happens is
that the victims are the ones that are hounded and the
traffickers go free. We have to change that. We have to change
that.
The women are treated as criminals and not as victims of
gross human rights abuses. And that is the way they should be
treated, as the victims of these abuses. And we intend to
change that.
Now, this has been an ineffective and cruel approach toward
trafficking victims, and we are trying to change this for the
better. I first introduced the bill in Congress a while ago--I
think it was the first bill--to try to get at this. And, as I
say, Senators Boxer, Snowe, Feinstein, and others were very
helpful. Then the House of Representatives has taken up their
own measure, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. And now I
think, perhaps most important of all from the point of view of
actually passing legislation, I feel very fortunate in being
able to work with the chairman and Senator Brownback.
I want to thank everyone here today, especially the
victims, for their courage in coming forward to testify, and
the advocates. The advocates who will never become
millionaires, but who just do not stop really speaking out and
advocating for people. I want to thank you. I thank the
administration for moving forward. And I do believe that we
will be able, Senator Brownback, we will introduce legislation
and I think we will have a good bipartisan bill, and I believe
we will be able to pass it.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Senator Wellstone follows:]
Prepared Statement of Senator Paul Wellstone
I would like to thank the Chairman for his work on one of today's
most serious and pressing violations of human rights: the trafficking
of persons, particularly women and children, for purposes of sexual
exploitation and forced labor. This is the second in a series of
hearings on this subject and I would like to commend Senator Brownback
for focusing this subcommittee on trafficking, and keeping this very
important domestic and foreign policy issue in the public eye.
Just before our last hearing on trafficking, Parade magazine's
February 20th cover story was ``A Call to Fight Forced Labor.''
Increasing numbers of organizations are heeding that call, as is the
U.S. Government, which has been involved in negotiations abroad to
strengthen international efforts to combat trafficking, and which has
been involved at home in more vigorous efforts to combat and prosecute
traffickers.
But despite increasing governmental and international interest,
trafficking in women and children continues to be one of the darkest
aspects of the globalization of the world economy, becoming more
insidious and more widespread over the past decade. Just this past
weekend the New York Times reported on a recent CIA analysis of the
``International Trafficking in Women to the United States,'' which was
called ``A Contemporary Manifestation of Slavery.'' and said as many as
50,000 women and children each year are brought to the United States.
Trafficking is an issue that affects not hundreds, not thousands,
but up to two million persons throughout the world. There are estimates
that as many as 50,000 women and children each year are brought into
just the United States alone and forced to work as prostitutes, forced
laborers or servants. The victims come from Mexico, the Philippines,
Thailand, Russia, the Ukraine and other countries in Asia, Latin
America, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. We have some of
these victims here with us today, who have courageously come forward to
share their stories.
Since my wife and I began working on this issue several years ago,
I have met with trafficking victims, care providers and advocates from
around the world. They have told me again and again that trafficking is
induced by basic factors such as poverty, lack of economic
opportunities for women, and the horrible low status of women in many
cultures. These factors are then compounded by sophisticated and
ruthless international crime operations, whose trafficking rings
exploit and abuse poor, vulnerable women in economically devastated
communities where women are unable to find jobs to sustain themselves
and their families.
In the last hearing we held on trafficking, on February 22, we
heard from the State Department about U.S. efforts to combat
trafficking internationally, and we heard from advocacy groups about
what more is needed to fight this problem, both overseas and at home.
For trafficking involves both supply and demand, and one of the
subjects I would like to hear addressed today by our first witness is
the extent of the problem in the United States and what efforts the
Department of Justice is making to go after and prosecute those
responsible for trafficking into this country.
I cannot emphasize enough: trafficking in persons is a human rights
problem that requires a human rights response. And yet, more often than
not, our government and other governments have hounded the victims, and
let the traffickers go free. The women are treated as criminals and not
as the victims of gross human rights abuses that they are.
In order to reverse this ineffective and often cruel approach
toward trafficking victims, and to go after the root causes of
trafficking--like economic distress and the low status of women--I
introduced the first bill in Congress to comprehensively address the
problem, and was joined in my effort by Senators Boxer, Feinstein,
Snowe and others. Since then the House of Representatives has taken up
their own measure, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (H.R. 3244),
which is making its way through the legislative process. I have been
working with Senator Brownback in an effort to craft a similar bill in
the Senate, which we hope to introduce soon, focusing on the prevention
of abuse, protection and assistance for victims, and prosecution of
traffickers. (The bill ensures that the State Department and our law
enforcement agencies will be fully engaged in the issue, that our
immigration laws do not encourage rapid deportation of victims, that
traffickers are severely punished, and that trafficking victims receive
needed services and safe shelter. Further, the bill provides much
needed resources to programs assisting victims here at home and
abroad.)
In closing, I want to thank everyone here today--especially the
victims for their courage in coming forward to testify, and the
advocates who have worked so hard on this issue--and I urge the
Administration to support legislative efforts in the Senate so that we
can move quickly to end this brutal practice once and for all.
[The following statement of Senator Ashcroft was submitted
for the record:]
Prepared Statement of Senator John Ashcroft
Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing. I appreciate the
opportunity to comment this afternoon on such an important issue that
affects so many of our world's most helpless citizens. I applaud these
witnesses for having the fortitude to come forward and share their
stories and concerns.
International human trafficking, along with the often subsequent
forced prostitution of women and children, is one of the most
despicable acts mankind has created. Millions of human beings are
trafficked each year, with approximately 50,000 of those trafficked
into the United States alone. Trafficking generates approximately $7
billion annually, and perhaps as many as 30 million women and children
have fallen victim to traffickers since the early 1970s. The Coalition
Against Trafficking in Women has attempted to document this heinous
trade, focusing on the hardest hit countries of South Asia. According
to the Coalition, 200,000 Bangladeshi women have been sent to Pakistan
by traffickers in the last 10 years. In Thailand, as many as 30,000
Burmese women are engaged in prostitution, with 50-70 percent of them
being HIV positive. Children are often the target of international
traffickers. Of the 2.3 million women engaged in prostitution in India,
25 percent are minors. Local laws against forced servitude and
prostitution often are not enforced, leaving victims little recourse
against their captors.
These figures are but a glimpse into the real-life stories of human
beings around the world forced into slavery and prostitution. These
women and children lose everything in the process--their family, their
dignity, and their hope. While I do not wish to expound beyond these
capable witnesses into the actual details of the atrocities, I am sure
we will all be moved by their troubling tales.
The fact that this type of activity is found in the United States
is especially appalling. As the leading industrialized nation, founded
on principles of freedom and justice, it is almost unbelievable that
trafficking occurs here--however, it does. The United States must take
the lead and work to eradicate this terrible scourge.
When Thomas Jefferson wrote those enduring words, that ``all . . .
are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit
of Happiness,'' he spoke, not just of Americans, or the wealthy, or the
prominent, but of every person on this earth, regardless of sex, race,
religion, or location. Here in the United States we have made
tremendous strides toward equality and respect for all people. However,
our success does not condone our complacency. We must remain diligent
in our quest for international acceptance of our founding principles.
We must strive to see that every man, woman, and child be afforded
the opportunity to live in a world of freedom. President Ronald Reagan,
and other cold war warriors, fought diligently to see peace, democracy,
and freedom throughout the world. We have achieved a small part of
their vision, and the protection of women and children throughout the
world who are tortured and de-humanized through international human
trafficking is another step closer to that vision.
Thank you again for your testimony and I look forward to passage of
legislation to effectively confront this problem.
Senator Brownback. Thank you, Senator Wellstone. And I,
too, believe that we will be able to pass this bipartisan
legislation. And yes, they may not be millionaires here, those
advocates, but they will have riches other places.
Mr. Yeomans, thank you very much for joining. He is Chief
of Staff for the Civil Rights Division of the Department of
Justice. We appreciate you coming in front of us today. The
floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF WILLIAM R. YEOMANS, CHIEF OF STAFF, CIVIL RIGHTS
DIVISION, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Yeomans. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman and Senator Wellstone, I thank you for the
opportunity to appear today to present testimony on the subject
of trafficking in human beings. It is profoundly troubling that
it is necessary to have this hearing as we move into the new
millennium, but it is necessary. While we discuss this problem
using such terms as ``trafficking'' and ``forced labor,'' we
should make no mistake about it: we are talking about slavery,
slavery in its modern manifestations.
While some of the schemes and practices employed reflect
the sophistication of the modern world, others are as basic and
barbaric as the trade that brought African-Americans to this
continent. Regardless of how sophisticated or simple
trafficking enterprises may be, at bottom, they all deny the
essential humanity of the victims and turn them into objects
for profit.
It is extremely difficult to produce reliable estimates on
the number of victims subjected to trafficking each year.
Recent estimates have ranged from 50,000 to 100,000 people
brought in each year to this country in some condition of
exploitation. And it appears that the number is growing. The
explanation lies in several factors, I think.
First, economic dislocation, particularly the lack of
economic opportunity for women in so many societies, the
increased porousness of borders, the ease of transportation and
of international communication, and the fact that, until now,
trafficking has been a fairly high-profit and low-risk
enterprise.
The Justice Department is working to combat this problem.
In 1995, we discovered that more than 70 Thai women and men had
been smuggled into the United States and held captive in El
Monte, California, for up to 7 years. The workers were held in
a guarded compound and forced to work in a sweatshop
environment. The operation was one of the most egregious cases
of worker exploitation in the history of this country. The U.S.
Attorney's Office in Los Angeles and the Civil Rights Division
successfully prosecuted the sweatshop owners for violations of
involuntary servitude, conspiracy and immigration laws.
In 1997, we learned that dozens of hearing-impaired Mexican
nationals were enslaved and forced to peddle trinkets on the
streets of New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. Their captors
held them through beatings, physical restraint and torture.
This case shocked the conscience of the Nation because the
victims were exploited not only because of their poverty and
their immigration status, but also because of their disability.
Eighteen defendants eventually pled guilty to slavery
conspiracy charges, as well as immigration, money laundering
and obstruction of justice offenses.
In 1998, concerned that these cases suggested a bigger
problem, the Department of Justice took the lead in forming the
Worker Exploitation Task Force. This task force is co-chaired
by the Acting Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Bill
Lann Lee, and the Solicitor of Labor, Henry Solano.
This effort has brought a range of investigative and
prosecutorial agencies to the table. Justice Department
components include the Civil Rights Division, the Criminal
Division, the FBI, INS, the U.S. Attorneys, the Office for
Victims of Crime, and the Violence Against Women Office. Our
outside partners include the Departments of Labor, State and
Agriculture, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
We are convinced that by pooling information, expertise and
resources, and using all of the legal authority available to
these agencies, we can make a difference.
What has the task force accomplished?
First, we brought additional prosecutions. Last year, we
obtained seven guilty pleas in a case in which Mexican girls
and women, some as young as 14, were lured into the United
States by the promise of legitimate jobs, and forced to work as
prostitutes and sex slaves in brothels frequented by migrant
laborers in Florida and the Carolinas. The victims were forced
to engage in sexual acts with as many as 130 men a week. They
were beaten and assaulted, and some were forced to have
abortions when they became pregnant.
We also secured guilty pleas last year from three
defendants in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands,
who were indicted for luring unsuspecting women from China to
the CNMI, with false promises of good jobs, only to enslave
them in a karaoke bar brothel, and force them to submit to
prostitution.
In addition, to prosecute these and other cases, the Worker
Exploitation Task Force has set up 15 regional task forces.
Each one has points of contact from local U.S. Attorneys
Offices, the INS, the FBI, and the Department of Labor, and we
are reaching out to State and local law enforcement agencies.
The regional task force approach has allowed investigators and
prosecutors to share information and coordinate their efforts.
We have also tried to increase public awareness of worker
exploitation. We have set up a worker exploitation complaint
line. And since the complaint line phone number was publicized
in Parade Magazine just 6 weeks ago, we have received over 250
calls. And based on those calls, we have opened another 20
investigations. And we have also referred a number of
complaints to other agencies for processing.
Despite these services, the task force has also highlighted
the shortcomings in our ability to combat trafficking and
worker exploitation. We need legislation that will strengthen
the prosecutorial tools available to law enforcement.
First, current law permits prosecution of traffickers only
in limited situations, such as when the victim is being
trafficked for the purpose of the sex trade. We must
criminalize a broader range of trafficking. We must reach
individuals trafficked into domestic servitude, migrant labor
or sweatshop labor, as well as prostitution.
Second, we must create the tools to prosecute those who
knowingly profit from the forced labor of persons held in
unlawfully exploited labor conditions. Present criminal law
does not reach, for example, farm labor contractors and other
types of employment relationships that provide a liability
shield between the direct oppressor and the economic
beneficiary of the slave labor.
Third, we need to expand the types of coercion that can be
used to demonstrate involuntary servitude under Federal law.
One of the biggest enforcement hurdles that we face is the
requirement of Federal law that we show that the defendant used
actual force, threat of force or illegal coercion to enslave
the victim. As a result, Federal law enforcement cannot reach
those who use more subtle, but no less heinous, forms of
coercion that wrongfully hold victims in bondage.
A prime example of this is the situation in U.S. against
Kozminski, the case in which the Supreme Court announced this
narrow interpretation of Federal law. In that case, a couple in
Michigan had picked up two retarded men along the road and
taken them back to their farm, where they were held and made to
work for years. They were kept in a barn. They were fed rancid
food. And they were convinced, through psychological coercion,
that they had no alternative but to stay at that farm and work.
Yet the Supreme Court held that, absent the use of physical
force or illegal coercion, Federal law did not reach this
situation.
In order to prosecute cases like this, we have to expand
the definition of ``coercion'' to cover situations that fall
short of force or threat of force, but in which the victim has
no valid alternative but to submit to a condition of servitude.
In particular, the law has to acknowledge that some immigrants
and foreign nationals upon whom traffickers prey are
particularly susceptible to coercion because of their
unfamiliarity with our language, laws and customs.
Fourth, we must increase the statutory penalties for
violations of involuntary servitude, peonage and related laws,
from the current 10 years, to 20 years. These penalties have to
be made commensurate with the severity of these crimes.
And finally, we need to support the creation of a new,
nonimmigrant classification, a T visa, that would be available
to victims of trafficking. Too often, law enforcement
authorities are hampered in their ability to combat trafficking
by the reluctance of victims to come forward for fear of
deportation or other adverse immigration consequences. This new
category would strengthen the ability of law enforcement to
detect, investigate and prosecute trafficking offenses while
simultaneously offering a temporary safe haven to victims.
In conclusion, the Department of Justice has recognized the
need to devote more effort and resources to combatting
trafficking. The efforts of the Worker Exploitation Task Force,
however, have demonstrated that we need stronger laws to
prosecute traffickers. Gaps in Federal law make it impossible
to prosecute some truly reprehensible forms of abuse. Those
gaps should be filled.
I would be pleased to answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Yeomans follows:]
Prepared Statement of William R. Yeomans
i. introduction
Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify today on the problem of trafficking in human
beings. This is a growing problem in the United States and around the
world, and there is a great need for legislation to provide additional
measures with which to prosecute traffickers and provide assistance to
victims. Strengthened enforcement and prosecution against traffickers
is crucial as trafficking is growing, in part, because it remains a
high-profit, relatively low-risk criminal enterprise. I commend you and
the subcommittee for conducting hearings on this important issue.
Several weeks ago you heard from State Department officials about
the extent of the trafficking problem in this country and abroad. Today
I would like to discuss why the Department of Justice feels so strongly
about the need for additional tools to prosecute traffickers.
ii. current prosecution efforts
Exploitation takes many forms. Typical fact patterns include women
who are kidnaped into prostitution, are forced into prostitution to
repay a smuggling fee, or are otherwise transported for purposes of
prostitution; migrant agricultural workers who are smuggled into the
United States for a fee and then forced to work until they have repaid
their crew leaders; and domestic servants who are not allowed to leave
their employers' home or service. Let me give you specific examples.
In 1995, state, local and Federal authorities discovered that more
than 70 Thai women and men had been smuggled into the U.S. and enslaved
in El Monte, California for up to 7 years. The workers were held in a
guarded compound and forced to work in a sweatshop environment. At the
time, the operation was one of the most egregious cases of worker
exploitation identified in modern U.S. history. The U.S. Attorney's
Office in Los Angeles and the Civil Rights Division successfully
prosecuted the sweatshop owners for violations of involuntary
servitude, conspiracy, and immigration laws.
In 1997, we learned that dozens of hearing-impaired Mexican
Nationals were enslaved and forced to peddle trinkets on the streets of
New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. They were kept under their captors'
control through beatings, physical restraint, and torture. This case
shocked the conscience of the Nation because the victims were exploited
not simply because of their poverty and immigration status, but also
because of their disability. Eighteen defendants eventually pled guilty
to slavery conspiracy charges, as well as immigration, money
laundering, and obstruction of justice offenses.
Sadly, just as the so-called ``Deaf Mexican'' case was being
resolved in 1998, we learned about another tragic situation. Mexican
girls and women, some as young as 14 years old, were being lured into
the United States and forced to work as prostitutes and sexual slaves
in brothels in Florida and the Carolinas. The women and girls were
forced to engage in sexual acts with as many as 130 men a week. They
were beaten and assaulted, and some were forced to have abortions when
they became pregnant. We prosecuted the case and obtained seven guilty
pleas.
We also secured guilty pleas last year from three defendants in the
Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands who were indicted for
luring unsuspecting women from China to the CNMI with false promises of
good jobs, only to enslave them in a karaoke bar brothel and force them
to submit to prostitution.
Because of the prevalence of such trafficking and worker
exploitation, in April 1998, Attorney General Reno created an
interagency task force to ensure that the Federal Government's efforts
to combat and deter such heinous acts are better coordinated. The
Worker Exploitation Task Force is co-chaired by the Acting Assistant
Attorney General for Civil Rights, Bill Lann Lee, and the Solicitor of
Labor, Henry Solano. This effort has brought many different
investigative and prosecutorial agencies to the table. Justice
Department components include the Civil Rights and Criminal Divisions,
the FBI, the INS, United States Attorneys, the Office for Victims of
Crime, and the Violence Against Women Office. Other partners include
the Departments of Labor, State, and Agriculture, and the Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission.
But there is not only a need for better coordination, there is a
need for more effective tools for law enforcement as well.
iii. strengthening justice department enforcement efforts
We need legislation, such as S. 1842, introduced by Senator
Wellstone, that builds upon the existing legal framework to further
strengthen the prosecutorial tools available to law enforcement. There
are several crucial statutory revisions in the area of trafficking,
involuntary servitude, and criminal exploitation of workers that must
be addressed.
First, current law permits prosecutions only in limited situations.
We must change our laws to criminalize a much broader range of
circumstances in which victims are subjected to involuntary servitude,
peonage, and unlawfully exploitative labor conditions that the United
States and the international community confront. In the United States,
many of these cases will involve women trafficked into prostitution,
but other cases may include coerced domestic servitude, migrant labor,
or sweatshop labor. Penalties for violation should be commensurate with
the severity of the crime: fines and/or imprisonment of up to 20 years,
and life imprisonment if death results or if the violation includes
kidnaping, an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse, the attempt
to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill.
Second, we must create the ability to prosecute those who knowingly
profit from forced labor of those persons held in involuntary
servitude, peonage, or unlawfully exploitative labor conditions.
Present criminal law does not cover the use of farm labor contractors
and other types of employment relationships which provide a liability
shield between the direct oppressor and the economic beneficiary of the
slave labor. In order to combat criminal worker exploitation, it is
necessary to punish those who knowingly benefit or profit from slavery
or use contractors, intermediaries, and others to do their bidding.
Without such a statutory tool, these knowing beneficiaries will simply
continue the cycle of criminality by hiring replacements for those who
are apprehended and prosecuted. Moreover, through this legislation, law
enforcement can prosecute those who transport others using fraud,
deceit, and misrepresentation, providing the victim with no viable
alternative but to perform the labor or services.
Third, we must expand the types of coercion that can be used to
demonstrate involuntary servitude and peonage under Federal law. One of
the biggest enforcement hurdles we face is that the U.S. Supreme Court
requires a showing that the defendant used actual force, threat of
force, or threat of legal coercion to enslave the victim. As a result,
Federal law suffers from gaps in coverage. Law enforcement cannot reach
and prosecute those who intentionally use more subtle, but no less
heinous, forms of coercion that wrongfully keep the victim from leaving
his or her labor or service.
For example, the Justice Department investigated a case in the
Midwest where a woman was hired as a domestic helper. Upon her arrival,
her passport was taken. She was forced to work 16 hours a day, 7 days a
week, and she was given only small rations of food. When she
complained, her employer threatened to have her deported. They told her
that if she ever left the house unescorted, they would call the police
and have her put in jail. But despite this exploitation and cruel
treatment, it is unlikely that we can prosecute this case because
psychological and economic coercion was the method used to keep the
victim trapped in a condition of involuntary servitude.
To prosecute cases like this, we must statutorily expand the U.S.
Supreme Court's definition of coercion by creating two additional
methods of proof to use in those situations which fall short of force
or threat of force but which are nonetheless deliberately coercive: (1)
where representations are made to any person that physical harm may
occur to that person, or to another, in an effort to wrongfully obtain
or maintain the labor or services of that person; and (2) where the use
of fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation toward any person exists in an
effort to wrongfully obtain or maintain the labor or services of that
person, where the person is a minor, mentally disabled, or otherwise
susceptible to coercion. Some immigrants and foreign nationals whom
traffickers deliberately select and prey upon are particularly
susceptible to coercion because of their unfamiliarity with our
language, laws, and customs.
Fourth, we must amend Title 18 to increase the statutory penalties
for violations of involuntary servitude, peonage, and related laws from
10 years imprisonment to 20 years. In addition, Congress should provide
for a maximum sentence of up to life imprisonment if such acts include
kidnaping, an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse, an attempt to
commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, thereby bringing
the potential penalties for these crimes in line with those applicable
to related criminal offenses. In addition, attempts to violate criminal
worker exploitation laws must be punishable in the same manner as a
completed violation of those sections. These more stringent penalties
better reflect the severity of the crimes, bring the maximum penalties
in line with current law, and increase the potential deterrent effect
to traffickers.
Fifth, we must amend Title 18 to address the sadly common scenario
where traffickers strip a trafficking victim of his/her identification
documents, passport, and immigration papers as a means of control and
coercion. In addition, we believe fines and/or imprisonment of up to 5
years for persons who contribute to the trafficking scheme by
confiscating any type of identification documentation must be imposed.
Sixth, we support the creation of a new nonimmigrant
classification--a ``T visa''--that would be available to victims of
trafficking. Too often, law enforcement authorities are hampered in
their ability to combat trafficking by the reluctance of victims to
come forward for fear of deportation or other adverse immigration
consequences. This new category would serve the twofold purpose of
strengthening the ability of law enforcement to detect, investigate,
and prosecute trafficking offenses while simultaneously offering a
temporary safe haven to victims, in keeping with the humanitarian
interests of the United States. Current law is insufficient to deal
with trafficking cases because it fails to address situations involving
multiple victims and egregious civil offenses, such as many labor law
violations. Up to 1,000 visas would be available each year, renewable
for up to 3 years, with the possibility for adjustment to permanent
legal status where justified on humanitarian grounds or is otherwise in
the national interest.
In addition, the Justice Department strongly supports provisions
creating a grant program specifically targeted to the provision of
services for victims of trafficking.
iv. conclusion
In conclusion, there are several statutory provisions that are
needed to strengthen the ability of law enforcement to prosecute
traffickers. We must enhance consistency in the criminal code by
bringing punishments in this area in line with those provided by other
Federal statutes. While a trafficker may violate U.S. law in some
instances through the commission of illicit activities, gaps in
coverage currently exist which make it impossible to prosecute certain
reprehensible forms of abuse. Those gaps must be filled so that law
enforcement can most effectively attack traffickers through coordinated
investigation and prosecution that invoke the full force of these laws.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today and I would be pleased
to answer any questions.
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much, Mr. Yeomans, for
your testimony and for your work within the administration on
this.
I have some questions. I want to run the clock at 10
minutes, and maybe that would remind Paul and I, back and
forth, that we have two other panels here to go to, as well.
Mr. Yeomans, I appreciated all the comments you made on
what you were seeking on additional legislative authority. I
want to go right at a particular issue, though, that you raised
within this. You talked about needing authority to broaden what
coercion is and to broaden that definition. You gave one
example of the coercion that you are talking about. Are there
other examples of what you are talking about? We want to build
a legislative record about what we mean about coercion. What
else would you identify as coercion that you would be talking
about here?
Mr. Yeomans. Well, I think, from looking at our cases, we
can pick out a number of kinds of coercion. Unfortunately, a
typical situation is that women are brought into this country
with false documents, or smuggled in. If they have
documentation when they arrive, it is taken away from them. So
they are left adrift in society.
Frequently they are charged the cost of their
transportation for being brought into the country, and they are
told that they have to work in prostitution or in some other
form of labor to pay off their debt. And they are given no
choices. Frequently they are told that if they do not, they
will suffer consequences, whether legal or otherwise.
Frequently the people who are brought into this country have
very little knowledge of our society and of our customs, and
they are told that, for instance, if they go outside the house,
they will be set upon by horrible people.
So these are the kinds of deception that really give the
victim no sense of an alternative to staying put and doing the
work that they are being told to do. We have also had
situations where the use of physical force is really
unnecessary. For instance, when people are brought in from
societies with a caste system, and when lower-class people are
used to accepting orders and they will accept those orders,
under conditions that simply would not be tolerated in this
country. So there are a number of ways that coercion can be
brought to bear short of an actual direct threat of force.
Senator Brownback. I would invite you, for our record,
after this hearing is over, to submit to us a number of
different examples of the coercion. Because I want to build
into that record, here are all the types of coercion, or some
of the types--this would not be an exclusive list, but of a
coercion that we are talking about.
Because what my experience has been in talking with women
that have been forced into these circumstances is that much of
it is trickery. And then, once tricked across the border, you
are captured. Because you have papers, and then those papers
are taken from you. So you went by trick, and then you are
captured because of documentation loss or feeling of a lack of
any sort of power or ability. That all is a form of coercion.
And I would hope that we could get that down with some clarity.
I presume the administration has been able to infiltrate
some of the rings that are operating now in this sex
trafficking or in labor trafficking. How are you finding that
they operate, particularly in bringing people into this
country? Are there certain areas that they are bringing people
from, certain countries, into the United States? And how do
these rings operate?
Senator Wellstone. Excuse me. Can you add to that, when you
are answering it, sort of which countries you might view as the
worst offender countries? Maybe we could get some sense of
that.
Mr. Yeomans. I think I can answer that with a couple of
recent examples from our prosecutions. Just this past year we
prosecuted a case in Florida that I mentioned in my testimony,
where women were brought in from Mexico.
Senator Brownback. Was this done by a ring, an organized
ring?
Mr. Yeomans. We ended up prosecuting 16 defendants, who
constituted a ring. They brought women across the border,
frequently using coyotes to smuggle them across the border. And
they were lured with promises of legitimate jobs. They were
told that when they reached the United States they would have
restaurant jobs or agricultural jobs or work as domestic
servants.
When they arrived in the country they were basically
imprisoned and forced to work as prostitutes. And they were
held in brothels that served migrant laborers. And they were
moved, along with migrant laborers to different migrant labor
camps, to give the migrant laborers variety. So that is one
example of the way people come in. And certainly Mexico is one
of the principal source countries for this kind of activity.
In another recent case, another one I mentioned in the
CNMI, women were brought in from China. And we have seen a
number of people brought in from China. Again, they were
brought with the promise of legitimate jobs, this time working
in a restaurant. And when they arrived, again, they were forced
into prostitution. Their documentation was taken away. They
were of course afraid to come to the authorities because they
were there unlawfully. And they were forced to serve as
prostitutes.
Another example is the El Monte case, from 1995, that I
mentioned, where scores of workers were brought in from
Thailand to work in sweatshops in California. So I think that,
generalizing from our prosecutions, we have seen Mexico and
Latin America, China and Southeast Asia as very significant
areas.
Senator Brownback. Mr. Yeomans, I presume the
administration will be strongly supportive of legislation
moving through the Congress to put forward the sort of
legislative vehicles and prosecution tools that are needed for
us to use. I would note that the administration is adverse to
naming countries which flagrantly accommodate trafficking.
Now, I would be curious as to your rationale on this.
Because from what we have heard of previous testimony, when I
visited with some people, there are certain countries that seem
to have more trafficking flowing from than other countries,
some who seem to be more interested in this topic than other
countries. Why do you choose not to name countries or propose
any sort of tools to use from the United States as a country
against a country where the trafficking might occur from?
Mr. Yeomans. Well, the administration, of course, has
opposed sanctions. The rationale is that, at least from the
perspective of the Department of Justice, is that if we are to
root out this problem, one of the most effective things for us
to do is to form close working relationships with law
enforcement agencies in the countries from which people come,
from which the trafficked human beings come.
And as soon as we impose sanctions or as soon as we try to
make an international pariah out of one of these countries,
that kind of cooperation tends to shut down. And it is a
difficult balance. But it is our calculation that we will make
more progress by working closely with law enforcement in those
countries than we will by imposing sanctions and shutting down
that cooperation.
Senator Brownback. Mr. Yeomans, thank you for being here
today. And let me just say as I conclude, I hope the
administration will make this one of their top foreign policy
priorities, if not one of their top total legislative
priorities during this Congress. There is companion-type
legislation--I know people disagree on the elements within it--
that is moving forward in the House. We hope to put that
forward here. And we would hope the administration would lean
in aggressively to help us pass this legislation this year.
Mr. Yeomans. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Brownback. Senator Wellstone.
Senator Wellstone. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will try to
be relatively brief, because I know we have other panels and we
want to hear from everyone.
Mr. Yeomans, actually, as I was listening to Senator
Brownback, one of the things that we have been focusing on in
negotiation with the administration--and I certainly know there
is strong support, Secretary Harold Koh has just been very
focused on this and I think he has given both of us very good
advice, and others as well, but let me ask you this: On the
naming of countries, it would seem to me that what we could do
is--the administration is right that in some cases it is not
the governments of a country that are really responsible--but
what I think, since it is going to be key that those
governments cooperate, you just set up a threshold, and say,
look, this is the test that needs to be set to show, Sam, that
these governments are in fact working with us.
If they do not meet the threshold, then they are named. If
they meet the threshold, then it is different. But I think we
do need to have some way of really providing, if you will, the
incentive for these governments to cooperate.
Senator Brownback. Would you respond to that very point on
naming--not about sanctioning, but about naming--the countries?
Do you mind if I jump in on that?
Senator Wellstone. Not at all. We are working together, are
we not? You can jump in.
Mr. Yeomans. I think my reasoning on that is the same as it
would be on sanctions. While obviously we want to identify
where the problems are, our approach is to try to solve those
problems and to try to get at those problems through law
enforcement and through working with the people who are in
those countries, and we hope the governments of those
countries, to try to do something about the problem.
And it is very difficult for us simply to catch it on this
end. We need to be able to reach back to those countries. We
have a number of instances where we have prosecuted people who
have fled and gone back to these countries. And we need their
cooperation very much. So I think that we are very reluctant to
name countries or work to impose sanctions.
Senator Wellstone. Well, I do not want to argue with you
today. I appreciate your being here. But I think Senator
Brownback and I may be fairly firm on this, and I think there
comes a point, there is a standard of reasonableness where you
do ask those governments to meet a threshold test to whether
they are cooperating or not. And it seems to me that it is
appropriate to name those countries that are unwilling to do
so. There may be no need to if those governments are
cooperating.
I think in the legislation that we are considering working
on, there are sort of the three ``P's.'' And you have talked
about two of them and I want to ask you about one. One is
preventing trafficking. One is prosecuting traffickers, and you
talked about that. And one is protecting the human rights of
trafficked persons. And I agree with you about that, as well.
But the irony right now is people are worried about being
deported. They are scared to death, people cannot defend
themselves, and we have got to change that.
On the goal of preventing trafficking, what do you
recommend there? What do we need to be looking at?
Mr. Yeomans. Of course, I confess that I approach this from
the perspective of a Department of Justice prosecutor.
Senator Wellstone. I understand.
Mr. Yeomans. And I believe strongly that prosecution
contributes greatly to prevention. And as I said in my opening
statement, for a long time now, trafficking in human beings has
been a fairly low-risk, high-profit activity. And we need to
change that. We need to make people who are engaging in
trafficking pay. And we need to make them think that they are
likely to get caught. So that is something that we can do on
this end.
Obviously the ultimate solution to all of this is providing
economic opportunities. Because people who have economic
activities are going to be less susceptible to the kinds of
deceit, the kinds of fraud that get them into these situations.
So I think those are my two answers.
Senator Wellstone. I appreciate that. I, too, have met with
the women who have gone through this living hell. And no matter
what the country is, I think it is the same story. Which is
people come here from countries that are devastated by war or
economic chaos and people come here for opportunities. And I
think you are right.
Maybe this is putting you on the spot, I do not know, but I
want to come back to the whole issue of the worst-case
trafficking offenders. Is this maybe what you do not want to
name? Maybe this is the question that we were disagreeing on.
Is that the problem? I would be interested in some of the
countries that you view as the worst-case offenders.
Mr. Yeomans. And I think my answer really took me to the
extent of my knowledge.
Senator Wellstone. You gave some examples, OK.
Mr. Yeomans. Which is that, based on our prosecutions,
those are the countries that we have found to be contributing.
Senator Wellstone. Let me ask you then something different.
On the 50,000, or thereabouts, women and children, that does
not include men; is that correct?
Mr. Yeomans. As I said, the estimates are soft, but one
estimate certainly is that it is 50,000 women and children, not
including men.
Senator Wellstone. So if we were to include men, like the
ones that were trafficked to the Northern Mariana Islands or
the deaf Mexican case, which goes into agriculture or whatever
it is, has anyone collected the data to determine the numbers
of men who are trafficked to the United States?
Mr. Yeomans. I have not seen a separate number for men. The
difficulty in collecting these data is obvious, because the
victims simply are invisible for the most part and are forced
to remain that way.
Senator Wellstone. One quick recommendation I would just
mention is it would seem to me that this interagency
subcommittee--FBI, CIA and others--that is one of the things
they could do, in addition to collecting the data on women and
children, the men that are in these situations. I just would
point that out.
I think your testimony was very helpful. I thank you for
being here. I appreciate the work that you do, as well.
Mr. Yeomans. Thank you very much, Senator.
Senator Brownback. Thank you, Mr. Yeomans. And we look
forward to working with the administration to pass this
legislation this year. We will solicit your input and your
cooperation in working with us, as well, because we will need
every bit of it to get it on through.
Mr. Yeomans. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I hope we can get it
done.
Senator Brownback. Thank you.
The next panel we will call forward will be introduced by
Dr. Laura Lederer. Dr. Lederer, who I mentioned in my opening
statement, is the director of the Protection Project at Harvard
University. She has worked extensively and tirelessly on
determining and mapping the paths that traffickers are taking
in moving primarily women and children internationally. She
will be actually introducing the panel.
I would reiterate yet again to anybody with a camera in the
audience, if you would not photograph the women that will be
testifying. And the television cameras we have asked previously
to shoot below their faces so that the women would not be
endangered back home. They have come here at great personal
risk themselves. I appreciate their bravery and their courage
in coming here.
Dr. Lederer, again, Senator Wellstone and I and millions of
people around the world are grateful to you and your work and
the other organizations that have done so much to bring this
issue out into the open and hopefully shine some light that we
can start to solving this issue that has been in front of us
now that has either been ignored or not really particularly
paid much attention to at all.
Thank you for the work here that you have done and thank
you for bringing this panel together so that we could hear
directly from people that are involved in it.
Dr. Lederer.
STATEMENT OF LAURA J. LEDERER, PH.D., DIRECTOR, THE PROTECTION
PROJECT, THE KENNEDY SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT AT HARVARD
UNIVERSITY; ACCOMPANIED BY: SURVIVOR, MARSHA, RUSSIA; SURVIVOR
OLGA, UKRAINE; AND SURVIVOR MARIA, MEXICO
Dr. Lederer. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thank
you so much for the opportunity to bring trafficking survivors
to this hearing. I am Laura Lederer, director of the Protection
Project of the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard
University.
For the last 4 years, we have been gathering the laws
addressing commercial sexual exploitation of women and children
from 220 countries and territories around the world. The
purpose of the project is to create a data base that will house
the laws, statistics on the scope of the problem, trafficking
routes, legal cases and survivors' stories. The preliminary
data base will be complete in a couple of months and will be
available to policymakers, human rights advocates, legal
scholars, students, and others working to stop trafficking.
I am very pleased to be here today to introduce to you
three young women who have come a long way to tell their
stories. They come here in the hope that, in speaking, they can
prevent what happened to them from happening to other young
women and girls, for their stories, sadly, are being repeated
by the hundreds of thousands in countries around the world.
In fact, we found at the Protection Project that almost
every country in the world has a trafficking problem of one
sort or another. The United States, a receiver country, has as
much a problem as Russia, a sender country. Recognition of this
problem is now largely due to an extraordinary coalition of
faith-based, women's and children's groups. For those of us who
have been working in this field for over 20 years, it is really
thrilling to see the progress that is being made in this matter
to bring it to national attention since the powerful commitment
of church groups, such as the Southern Baptist Conference, the
National Association of Evangelicals, Prison Fellowship, and
others.
As John Busby, National Commander of the Salvation Army,
reminds us, they are simply keeping faith with their own
religious traditions when, centuries ago, they worked to stop
another kind of slavery.
I also want to recognize Rabbi David Saperstein, of the
Religious Action Council for Reform Judaism, and Jay Lintner,
of the National Council of Churches, who have joined together
with Jessica Neuwirth and Gloria Steinem, of Equality NOW;
Gloria Feldt, of Planned Parenthood; Ellie Smeal, of Feminist
Majority, and a number of other women's organizations who have
been working tirelessly to stop trafficking of women and
children.
And, finally, we have a wonderful partnership with the U.S.
Fund for UNICEF, ECPAC and several other children's groups.
This extraordinary coalition is determined that America will
play the same role in stopping this new form of slavery as
Britain did years ago, stopping African slavery.
There have also been a number of individuals and
organizations who helped me bring the survivors, and I need to
recognize them now. In the United States, Equality NOW made the
first contacts abroad. And, through them, we located Olga and
Marsha. In Russia, the American Bar Association, Central and
Eastern European Law Initiative, served as the central
clearinghouse for weeks as we brought the young women from
various corners of the country.
I want to also thank Mariam Bell, Lisa Thompson, J. Robert
Flores and Michael Horowitz, who have played a tremendous role
behind the scenes. Thanks also to my staff and students, Ciara
Wade and to Sharon Payt of Senator Brownback's office, for all
your very hard work. All of these people worked to make it
possible for you now to hear the firsthand stories of these
trafficking survivors.
So we have here today with us Marsha, Olga and Maria, who
are going to share their stories. And in addition, we are going
to read into the record for the first time the story of Rosa,
who was the child who was trafficked as part of the Cadena
ring. Together, these stories provide a powerful impetus for us
here in the United States to act.
We are the ones who can help young women and children who
have been trafficked. We can draw attention to their plight. We
can create the prevention programs and the aftercare
facilities. And we can help to arrest and prosecute those
responsible. Together, we can stop the traffickers for good.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Lederer follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Laura J. Lederer
Each year by force and fraud as many as a million women and
children are trafficked into sexual slavery in countries around the
world. Sex trafficking is the movement of women and children, for
purposes of prostitution or some other form of sexual servitude or sex
slavery. It includes the recruitment, transportation, harboring,
transfer, or sale of human beings. Most sex trafficking includes some
form of coercion--such as kidnapping, threats, intimidation, assault,
rape, drugging, or other form of violence.
It is difficult to estimate the total numbers of women and children
worldwide because it is a criminal activity and usually takes place
underground. However, UNICEF has estimated that 1 million children are
trafficked into prostitution per year in southeast.
While media attention has focused on a few countries in Eastern
Europe and in Southeast Asia, we believe that almost every country has
a problem with sexual trafficking. Some countries, mainly the poorer
and developing countries are ``sender'' countries--women and children
are being trafficked across their borders to other countries. Some
countries, mainly the wealthier, more developed countries, are
``receiver'' countries. Some countries are ``transit'' countries--they
have ports, or pass-throughs, along the trafficking routes moving human
beings from one place to another.
Most women and children are tricked, deceived, and lured into being
trafficked. Some are actually forced--through threats, kidnapping or
violence. Each story is different, depending on the circumstances.
The best solutions will address what we call the ``three Ps''--
prevention, prosecution, and protection. On the front end, educational
outreach to women and children, to men who care and to countries
themselves, needs to be undertaken. This outreach would teach young
women what to watch for, and how not to be taken in by a trafficker or
agent. It would also teach men and boys not to frequent brothels or
solicit sex for money in their own countries or abroad, for as long as
men do this there will be a demand for young women and traffickers will
move in to supply that demand. Finally, it would educate countries as
to how to draft, pass and enforce strict laws prohibiting trafficking
of women and children for purposes of prostitution.
Dr. Lederer. I would like to start with Marsha's story.
Senator Brownback, what they are going to do is read their
first paragraph in Russian, and then the rest will be in
English.
Senator Brownback. Wonderful.
Marsha [through interpreter]. Mr. Chairman, my name is
Marsha, and I am from southern Russia.
In 1996, when I was 24, I visited St. Petersburg. I was
preparing to return home to my village and waiting at the train
station when a woman approached me. She started talking to me
about life's problems, encouraging me to share mine with her.
We had a nice talk, and the woman suggested that she could help
me get work somewhere abroad. She told me that she had an
acquaintance in Germany, a woman, who could contact me with a
family for whom I could work as a housemaid.
I was issued a tourist visa to Spain, and left on a bus
tour of Europe in February 1997. I was supposed to get off the
bus in Germany. There I was met by a woman named Jana, who had
a flat in Hamburg. She took me to an apartment there, where I
met about 20 other girls who had come from Russia and Poland.
Most of them were younger than I.
After a few days, Jana told me she could not find a family
who would hire me as a housemaid. She said I owed her 2,000
German marks, which is approximately 1,000 U.S. dollars, and
said that I could earn that money by providing sexual services
to men. I was shocked. I was afraid to say no, because she had
my passport, and I did not know any German. She and her
husband, who was a drug dealer, threatened to beat me if I
tried to leave, and said that if I went to the police, I would
be deported. They said no one would care what happened to me
and that no one would help.
Girls who would not cooperate were taken down to the
basement of the bar, where they were beaten across their backs,
where it would not show but it would still be painful and
possibly would cause kidney damage. I was afraid they would use
drugs and alcohol to force me to prostitute myself. I had seen
other girls given cocaine and beaten into submission. Jana
tried to tell me that it did not happen, but her husband
threatened that I would suffer this fate if I did not go along
with them.
Downstairs from our apartment there was a bar where we were
told to find clients for sex. I tried not to attract attention
by dressing modestly and sitting by myself. The girls who had
come to Germany knowing they would be prostitutes were
regularly beaten. Our passports were kept behind the bar, but
we were afraid to take them because big, burly guards watched
us all the time. The bar had surveillance cameras covering the
bar and the road so that they could see clients or police
coming.
I was kept there for 2 months and never made much money. I
only had a tourist visa, good for 1 month. But Jana told me she
could prepare documents that would say I was married to a
German man. She would do this if I would stay longer and work
for her. I refused, and so she sold me to a Greek pimp who was
operating in Germany.
Shortly after that, the police raided the bar and I was
taken, along with the other girls, to the station. I was not
given a chance to explain what had happened to me, that I never
wanted to be there, that I had been tricked, threatened and
intimidated into staying. Instead, I was charged with
prostitution and held in a jail cell. I was issued an order to
leave Germany or face deportation.
The Greek pimp gave me money for a ticket back to Russia.
Some would say that he took pity on me. But, in reality, this
helped him avoid being arrested and charged with pimping. He
was never charged, and the German police never attempted to do
anything about the network of people who had trafficked me,
from the women who recruited me to the agent who got me the
visa to the Russian woman pimp and her husband.
Olga [through interpreter]. Mr. Chairman, my name is Olga.
I am from Siberia, in Russia.
In December 1998, a female acquaintance of mine returned
from a trip to Israel with a lot of money. She told me that she
had worked as a housemaid, she had worked in shops and in bars,
and that I could also get a job. I asked her how she found work
without knowing the language. She told me that there were many
Russian immigrants in Israel who wanted to hire Russian women
so that their children would not forget their heritage and
their native tongue.
I had no money for a ticket to Israel, but the woman told
me not to worry, I will buy your ticket, you will make so much
money that you will be able to pay me back in no time. I
decided to go, and got a travel visa. She went on ahead of me
to Israel, telling me that she would meet me at the airport.
When I arrived, she was waiting with two big, bulky Israeli
men. We went to a small city in Israel, where they showed me
around, introduced me to many people, and they spoke in Hebrew
so that I could not understand. They told me they were people
who might hire me. For a few days, it was as if I was a tourist
just visiting the country. Then the men came back and told me
that they had a job for me, but because I did not have a visa
to work in Israel I would have to give them my passport.
A couple of days later, they returned a passport to me, a
false passport, with my picture but with the name of an Israeli
woman. Then another Israeli man came and my friend told me to
put my things in his car, that he would take care of
everything. He took me to Tel Aviv. He told me then that I had
been sold to him for $10,000 and that I would have to pay him
back. He told me I would have to prostitute myself.
I was angry and infuriated. I screamed and fought every
time he tried to take me from the apartment where I was
staying. Because of this, he separated me from the other
Russian women he owned. Every day I was taken to the brothel
where all the other women were Israeli. I was still resisting,
so I was not making much money for my captor.
He then told me that I had earned only $8,000 of my debt
and that he would find me another job to make the rest of the
money. He promised I would not have to be a prostitute anymore.
He took me to a hotel and told me to wait for my new employer.
Two men came to meet me there. They gave me something to drink
which turned out to be drugged. I lost consciousness.
When I woke up, I was locked in a dark room with no
furniture. I could hear people speaking Arabic, but I could not
understand what they were saying. I tried to escape but the men
caught me quickly and again gave me some drug to take, to calm
me down. They told me to just sit down and that if I behaved
well, everything would be OK.
A Russian-speaking Arab told that I had been kidnapped and
was in Palestine. I began to be very afraid that they would
sell me to a harem in Iraq or someplace worse. The men there
did not tell me what I was to do. I told them that I was
Muslim, hoping that that would provide me with some protection.
Several days later they sold me back to another brothel in
Israel.
I told the brothel owners there that I would never work for
them, so they locked me in an apartment and sent clients into
the apartment anyway. If I refused to work, they would not feed
me. They beat me, but only across the back, near my kidneys, so
it would not hurt my appearance. It was very painful.
I saw only clients who spoke no Russian, so I could not
tell them my story. I was forced to see between 15 to 20
customers a day, and the brothel owners gave me drugs so that I
would continue working.
I began to feel that I was losing my mind, and they gave me
some pills, supposedly to cure my headaches. I found out later
that it was a drug called ecstasy, a drug that makes you relax
and more willing to be intimate. After 3 weeks, I became
dependent, addicted to the pills, and began to ask for them
every day.
I began also to learn some Hebrew from my clients so that I
could explain to them what had happened to me. Unfortunately,
these customers never came back. But, finally, I told a Polish
Jew of my plight and he contacted the police. The brothel was
raided in May 1999, and I was deported back to Russia.
Maria [through interpreter]. Good afternoon. I would like
to thank the Foreign Relations Committee for the opportunity to
speak to you on behalf of trafficking survivors. My name is
Maria. I am in disguise today because I am in fear that my
captors would recognize me and thus place my life and that of
my family in danger.
My story begins in May 1997, in Veracruz, Mexico. I was
approached in Mexico by an acquaintance about some jobs in the
United States. She told me that there were jobs available in
restaurants or bars. I was working as a domestic helper in
Mexico and had a job at a general retail store. This seemed
like a great opportunity for me to earn more money for my
daughter and family. I accepted the job and soon was brought by
a coyote to Texas.
Once over the border, I was kept at a safe house. Then I
was transported to Florida. Once in Florida, one of the
ringleaders told me I would be working in a brothel as a
prostitute. I told him he was mistaken and that I was going to
be working in a restaurant, not a brothel. He then ordered me
to work in a brothel. He said I owed him a smuggling debt of
approximately $2,200, and the sooner I paid it off the sooner I
could leave.
I was 18 years old and had never been far from home and had
no money or way to get home. Next I was given tight clothes to
wear and was told what I must do. There would be armed men
selling tickets to customers in the trailers. Tickets were
condoms. Each ticket would be sold for $22 to $25 each. The
client would then point at the girl he wanted and the girl
would take him to one of the bedrooms. At the end of the night
I turned in the condom wrappers. Each wrapper represented a
supposed deduction to my smuggling fee.
We tried to keep our own records, but the bosses would
destroy them. We were never sure what we owed. There were up to
four girls kept at each brothel. We were constantly guarded and
abused. If anyone refused to be with a customer, we were
beaten. If we adamantly refused, the bosses would show us a
lesson by raping us brutally. They told us if we refused again
it would even be worse the next time.
We were transported every 15 days to another trailer in a
nearby city. This was to give the customers a variety of the
girls and also so we would never know where we were in case we
tried to escape. I could not believe this was happening to me.
We worked 6 days a week and 12-hour days. We mostly had to
serve 32 to 35 clients a day. Weekends were worse. Our bodies
were utterly sore and swollen. The bosses did not care. We
worked no matter what. This included during menstruation.
Clients would become enraged if they found out. The bosses
instructed us to place a piece of clothing over the lamps to
darken the room. This, however, did not protect us from the
clients' beatings. Also, at the end of the night, our work did
not end. It was now the bosses' turn with us. If anyone became
pregnant, we were forced to have abortions. The cost of the
abortion would then be added to our smuggling debt.
The bosses carried weapons. They scared me. The brothels
were often in isolated areas. I never knew where I was. It was
all so strange to me. We were not allowed to go outside the
brothels. I knew if I tried to escape I would not get far,
because everything was so unfamiliar. The bosses told me that
if I escaped, INS would catch me, beat me, and tie me up. This
frightened me. I did know of one girl who escaped. The bosses
searched for her and they said they were going to get their
money that she owed from her family. They said they would get
their money one way or another.
I know of another girl that escaped and was hunted down.
The bosses found her and beat her severely. The bosses showed
her a lesson by beating and raping her brutally. All I could do
was stand there and watch. I was too afraid to try to escape. I
also did not want my family put in danger.
I was enslaved for several months. Other women were
enslaved for up to a year. Our enslavement finally ended when
the INS, FBI and local law enforcement raided the brothels and
rescued us. We were not sure what was happening on the day of
the raids. Our captors had told us over and over never to tell
the police of our conditions. They told us that if we told, we
would find ourselves in prison for the rest of our lives. They
told us that the INS would rape us and kill us. But we learned
to trust the INS and FBI, and assisted them in the prosecution
of our enslavers.
Unfortunately, this was difficult. After the INS and FBI
freed us from the brothels, we were put in detention centers
for many months. Our captors were correct. We thought we would
be imprisoned for the rest of our lives. Later, our attorneys
were able to get us released to a women's domestic violence
center, where we received comprehensive medical attention,
including gynecological exams for the first time, and mental
health counseling.
Thanks to the U.S. Government, some of our captors were
brought to justice and were sent to prison. Unfortunately, not
all. Some of them are living in Mexico in our hometown of
Veracruz. They have threatened some of our families. They have
even threatened to bring our younger sisters to the United
States and force them to work in brothels, as well.
I would never have done this work. No one I know would have
done this work. I am speaking out today because I never want
this to happen to anyone else. However, in order to accomplish
this goal, women like me need your help. We need the laws to
protect us from this horror. We need the immigration law to
provide victims of this horror with permanent legal residence.
We came to the United States to find a better future, not to be
prostitutes.
If anyone thinks that providing protection to trafficking
survivors by affording them permanent residence is a magnet for
other immigrants like myself, they are wrong. No woman or child
would want to be a sex slave and endure the evil that I have
gone through. I am in fear for my life more than ever. I helped
put these evil men in jail. Please help me. Please help us.
Please do not let this happen to anyone else.
Thank you.
Ms. Coto. I am going to read a statement from a minor
survivor, who was 14 at the time that she was brought over into
the United States and trafficked.
Senator Brownback. Without objection, it will be entered
into the record.
Ms. Coto. This is the story of Rosa:
When I was 14, a man came to my parent's house in Veracruz,
Mexico, and asked me if I was interested in making money in the
United States. He said I could make many times as much money
doing the same things that I was doing in Mexico. At the time,
I was working in a hotel, cleaning rooms, and I also helped
around my house by watching my brothers and sisters. He said I
would be in good hands and would meet many other Mexican girls
who had taken advantage of this great opportunity. My parents
did not want me to go, but I persuaded them.
A week later, I was smuggled into the United States,
through Mexico, to Orlando, Florida. It was then when the man
told me my employment would consist of having sex with men for
money. I had never had sex before, and I had never imagined
selling my body. And so my nightmare began.
Because I was a virgin, the men decided to initiate me by
raping me again and again, to teach me how to have sex. Over
the next 3 months, I was taken to a different trailer every 15
days. Every night I had to sleep in the same bed in which I had
been forced to service customers all day. I could not do
anything to stop it. I was not allowed to go outside without a
guard. Many of the bosses had guns. I was constantly afraid.
One of the bosses carried me off to a hotel one night, where he
raped me. I could do nothing to stop it.
Because I was so young, I was always in demand with the
customers. It was awful. Although the men were supposed to wear
condoms, sometimes they did not. So eventually I became
pregnant and was forced to have an abortion. They sent me back
to the brothel almost immediately. I cannot forget what has
happened. I cannot put it behind me. I find it nearly
impossible to trust people. I still feel shame.
I was a decent girl in Mexico. I used to go to church with
my family. I only wish none of this had ever happened. Thank
you.
Senator Brownback. I thank all of you for your testimony
and your bravery in coming here today, because you do that in
sacrifice to yourselves in reliving a story of hell that each
of you have experienced. And we hope that it will be something
that will try to prevent this from happening to others and stop
this ever-growing tide that is growing. As I sit here, when you
read the story of a 14-year-old girl--and my oldest turns 14
this year--it is real easy to visualize.
I have also myself met with young girls from Nepal that
were trafficked to India, most of them 11, 12, 13 years old
when they were tricked out of their Nepalese villages and moved
into Bombay, into the brothel district. When I met with them,
they were returning to Nepal, and they were in Kathmandu at an
aftercare facility, of which we will hear about later.
But I was so struck by the lady, who was a great, great
lady of kindness, who ran the place who herself was ill. But
she pointed out the number of girls there, and just saying, she
is dying, she is dying, she is dying. And their numbers were
two-thirds were coming back with AIDS and/or tuberculosis at
17-18 years of age, coming home to die.
It was just one of the most awful things I had seen
anywhere in the world, people who had gone through forced
abortions, and it was just a disgusting situation. I do not
know if I have seen anything any worse anywhere than really
just how these girls were taken from their childhood and
tricked into just a hell most could not even imagine. So I am
glad finally people are stepping up and looking at this some.
If I could, to any of the ladies, although I think maybe
Olga might be best to answer this. In talking with any of the
other women who had been tricked into this, did you find their
stories were different from yours, of what their experiences
were that took them to the same place that you were?
Olga. For the most part, there were many women who had been
tricked just like I had been. But there were also women who had
gone voluntarily.
Senator Brownback. When she says tricked as she was, is
that much in the same way, offered a ticket to do domestic
work?
Olga. There is a whole marketing scheme developed. Girls
that return from these type of jobs, it is in their interest to
try to trick as many girls as they can to go abroad to work in
prostitution. So that is what they do.
Senator Brownback. When she says there is a whole marketing
scheme, are these girls that return part of the overall network
and they get paid to trick others?
Olga. Yes, it is a network. Girls are encouraged to go
back, and they are given money. They are told that if they will
bring other girls, they will get money for each girl that they
manage to trick. And it is a very organized network.
Senator Brownback. Is this part of some of the Russian
organized crime? Is it within Israel organized crime that your
experience was associated?
Olga. Doubtless, yes. Most definitely. It is part of the
organized crime networks.
Senator Brownback. Can you name any of the families that
are in it through what you experienced? And do not answer with
any names if you think that is of any problem.
Olga. I am afraid to give names, because these criminals
that are part of this network are located in my native town.
And I could not give you names.
Senator Brownback. I certainly respect that.
Do any of the others know of other ways that different
women were tricked or coerced into international sex
trafficking?
Olga. The agencies or the organizations that are involved
in this type of trickery are now currently tourist groups that
arrange for tours for dance groups or marriage organizations
that are arranging marriages. They get people to come abroad in
search of husband or to go with a dance troupe to dance, and
this is how they get people in their clutches.
Senator Brownback. Does anybody else care to respond to
that, of other methods?
[No response.]
Senator Brownback. What would each of you like to see the
United States do?
Maria. To help and protect young women like ourselves and
to stop trafficking. And so they will not suffer as we did in
bringing us to the United States, where we were tricked into
coming here. We want men to stop trafficking women, young women
like ourselves, and to educate the public, and especially to
let mothers know that they must be aware of this and protect
their young children.
Marsha. The Russian Federation does not have any laws
against trafficking. And of course that is a Russian problem,
but perhaps there is some way that the U.S. could influence the
adoption of laws. The other thing that the U.S. could do is
perhaps offer assistance to humanitarian organizations, to
human rights organizations, so that they can educate the public
so that they can publicize the plight and the situation, and
also offer assistance to victims and survivors.
Senator Brownback. Thank you all.
Senator Wellstone.
Senator Wellstone. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I will speak slowly so the translation can be done. I also
want to thank you again for testifying before this committee.
And I want you to know that we are both committed to passing
legislation that will help, if not a stop, dramatically reduce
this.
If I maybe could get your reaction to two provisions in our
legislation and see if you think it would be helpful. One would
be, beyond what the USAID office does already, to provide much
more information in your countries, brochures, written
information, that people would have so that women could, if
approached the way you were, would have a better idea of what
was happening to them, that they would have a better
understanding of this trafficking operation so that they would
not be so exploited.
And the second provision I want to mention and then just
get your reaction to would be to make sure that, for women who
have been through this like you have, that there is some
assistance to help people regain their health so that they can
go back to their community or live good lives. In other words,
so much of this is essentially the equivalent of torture, to
make sure there is some treatment for women who have gone
through this.
I see that Laura is nodding her head. Would these
provisions be helpful?
Marsha. Yes, we think that would certainly be very helpful.
Education, educating the public is probably the most important
aspect and really central to solving these problems, because
there is just not enough information as to what kind of dangers
they face and what the situation is.
Senator Brownback. Dr. Lederer, if you want to respond,
please feel free to as well.
Olga. There is also an enormous need to finance and support
crisis centers, to create new ones, because there is just no
place where you can turn.
Senator Wellstone. After you have been through this.
Olga. Yes.
Dr. Lederer. I think you have hit it on the head. It is a
form of torture, and there is a post-traumatic stress syndrome
that we see. And it lasts a long time. It is not something that
is very easily recovered from. And it is a particular syndrome.
It cannot be fit into the domestic violence syndrome. It is
going to need its own types of crisis rehabilitation and so on.
Virginia, you might want to speak to that a little bit,
too.
Senator Brownback. Please identify yourself for the record.
Ms. Coto. I am Virginia Coto. I am a supervising attorney
at the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center. I represent Maria and
13 other girls in the Cadena case. I have been involved in the
case as of February 1998, and we will talk a little bit about
that in the next panel.
One of the things I agree with Dr. Lederer is I think the
services are very unique. I work specifically with domestic
violence victims. I have a project that directly assists
battered immigrant women. Additionally, I also work with forced
labor and sexual trafficking clients.
But I think that the issues are very different. It is very
difficult for the battered women's center to be able to really
give the kind of support or psychological assessments or even
find these kinds of services for them because there just were
not any. This was something that we certainly had not heard of
until the Cadena case. And it was very difficult to treat, but
I think we definitely need crisis centers and I think also
funding for services specifically targeting trafficking victims
or survivors.
Senator Wellstone. Just to finish. In our legislation we do
provide resources for that. And we do put a very strong
emphasis on the prosecution. We heard about that earlier. And
we do put a very strong emphasis of the rights of women, so
that they are not automatically deported back to their
countries. All of which we have heard from everyone.
Thank you very much for being here. Thank you for your
testimony.
Senator Brownback. Dr. Lederer, if I could, you have had
more of a chance to visit with these witnesses. Are there
things that they have told you that we should hear here in the
committee or that you think would add illumination to this?
Dr. Lederer. Well, I can say that we spent 4 hours
yesterday hearing their stories and getting from them the
detail that I think we need to know if we are going to address
this in its entirety. Oftentimes these young women, when they
come in, will say it was just horrible, it was terrible. And we
have to find out exactly how was it horrible, how was it
terrible. We have to find out exactly what are their mechanisms
for recruitment and what are the trafficking routes, who is
cooperating and how does it work. And all of that takes a great
deal of time and questioning and so on. And I think we are at
the very beginning of that.
In terms of the three young women here, we have a more
detailed record of our conversations with them which we can
share with you later.
Senator Brownback. Good. If you could, I think that would
be good. And also even the nature of the aftercare, of what is
needed. Did they describe to them--or I do not know if any of
them would be willing to describe what they go through after
this has happened to them. I do not know if any would feel
willing to state that, what they are going through themselves
now.
And if it is too personal, I sure understand. I do think if
it is something they can share, it is something that will
illuminate just how difficult and hard and harsh this is.
Olga. Yes, I had a very difficult time. Because after I
came out of this, I had to, among other things, fight off the
narcotics addiction that was forced on me. So I needed a lot of
psychological assistance and help. And I am still constantly
bothered by flashbacks and the horror of what I had to go
through.
Ms. Coto. Maria's case was very similar, other than the
drug addiction, but Maria as well as the other Cadena survivors
were numb. They were afraid to speak to people, trust people.
They did not go outside. They were afraid to go outside. They
were so used to being imprisoned that they could not go
outside. And it was a long process for them to be able to do
that.
Flashbacks. One of the things that some of the survivors
had to go through was they were taken to bars. And at the bars
they recruited new clients and also were forced to have sex in
cars, in the bosses' vans. And so every time they would see,
say, a yellow-colored van passing by they would have horrible
flashbacks. Walking down the street was extremely difficult to
do because they did not know how to do that in the United
States.
They were afraid that cars would come on them or they would
be kidnapped. So it is a series of psychological effects and
traumas that they have had to try to overcome.
Marsha. Well, what I would like to say is that what I went
through absolutely morally destroyed me. I felt like my sense
of self was completely taken away, that I had no control over
my life, that I was nothing, that I was really--they totally
destroyed me as a human being. It has been 3 years, and I still
feel traumatized. The St. Petersburg crisis center has helped
me a great deal, but I still have a lot of psychological
assistance that I know I will need in the future ahead.
And what really pains me is to know that the people who
were responsible for everything that I had to bear have
remained completely unpunished.
Dr. Lederer. Can I just say in closing that I think the
psychological, physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual
degradation in this kind of a crime is complete and that the
rehabilitation process has to be comprehensive in order to deal
with all of that.
Senator Wellstone. Can I just say thank you to you all.
Senator Brownback. Thank you all very much. This has been
quite illuminating. Thank you all for being willing to step
forward in a really difficult situation and illuminate this.
And we hope we are able to respond in kind at a high level of
commitment that we will do something as a country to stop this
horrible thing from continuing at the level that it is. Thank
you all very much.
Our next panel will be Dr. Lauran Bethell, director of the
New Life Center, from Thailand. That is an aftercare center in
Thailand associated with the American Baptist Church.
Next will be Virginia Coto, director of the Florida
Immigration Advocacy Center, an attorney who represented
Mexican survivors of trafficking in Florida, who we have had as
a translator as well in this prior panel.
And Natalia Khodyreva, president of the Angel Coalition.
Thank you all very much.
Dr. Bethell, thank you very much for joining us here today.
We look forward to your testimony.
STATEMENT OF LAURAN D. BETHELL, PH.D., DIRECTOR, NEW LIFE
CENTER, CHIANG MAI, THAILAND
Dr. Bethell. I must say that the previous testimony
elicited a great deal of emotion in me. The testimony is very
similar to the many, many, many stories I have heard in Asia,
as well.
I am honored to be invited to speak before the subcommittee
and sincerely thank Mr. Chairman and subcommittee members for
their time and effort in addressing these issues involved in
the international trafficking of women and children.
My name is Lauran Bethell, and I am a missionary with the
American Baptist Churches in the USA and have been the director
of the New Life Center in Chiang Mai, Thailand, for the past 13
years. Our center works with women and girls from the ethnic
hill tribe minority groups of northern Thailand, both in
prevention and from their exploitation and also we work in the
aftercare for young women who have been exploited in the sex
and labor industry. Many young women who have been trafficked
over the border from Burma into Thailand have come through our
doors. And in most cases, we have ultimately been able to help
them back to their home country, allowing for some aftercare
time.
Eleven-year-old MiiDa was one of our residents who was sold
by her opium-addicted father to a prostitute buyer who sold her
again to a brothel near Bangkok. For 4 months, this young Akha
hill tribe woman had to sexually service men until finally she
was rescued in a police raid and eventually brought to the New
Life Center. Here, the Akha staff members of the center were
able to hear her story in her own language, assist her to
receive medical care, register her in the Thai Government's
adult education program, and help her to receive vocational
training. She was also able to produce handicrafts and make an
income for herself while living at the center.
Her natural leadership abilities were recognized and
eventually she was hired to work part-time at the New Life
Center while she completed her high school diploma in adult
school. Last year she was married and now works alongside her
husband in drug rehabilitation.
MiiDa's story illustrates the most significant aspects that
any aftercare program should include:
No. 1, staff members who are caring and committed to their
work and who can relate culturally and linguistically to the
clients are key to the success of any program. At the New Life
Center, two-thirds of the staff came from our clients, and
therefore feel a very strong commitment to their mission. All
of the staff, with the exception of me, are tribal women who
speak the languages of the residents.
No. 2, immediate attention to medical needs, including HIV
pre- and post-test counseling, needs to be provided. And
provisions need to be made for those who are symptomatic HIV,
especially if they cannot be cared for by their families at
home.
No. 3, opportunity for education toward literacy in the
major language of the home country needs to be a priority.
Participation in school programs leading toward a diploma
should be pursued whenever possible. Literacy is essential for
having choices in one's life.
No. 4, vocational skill education enabling the residents to
have vocational choices after leaving the program should be
offered. Attendance at government vocational school which leads
toward a diploma should be pursued.
No. 5, opportunities to make an income for themselves while
they are receiving an education needs to be a key component of
the program. If the residents are still in contact with their
families, it is likely that they will receive a great deal of
pressure from the family to provide finances, particularly in
our cultural communities in Asia. If they cannot make money,
then they will most likely abandon their education and their
hopes for increasing choices for their lives.
No. 6, psychotherapeutic intervention can be a very helpful
tool, essential in the healing process, especially if it is a
part of the local cultural practice, but should not be
considered essential if it is not. And in many cases, trained
counselors who speak the languages of the clients, especially
in our situation, are simply not available. We in the West
should not automatically assume that psychotherapy has to be a
part of any aftercare program. In many cultures where community
is core, inclusion into a caring supportive group with programs
that offer hope for the future seem to be as effective as
Western models toward healing the wounds of exploitation.
No. 7, aftercare projects generally work best when they
start small, both in numbers and focus of the program. They can
grow naturally as staff become available from the client base
and the need to widen the focus becomes evident.
No. 8, aftercare and prevention programs can be integrated,
depending on local cultural issues and attitudes. As mentioned
above, inclusion into a caring community can be a valuable
therapy on its own, and sometimes girls who have been exploited
are happy that they are being treated, quote, unquote, normal
rather than being stigmatized and put in a special place.
No. 9, aftercare programs work best when government and
nongovernment organizations cooperate. Government-sponsored
organizations often appear to punish its victims, though
sometimes unintentionally, and can behave like cold
bureaucracies. Nongovernment organizations often have visionary
leadership and well-intentioned staff, but lack accountability
on some issues.
GO and NGO partnerships can be the most effective way to
address the issues, with the GO wielding its power in
creatively enabling the NGO to do its most effective, caring
work at the grassroots level. And small government grants to
NGO's could have a more potent and long-lasting effect on the
lives of women and children than large government-to-government
grants.
Girls and young women who were tricked or sold or betrayed
or who have little or no control over their lives in the
brothels and have been kept as slaves, seeing little or no
money, are the ones most likely to remain in aftercare programs
and pursue alternatives for their lives. For those who were
able to make money, who had control over their situations, the
rates or recidivism are very high. Those working in aftercare
situations should realize that runaways, though very
heartbreaking, are common and should not become discouraged
because of them.
Aftercare should not be hurried. There is no quick fix. The
residents of the New Life Center take 3 to 5 years to complete
the program. True life change and healing takes time.
Again, Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the opportunity to
meet with you and the subcommittee, and will certainly be
praying for the success of this process.
Senator Brownback. Thank you, Dr. Bethell. And thank you
for your work that you do and the best to you as it continues.
Dr. Bethell. Thank you.
Senator Brownback. Ms. Coto, thank you very much for being
here today. And let me say as well on another note that I
appreciate very much your working on this so diligently as an
attorney and in the various capacities. You have really brought
a fine focus and a great understanding to the issue. And on
behalf of the committee, I deeply appreciate your expertise
being lent to us. Thanks.
STATEMENT OF VIRGINIA P. COTO, ESQ., DIRECTOR, FLORIDA
IMMIGRANT ADVOCACY CENTER, MIAMI, FL
Ms. Coto. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It is a great
honor to be here and to speak on behalf of trafficking survivor
advocates.
As I said earlier, my name is Virginia Coto, and I am
supervising attorney at the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center,
and the director of LUCHA, a Women's Legal Project, which
focuses on assisting battered immigrant women in immigration
matters.
Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center is a private nonprofit
organization dedicated to promoting and protecting the rights
of immigrants of all nationalities. As I said earlier, I am
currently representing 14 survivors of the Cadenas' case of
women who were sexually trafficked from Mexico into Florida. I
first became involved in the case when I read an article in the
Miami Herald, describing the arrest of some of the Cadena ring
traffickers. The article also described these 14 girls and
women being detained as material witnesses.
We began to make telephone calls and eventually spoke to
the Department of Justice, INS and FBI, who almost immediately
put us in contact with these victims at the criminal detention
center. We were able to negotiate their release to a battered
women's shelter, under very stringent restrictions, as material
witnesses. But, nevertheless, they were at the time placed in
what I feel now was a very appropriate shelter, or the most
adequate that we could find.
I do want to say that SafeSpace, which is the battered
women's shelter in Miami, Florida, really stepped up to the
challenge, as did many other members in the community.
Since my involvement in the case in February 1998, I have
learned a lot about trafficking of women and children, and I
have learned that it is not unique. However, the survivors'
needs are unique, and they need to be treated as such.
The survivors in the Cadena case faced criminal and
immigration detention for up to 5 months. They did not receive
medical or psychological treatment. They did not have adequate
legal assistance. They did not have adequate information about
their rights or translation services. They did not understand
what was happening to them or what was going to happen to them.
What they did know is that they were terrified and needed help.
The survivors in this instance were not eligible for any
public benefits due to their immigration status. So, as I said,
we asked the community for help. They stepped up to the
challenge. They provided housing, food, clothing, medical, and
psychological treatment, employment services and training, and
other social services.
As we discussed today, trafficked persons are an extremely
vulnerable group. The horrors which you have heard today must
be addressed by this Congress. Trafficking survivors have
special needs that cannot be addressed without legislation. We
are very fortunate that the community in Miami helped to
address some of the survivors' needs. But this is not the case
throughout the United States.
Survivors need protection from their captors. Survivors
need to be released from detention as soon as possible and be
housed in appropriate shelters. Survivors need food and
clothing. Survivors need medical and psychological treatment.
Survivors need legal assistance. Legal Services Corporation
need to expand their services to include trafficked persons
without regard to their immigration status. Survivors need to
obtain lawful permanent residency and need employment
authorization in the interim.
Moreover, if I can address this issue of lawful permanent
residency more specifically, the survivors in the Cadena ring
have fully participated in the prosecution of their captors.
They, as well as their families, have been targets of threats.
The government successfully prosecuted 7 of the 16 indicted.
Eight defendants are still at large and are presently living in
the survivors' hometowns. They know their families. They know
where they live. They recruited them and convinced and
persuaded their parents to let them come to the United States.
Instead of meeting their promises of legitimate jobs, the
survivors were raped, tortured and enslaved. These are
survivors who are in fear for their lives and that of their
families. They cannot return to their same neighborhoods where
their captors live and surely will retaliate against them. The
only way in which these survivors can be protected is by
granting them permanent residency.
The choice to survive cannot be one of re-victimization by
their enslavers. Freedom is the only choice we must afford
them. Furthermore, survivors want justice. Since the guidelines
do not reflect the rape, torture or heinous crime survivors
have endured, restitution in civil action must be granted as
well. We have seen the number of sex trafficking increasing
annually in the United States and internationally. This is a
grave violation of human rights.
In order to deter international trafficking and to bring
its perpetrators to justice, the United States must act now.
Survivors need protection, not punishment. Thank you.
Senator Brownback. Thank you, Ms. Coto.
Finally, we have Natalia Khodyreva, president of Angel
Coalition, from Russia, who has an aftercare program in Russia.
Welcome.
STATEMENT OF NATALIA KHODYREVA, PRESIDENT, ANGEL COALITION, ST.
PETERSBURG, RUSSIA
Ms. Khodyreva. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
committee. My name is Natalia Khodyreva. I am director of the
Crisis Center for women in St. Petersburg, and president of
International Anti-Traffic Coalition, Angel.
The crisis center runs Prevention of Trafficking in Russian
Women projects, conducts research, and provides support for
trafficking survivors. We work with the mass media concerning
our work, and many women call us on our hot line. We heard
about the first trafficking case 6 years ago, but still there
is not a government-supported program against trafficking in
women. We tried to work with and inform our state structures
concerning this issue.
Trafficking in women is a consequence of a socioeconomic
situation in Russia and job discrimination against women. So
many educated women cannot find the appropriate job that will
provide a good living condition, they have no choice but to
take a job with low qualification abroad. But most of them find
themselves in forced prostitution or slavery like conditions.
Our research shows that, together with the high level of
enthusiasm to work abroad, these women do not have information
about possibilities for a legal job abroad, of what is an
appropriate visa for working abroad. One-third of the women we
have researched are going to work abroad in their professions.
The rest are in the various social service jobs. No one dreams
of working as a prostitute.
Now, 1 percent of the representative group of young women
from 6 million people in the St. Petersburg region are the
victims of trafficking, but only three women have appealed to
the law enforcement structures. But even these few cases were
closed because there are no special articles in the Russian
Federation crime laws concerning laws against trafficking.
Our hotline statistics show one out of five women, or her
relatives, call to ask how to return home. These women face
serious difficulties in returning to their homes after being
trafficked. Some of them run away from brothels and need money
for return tickets. Some try to return with children from
foreign husbands. But almost all of them need psychological,
medical and legal support after trafficking incidents.
The other four out of five women need valid information on
obtaining a valid work visa, immigration rules, addresses of
women's organizations and embassies abroad. The Angel Coalition
consists of 20 Russian nongovernmental organizations and an
American charitable institute, Miramed. The Angel Coalition is
incorporated to run a public campaign and disseminate
prevention information over Russia. We will also try to lobby
for laws against trafficking in the State Duma. But the plan of
the Coalition cannot become reality without funding.
Russian women urgently need valid information. We have
already lost many years, and many women continue to suffer from
the effect of being trafficked. We should not repeat our
previous mistakes. Members of the Angel Coalition work all over
Russia, in Siberia, Ural, southern Russia, in the Far East, and
in Europe. The traffickers are very adaptable in their methods
of recruitment. They recruit women under the false pretenses of
studying languages, professional training in tourist service,
using ``au pair'' visa on cultural exchange.
We need negotiation between governments on legal job
agreements and immigration rules. With stricter immigration
laws, more women are vulnerable to trafficking.
I would like to thank the U.S. Senate for the opportunity
to represent the Russian women's voices here and for extremely
urgent organization of this visit. Thank you for your
attention.
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much. And thank you for
coming here to share with us your aftercare programs.
Dr. Bethell, let me start with you if I could. What is the
size of the problem you are dealing with? You deal with some in
aftercare. Do you have any notion of the size within the
populations you are dealing?
Dr. Bethell. I really have no idea. The numbers are just so
fluid. The statistics are all over the place as far as what
kind of numbers we are dealing with in Thailand. Of course, the
issues in Thailand are you have got the girls coming over the
Burma border into Thailand being trafficked. You have got
within Thailand people being trafficked from the hill areas
down to the cities. And then of course the vast number of women
being trafficked out of Thailand to other places in the world,
particularly Japan and other countries and the United States.
Senator Brownback. So no feel at all from any official or
unofficial numbers?
Dr. Bethell. Well, I really could not give any statistics.
Senator Brownback. That is fine. But that, in and of
itself, is troubling, if you have got that size and nature of a
problem and you have no notion of what the size and scale of
this is.
Dr. Bethell. I am sure that some agencies have numbers, but
that is not my field of expertise.
Senator Brownback. I understand. And I am not saying that
it should be yours. You have a different one.
At what age are these girls frequently trafficked in
Thailand? At what age are they taken?
Dr. Bethell. Probably the youngest girls are about 11 or 12
years old that we have worked with that have been trafficked or
have gone into prostitution.
Senator Brownback. What is the average age? Is there an
average?
Dr. Bethell. Probably 14, 15, 16, 17.
Senator Brownback. Is the average age?
Dr. Bethell. That would be the average age.
Senator Brownback. I appreciate your suggestions on the
aftercare and the breadth of approach that needs to be taken
and the listing of those items.
Ms. Coto, you heard the legislative recommendations from
the administration witness that was here. Do you have any
thoughts or comments on that list of legislative items that
were put forward by the administration?
Ms. Coto. Somewhat. I do agree that we need to expand the
definition of what coercion is in order to be able to
successfully prosecute some of these cases. I represent some of
the forced labor cases, where we have domestic workers who were
held in involuntary servitude. And it has been very difficult
to prove involuntary servitude because of the elements that are
necessary to prove that. And so I think we need to expand that.
Senator Brownback. If I could invite you, I think it would
be, after this hearing, if you could resubmit to us maybe a
statement of what you think the coercion should include. You
have worked on some of these cases directly and you know, in
prosecuting a case, you have got to hit the definition on the
head in bringing a successful prosecution to court. I would
hope you would submit to us your thoughts on how to define
coercion.
Ms. Coto. Certainly.
One of the things that I would like to point out is,
working on both types of these cases, I really feel that we
need legislation on both ends. However, I think that sexual
trafficking, by its nature of where victims are sexually
exploited versus exploited labor or a worker, I think we need
to have some real division or separate portion that really
addresses the needs of sexually trafficked persons, because I
think it is really unique.
Although you have some of the same elements with forced
labor, I think the sexual nature of the trafficking is so
specific and so heinous and also needs different types of
aftercare programs that forced labor maybe necessarily does
not, that I would like to see that addressed in the
legislation. Because I do think that it needs to be separated
or distinguished.
Senator Brownback. That would seem correct to me, as well.
These are different types of crimes and they are going to need
to be defined differently.
Ms. Coto. Some of the other things the Department of
Justice had put forward which I am in agreement with is
immigration status. I think there has to be lawful permanent
residency and also a way for victims to obtain employment
authorization in the interim. I think it needs to be on a
timely basis. I do not think there needs to be a 3-year wait. I
think it needs to be more of a timely basis.
For example, the girls that I represent, it has been almost
3 years and they have no legal status or any permanent status.
They are still working their way through a temporary status,
and it has been very difficult for them to move on with their
lives, not knowing whether the Department of Justice, in their
discretion, is going to grant them lawful permanent residency.
So they do not know if they get to stay or they get to go and
whether they get to live or not.
The other thing which I mentioned is I think the sentencing
guidelines are not stiff enough. In the Cadena case, we are
talking two defendants got 2 years for enslaving these girls.
That was, to me, disgusting. I think that sentencing guidelines
really need to be strengthened and much stricter if we are
going to have any kind of enforcement or deterrence.
And the other issue which I did not agree with the
Department of Justice is I think there should be sanctions on
other governments who are not agreeing to human rights
standards. And I think that we need to have some kind of
accountability in those countries where, again, there could be
more of a mechanism to hold them accountable and actually
engage them in stopping or reducing, as Senator Wellstone said,
trafficking.
Senator Brownback. Those are very thoughtful, and I would
appreciate any others that you might submit later on.
Natalia, any idea of the size of the problem of trafficking
in Russia or even in the area that you serve that you could
give us some ideas here?
Ms. Khodyreva. I just want to reiterate what I already said
in my presentation, that among the young women that we studied,
there were 4,000 to 5,000 who were victims of trafficking.
These are just young women from the St. Petersburg area. And
there are many big cities in Russia.
Senator Brownback. Did she find an organized crime ring
nature to those that she studied in trafficking? Was it part of
an organized crime effort?
Ms. Khodyreva. I think that in Russia this is all very
well-organized, beginning with small agencies in the cities
that recruit the women and have their branches in other
countries. It is an international organization that is very,
very well-organized.
Senator Brownback. And I hope all of you will share with us
ideas, if you have further ones, on aftercare that would be the
best things that we could support. Dr. Bethell, you mentioned
specific items in your testimony. The rest of you, we have your
testimony, but anything else you would like to tell us about
what should be included in aftercare, we would like to have
that, as well.
Dr. Bethell. I would just like to stress the need to make
sure that aftercare is culturally sensitive and that the
determination for a receipt of funding, if funding for
aftercare is going to be provided in the legislation, that it
not necessarily be dictated by people who are not taking into
account the different kinds of cultural needs in the specific
settings in which we are working.
Senator Brownback. I think that is a good and valid point.
Senator Wellstone.
Senator Wellstone. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have been at
the hearing for a while and you have asked some of the
questions I wanted to ask.
I think that what Dr. Bethell mentioned about culturally
sensitive is important. It does seem to me that regardless of
culture or country, there are some things that are pretty clear
from what we have heard today. And one of them is above and
beyond the obvious of just being physically and sexually
abused. There is just the whole question of post-traumatic
stress syndrome and the need for mental health services. We
have, in Minnesota, very special places called the Torture
Treatment Center. And in some ways, I think that indeed what
people have gone through here is torture.
I wanted to ask Natalia or Lauran, do you see any
similarities as to who the women and children are or who the
victims are? Is it that they are low-income, poor, unemployed,
without work? Who do they tend to be, in Thailand or in Russia?
Dr. Bethell. The socioeconomics, right. Uneducated.
Education is absolutely key. These young women mostly are not
literate or have a very, very low level of education, from very
poor communities and communities where they are socialized and
raised to believe that they are economically responsible for
their families. And they will in fact sacrifice themselves and
work as prostitutes if that is what they feel that they can do
to support their families.
In our situations and many other situations in Asia, that
is absolutely core. And so what you have to do in terms of
aftercare, you have to make sure that you are providing them
with alternatives to make sure that they are able to support
their families. And that is key in the healing process as well,
providing that kind of hope for the future for their families.
Ms. Khodyreva. The Russian case is unique, because, for the
most part, the Russian women who are trafficked tend to be
well-educated and they tend to be older than the women who
become victims in the Far East. And the reason for this is that
they cannot find proper employment. And there is another unique
aspect for the Russian case. And that is there is, for all
practical purposes, no protection from the law enforcement
authorities.
Senator Wellstone. So I understand what you have said, the
bitter irony in some of the countries like Russia and some of
the other countries that used to be in the former Soviet Union,
the bitter irony is that the economic disintegration means that
these women have not always been poor or many of them were
actually highly educated, who at one time may have been
gainfully employed and now they have no employment. So they are
looking for a way to go to another country to find a job, but
not of course being forced into prostitution.
Ms. Khodyreva. You are absolutely correct.
Senator Wellstone. My father grew up in Russia and fled the
country. So some of what you say is very personal to me.
Can I ask you just one question, Virginia?
Ms. Coto. Sure.
Senator Wellstone. You have been at this a long time. The
Immigration and Naturalization Act, does that help you or hurt
you, the law?
Ms. Coto. Currently?
Senator Wellstone. Yes. Do people feel like they can bring
charges against the traffickers? Do they know their rights? Are
they afraid to speak out?
Ms. Coto. In trafficking cases or generally?
Senator Wellstone. You can do both. I will bet you want to.
Ms. Coto. Generally, the immigration reform in 1996 was
extremely harsh. Immigrants are finding themselves in
situations where they are being more and more exploited because
of the harshness in the immigration reform law in 1996.
As to trafficking, there are no protections. There are
simply no protections to assist immigrants who are being
exploited, sexually or otherwise. And because of this and many
of the other things that we talked about today, they are
finding themselves in situations where they do not come
forward. They just will not come forward.
Senator Wellstone. I do not even know why I asked you the
question, because I already knew the answer. I was just
thinking to myself, why did I ask that question? We already
know that, Sam. And we know that for sure. That is what we have
been focusing on and we know it has to be changed.
I would like to just thank all of you for being here. I
thank you for your work. I very much admire what you do.
Senator Brownback. Thank you all very much. And God bless
you, too, for helping out all those young women that are in
different places around the world. And you provide a ray of
hope to them. Keep that hope alive. We really appreciate it.
Thank you all for attending the hearing. I think it has
been very illuminating. The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:20 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
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