[House Hearing, 109 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
COMBATING TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL
MONETARY POLICY, TRADE AND TECHNOLOGY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
APRIL 28, 2005
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Financial Services
Serial No. 109-22
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23-248 WASHINGTON : 2005
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HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES
MICHAEL G. OXLEY, Ohio, Chairman
JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa BARNEY FRANK, Massachusetts
RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
DEBORAH PRYCE, Ohio MAXINE WATERS, California
SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
MICHAEL N. CASTLE, Delaware LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois
PETER T. KING, New York NYDIA M. VELAZQUEZ, New York
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York
ROBERT W. NEY, Ohio DARLENE HOOLEY, Oregon
SUE W. KELLY, New York, Vice Chair JULIA CARSON, Indiana
RON PAUL, Texas BRAD SHERMAN, California
PAUL E. GILLMOR, Ohio GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
JIM RYUN, Kansas BARBARA LEE, California
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio DENNIS MOORE, Kansas
DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts
WALTER B. JONES, Jr., North HAROLD E. FORD, Jr., Tennessee
Carolina RUBEN HINOJOSA, Texas
JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
VITO FOSSELLA, New York STEVE ISRAEL, New York
GARY G. MILLER, California CAROLYN McCARTHY, New York
PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio JOE BACA, California
MARK R. KENNEDY, Minnesota JIM MATHESON, Utah
TOM FEENEY, Florida STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
JEB HENSARLING, Texas BRAD MILLER, North Carolina
SCOTT GARRETT, New Jersey DAVID SCOTT, Georgia
GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama
J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina AL GREEN, Texas
KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri
RICK RENZI, Arizona MELISSA L. BEAN, Illinois
JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
STEVAN PEARCE, New Mexico GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin,
RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas
TOM PRICE, Georgia BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
MICHAEL G. FITZPATRICK,
Pennsylvania
GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky
PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina
Robert U. Foster, III, Staff Director
Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy, Trade and
Technology
DEBORAH PRYCE, Ohio, Chair
JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois, Vice Chair CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
MICHAEL N. CASTLE, Delaware MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma MAXINE WATERS, California
RON PAUL, Texas BARBARA LEE, California
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois BRAD SHERMAN, California
MARK R. KENNEDY, Minnesota LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois
KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida MELISSA L. BEAN, Illinois
JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin
TOM PRICE, Georgia JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina BARNEY FRANK, Massachusetts
MICHAEL G. OXLEY, Ohio
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on:
April 28, 2005............................................... 1
Appendix:
April 28, 2005............................................... 35
WITNESSES
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Frundt, Tina, Polaris Project.................................... 23
Hotaling, Norma, Executive Director, SAGE........................ 20
Miller, Hon. John, Director, Office to Monitor and Combat
Trafficking in Persons, U.S. Department of State............... 6
APPENDIX
Prepared statements:
Oxley, Hon. Michael G........................................ 36
Wasserman Schultz, Hon. Debbie............................... 38
Frundt, Tina................................................. 41
Hotaling, Norma.............................................. 48
Miller, Hon. John............................................ 58
COMBATING TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS
----------
Thursday, April 28, 2005
U.S. House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Domestic and International
Monetary Policy, Trade and Technology
Committee on Financial Services,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:07 a.m., in
Room 2128, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Deborah Pryce
[chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Pryce, Biggert, Leach, Castle,
Kennedy, Harris, Gerlach, Neugebauer, Price, McHenry, Maloney,
Lee, Sherman, and Wasserman Schultz.
Chairman Pryce. [Presiding.] This hearing of the
Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy,
Trade and Technology will now come to order.
Good morning.
I would like to begin by welcoming my distinguished
colleagues and our expert panelists to this hearing this
morning.
The topic before us today in the subcommittee is wrought
with emotion. It yanks at our heartstrings because it is about
real people. More often or not, it is about young people, girls
and boys. It is about innocent children, women and men who are
stripped of their dignity and robbed of their human rights. It
is slavery. Today, in the 21st century, it is trafficking in
persons.
Trafficking in persons, or TIP, as the State Department
calls it, is a term used in U.S. law and around the world. The
term encompasses slave trading and modern-day slavery in all
its forms.
It takes only a brief history lesson to jog our memories
that President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of
1863 commenced the effort to end slavery in this country. Two
years later, by way of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution,
a ban on slavery and involuntary servitude was enacted in the
United States.
We should all be shocked and horrified that 140 years later
slavery is still rampant in America.
As I have been learning more and more about the reality
that we call trafficking in persons, I found myself sharing
what I learned with friends and family and colleagues. To those
of you in this room who have been working on this issue for a
long time, I am sure you have shared the same experience and
the reaction of your friends.
People quite simply have no idea that slavery still exists.
They have no idea that somewhere upwards to 17,500 people are
trafficked across U.S. borders every year. They are astounded
to learn that between 600,000 and 700,000 children, women and
men are trafficked across international borders every year.
But the numbers are not enough. They do not mean a thing
until you give each number a name, a face, an age, an identity.
So let me tell you about one.
Her name is Aurica. She is 19 years old from the country of
Moldova, the poorest country in Europe, between Ukraine and
Romania.
I met Aurica when I traveled overseas earlier this month on
an investigative mission to address trafficking in persons in
Europe. Aurica had just arrived at a rehabilitation center run
by a nongovernmental organization in Moldova's capital.
Like any typical young woman, Aurica just wanted to make a
life for herself. She wanted to get a job, provide for herself
and one day have a family of her own.
But Moldova's lack of natural resources and dismal economy
is making it terribly difficult for young people to carve out a
meaningful or even a hopeful future there. It also makes it a
breeding ground for traffickers.
Aurica became friendly with a young man who told her about
an exciting job opportunity in Turkey. Her spirits lifted when
he told her about all the money that she could make. She might
even earn enough to send home to her poor parents in Moldova.
The alternative, finding a job in Moldova that paid a
decent wage, was a nonstarter. It was an impossibility in this
ambitious and realistic young girl's eyes.
Upon her arrival in Istanbul, however, Aurica was
immediately not given a job; she was sold into a brothel.
After coming to the devastating realization that she would
be forced to stay in the brothel with other young women who had
been held there as sex slaves, she attempted to escape by
jumping from the sixth story of the building. Sadly, she
incurred significant injuries, a broken spine. She spent 4
months in a Turkish hospital without adequate medical care,
finally to be returned to Moldova where we met her.
She is one girl, but she is one of thousands and thousands.
In an ideal world, we would be out rescuing every last
victim we could. But we do not live in an ideal world, and we
must do what we can. And we did what we could for Aurica.
Congresswoman Kay Granger lined up a doctor in Dallas,
Texas, that would give her free surgery. I lined up MedFlight
from Columbus, Ohio, that would give her free transportation.
And just yesterday she endured 12 hours of surgery, and they
believe that she will be able to walk.
We did what we could for Aurica, but there are thousands
like her. Each and every day, nongovernmental organizations
across the world are doing what they can to help innocent
victims of this horrendous practice.
Governments across the world are on notice that, thanks to
the annual TIP report that Ambassador Miller's office puts out
every year, we are watching. And the U.S. is lending support
across the globe to help provide other countries with tools to
combat trafficking inside of their borders.
The scale of this issue is almost incalculable. But we have
to start somewhere, and we have.
Congress, under the strong leadership of Frank Wolf of
Virginia and Chris Smith of New Jersey, among many others, has
enacted critical legislation such as the Trafficking Victims
Protection Act, and the Protect Act.
Congresswoman Maloney, my colleague and good friend, and I
will be introducing legislation later this week that focuses on
ending--well, we will be introducing it today, as a matter of
fact--focusing on ending the demand for sex trafficking here in
the United States of America. It still exists here.
More needs to be done. We must continue to build awareness
about this crisis and identify new and improved ways to combat
it. It is a multi-dimensional, very complex and ever-changing
issue. That is why we have to continue the fight.
I would like to close by quoting what I believe to be an
incredibly powerful statement articulated by President Bush
before the United Nations General Assembly in September of
2003. The President said: ``There is a special evil in the
abuse and exploitation of the most innocent and vulnerable. The
victims of sex trade see little of life before they see the
very worst of life--an underground of brutality and lonely
fear.''
I commend the President for his commitment to unleashing
the forces that he has to fight this special evil. Only by
building awareness that this abuse exists, enacting and
implementing sound policies to combat the abuse, and ensuring
the availability of support for victims can we truly invoke
real change in communities across this country and in
communities throughout the world.
Thank you, again, to all of our panelists for joining us
this morning. I look forward to hearing your assessment of the
current dynamics surrounding trafficking in persons both in the
U.S. and abroad.
Without objection, all Members' opening statements can be
made part of the record.
And I now would like to recognize my good friend, the
gentlelady from New York and Ranking Member of this
subcommittee, Congresswoman Maloney, for her opening statement.
Mrs. Maloney. I thank Chairwoman Pryce.
And I congratulate her on chairing this committee and for
holding this important hearing. I think it is very meaningful
that her first hearing is on domestic and international anti-
trafficking efforts and especially what our country can do to
combat trafficking. This is a topic that we both personally
care about deeply and one that I have worked on for many years
in Congress.
A very special thank you to Ambassador Miller for your
efforts and your passion and your dedication for being here
today with your testimony and for all that you have done so
far. You have truly already made a tremendous difference in the
international trafficking in the world. I have seen it for many
years. This is the first time I have seen real strides and
differences take place, and a great deal of it is due to your
leadership.
I also would like to thank our witnesses--Norma Hotaling
and Tina Frundt. They are in the trenches, and they work every
day to combat trafficking at the most direct level, helping the
individual women and girl victims.
I must say a very, very special word to Tina. I was not
aware that it was so prevalent in our own country until she
told me about it. I think it takes a great deal of courage to
speak out about your personal tragedy and to share it with
others. But it is important for policy-makers and other people
to know about it.
She is a brave woman who survived years of forced
prostitution at the hands of her own foster mother and was
later victimized by a pimp. She not only survived but went on
to become a fierce advocate for others who are trapped in the
same life of violence.
At present, there is very little funding for survivors like
Tina and virtually no recognition or support. Instead of
helping, we prosecute, and then we allow the real criminals to
go free.
Tina says that she often goes into court to help victimized
young women and that pimps are literally waiting outside the
courtroom to pick them up. Yet, many judges tell me they have
never had a pimp or a john brought into their courtroom; it
always is the victimized woman.
And that is why I am so very proud to join with
Representative Pryce to end this unconscionable practice. The
bill that we are introducing today will provide $15 million a
year for 5 years to jurisdictions that prosecute the
perpetrators of this terrible crime.
This bill focuses on prevention. This bill is designed to
starve the $5 billion a year beast that the illegal sex
industry has become in our country. It is an industry that
profits from the victimization of individuals who cannot defend
themselves.
One-third of this money, if it passes, will go toward
helping victims of sex trafficking become survivors, like Tina,
so that they can become part of the effort of helping others.
The rest will be awarded to fight the real criminals--the
pimps, the johns, the brothel owners--who currently function
without fear in our own country.
Sweden has aggressively pursued and prosecuted pimps and
brothel owners since 1999. And according to one study, just 2
years after beginning the program, they reduced the number of
women working as prostitutes by 50 percent and the number of
men buying sex by 75 percent.
For too long in our country, we have focused on blaming
those who are kidnapped, coerced or tricked into working as
prostitutes and in brothels against their will. Now we are
taking on the perpetrators of this terrible crime rather than
the victims. It is a major policy shift and a major bill.
This problem affects every city in our country. And it is
happening now even in my own district in New York which I
represent, and I am astonished and horrified to learn this. I
researched it preparing for this hearing, and it is so
widespread in our country.
Each year, up to 20,000 men, women and children from all
over the world are brought to the United States for the sole
purpose of being bought and sold by Americans, and we are going
to do something about it.
I just want to conclude by saying that it is a lot easier
to look at sex trafficking in other countries rather than our
own. In Congress, we have looked to cut off funding for foreign
nations that tolerate or support the sex trafficking industry.
But only now have we turned to combat the problem in our own
backyard by helping victims and providing local jurisdictions
incentives to target and prosecute the users of commercial sex
acts.
We will make significant strides in ending this horrendous
crime in our own country.
I became interested in this issue because of a firm in the
district that I represent called the Big Apple Tours. And this
firm would literally advertise in brochures and on the Internet
to go on their trips to Indonesia and to Thailand, and they
would advertise that if you went on their trips, they would be
provided with young children-virgins and ``please describe the
age that you would like"--just disgusting.
I went to the D.A. and they said they could not close them
down because they had to prove intent and it was very difficult
to do. But with the work of Deborah Pryce and others, we have
really closed down a lot of these sex trafficking firms and
made the laws tougher.
This is a continuing effort, and I am proud to join with
this effort, and I thank all that have been part of it.
I yield back.
Chairman Pryce. Thank you, Ms. Maloney. I appreciate your
cooperation and your assistance in the drafting and putting
together this bill and this hearing today.
At this time it is my very special honor to introduce an
extraordinary and passionate leader in the effort to combat
trafficking in persons, Ambassador John Miller.
Ambassador Miller directs the State Department's Office to
Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. The Trafficking in
Persons Office coordinates U.S. government activities in the
global fight against modern-day slavery, including forced labor
and sexual exploitation.
I have had the privilege to work with Ambassador Miller and
his staff for some time now and have seen firsthand their
incredible dedication on behalf of this president and to
ensuring that the U.S. is a world leader in efforts to combat
trafficking in persons.
Ambassador Miller, as a credit to you, on our journeys in
Moldova and Albania and other places, our country and our
president were given great accolades for their leadership. And
if you have not heard that, you should hear it firsthand.
He is no stranger to Capitol Hill. He served in Congress
for 8 years representing the state of Washington. While in
Congress, Mr. Miller held a seat on the House Committee on
International Relations and was a member of the Congressional
Human Rights Caucus.
We are very grateful to have him here this morning. His
unwavering commitment to ending modern-day slavery is clear,
and his energetic spirit is contagious.
Ambassador Miller, thank you so much for joining us.
Without objection, your written statement can be made part of
the record.
You are now recognized.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN MILLER, DIRECTOR, OFFICE TO MONITOR AND
COMBAT TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Mr. Miller. Well, thank you, Madam Chairman. I will submit
a statement for the record.
I have to tell you that I feel very honored to come before
this committee to speak about the United States' role in trying
to abolish slavery in the 21st century.
Madam Chairman, your CODEL, your trip to Greece, Moldova,
Albania and Italy, contributed significantly to our efforts in
this area. As far as I know, I think it was the first CODEL
exclusively devoted to the trafficking-in-persons issue. And I
commend you.
And, Congresswoman Maloney, your speech, which I heard--was
it a week or 2 weeks ago?--at the Congressional Women's Caucus
was one of the most moving and eloquent expositions on the
issue of slavery in the 21st century.
So the leadership that you all are giving is most welcome.
Now, you are going to listen to me describe the U.S.
efforts, but you also have an all-star panel following me. And
I know that Tina from the Polaris Project is testifying. The
Polaris Project has done some great work, not only at home but
abroad. We worked with them in Japan, for example.
You also have Norma Hotaling, the director of SAGE, who
really, among other things, started the Johns' school movement
in this country. It is one of the first education efforts to
change society and to change the mores of the perpetrators
here. I had the privilege of visiting her school just a couple
of weeks ago in San Francisco.
Well, when we start talking about this, as the Chairman
said, it is easy to get into figures and reports. But, of
course, all of us here have met victims. Both of you referred
to victims that you have met. And I have met so many abroad.
So when I think of these figures, the 800,000 across
international borders every year and all these other figures, I
do think of people like Khan and Lord that were put into
factories and had chemicals dumped on them, and I think of
Katya, who was trafficked across Europe from the Czech Republic
to the Netherlands and forced to work in a brothel in the
Amsterdam red-light district--and hundreds of more of these
cases.
And as you said, Congresswoman, this challenge extends to
every country in the world, including the United States of
America.
The categories are vast--sex slavery, domestic servitude
slavery, factory slavery, farm slavery, child camel jockey
slavery. And when you talk with victims in these categories,
you cannot do anything else but become a 21st century
abolitionist.
I think President Bush did set the tone for our efforts
when almost a year-and-a-half ago he went to the U.N. and
devoted over 20 percent of his speech to how nations in the
world must wake up and join in fighting this scourge.
Let us begin with our efforts in the U.S. government. I
will talk briefly about my office, which was set up by you, by
Congress, in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000,
reauthorized in 2003.
What are some of the things we do?
We have the annual report that you referred to that
evaluates countries throughout the world.
There is another report that we participate in, that
Justice takes the lead, evaluating U.S. efforts in this area.
And I can say--I mean, this is true of this whole area. I
get a little concerned about talking about efforts, because it
implies that, you know, great progress has been made and the
problem is on its way to solution. And this is not true. There
is so much more to do.
However, steps are starting to be taken. And we see with
this report, whether it is due to countries awakening on the
issue, or whether they want a better rating in the report, or
whether they have a fear of the sanctions that may come from
being rated low, we see tremendous efforts that were not there
before--we see 3,000 convictions worldwide of traffickers last
year; we see almost 50 countries in the last 2 years passing
comprehensive anti-trafficking-in-persons laws.
Then we have programs abroad, and they are not just State.
Department of Labor, USAID, and now we are getting Justice and
HHS involved.
The last 4 years, there has been an increase every year. It
is now getting up between $80 million and $90 million a year.
It is a modest amount, given the challenge, but of course it is
probably five, 10 times more than any other country is spending
on this issue abroad.
Lastly, we are trying in our office to put the spotlight on
this issue--not just the report, not just our prosecution
prevention and protection programs--but to get the news media
to start covering this issue around the world. We are starting
to see that. And when the awareness increases, then good things
happen.
We also have another role in our office. We chair the
senior policy operating group that you set up. First you set up
a presidential task force, the Cabinet officers. They meet once
a year. But then you set up a senior policy operating group to
do the day-to-day coordination work. All the agencies are
represented. I chair this group. And through this group, we are
doing a lot of interesting things.
The President asks that every agency come up with its own
strategic plan for how they were going to fight trafficking in
persons, and that has now been done.
The group is trying to coordinate the grants so that we do
not have duplications, so that we have a coordinated approach.
We are trying to put more emphasis on child-sex tourism,
which the President singled out at the U.N.
We are trying to put more emphasis on demand, which you
both referred to.
I think at the beginning when we started looking at this
issue, we said, ``Well, where are these trafficking victims,
slaves, coming from?'' And we looked to the less-developed
countries in the world. But demand exists all over the world,
in some of the wealthiest countries of the world--Western
Europe, Japan, the United States.
And we are trying to see how we can do more to address
demand, whether it is through projects such as Ms. Hotaling's
or other projects.
Now, one of the reasons I am really pleased that you are
holding this hearing is that you can bring new energy to
looking at the financial aspects of this crime.
We know human trafficking fuels organized crime. We know
organized crime flourishes because of this. We know it can
weaken governments. We know that people suffer.
According to the Congressional Research Service, human
trafficking is now considered the third largest source of
profits for organized crime worldwide, after the drug trade and
the arms trade.
Our government estimates $9.5 billion in annual revenue for
organized crime. UNODC, the U.N. organization, concludes that
trafficking, the globalization of trafficking, has allowed
crime groups formerly active in specific routes or regions to
expand the geographic scope of their activities to explore new
markets.
So here we have this lucrative criminal industry, high
profit margin, low risk. A trafficker receives a few hundred to
thousands of dollars from the work of a trafficked child
laborer. A brothel owner may obtain profits of a few thousand
to tens of thousands of dollars for each trafficked woman
forced into prostitution.
And they benefit because the recruiting, the
transportation, the documentation costs are low, and the risk
of prosecution is not as low as it was, but it is still low.
In many of the poorer countries that are the targets, the
money that could be going to productive enterprises is going to
these crime units.
So I really believe we need more research to get a better
understanding of how traffickers and organized crime groups are
using the modern-day slave trade to launder money and finance
other criminal activities. And your subcommittee can play a
vital role.
It has been 5 years since we issued the first report, long
before many of us here got interested in this issue. So many
countries did not recognize the issue.
In that 5 years, the U.S. has increased its efforts.
Domestically we now have Department of Homeland Security taking
an aggressive approach around the world arresting, processing,
detaining, removing traffickers from the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services started this year a
public awareness campaign in 10 pilot cities--it is going to be
increased to 20--and the first national 24-hour hotline.
If you look at the Justice Department over the last several
years, there has been a tripling of prosecutions.
The Department of Defense, the first defense department
that I am aware of in the world, possibly excepting Sweden that
issued a zero tolerance policy on trafficking in persons for
its members and now is following up with education and training
for its members.
And there are other agencies involved.
We cannot underestimate the importance of this work. We
have a threat to human rights, we have a threat to public
health, we have a threat to public safety. It is a crime that
has troubling implications, not just to Kahn, to Lord, to
Katya--to Aurica, that you talked about--to Tina. It has
implications for us all.
I am happy to take your questions.
[The prepared statement of John Miller can be found on page
58 in the appendix.]
Chairman Pryce. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. Your enthusiasm
is contagious. We have all learned a lot from you. Thank you
for your efforts.
This is the first of a series of hearings on this issue
that I would like the subcommittee to hold. And you have
suggested that we pursue the laundering aspect and how this may
fuel organized crime.
Do you have any other suggestions? I thought that perhaps
the tourism aspect of this is another one. Are there other
things that come to mind that you might suggest for us to shed
some spotlight on?
Through our travel and through these hearings we can
continue to assist you in putting the light of day on this
increasingly horrid subject. Any suggestions you have, we would
appreciate.
Mr. Miller. Well, what you have already done in talking
with foreign governments, in talking to local governments and
talking to the news media is a tremendous help.
I mentioned the financial aspects because our office does
not believe there has been enough research done in this area,
the actual links. And we get asked a lot of questions about
this money--where does it go, and what groups end up with it,
and what happens to the billions, and does it fund other
organized crime units, and does it lead to terrorist groups,
and all this.
And I have not seen hard research and evidence to answer
these questions. I just have not seen it.
So to me, this would make a tremendous contribution, and it
obviously fits the mandate of your committee.
Child-sex tourism has tremendous financial implications.
And I think it was either you or Congresswoman Maloney who
referred to the sex-tour operators. You can get on the
Internet, still today, as the congresswoman said, since the
passage of the Child PROTECT Act, where we can throw people in
jail for 30 years that are caught abusing children abroad and
sent back, maybe there has been a lessening.
But you can still get on the Internet today--there are
groups like Equality Now that monitor this--you can get on the
Internet today and find slave-auction sites, sex-tour sites
that are very clearly marketed to those Americans who will go
on trips to abuse children.
It is a very complicated legal issue. Our Justice
Department has worked on this, various state attorneys general
offices have worked on it. There has not been a dramatic
success.
There may be an area to explore here in terms of the
financial links of these child-sex-tourism tour operators. To
what extent, where do they get their money from, to what extent
do they take advantage of credit card and banking networks? Any
work in that area I think would be most welcome.
If I come up with some other suggestions, I will get back
to you.
Chairman Pryce. Well, I appreciate that.
And we will continue to work very closely with your office,
because you certainly are a resource that we cannot do without,
and your staff has been wonderful to us. So thank you so much.
At this time, I will yield back my time and recognize my
Ranking Member, Congresswoman Maloney, for questions.
Mrs. Maloney. In your work internationally, are there
certain countries that are particularly successful? I gave the
example of Sweden. I read a report where they were able to cut
the activity and really proceed with prevention.
If you have seen some case studies in other countries that
have been able to prevent sex trafficking or to control it or
to convict it, could you share them with us?
Mr. Miller. Sure.
I think you started with a good example. We are looking
with great interest and sympathy at the Swedish experiment,
where, as you said, they have decriminalized the conduct of the
women engaged in prostitution and have criminalized the conduct
not only of the brothel owner, the trafficker and the pimp, but
the sex buyer. We are looking at that with interest.
We have cooperated with Sweden, the two of us, our
countries, in opposing legalization of prostitution abroad and
in international forums.
Another country that is taking some interesting steps is
Korea. And this has just started.
Korea has also started to prosecute, as Sweden has. Korea
prosecutes the women as well as the men. They have not
decriminalized. But consistent with the purpose of your bill,
for the first time they are prosecuting the men as well as the
women, which is what your bill is trying to get at. This just
started this past year, so it is too early to see what happens.
We are working with Korea, Norma Hotaling of SAGE is
working with Korea, to try to see if we can help them set up
some education programs so that the men who are arrested get
some special education on how prostitution contributes to the
phenomenon of trafficking, how they are likely to be
interacting with trafficking victims in demeaning women.
So Korea is interesting.
I will just take another example: Gabon, in Africa. Gabon
is strapped for resources but has shown tremendous interest in
doing things that are low-cost--working with groups, taking
ideas, going into the villages.
There is another example. I like to cite it because you do
not have to be a rich country to do a lot of things. It helps
to have resources, do not get me wrong.
So those are a few examples.
Mrs. Maloney. Other studies that I read showed that in the
countries that have gone to the steps of legalizing
prostitution that trafficking has increased and the oppression
of women has increased.
Now, this was a very interesting statistic to me, because
every now and then I have someone who comes to me and says,
``One way we could alleviate the problem is to make it legal.''
The studies that I read, internationally, last night showed
that making it legal increased the problem and increased
trafficking. Was that your experience, too, and do you have any
concrete examples?
Mr. Miller. No, that is our experience. I think trafficking
can increase when it is illegal and tolerated, and it certainly
can increase and has increased when it is legal.
What happens--and we have seen numerous examples of this--
it is legalized, but the illegal sector does not go away.
Organized crime is so involved in it. The illegal sector just
expands.
The legal sector serves as somewhat of a front. And we have
looked at countries from the Netherlands to Australia to New
Zealand--Australia, it is just legalized in some provinces--and
the studies show no decrease in the number of trafficking
victims. What has happened is, you create magnets which draw
more trafficking victims. So it does not seem to work.
The idea of regulating has some appeal to people. I think,
Congresswoman Maloney, of the trans-Atlantic slave trade a few
centuries ago when I hear that argument. Because at that time
there were people that said, ``We can control this by having
better ventilation on the slave ships, providing doctors on the
slave ships, better rations.''
There is nothing wrong with that. I mean, who would be
opposed to it? Those are good things. But that is not
abolishing slavery. And it did not lead to a decrease in the
Atlantic slave trade, and it did not lead to the abolition of
slavery.
Mrs. Maloney. My time has expired.
Chairman Pryce. Your time has expired, thank you.
I would like to recognize the Vice Chairman of the
subcommittee, Judy Biggert, for questions.
Mrs. Biggert. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. I am
delighted to be here at your opening hearing of the 109th
Congress for this subcommittee. Congratulations.
Ambassador Miller, you talked about the various departments
or agencies of the federal government--the Department of Labor,
obviously the State Department, Homeland Security--that are all
involved in this issue. But you did not mention the Treasury.
What is their part in working with you?
Mr. Miller. I think Treasury has gotten involved in our
process when countries are in danger of falling on Tier 3. And
Treasury is concerned that this may lead to their having to
oppose, under the law, International Monetary Fund or World
Bank assistance for various projects.
I think this subcommittee--there is an issue to explore,
how to get the Treasury Department involved as part of this
21st century abolitionist movement. I think you will find that
they are certainly willing to listen to ideas.
I know the President would like to find ways--and maybe
there are ways that we have not explored, that I have not
thought of and should have thought of--for the Treasury
Department to get more involved in this.
Mrs. Biggert. You indicated that the departments have
strategic plans, so I would assume that that is probably not
true with the Treasury. Since we deal with that in this
committee, this would be another committee that we would want
to focus on.
Mr. Miller. I am going to get back to you on that. I know
all the agencies that I referred to have strategic plans. Let
me get back to you on whether Treasury has such a plan, and if
it does not, what it could do, and if does, what it includes. I
apologize for not knowing the answer to that question.
Mrs. Biggert. Thank you.
Then regarding the coordination of the TIPS-related aid,
does the interagency process focus only on coordinating
bilateral aid? Or does it encompass multilateral aid to
international organizations and development banks?
Mr. Miller. Both, and I should have mentioned that.
Yes, there is bilateral aid to other governments; yes,
there is aid through NGOs, U.S. NGOs, the foreign NGOs--there
is also aid through international and multilateral
organizations. Now, a lot of their aid, in turn, goes through
NGOs--but UNICEF, International Organization of Migration, to
cite two examples of international organizations that are
heavily involved in this and that the U.S. government has given
a lot of support to.
Mrs. Biggert. And then you suggested that a name-and-shame
campaign through a publication of the annual TIPs report may be
at least as effective as sanctions as a means of encouraging
government action. Is this a correct interpretation of your
testimony?
Mr. Miller. Well, I think it all has an effect. I think our
diplomacy, our engagement, has an effect. I think the publicity
for countries that are doing well and the publicity for
countries are doing badly has an effect.
And I think that the threat that a country at the lowest
rating, Tier 3, potentially, if they do not shape up in the 3
months after the report, could face sanctions--I think that has
an effect, and I can document--I will give you why I say this.
If this did not have an effect, why, in the 2 months before
the report, do we find nations stepping up their efforts? I
mean, it is incredible. I have ambassadors calling on me--our
office, that cannot find evidence of things being done,
suddenly is deluged with evidence of things being done.
And, then, on the sanctions part, after the report comes
out--well, just to give two examples.
It was very notable a couple of years ago. We had two
allies, Greece and Turkey, listed in Tier 3. And in the 3
months after the report came out, before the President had to
make a decision on sanctions, they, and other countries, did
remarkable things: arrests, prosecutions increased, shelters
were set up, referral systems for getting victims to NGOs were
set up. It was truly remarkable. And they were lifted off Tier
3.
So these are all examples of how I think these effects take
place, although I cannot scientifically measure it in each
case.
Mrs. Biggert. Thank you. My time has expired. But thank you
very much for your spirited testimony and your continued
passion in this field.
Thank you.
Chairman Pryce. The Chair now recognizes Patrick McHenry.
Mr. McHenry. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Ambassador Miller, thank you so much for being here today.
I certainly appreciate your testimony.
Can you talk about maybe the logistics of this, I mean, in
terms of a national security risk? When you are trafficking
people, for whatever purpose, I think it goes, at its heart,
could bleed over into national security issues. And so, could
you speak maybe to the logistics?
Mr. Miller. Well, if you are trafficking people across
borders, whether you are doing it ``legally or illegally,''
obviously it shows that either there are some holes or there is
some corruption or there is not as efficient approach as there
should be.
When you traffic a victim from one country to another and
he is held in slavery, and this activity continues and he is
held several years, and the police do not do anything, either
it is--it might be a lack of knowledge, or it might be
inefficiency, or it might be corruption.
In many countries, if you have--all of you have wrestled
with this; you are more knowledgeable on this than I am--if you
have a corrupt or inefficient police, you have not only got a
problem in law enforcement, it does affect national security.
I will give you an example of a country--I do not like to
do this, but I will.
There is a country, Cambodia, in Southeast Asia, where we
have seen evidence that the traffickers are apparently so
powerful that the government, in one notorious example, not
only released suspects that were arrested by a U.S.-trained
anti-trafficking unit, but then when the traffickers were
released, the government did nothing when the traffickers then
went to where the 80 victims, potential victims, were being
held and grabbed them.
Now, if this goes on in a country, what sort of stability
or security are you going to have?
Mr. McHenry. Well, an additional question--I realize that
trafficking comes from countries that have been adversely
affected by events such as the tsunami or war. But also
totalitarian regimes are notorious for encouraging this if not,
at the very least, not discouraging it.
And just right off the tip of Florida, we have one of the
worst abusers of this: Cuba. Can you speak to the Cuba
problem----
Mr. Miller. Yes.
Mr. McHenry.--and what we can do in terms of taking it on
as someone that is very close to our borders?
Mr. Miller. Well, if you look at our annual report last
year, without getting into what our report is going to say this
year, if you look at our report last year, we gave Cuba a very
poor rating. And the reason we gave Cuba a poor rating is that
Cuba officially supports travel-industry ventures that
encourage and promote child-sex tourism.
And not just under our law; under international covenants,
under international laws, this is per se a form of slavery. The
victim of child-sex tourism cannot ``consent.''
We offered, through our Interest Section in Havana, to work
with the Cuban government on this issue, but that offer was
refused. And the leader of Cuba made his hour-and-a-half or
two-hour speech denouncing our report, among other things.
So I would like to see the situation in Cuba, as in every
country, improve.
When you talk about slavery and totalitarian states, North
Korea is an example. There is no question there is slavery in
North Korea. Some of the victims of slavery flee across icy
rivers and borders, and then are returned on occasion by the
Chinese government to North Korea. These are problems we
comment on in our report.
Mr. McHenry. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Thank you, Ambassador, for your testimony.
Chairman Pryce. Thank you, Patrick.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Price.
Mr. Price. Thank you, Madam Chair. I am honored to serve on
this committee, and I, too, commend you for your new
chairmanship and am pleased to be with you.
Ambassador Miller, I welcome you as well, along with
others. I am astounded by the magnitude of this problem, and I
commend you for your work.
I am interested in how we define the magnitude of the
problem and kind of what the triggers are. Recently, as I
understand it, with the tsunami there was an increase in human
trafficking.
Help me understand how we knew that. What were the
indicators?
Mr. Miller. I think the tsunami, Congressman, focused
attention on this issue. But in that area, East Asia, Pacific,
there was and is a huge trafficking problem. I cannot say that
the tsunami greatly increased it. I think it focused needed
attention on it.
But you asked the more difficult question and that is, how
do you measure this issue?
It is very hard, because the victims do not stand in line
and raise their hands to be counted. Okay? So the estimates are
guesstimates, in my opinion. You take law enforcement figures,
prosecutions, victims. You go to NGOs and you get their reports
of victims. You go to academic studies, news media reports, et
cetera.
This leads to our government coming up with an estimate
that as many as 800,000 men, women and children are trafficked
into slavery across international borders every year, and up to
17,500 trafficked across our borders into slavery every year.
Mr. Price. Those numbers are extrapolations, or are those
actual----
Mr. Miller. They are partly extrapolations and they are
partly based on--yes.
But is it a scientific figure? Of course not. Nobody
counted 800,000.
Mr. Price. Right.
Mr. Miller. And some people think the figure is too low,
and some people think the figure is too high. But, remember,
that is annual across international borders. That does not
count internal slavery in the brick kilns of India or Pakistan,
for example. That does not count those who were in slavery at
one time. That is just counting traffic across international
borders in one year.
So obviously, if you are looking at a total slavery figure,
and you give any credibility to that 800,000 figure, the total
figure of those in slavery in a year has to be in the millions.
Mr. Price. Which gets to my next question: If we cannot
quantify the magnitude of the problem, how do we measure
success?
Mr. Miller. Well, the first speech I ever gave when I took
over this position 2 years ago, I went out to Georgetown and I
gave this speech, and I was all fired up, and some sociology
professor got up and asked the same question: How are you going
to measure success in this?
Our office is right now, we are working with the CIA--there
is going to be a conference in the next couple of months; we
are inviting academics--we are trying to get a better handle on
measuring success.
What we do now, we can measure prosecutions--and now we can
measure them around the world pretty much. We can measure
convictions. We can measure sentences. We can measure victims
served in shelters. We can measure victims reemployed. We can
measure how many people are reached by education programs,
either warning potential victims or trying to change the
attitude of society--that we can start to measure, and we know
those measurements are showing progress.
And so we conclude if those things are happening--there are
more convictions, more anti-trafficking-in-persons laws, more
leaders speaking out--we hope that the corner is being turned.
But can we prove it scientifically? Not yet.
Mr. Price. I have a very specific question about the
countries of Sudan and Venezuela and Equatorial Guinea that I
understand are under sanctions, or have had sanctions against
them, but they have been given exceptions. Can you enlighten me
as to why we would give countries that are under sanctions
exceptions and in what national interest we----
Mr. Miller. Sure.
You mentioned Sudan----
Mr. Price. Venezuela and Equatorial Guinea.
Mr. Miller.--and Equatorial Guinea.
I am not aware of an exception on--well, Sudan, I will tell
you the exception on Sudan.
The exception was, if Sudan were to sign a peace accord,
that AID would be allowed to implement the peace accord. The
decision was made, I think appropriately, by the Secretary of
State and the President that in an effort to stop the killing
and the genocide that it was important not to cut off all aid
to Sudan, if they signed the peace accord, which they did.
Chairman Pryce. Then gentleman's time is expired.
Mr. Miller. Let me get back to you----
Mr. Price. Thank you.
Mr. Miller. I will get back to you on Equatorial Guinea and
Venezuela. They did see some sanctions, but it may not have
been the full panoply, and I will get back to you on that.
Mr. Price. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Chairman Pryce. The Chair would like next to recognize the
former Chairman of this committee, Mr. Leach.
Mr. Leach. Well, thank you. I am delighted to serve under
you in your maiden voyage here.
It is hard to put perspective on issues of the day,
particularly this kind of issue.
I want to make a couple of comments about you, Madam Chair.
In the Congress of the United States, committees have
certain jurisdictions, but people have certain rights to do
what they want to do. And you have chosen to take on one of the
most profound issues in the world. We are all in your debt, and
we thank you.
In terms of jurisdiction, in one sense, when I looked at
the subject of this hearing, I thought, ``Why this
subcommittee?'' And then you think, we have jurisdiction over
trade. And of all the extraordinary things, there is a trade in
people. That is very profound. And it fits.
We also have certain jurisdiction over technology. And you
indicated that on the Internet slave-trading sites appear. I
had no idea that something so terrible would be on the
Internet. I guess I am beyond an age that I would think such
things exist, but the idea of sex-tour sites is really
horrifying.
And so one of the things that comes immediately to mind, it
seems to me that if someone tracks us from a governmental point
of view, instantaneously one would communicate with a country,
``This site has appeared. What are you doing about it?'' Do you
do that sort of thing?
Mr. Miller. I am sorry, say that last----
Mr. Leach. You suggest things appear on the Internet.
Mr. Miller. Right.
Mr. Leach. Let us say it is an auction site.
Mr. Miller. Right, right.
Mr. Leach. Do you instantaneously contact the government of
that country with this information: ``This site is here, this
is the information, what are you doing about it?"
Mr. Miller. Well, interestingly, Congressman Leach, the
sites that have been brought to my attention are in the United
States.
Mr. Leach. Okay.
Mr. Miller. And what I do is, I ship this over to the
Justice Department when I get this material, and they are
trying to figure out a way to get at these sites. I do not
think yet they have solved that riddle.
The New York attorney general brought a lawsuit against one
of these sites, Big Apple Tour, and lost the lawsuit. There are
free speech, intent--all these issues--how do you know the
person is going to commit the act when they get there, how do
you--you know, all the defenses that can be raised.
So we have to, in government--I am speaking as somebody not
directly involved in this--but I think, clearly, we in
government have to focus more attention on how we get a handle
on this. And I do not have the magic-bullet answer right now.
The lawyers are going to have to come up with that answer.
Because people send this stuff to me, and it is outrageous. It
is really outrageous.
And we will get some of this to you so you can look at it.
Mr. Leach. Well, I am less inclined to look at it. But
someone else should, someone who is accountable for doing
something about it.
Mr. Miller. I understand.
Mr. Leach. There is a distinction between prurient interest
and the national interest, and we have to be very careful here.
Do you contact the governments of the countries that are
advertised?
Mr. Miller. Yes, yes, we do, we do. And we are in
communication--we know the countries that have most of the sex-
tourism facilities. I can name them. They are countries like
Thailand, Cambodia, Costa Rica, The Gambia, et cetera.
We are in touch with those countries, and we do urge them
to take action.
But at the same time, when we talk with them, we say we
recognize that we, and other so-called developed nations, are
contributing to this problem.
I mean, when I visited Chiang Mai, Thailand, which is a
child-sex-tourism center, and I talked with the kids and NGOs
there, and I said, ``Where do these tourists come from?'' they
were not coming mostly from Thailand. They were coming from the
Netherlands, Germany, United Kingdom, United States, Japan,
Australia.
So this is what led you to pass the Child PROTECT Act a
year-and-a-half ago to crack down on this.
This is not just the problem for the country where the site
is--and the President recognized this in his speech to the U.N.
We, the countries that are sending the tourists, have a
challenge.
Mr. Leach. Let me just conclude very quickly, Madam Chair.
I am very impressed with the speech of the President. His
words were thoughtful, on the target and, frankly, eloquent.
I am also very impressed that he has designated you to head
this office, Ambassador. We are very impressed with your work
and your commitment, and thank you very much.
Mr. Miller. Thank you for the kind words.
Mr. Leach. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Chairman Pryce. Thank you, Mr. Leach.
I would like now to take an opportunity to recognize Ms.
Lee.
I believe you are here with your granddaughter----
Ms. Lee. Thank you very much.
Chairman Pryce.--introduce her.
Ms. Lee. Yes. Let me just say thank you for this hearing
and thank our Ranking Member.
And this is my granddaughter who is from Sierra Madre,
California, Miss Jordan Lee, 11 years old. She will be 12 on
Saturday.
And I am very delighted to have her with me today,
especially during this very important hearing because young
girls and young women, first of all, are so affected by this
issue. And secondly, I think women are going to have to really
figure how to address it. This is such a horrendous problem.
What it is, is modern-day slavery.
So I just want to thank you, Ambassador Miller, for being
here.
And I again thank our Chair and Ranking Member for this
hearing.
I am glad that we do have young people here to listen to
this.
Let me ask you a couple of things just about the mechanisms
that are in place that maybe we have not utilized. And I want
to read you what this says in terms of the Convention on the
Elimination of Discrimination Against Women.
Now, 20 years ago the United Nations General Assembly
adopted this convention, and so Part 1, Article 6 of the treaty
obligates governments which are party to CEDAW to take, and
this is what Part 1, Article 6 says: Take all appropriate
measures, including legislation, to suppress all forms of
trafficking in women and the exploitation of prostitution of
women.
Now, the United States signed the treaty in 1980, but we
have yet to ratify it.
So, Mr. Ambassador, I wanted to know: Given the concern of
the President, and of course your concern, and the magnitude of
this problem, why in the world does not this administration
lobby the Senate to ratify CEDAW?
And I just want to know, have you and Secretary Rice
weighed in with the White House or Senate in terms of just
trafficking, sex trafficking, and utilize this as a vehicle to
really help us come to grips with addressing it and eliminate
it?
Mr. Miller. Well, Congresswoman, I do not pretend to be an
expert on that treaty, but I think the administration's
objections do not relate to the trafficking section.
And if you are talking about international covenants to
oppose trafficking, the U.N. passed a wonderful covenant on sex
exploitation in 1949, which we did ratify. The U.N. just
recently, several years ago, adopted a special protocol to
fight trafficking. And the present administration fully
supports it, sent that to the Senate over a year ago.
We are hoping to get Senate ratification soon. Many
countries are starting to ratify it. And it lays out--and to a
large extent it is based on our law, the law you passed, and it
lays out a whole array of tools that countries can and should
use on this issue.
Ms. Lee. But in terms of CEDAW, again, I think anytime we
have any laws or treaties that address sex trafficking and the
human exploitation of women, we should be party and we should
ratify those treaties.
Mr. Miller. Well, I will say this: Here I have told you
about this U.N. protocol that we signed and the President wants
us to ratify, but I am also going to say that while I am all
for this protocol, I will give my opinion that while protocols
are helpful, my experience, traveling around the world, is that
the will of governments is more important.
Ms. Lee. Sure.
Mr. Miller. And when I talk to justice ministers and
foreign ministers and sometimes prime ministers and they say,
``Well, we signed this agreement,'' and I say, ``That is nice,
but what are you doing to throw the traffickers in jail and
free the slaves?"
Ms. Lee. Sure.
Mr. Miller. And that comes from willpower at the ground
level.
Ms. Lee. And by signing and by ratifying CEDAW, that would
show that the will of our government is right there with the
international community in terms of eliminating all forms of
discrimination against women and using another mechanism to
address sex trafficking, especially since so many of the
customers come from the United States of America.
Let me just conclude by asking you about Africa, in terms
of countries in Africa where many applied for asylum in the
United States because of the dangers of human trafficking. Do
you have any handle on the numbers of Africans that have
requested asylum based on this notion or this part of the
asylum provision of our laws?
Mr. Miller. I do not. And I am not sure that the asylum
provisions specifically include a trafficking section. You
raise a very interesting point. I think asylum is directed to
fear of persecution.
Fear of persecution could involve persecution by
traffickers, if you get sent back home, as well as governments.
But let me check into that further and get back to you,
Congresswoman.
Ms. Lee. I would appreciate getting your response on that.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Ambassador.
Chairman Pryce. We have vote on. We have 10 minutes and 30
seconds left. It is probably 10 minutes now. We will take
another 5-minute question and recognize Ms. Harris from
Florida.
Ms. Harris. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Thank you so much
for your outstanding leadership on this incredibly important
issue.
I truly appreciate your scheduling this hearing on human
trafficking, which continues to grow in scope and intensity.
And I share your very passionate concern and look forward to
working with you to find a solution to this scourge.
I also wish to welcome our distinguished panel.
And, Ambassador Miller, in particular, thank you for your
outstanding work. We think you are doing a magnificent job to
end this evil practice.
A couple of questions real quickly: The sentencing
guidelines under the Protect Act of 2003 limits sentences for
sex crimes against children to 30 years. The punishment seems
lenient, particularly when fines and parole remain options.
Do you think it would be more appropriate to define these
offenses as violent crimes--we have discussed this before--that
would be subject to federal sentencing guidelines, as such?
And, then, perhaps we could strengthen asset-forfeiture laws
regarding them as well.
Mr. Miller. Well, Congresswoman Harris, you have taken a
great interest in this issue, and I want to thank you.
I agree with the spirit of your question. I think we can
always look at strengthening the laws.
The sentences that have been handed down--and I do not have
them in front of me--but my recollection is, the sentences that
have been handed down, while they are much heavier than in
other countries, I am not aware of anybody getting 30 years. If
there was, that was an exception. You know, there is this plea
bargaining that goes on.
But from my point of view, when you are talking about
people that have committed kidnapping and rape, the sentences
ought to be equivalent.
Ms. Harris. If they were reclassified as a violent crime,
then the federal guidelines would be associated as such.
Because right now, even though it says 30 years, when you can
waive the fines and waive the parole, it just does not seem it
is adequately being addressed.
Mr. Miller. Well, I am not knowledgeable on the nuances of
the sentencing rule, but I appreciate your concern and welcome
your looking into it.
Ms. Harris. Thank you, sir. Thank you for your service.
Chairman Pryce. At this time we have to leave for our vote.
I would like to recess the hearing for 15 minutes, at which
time we will return to our second panel.
Once again, our gratitude to you, Mr. Ambassador, for being
here today and for your work on this issue.
Mr. Miller. Thank you for holding this hearing, Madam
Chairman.
Chairman Pryce. Recess, 15 minutes.
[Recess.]
Chairman Pryce. We left in haste.
I would like to say before dismissing the panel and
Ambassador is still here, the Chair notes that some members may
have additional questions for this panel which they may submit
in writing. And without objection, the hearing record will
remain open for 30 days for members to submit written questions
to our last witness and to place his response on the record.
Without further ado, we will move on to the second panel of
witnesses.
Norma Hotaling is a familiar face to many, many of you here
today. She is an innovative and effective voice for survivors
of prostitution, exploitation and trafficking and a founder of
the SAGE Project in the San Francisco area and soon all across
the United States, very thankfully.
Ms. Hotaling is joined on the panel by Tina Frundt, a
representative from the Polaris Project, a multicultural,
nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., and Japan.
This organization is recognized internationally for their
efforts in outreach and service to victims of trafficking.
We welcome these witnesses here today, recognize them for a
5-minute summary of their testimony.
Without objection, your written statements will be made a
part of the record.
We are very, very pleased to have you here, and, Tina,
especially for your very courageous words that we will hear.
And who would like to go first? Ms. Hotaling?
STATEMENT OF NORMA HOTALING, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SAGE
Ms. Hotaling. That would be fine.
Madam Chairman, I am so honored to speak here today and am
especially honored that this is the opening subcommittee of the
109th Congress. I am particularly happy to see so many women
standing up for the rights of other young human beings, both
boys and girls and women.
And I would like to start my speech by saying how proud I
am to know Ambassador Miller. I consider him to be a beacon of
light in the efforts to eradicate the accepted and endorsed rap
and torture of millions of women and girls.
I hope you make every effort to give him and the TIP office
all the support, tools and resources they need. He is an
absolute champion for those women and girls who are exploited,
abused and forced into slavery.
I am proud to call him a friend and to know him as a
colleague.
My name is Norma Hotaling, and I am the executive director
and founder of the SAGE Project in San Francisco.
SAGE is the first and the foremost organization providing
integrated trauma, mental health and substance abuse services
for survivors of prostitution, exploitation and trafficking.
Because our programs are designed and delivered by
survivors of prostitution, we effectively provide support and
engender trust without re-traumatizing even the most fragile of
clients.
Each week we serve over 350 women and girls, most of whom
are life-long victims of sexual, emotional and physical abuse.
And then they suffer the humiliation of arrest after arrest.
SAGE, in coordination with the San Francisco district
attorney's office and police department, developed the nation's
first restorative justice program that addresses the demand
side of prostitution. And that was developed in 1995, and it is
called FOPP, or First Offender Prostitution Program.
Over 7,000 men have attended this program. They are
arrested, they pay a fee. Those fees fund rehabilitation
services for the real victims of sexual slavery: women and
children.
The program has been replicated in over 35 jurisdictions
throughout the country.
SAGE is a dynamic departure from the previous practice of
revolving-door arrests of individuals involved in prostitution
with little or no services available. And because the average
age of entry into prostitution is 12, 13 and 14, the issue is
not only one of violence but also sexual abuse and rape of our
children.
Every day vulnerable girls of color as well as white, blue-
eyed, blond girls and any girl who is vulnerable and naive and
between the ages of 12 and 17 are brutally and cunningly
recruited by violent or smooth-talking pimps from high schools,
streets and shopping malls, and they are delivered in our U.S.
major cities.
Poor, vulnerable Asian, Central American and Russian women
and girls are smuggled, kidnapped and raped and tricked and
coerced by traffickers and organized crime syndicates into
highly invisible and mobile sex trade that includes strip
clubs, escorts, massage parlors, brothels and street
prostitution.
These women and children make up the supply side of
prostitution. The demand side of prostitution is comprised
mostly of educated, middle-class and upper-class men.
In prostitution, we see the fragility of the human mind. We
see it brutally manipulated and molded to serve the purposes of
perpetrators.
Universally, we experience the victims being targeted,
blamed and punished by social service, mental health, medical
and criminal justice systems.
Vanessa, who came to us at 18, said, ``My pimp knocked me
out with a baseball bat. I woke up, and he was sewing up my
head. He would not even take me to the hospital. How can I get
away? He would kill me first. Besides, he was all I knew. I had
been with him since I was 12.''
Through SAGE, we shed light on a subject that thrives in
darkness, secrecy, silence and shame.
SAGE raises community awareness regarding international and
domestic trafficking in addition to providing direct service to
the victims of trafficking. But combating trafficking requires
coordination between law enforcement, legislators, the
judiciary and community-based organizations.
We have found that unlike domestic-trafficked victims,
international trafficking victims are less likely to be found
in jails. They are found in quasi-legal, U.S. government-
licensed and tolerated prostitution systems commonly known as
massage parlors.
We have, therefore, been involved in significant
prostitution abatement and legislative reform efforts aimed at
massage parlor licensing, as well as nail salons and
acupuncture clinics. These type of businesses have proven to be
destinations for individuals who come to the country under
promissory arrangements in which women and girls are forced to
work off their debts.
The trend we observed is that arrestees who are being
solicited out of private residences are immediately relocated
once arrested. This indicates that there is a third-party
oversight of these women's activities and that resources, which
pay for plane tickets and relocation costs, are directed
towards keeping them working in the sex trade.
We have heard story after story told and retold about the
billions of dollars made from trafficked women and girls that
enrich transnational crime networks, the corruption of
officials through bribes and the collaboration of criminal
networks with government officials that enable traffickers to
operate.
But what is historic, what is heroic and what is
transpiring now is that we have awakened to the fact that these
networks are financed $1 at a time by men, who we call ``the
demand,'' who we have allowed to buy human beings and use them
though they are nothing more than receptacles, like toilets and
sewers.
We have normalized their behavior while criminalizing the
real victim.
I can tell you story after story where there were no bribes
of officials. These are the stories that involve ``the
demand,'' the men. They are always free to go. They are
released without ever paying a bribe, without an arrest, to
enjoy their dinners, their families, their jobs while
continuing to pretend that their hands are clean, and the
millions of wounded, missing, dead women and children a result
of other very bad, very organized people doing very bad deeds.
Today, with your efforts, and the introduction of the End
Demand For Sex Trafficking Act of 2005, this protection and
collusion with the real perpetrator is ending.
Dollar by dollar paid by ``the demand,'' the line between
the state and criminal networks starts to blur, making it seem
impossible to intervene in the succession of corruption,
collaboration, crime and profit.
Dollar by dollar, the money that the men pay to buy, have
delivered, harmed, toss aside women and children is laundered
through bank accounts in offshore accounts.
We like to fool ourselves into thinking that domestic and
international trafficking is driven by economic despair and not
by the protection and collusion with the men who demand to buy
women, human beings, and thus create the market for sex slaves.
As long as we point our finger away from ourselves, away
from the institutions that blame and criminalize women and
children for their own rape, their own sexual abuse, their own
trafficking, their own slavery, as long as we point our fingers
away from the men who we normalize as johns, and as long as we
disconnect adult prostitution and the exploitation of children,
and disconnect prostitution and trafficking in human beings for
the purposes of rape, of sexual abuse, of sexual slavery, then
we are to blame.
Like most of SAGE's clients, I was exploited as a child
through prostitution. I suffered years of trauma, drug use,
criminalization and involvement in this adult-sex trade.
It is my job and my purpose to prevent sexual slavery and
to end the demand for prostitution while providing women and
girls like myself and the staff of SAGE the opportunity to lead
healthy and fulfilling lives.
Thank you for my chance to speak to you today. It is such
an honor and a dream come true. With your continued assistance
and the recommendations that are forthcoming from this
committee, we can put an end to sexual exploitation and slavery
of millions of women and girls in and outside of our borders.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Norma Hotaling can be found on
page 48 in the appendix.]
Chairman Pryce. Thank you, Norma, very much.
Tina?
STATEMENT OF TINA FRUNDT, POLARIS PROJECT
Ms. Frundt. Chairwoman Pryce, Ranking Member Maloney and
subcommittee members, thank you for convening this hearing on
trafficking in persons, for giving me an opportunity to share
the experience of Polaris Project, as well as my experience as
a survivor of sex trafficking.
I also want to thank you for supporting the End Demand For
Sex Trafficking Act. It is historic legislation and addresses a
terrible long-overlooked problem. Your leadership means a
tremendous amount to myself and to all of our clients.
Polaris Project is a multicultural nonprofit organization
based in Washington, D.C. We also have an office in Tokyo,
Japan, with a national advocacy and local direct intervention
programs.
We serve victims of all forms of trafficking, including
both foreign nationals and U.S. nationals, exploited in both
sex and labor trafficking.
Today, however, I am going to focus on domestic sex
trafficking of U.S. citizens within our own borders.
I understand this problem very well. Because 20 years ago,
my first pimp was my foster mother's boyfriend who forced me to
have sex with strange men who came to our house.
When I was 14 years old, I was forced out on a street in
Chicago. I ran away from home to be with a wonderful man, I
thought, an older man who sold me great dreams of living
together, making money and becoming rich. He told me that if I
loved him, I would help make money for us.
At first, it was the just two of us. But then he introduced
me to other women, and I soon learned he was a pimp.
He brought us to Cleveland, Ohio, and told us how we will
make for us and then that we were a happy family. He told me to
have sex with one of his friends. I did not want to, so his
friend raped me.
Afterwards he said that would not have happened if I just
listened to him from the very beginning. So I took it as my
fault. Instead of being angry at him for being raped, I was
angry at myself for not listening to what he said.
Right after that he started telling me what to wear, what
to do, and forced me to go out on the streets to have sex with
men.
When I was first on the streets, I walked back and forth
for hours, hiding until the morning. Our quota was $500, but I
had only $50 that night to give to my pimp. So he beat me. He
beat me in front of the other girls as a lesson and made me go
outside until I made the money.
My second night out, I came back with $500, but it still
was not enough. It was not enough for him. He told me to go out
again. I was out for a straight 24 hours. When I went back, he
finally bought me something to eat. But as a punishment, he
locked me in a closet to sleep.
I will sleep in that closet for many, many times more.
This is the same man who took me out to eat, listened to me
when I wanted to complain about my parents and gave me words of
advice. But increasingly, I was seeing a side of him that I
never saw before. I was shocked and I was scared. What will
happen to me if I did try to leave? And who will believe me if
I told them what was going on?
After a while, I became numb to the abuse. It happened so
much, it is like eating breakfast in the morning: You may not
like what you eat, but you get used to the routine.
Pimps are very sadistic. They train you and they manipulate
you. After my pimp broke my arm with a bat, he told me to sit
on his lap and asked me what was wrong. When I said, ``You
broke my arm,'' he beat me some more. He kept beating me until
my answer changed: that I fell down.
When he broke my finger, I was not allowed to see a doctor,
so I wrapped it with some tape, and it never set correctly.
What happened to me 15 to 20 years ago is still going on
today across the U.S. In some cases, today's young women and
girls have it much worse than I did.
Our clients include a young woman first prostituted by her
mother when she was 12. Another was sold to a pimp by her
mother 2 days before her 14th birthday. Another was kidnapped
and prostituted on a national circuit when she was 12 years
old.
The reality of our clients is sex with men 7 days a week,
year round, usually between the hours of 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. On
an average night, they are forced to have sex with 10 to 15
people a night so that their pimps can buy luxury cars and
houses, have quotas ranging from $500 to $1,000 every night for
each woman.
This is a lucrative, criminal industry. Some estimate
profits from human trafficking range from $7 billion to $9
billion annually.
We recently sat down with a survivor of sex trafficking who
was first prostituted in her early teens. Representing a
typical case, her trafficker generated an estimated $130,000
from her profits each year alone. He made approximately $24,000
a month off her and other women and made about $642,000 a year
between her and the other women, tax-free.
The pimps are cocky now. They are not afraid of the police.
They are not afraid of the judicial system. We as Americans
have made them untouchable by not recognizing the problem and
solving it.
If we are judging the efforts of other countries to combat
trafficking, we certainly must aggressively fight the
traffickers of our own U.S. citizens, ensuring that no sex
trafficker feels he can profit from modern-day slavery.
Undermining demand is the key to cutting off the funding at
its source, preventing traffickers from generating and
laundering profits.
Like foreign national victims, domestic victims are also
moved away from their home. The pimps move these young girls
and women from state to state where they have no one to trust
and no one to turn to. They cannot go back because they are
ashamed and they are afraid to tell their families.
On the outside looking in, we think, ``There are so many
resources for them.'' But in reality, where are the resources
and how do they know about them? How can you ask for help from
the police when they have done nothing but arrest you and they
treat you as a criminal and not as a victim?
The domestic sex trafficking of women and children across
the United States can only be described as a crisis. To begin
to address his problem, I would like to make the following
recommendations:
First, recognize all victims of trafficking, including
adult citizens who are trafficked by force or coercion.
Two, provide funding for comprehensive and specialized
service, especially shelter, for domestic trafficking victims
in cities across the U.S., complementing the existing funding
for foreign national trafficked persons.
Three, we need to train local units and youth service units
in police departments, and especially Child Protective Services
to combat trafficking, including domestic sex trafficking.
Four, we need to modify the sex offenders registry to flag
sex traffickers, pimps and johns who commit sexual abuse. A
tracking system is necessary, because the sex trafficking of
pimps, they move from state to state, selling women and
children.
Five, we need to prosecute of hotels and advertisers and
other legal businesses that knowingly profit from or launder
profits from human trafficking.
As a voice among hundreds of thousands who have been
unheard, I thank you again for supporting the End Demand For
Sex Trafficking Act and for your commitment and continuing
leadership on this issue.
Now that you have the knowledge, what will you do with it?
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Tina Frundt can be found on page
41 in the appendix.]
Chairman Pryce. Thank you both very much for your
testimony. You both have exhibited great courage here today and
in your daily work.
I sense that your stories are very common, that there is
something similar in each victim, and that is very sad.
And, Tina, thank you for your suggestions. Hopefully much
of what you would like to propose that we do is touched upon in
the bill that we are going to introduce later today. So once we
get that done, you can help us as you continue in your work to
help us get it passed too.
I am curious if either of you have an opinion as to what
the most effective measure that we as the United States
government can take in combating trafficking, both at home and
overseas?
Ms. Frundt. I think one of them would be that sex-offenders
registry, because the pimps and johns are pedophiles. They are
abusers, they are rapists. Adding them to the sex registry,
because they move from state to state, and flagging them for
what they truly are, as pimps as johns, will make everyone
aware and put them in the spotlight and showing that this is
glamorized, that these are sex abusers who are preying on our
children and women. I think that is one way we can help.
Ms. Hotaling. In my experience and with working with
johns--which is a term I hate--when we start talking to them
about what would happen, what would they do if they were going
to be arrested as rapists and sexual abusers, they immediately
say they will stop.
I think that there needs to be an advocacy program that
says--I do not believe that you criminalize your way out of
this. I think you can criminalize and advocate your way out of
this, but it has to start with the men. They are the ones that
are supplying the money for all of this, for all of the harm.
And we have to be very serious that their behavior is not
normal, it is not just normalized prostitution, and that when
it involves a child that it is sexual abuse and it is rape, and
they are going to be arrested and charged with that.
And one of the hardest of folks to work with are the police
on this. They let the men go. Every girl that has been through
our program has said, ``They have found me in a sex act. They
have told the guy, 'What are you doing out here with this dirty
little whore?' and they have let the guy go, and they have
arrested the girl.'' And that has to end. The good 'ole boys
network has to end.
And the criminal justice folks really need to take this
seriously and look at the men as what they are, as real
predators.
We are teaching men through especially child prostitution
how to be pedophiles, and then we are normalizing their
behavior, and we are creating--we have created a group of
children that it is okay to sexually abuse and rape. We just
set them aside, and then we arrest them.
So we have to change our language and how we address this
issue.
And I love the idea of a sex registry. They should be
registering.
Chairman Pryce. Well, Norma and Tina, let me just say, as a
former judge, I am here to attest that there is a definite
ingrained bias in our system. It is centuries old, and it is
going to take a lot to change the mentality.
Can you think of ways besides the registry that we can
shine light on this and make Americans, especially, more aware?
Ms. Hotaling. In California, we just passed a law which
is--it is so common-sense it is hard to even talk about--and we
have changed the sexual abuse in the statutory rape law to add
years to it. We have enhanced that law that says: If you use
money, goods or services in order to gain sexual access to a
child, you are not only going to be charged with sexual abuse
and statutory rape, you are going to be--there are going to be
extra years added to your time.
And what we need to do is, we need to make sure that it is
not only being investigated and prosecuted that way in San
Francisco but throughout the country, that the laws that we are
using on child exploitation, especially, are the sexual abuse
and the statutory rape laws--end of story.
Even the Center for Missing and Exploited Children still
call it child prostitution. They do not analyze the sexual
abuse in the stat rape laws. They do not look at how those laws
are being used throughout the country, and they are directing
criminal justice folks throughout the country to go after the
pimps and the traffickers but not the johns.
Chairman Pryce. Well, I appreciate those suggestions, and
we will take them to heart. It is certainly important that we
keep the spotlight on this issue.
Thank you both very much for being here today and sharing
with us.
I now recognize my Ranking Member, Ms. Maloney.
Mrs. Maloney. I want to thank you both for your very brave
and moving testimony. It is very difficult to talk about
yourself publicly, but I feel that your story helps to educate
us, inspire us, and will help us be more effective in
preventing such actions towards others.
So I want to compliment you for what you have done with
your life. You have taken a tragedy and turned it into a
success in helping others, and it is truly remarkable.
As you know, in our bill a third goes to helping-victim
programs that would help young girls and boys, and two-thirds
goes to grants that would be an incentive to states and
localities to prosecute pimps and johns, or perpetrators.
What would be a better word of johns? Perpetrators?
Ms. Hotaling. Perpetrators, ``the demand.''
Mrs. Maloney. ``The demand'' side. But currently it is
against the law now. They are just not doing it.
Ms. Hotaling. Exactly.
Mrs. Maloney. Earlier, I remember we used to give grants to
educate the police and the prosecutors across this country
about rape as a crime, that beating up your wife was not an
acceptable activity and that rape should be treated like a
serious crime.
We have made a tremendous effort, and maybe we need to do
the same thing.
I think another thing that one of your advocacy groups--it
may have been Polaris--said to me, that in their research on
the criminal cases, it is always the women, never the men----
Ms. Hotaling. Yes, right.
Mrs. Maloney.--and possibly keeping a report--or just
requiring a report; it would not cost government money--of how
many women are convicted versus men when it is illegal for
both. That would be another way of providing a spotlight on it.
I would like to ask Tina: In your second recommendation you
said that we needed funding for services and support for
domestic trafficking victims that complemented the existed
funding for foreign national victims of trafficking persons.
I would ask you to clarify: Are we funding for foreign
trafficking of victims but not for domestic trafficking of
victims?
Ms. Frundt. Yes.
Mrs. Maloney. Do you know how much funding we put in for
foreign trafficking of victims?
Ms. Frundt. That I honestly will have to check on that and
come back with that amount for you.
Mrs. Maloney. I find this so troubling, because your story
tells a failed story of a government that I believe in and that
I support--the foster care system not reporting the foster
mother being an extreme abuser, and the fact that our existing
systems that we were hoping were helping people are not.
As two victims, could you advise us: What could we have
done better as a government?
Many of us have served in local government and funded
foster care, supported it. Obviously the system did not work,
and if you could share how you got out of it. Was it an age
item, that you got old enough to realize what was happening to
you so you left?
Could you share that so we would understand how we could
help other young ladies and men get out victimization?
Ms. Frundt. Well, fortunately, I was lucky enough to get
adopted when I was 13. However, I went through years----
Mrs. Maloney. Tina, how did you get out? Did you just one
day realize and run away? How did you get out?
Ms. Frundt. No, I ran away numerous times when I was 10
years old to sleep in abandoned buildings in Chicago. I told my
social worker repeatedly what was going on, who did not choose
to believe me.
I was taken to a doctor, 11 years old, who did not want to
believe me.
I tried to commit suicide when I was 11, and they stuck me
into a mental hospital for children in Cook County.
The problem is, social workers are telling them, telling
children, ``Look, I have too many cases. Try to behave. Try to
behave and calm down.'' But what they are doing is sweeping the
problem under the carpet.
So do I have some plan on how to stop this? No, but it is a
problem. They need better training. They need training of
recognizing sex crimes, that we are being trafficked.
We need someone to listen to us when we are telling them
what is going on, not that ``I have too many cases and I cannot
address the problem.''
Ms. Hotaling. I had my staff do an experiment of calling
CPS, Child Protection Services, on every child that came in
that was exploited through prostitution and tried to put in a
claim, they would not take them.
And the calls went something like, ``I have a child here
who has been exploited, sexually abused by over 300 men.'' They
would say, ``Well, what is the name of the man?'' and we would
say, ``We don't know.'' And they would say, ``Well, we are not
going to take a case, we are not going to make a claim.''
Probation officers, a child comes in for prostitution, that
should be an assumption right there that that child has been
raped and sexually abused, and they are mandated reporters and
they need to be held accountable as that.
And we fight continually with probation officers, and they
scream at us, saying, ``How dare you try to make this child the
victim. She is a perpetrator.''
And we cannot get victims-of-crime money for these
children, because they are considered involved in a crime at
the time of their victimization.
So the discrimination goes all the way up.
So, one, we have to redefine, first, ``child
exploitation.'' We have to do away with the term of ``child
prostitution'' and make it ``child rape'' and ``child sexual
abuse.'' Period. End of story.
Mrs. Maloney. My time is up. I just want to say that
changing attitudes is a huge hurdle, but we have to go really
to the core in our society of changing attitudes.
I think both of your testimonies were excellent. Thank you.
Ms. Hotaling. I would like to just say one thing, that a
study just came out in Denmark about 3 days ago on customers,
and they found that when men started in prostitution as youth,
they are the ones that continue throughout their lifetimes as
customers.
And so really starting prevention education programs for
men around this is very, very important.
Chairman Pryce. Thank you.
I would like now to recognize the gentlewomen from Florida
who is working very hard on some of your suggestions already,
Ms. Harris.
Ms. Harris. Thank you so much, Madam Chairman.
I do want you to know we are working in law in honor of
Carly Brucia--who was kidnapped, brutally raped and murdered--
that will address some of these things, including a national
sex registry.
I think Chairman Pryce's explanation and opportunity she
said she would work with me on it, so I am looking forward to
doing that.
I want to say how grateful I am to both SAGE and Polaris
for your leadership for these kind of things. I would like to
see it firsthand and know more what we can do.
I was going to ask the name, what we should call them
instead of johns, predators. But definitely to change the
definition. I mean, to call it child prostitution when they do
not have a choice is unconscionable.
So certainly to change it to exploitation, that then you
would have no choice but to take the case instead of saying
they were part of a crime, they were a victim.
As for my questions: Do you think that organizations such
as yours receive enough cooperation and support that it takes
from local communities and local governments for your work? Or
is there something lacking?
What can we do to be more supportive? How can we help
communities get more engaged, communities in our states?
Ms. Frundt. Well, Polaris Project is currently on a task
force trying to change the police minds on, one, that these are
victims and they are forced into prostitution and not willing
want to be into prostitution.
That is the hardest part, is having them understand the
victim status, even of the young women--and also recognizing
that there are lots of young children that go through the adult
court system, and they paper them as 18 and they go through the
court. They are 14, 15 years old, going in front of the judge,
going into D.C. jail. And we have talked to a few people on the
police force who had said, ``Well, it is so much paperwork to
paper them as juveniles.''
Ms. Harris. This is just unbelievable testimony. And I
think the most thing, when we talk about it takes a long time
to change a mindset, I think it is also because people do not
know, when you talk about sex trafficking or human slavery, you
just do not think that exists in this century, and if it does,
it is in some remote area. And when you hear that it actually
occurs in our nation where we, you know, consider it to be just
and moral, it is discouraging.
But I do not know that it will take that long once you
shine the spotlight on it, because everybody will be just as
mortified as we are.
I am grateful for your testimony.
But Polaris, the statistics I have, it said that your
materials included about 225 high-risk individuals, but you
only were able to give 14 people support. What is it--you know,
are we missing a lot of victims? Do you need more support? How
can we help?
Ms. Frundt. Well, again, victims do not shout out and say,
``Hey, I am a victim, come help me,'' one, because of trust
issues, of not even wanting to believe that there is someone
that actually cares enough.
When I come in contact with our clients, the first, initial
contact, first of all, is, ``Oh, my goodness, I never heard of
anything like this, and someone actually cares about me"--that
is one.
And then just realizing that, yes, we can do--it is a mind
frame. Once you have been trained to think a certain way, it is
very hard to be trained out of thinking that way, to think on
your own, to say that you can do something on your own without
someone controlling you.
So, yes, of course, you are not going to reach--
unfortunately, not everyone is going to come up and jump up and
say, ``I am a victim, please help me.'' It is a process.
Ms. Hotaling. At SAGE we see around 350 women and girls a
week in our services. The girls are referred to by juvenile
probation. They are referred by Child Protection Services now.
The police department, because of a very serious murder of
a young girl, before she was murdered she was arrested when she
was 14 when she was found in a sex act with a 45-year-old man.
The man was let go. She was arrested. A month later she was
found dead.
And as a result of that, we have made sure that the police
department identifies any child or anyone that they suspect to
be a child so that we can have a continual record of that child
and know who she is and who she belongs to and everything else.
The girls in our program are also self-referred. They bring
in other girls to the program. Their parents bring them to us.
And it is a very, very intensive program.
We are starting a safe house for girls in June.
Ms. Harris. I would like to know about that. Just one last
question----
Ms. Hotaling. And we are starting with a budget deficit the
moment we open the door, but we are going ahead with it.
Ms. Harris. In Sweden they have criminalized the behavior
of men, and it is drastically reduced, this type of behavior,
when they are criminalized and not the victims, particularly
the children.
The most important thing we can do is end this type of
behavior.
Do you have any other suggestions with regard to being able
to shut down the brothels and the massage parlors, those kinds
of things, that would deal in human trafficking or child
exploitation?
Ms. Hotaling. Well, a number of places throughout the Bay
Area--Oakland just started brand new ordinances to shut down
massage parlors that are known to be fronts for prostitution.
So they have an ordinance that would be very important to look
at.
San Francisco today is putting forth an ordinance to change
the way massage establishments are licensed and that it has to
be approved by the community. So they have to go through a
community awareness.
They have to go through the planning department and the
community becomes advised that this establishment is opening
up. So the communities are going to really stop these
establishments.
We are also training fire department, planning departments,
other people that can go into these establishments and identify
trafficking victims and identify prostitution--and if there is
prostitution, there is trafficking--and then have a whole
procedure of working with the victims.
Chairman Pryce. The gentlewoman's time has expired.
Now I would like to recognize Mr. Castle from Delaware.
Mr. Castle. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. And let me just
thank you for having a hearing on something of vital
importance.
Let me thank both of you for being here. These are stories
that are probably not that easy to tell in public, and I think
it makes a great impression on everybody here.
I have been sort of sitting here thinking a little bit
perhaps differently, and I must admit that my questions may not
be on international trafficking as much as just stopping the
problem on a local basis, which could perhaps apply
internationally.
But just to get some ideas: I am from Delaware, and I know
when we stop drunk drivers in roadblocks, it changed the
behavior of people I know dramatically. They put their names in
the paper, changed it even more.
Every now and then they do that with the so-called
perpetrators, johns, whatever you wish, they put their names in
the paper when they stop them. And to me it seems to have
changed behavior. I do not know if you have seen that before or
whatever.
I am going to add something else to that: The other aspect
to it is visible prosecution of these individuals, particularly
the pimps, where the evidence can be put together. I have seen
very strong evidence that if you have strong, visible
prosecution, that also changes behavior. You know, all of a
sudden you see 3 days in the paper, whatever it may be.
Are we doing--I mean, you can comment on those two things,
that is, publishing the names of the perpetrators and the
prosecution.
But those kinds of things which actually shine a light on
the problem and on those who really are the ones who are
causing the problems, the pimps and the perpetrators, with the
young people, I would be interested in your comments on that
kind of an approach.
In addition--do not get me wrong, I realize it cannot be
alone, but in addition to other things that we are doing.
Ms. Hotaling. I am a health educator, so I design health
education programs, public health programs, and I really
believe that there are number important aspects to the first-
offender prostitution program.
One is that the men's personal life, their intimate
relationships, are very fragile at best, at very best. The
minute you get involved in prostitution, you lose the ability
to create meaningful relationships, intimate relationships. You
just lose it. And you do not develop that way.
So publishing the names the first time, for the first
arrest, I think has the capacity of tearing apart whatever
personal relationships and intimate relationships they have. So
our program is really about building on those relationships,
giving them one chance and giving them an education and
saying----
Mr. Castle. All right, well, then what about the second or
the third time? I mean, in other words, you do not bury
murderers and rapists, I mean, the kind of rape you think about
with violence, not child rape, I mean, we do not bury their
names.
So at what point----
Ms. Hotaling. The second time, anything goes----
Mr. Castle. So at some point----
Ms. Hotaling. Hang them up and strip them, I do not care.
Ms. Frundt. It is continuous, continuously putting their
name in the paper.
And as far as the pimps are feeling untouchable, because
when the women are arrested, sometimes the pimps are right
there. They yell, they scream at the police, and they are not
arrested, saying that they do not have enough evidence, saying
that they are pimps in this supposed situation.
So we need to come down on that, on how the police receive
that.
Because of course the woman's not going to say in front,
``Yes, that is my pimp, please arrest. Him.''
So we need to also look at those laws for that.
Mr. Castle. Exactly. And I think you said something in your
answer that you just sort of said, which was ``continuous,''
and I think you are right about that. I do not think you can do
this once and let it go for 5 years. This has to be something
that recurs enough that it is going to get everybody's
attention.
Let me expand it to another area, and that is dedicated law
enforcement.
I am on the Education Committee, and we have all kinds of
people playing all kinds of games with degrees and selling them
and everything else. There used to be sort of a couple of guys
in the FBI who really focused on this and really sort of kept
it away because of their focus. Now there is really nobody
doing that.
I sort of sense the same problem with local police
departments, maybe all the way through even the FBI with
international trafficking or whatever it may be.
Do we lack the law enforcement focus, shall we say, on
this? Do you see that as you deal with all the women that you
deal with, that they are dismissive of the claims or whatever
it may be? Do we need to educate the law enforcement people and
go to these chiefs and see if they will take three people and
make sure that they are educated and prepared for this so they
can help with that? Or is that already going on?
Ms. Hotaling. No, you need specialized teams. We have a
crimes-against-prostitutes team in San Francisco that focuses
on this. I have a dedicated district attorney, and I have had
one through three elected district attorneys, fortunately. And
you really build on that when you have specialized individuals
that are focused. And we have had extremely good prosecutions
of pimps in San Francisco.
And it is not always on pimping. You get them on--you know,
we put a guy away for some of the longest time on clone phones,
because we had teams that were educated on what they could get
them on: Get them on guns, get them on silencers.
They have things in their apartments, get immediate search
warrants for their apartments. Because a lot of times the
victims are going to go sideways. If you rely on the victims as
the ones that make the case--and that is what the police say
over and over again, ``Well, we do not have a victim so we do
not have a case,'' you know. But they are not doing the work.
And it is so much easier to arrest women--and I think for
police officers, it is a lot more fun.
Ms. Frundt. Also, quickly, I wanted to note that we also
work with a prostitution unit. But, again, training is great;
mind set is hard to change.
Chairman Pryce. Well, the gentleman's time has expired.
We have come to the end of our hearing.
Before we dismiss the panel, the Chair notes that some
members may have additional questions for this panel which they
may wish to submit in writing. Without objection the hearing
record will remain open for 30 days for members to submit
written questions to these witnesses and to place their
responses in the record.
I cannot thank you enough, ladies, for being here.
Mrs. Maloney. May I ask one last question?
One of the things you said just keeps running in mind, when
you called it ``discrimination.'' And we in Congress spend a
great deal of time on discrimination, because we feel everyone
should have a fair shot and a fair deal and be treated equally.
I would say all Americans believe that.
But you mentioned it several times, you said, ``This is
discrimination against women, it is discrimination against
women.'' Would you elaborate?
Ms. Hotaling. Well, the laws are written in
nondiscriminatory fashions, and if you analyze how the arrests
are going throughout the country, you will find that around 98
to 100 percent of the arrests on prostitution are against women
and children, that the failed policies that we have applied
towards women are now being applied towards children.
So just the arresting of women has now become the standard
for children. And to get--San Francisco is one of the I think
very good examples where our arrests, since we started the
first-offender prostitution program, has always been more
arrests of men than women. And the women, if they are arrested,
are sent to diversion programs and funded by the men.
So they get services. Nobody clogs--they do not clog up the
court system; they get appropriate services. The men pay for
the services, so it is a restorative justice program. And I
think that that is really important.
Discrimination, the way that I frame it is that it is--
being a police officer is a great job if you can get it. You
get to wear a badge, carry a gun, go out solicit a woman, which
means asking them for a sex act, very blatantly, and then you
get to arrest her and you get to spend the time of charging
her, and you usually do it on overtime. And so they are getting
charged overtime for this.
But to get them to arrest men, they believe that the men--
and I have heard this from some of the experts that DOJ is
using now, ``Who are the men anyway? They are just kind of fuel
the fire,'' or, ``You know, we are not going to waste our
resources on them.'' So that really has to change.
Chairman Pryce. Once again, thank you very, very much. We
look forward to continue to work with your organizations and
with you and with everyone else who is present and interested
today.
The committee thanks you all.
Ms. Maloney and I thank you for your cooperation and your
insights into putting this bill together. We look forward to
introducing it very shortly.
Ms. Hotaling. Thank you.
Chairman Pryce. With that, we are adjourned.
Ms. Frundt. Thank you so much.
[Whereupon, at 12:27 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
April 28, 2005
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