[House Hearing, 109 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
COMBATING TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS:
AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
=======================================================================
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
__________
JUNE 22, 2005
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Financial Services
Serial No. 109-40
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
24-400 WASHINGTON : 2005
_____________________________________________________________________________
For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512�091800
Fax: (202) 512�092250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402�090001
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
----------
Page
Hearing held on:
June 22, 2005................................................ 1
Appendix:
June 22, 2005................................................ 19
WITNESSES
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Leidholdt, Dorchen A., Co-Executive Director, Coalition Against
Trafficking in Women........................................... 11
Neuwirth, Jessica, President, Equality Now....................... 8
O'Connor, Michael E., Jr., Director of Operations, South Asia
International Justice Mission.................................. 6
Thompson, Lisa L., Liaison for the Abolition of Sexual
Trafficking, The Salvation Army National Headquarters.......... 13
APPENDIX
Prepared statements:
Pryce, Hon. Deborah.......................................... 20
Lee, Hon. Barbara............................................ 30
Leidholdt, Dorchen A......................................... 32
Neuwirth, Jessica............................................ 39
O'Connor, Michael E., Jr..................................... 42
Thompson, Lisa L. (with attachment).......................... 47
Additional Material Submitted for the Record
Leidholdt, Dorchen A.
Written response to questions from Hon. Barbara Lee.......... 63
O'Connor, Michael E., Jr.
Written response to questions from Hon. Barbara Lee.......... 65
Thompson, Lisa L.
Written response to questions from Hon. Barbara Lee.......... 67
Neuwirth, Jessica:
Written response to questions from Hon. Barbara Lee.......... 69
COMBATING TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS:
AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
----------
Wednesday, June 22, 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 2:36 p.m., in
Room 2128, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Deborah Pryce
[chairman of the subcommittee] Presiding.
Present: Representatives Pryce, Biggert, Maloney and Moore.
Chairwoman Pryce. Thank you all very much for your
patience. We were hung up on the floor with a series of votes,
and I appreciate my ranking member Mrs. Maloney for being here.
Good afternoon. We will start right away so as not to hold up
anybody else any further.
The hearing on the Committee on Domestic and International
Policy, Trade and Technology will come to order.
I would like to welcome everyone this afternoon. Today we
are convening the second in a series of hearings in this
subcommittee on a serious issue, trafficking in persons.
At our first hearing in April, we heard testimony from a
great leader at the State Department's Trafficking in Persons
Office, Ambassador John Miller. Ambassador Miller offered a
thorough and passionate testimony about U.S. efforts to combat
trafficking here andabroad.
We also heard from Ms. Norma Hotaling, executive director
and founder of the SAGE Project in San Francisco. Norma turned
her own experience with homelessness, addiction and sexual
exploitation into a mission to make it easier for other women,
men and youth to want to make lives for themselves and leave
the sex trade behind.
Ms. Tina Frundt, our final witness, courageously offered
her firsthand experience as a victim of sex trafficking and
sexual exploitation in the United States. Her harrowing
encounters with victimization by pimps and johns put a human
face on this tragedy and shed light on an issue that is all too
often kept in the dark.
I expect today's hearing to further expose members of this
subcommittee, members of the media and the public to the
multifaceted and destructive issues surrounding human
trafficking, including the significant economic and financial
implications.
Today's hearing is timely for a number of reasons. First,
in stating the obvious, modern-day slavery will be a timely
issue to debate in the halls of Congress and committees across
the world until it has its own chapter, complete with a start
and a finish, in the history books of every country in the
world.
Second, just a few weeks ago Ambassador Miller's
Trafficking in Persons Office at the State Department released
a much-anticipated Trafficking in Persons report, or the TIP
report, for 2005. The State Department is required by law to
submit a report each year to Congress on the efforts of foreign
governments to eliminate severe forms of trafficking in
persons. This report covering April 2004 to March 2005 is the
fifth annual TIP report.
The intent of the report is to raise global awareness and
prompt foreign governments to combat all forms of trafficking
in persons. The report highlights the three Ps, prosecution,
protection and prevention, and the three Rs, rescue,
rehabilitation and reintegration. There is great significance
in this marriage between the Ps and the Rs, and we need to
focus on both in order to fully understand and tackle the scope
of the problem.
During my time overseas meeting with NGOs and victims, I
saw firsthand the great potential to make this holistic
approach work. While no country I visited came close to
perfecting this approach in its entirety, I witnessed improved
prosecution efforts in Albania, and the implementation of
better prevention and reintegration efforts in Moldova, showing
that progress can be made with commitment and coordination
across the globe. Countries, including the U.S., must strive to
implement all aspects of this victim-centered approach to
fighting trafficking.
The 2005 report gave a Tier 3 classification to 14 of the
50 countries that were assessed. A Tier 3 country, the lowest
of the ratings, fails to take significant actions to bring
itself into compliance with the minimum standards for
eliminating trafficking in persons. Such an assessment can
trigger the withholding of nonhumanitarian, nontrade aid, and
U.S. Opposition to assistance from public lenders, such as the
International Monetary Fund or the World Bank.
One country on the Tier 3 list has already ignited action.
Jamaica, a country previously on the Tier 2 list was downgraded
because of a failure to follow through on previous commitments
to strengthen law enforcement and protection measures. Not long
after the reports were released, the Jamaican Prime Minister
disclosed in a meeting with several journalists that a Cabinet
office group consisting of representatives for the Ministries
of Health, Education and Foreign Affairs, the Attorney
General's Office and the immigration authorities would be
established to act on the findings of the report and review
existing law to identify areas to improve.
Several countries that were on the Tier 3 list last year
jumped up a notch this year, and that is a good thing. For
example, Bangladesh showed a strong commitment to implementing
antitrafficking efforts over the last year. The country
established an antitrafficking committee to oversee its
national efforts to combat the issue, and set up a much-
anticipated special antitrafficking police unit which initiated
new investigations for rescuing more and more victims.
And in South Africa, Guyana's President facilitated the
enactment--South America, excuse me. Guyana's President
facilitated the enactment of the country's first
antitrafficking law and launched a countrywide awareness
campaign on the dangers and risks of trafficking. The report
revealed that progress is being made in the campaign to combat
sexual slavery and other forms of forced servitude.
New antitrafficking measures were enacted in 39 countries
last year, and there were more than 3,000 convictions worldwide
relating to trafficking. Upon release of the report, Ambassador
Miller was quoted as saying, ``Shining through these global
tragedies are many, many rays of hope.''
Though there is still much work to be done, the U.S. is
putting its laws to work. In 2003, Operation Predator was
launched within the Department of Homeland Security and in the
Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency. This marked an
unprecedented initiative to protect children worldwide from
sexual predators, including those who travel overseas for sex
with minors, Internet child pornographers and sex traffickers.
Operation Predator targets U.S. citizens suspected of sex
crimes against children, as well as noncitizens whose child sex
crimes render them deportable from the U.S. Since its inception
there have been more than 5,700 individuals arrested
nationwide, including 14 arrests brought under the child sex
tourism provision of the Protect Act.
While progress has been made to combat trafficking,
sobering statistics linger. An estimated up to 800,000 people
are trafficked across international borders each year; 80
percent are females, and 50 percent are minors. According to a
recent study by the International Labor Organization, a special
agency of the United Nations that seeks to promote human and
labor rights, at least 12.3 million people are trapped in
forced labor across the globe. Of this number, over 2 million
are victims of human trafficking, and 1.2 million are children
forced into prostitution, drug trafficking and armed conflict.
These victims of trafficking are an enormous source of
revenue for organized crime. The ILO study estimates that $44
billion in global profits is brought in annually from forced
labor, including 15 billion from victims of trafficking in
persons.
This report offers us evidence that there is much to learn
about how effectively or ineffectively we are following the
money and enforcing existing antilaundering money laws to
deprive criminals of the economic gains associated with the
global sex trade.
There is not one clear cause of modern-day slavery, nor is
there one clear solution, but there is a clear goal: to stamp
it out for good.
I want to thank the witnesses we have here today. We know
that you each bring a unique perspective, and we appreciate
your time, your energy and your courage on educating us about
this global crisis.
Chairwoman Pryce. Without objection, all members' opening
statements will be a made a part of the record, but I would
like to acknowledge the gentlewoman from New York, Ms. Maloney,
her passion for tackling this issue is admirable, and I
appreciate her partnership with me.
Chairwoman Pryce. Mrs. Maloney.
Mrs. Maloney. Well, I appreciate very much your leadership
and partnership on this really, really critical issue, and I
feel that together we can really make a difference and will
make some changes that will help thousands, if not millions, of
young women and men. And I really appreciate your making this
the spotlight on what the United States is doing and can
continue to do to combat sex trafficking.
This is a topic that I personally care about deeply and
have worked on for many years in Congress. The exploitation of
the world's young women and children in sex trafficking is a
tragic human rights offense. As you will hear, many of these
victims are kidnapped, sold or tricked into brothel captivity.
The 2004 State Department Trafficking in Persons report
estimates that 600- to 800,000 persons are trafficked across
international borders each year, with some 18,000 brought into
the United States. This doesn't mention the number of people in
the United States that do not cross international borders that
are tricked or forced into sex slavery. Instead of the better
jobs and better lives they dream of, they are trapped into a
nightmare of coercion, violence and disease.
I have worked on the trafficking issues for many years,
including working with the Equality Now, and I am pleased that
the founder and president of it, Jessica Neuwirth, is one of
the participants today. She has a background in international
law. She is an expert on women's rights and has dedicated her
life to helping women across the globe and in the United
States.
We worked together to stop a sex tour operator that was
operating blatantly in the district I represent in Queens
called the Big Apple Oriental Tours, and they would literally
advertise in brochures on the Internet, all over the place.
Call them up and they would tell all about how they could take
men or boys on sex tours to the Philippines and Thailand and
sexually exploit impoverished women and young girls,
advertising young ages, 11 years old.
And we worked for 7 years against Big Apple Tours' blatant
and obvious violations and tried to prosecute them under
existing laws. It was against the law in the United States,
against the law in the Philippines, yet they continued to
operate for 7 years. The Department of Justice declined to take
action, and only New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer
obtained an indictment that shut Big Apple down, and he has
continued to proceed with this case. Although in the first
level he was not successful, just the attention and press
pressure basically closed them down; not a law, but the focus
that we put on them.
The story of Big Apple, although a story of some success,
demonstrates that we need to do more to convince law
enforcement in this country, as well as abroad, that we need to
focus on the demand side of the trafficking equation.
While the laws against prostitution in this country applies
to johns as well as prostitutes, the overwhelming practice is
to arrest the women and to let the men go, as though the women
were the perpetrators and the men the victims. If we see this
situation through the lens of trafficking, then this is
backwards. The buyers of sex and the pimps selling it are the
perpetrators, and the victims are those whose bodies are bought
and sold.
It is critical that we protect the women and children
victims of the sex trade industry and punish the predators that
exploit them, recruiters, traffickers, brothel owners,
customers and criminal syndicates. This is why I am so pleased
to join with Chairwoman Pryce to reintroduce legislation that
will strengthen U.S. Laws and help victims in our country,
whether they are foreign or U.S. citizens, and this is H.R
2012. The End Demand for Sexual Trafficking Act of 2005 combats
trafficking by going after the purchasers of commercial sex
acts and providing U.S. Law enforcement with improved tools to
fight trafficking and assist victims.
We have 12 cosponsors, and I urge all of the public here
today to reach out to your Congress Members and Senators to
urge them to become cosponsors of this important bipartisan
legislation. And I am hopeful that we will be able to pass it
this year.
We are also working together, Deborah Pryce and I. We have
requested a GAO report to conduct a study of trafficking and of
what the U.S. and the multilateral development banks are doing
to combat this problem. We are also working with Sue Kelly,
with her subcommittee on criminal activity with money
laundering, to see if there is any money in sex trafficking
also illegally being laundered.
This year I also introduced the Prevention of Trafficking
of Tsunami Orphans Act, which would authorize critical
assistance to the Department of State and the U.S. Agency for
International Development to support programs that are being
carried out by nongovernmental organizations to protect tsunami
orphans or homeless children from becoming victims of
trafficking. Although the tsunami is no longer front-page news,
the thousands of homeless children and orphans it created are
still very much at risk.
We certainly must do more to stop the human rights abuses
inflicted on men, women and children around the world by
preventing trafficking and ending the sex trade industry.
Although we continue to make important advances in the rights
of women throughout the world, as long as there are women whose
freedoms, livelihoods, bodies and souls are held captive
because of trafficking, our work will never be done.
I look forward to your testimony, and I hope that you will
address many items. But may I ask one particular troubling item
that has come up that I would like them to address in their
testimony?
Believe it or not, since we have been working on this, I am
now being contacted by many organizations, some of whom are ex-
prostitutes, gems from the Gem Society helping other
prostitutes restore their lives. But some organizations that
are arguing they like being prostitutes, they want to legalize
prostitution, legalize johns--I am not kidding you, I am blown
away by this.
And in your testimony, if you could give me your response.
I have been contacted by two or three organizations coming
forward with this point of view of having tolerance for the
beliefs or choices of other people. And one said, I like my
profession, and, you know--I don't have to draw a picture, but
I would like to hear your responses of how you would respond to
that.
Thank you.
Chairwoman Pryce. Thank you, Mrs. Maloney. I think some of
our witnesses look eager to respond to that question.
Chairwoman Pryce. I would like to introduce now our
witnesses. Mr. Michael O'Connor serves as the director of
operations, South Asia, for International Justice Mission, IJM.
IJM is an international human rights agency that rescues
victims of violence, sexual exploitation, slavery, oppression
and other injustices. Based on referrals from relief and
development agencies around the world, IJM conducts
professional investigations of abuses, and mobilized
interventionson behalf of the victims.
And Ms. Jessica Neuwirth is president of Equality Now. I
know that the ranking member of the subcommittee gave you some
recognition. Welcome today.
And Ms. Dorchen Leidholdt is the co-executive director of
the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, which she helped
found in 1998. An umbrella of grass-roots organizations around
the world, the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women has
strong, growing regional networks in Asia, Latin America and
Africa.
And Ms. Lisa Thompson is the liaison for the Abolition of
Sexual Trafficking for the Salvation Army USA National
Headquarters. In this role she develops and coordinates the
strategies for the Salvation Army to create recovery services
for survivors of sexual trafficking. Ms. Thompson is a member
of the Salvation Army's International Antitrafficking Task
Force representing the Americas.
We welcome the witnesses to the hearing today. Without
objection, your written statements will be made part of the
record. You will be recognized for 5 minutes to summarize your
testimony. And, Mr. O'Connor, we will begin with you. Thank you
very much for being here today.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL E. O'CONNOR, JR., DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS,
SOUTH ASIA INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE MISSION
Mr. O'Connor. Chairman Pryce, my name is Michael O'Connor,
and I work for IJM, International Justice Mission. IJM helps
rescue slaves, sex trafficking victims, forced labor victims.
In 2004 alone we helped rescue more than 400 victims of slavery
and sex trafficking.
The international data regarding sexual trafficking
suggests it is a massive problem, but we can't forget that
there are individual perpetrators and individual victims with
specific names and faces, and many of these victims are
children. As but one example, in February of 2003 IJM
undercover investigators went into a brothel in Svay Pak,
Cambodia. An investigator was offered several young girls to
have either sexual intercourse or oral sex with him for $30 an
encounter. IJM then went to the Cambodia authorities. The
Cambodian authorities did a raid and rescued 37 young girls,
all of them under the age of 16; 10 of them were 10 years of
age or younger, one of them was approximately 5 years old.
If you extrapolate on a yearly basis, the victims were
producing for the brothel managers approximately $400,000 a
year in a country where the per capita income is $2,000. This
is big money, big business.
Just a couple months ago undercover agents went into a
brothel in Southeast Asia where we suspected sex trafficking to
be taking place. The brothel had about 200 women and girls
there. An IJM undercover investigator talked to one of the
women, who said she has sex approximately five times a day, $26
a time. Again, if you extrapolate, that brothel is pulling in
approximately $9.5 million a year. This is a lot of money.
Sex trafficking is not a crime of passion, it is an
economic crime, and as an economic crime you need a market. You
have drunk perverts who are trying to find these young girls to
have sex with, and they find them. IJM was just an NGO, and we
find them. So why can't the police find them?
Well, the answer is a complicated one, but at least in part
it is because many police accept bribes. Many of the countries
where sex trafficking flourishes are countries where the police
make desperately woefully inadequate wages, sometimes $40 or
less per month. Meanwhile, the sex traffickers are making
literally tons of money and can shower police with money to
turn a blind eye.
Where is this money coming from? A lot of it is coming from
abroad, internationally; a lot of it is coming from sex
tourism, and sex tourism isn't hidden. You go on the Internet,
you go to Google, you put ``sex tourism'' into its search
engine, and you get approximately 1.8 million hits. The second
of those hits is an organization called WSA, the World Sex
Archive. It seems to me to be a place where sex tourists can
compare notes about good places, bad places to go. The Website
itself says on the ``you need access'' page, quote, ``You will
save tons of money by joining this site. Imagine spending a ton
of cash to travel somewhere only to find yourself yanking your
'blank,''' it is a slang word for male genitalia, ``because the
cops busted all of the 'blank,''' a slang word for female
genitalia. This would totally 'blank.' but members of WSA are
informed. They know the best places to go. We have chicas to
yank our 'blanks' for us.''
I am not saying that all sex tourists are pedophiles, but
some of them are. There is a man named Donald Bakker. He is a
Canadian citizen, and the Canadian Government, the police
authorities got a copy of a sex tape that he apparently made of
having sex with young children, but the Canadian authorities
couldn't identify who these young children were.
Coincidentally, one of the Canadian cops on the case was
watching a Dateline NBC special of the IJM's Svay Pak raid and
noticed that the same brothel room on the Dateline piece was
the brothel room that Donald Bakker had used to film his
videotape. The Canadian authorities called us up, and we shared
our information with them. Donald Bakker was, last month,
convicted of seven counts against these young girls in
Cambodia. But the unique thing is he wasn't prosecuted in
Cambodia. They didn't have to ship him off to Cambodia to
prosecute him, they prosecuted him in Canada. It was the first
time that the Canadian authorities had done this under a new
law that allows Canadian authorities to prosecute Canadians who
go abroad and commit sexual acts against children abroad. It is
a great law. The United States has a similar law. It is called
the Protect Act. This law needs to be better publicized.
Child molesters are, in general, cowards. It is why people
spend so much money to go abroad to have sex with children,
because they are afraid to do so in the United States because
they know they will be prosecuted. We have got to get the word
out that they will be prosecuted if they do such crimes in
other countries as well.
One thing I would suggest is that in each new and each
reissued passport, that just a simple fact sheet be put in that
passport regarding the contours of the Protect Act so that
people are put on notice. I would also suggest that people who
are convicted in the United States of sex crimes against
children have such convictions stamped in their passports so at
the very least we put foreign governments on notice of the
people that they are letting into their country.
I would like to thank, in conclusion, the Chair as well as
the bipartisan efforts regarding sex trafficking. The
traffickers are strong, they are united, they are committed,
and we have to be committed as they are. Thank you.
Chairwoman Pryce. Thank you very much, Mr. O'Connor.
[The prepared statement of Michael E., O'Connor Jr. can be
found on page 42 in the appendix.]
Chairwoman Pryce. Ms. Neuwirth.
STATEMENT OF JESSICA NEUWIRTH, PRESIDENT, EQUALITY NOW
Ms. Neuwirth. Thank you, Congresswoman Pryce, for this
opportunity to testify before you. And thank you for your
interest and support of efforts to combat trafficking in
persons.
My name is Jessica Neuwirth, and I am the founder and
president of Equality Now, an international human rights
organization based in New York working for the protection and
promotion of the rights of women and girls around the world.
Equality Now's membership network is comprised of more than
25,000 individuals and organizations in 160 countries. Issues
of concern to Equality Now include trafficking of women and
girls, as well as rape, domestic violence, reproductive rights,
female genital mutilation, denial of equal access to economic
opportunity and political participation, and all other forms of
violence and discrimination against women and girls.
The Trafficking Victim Protection Act of 2000 recognized
that sex tourism is one of the means through which commercial
sexual exploitation of women and girls has contributed to the
growth of the international sex industry and feeds the demand
for sex trafficking. The Trafficking Victims Protection
Reauthorization Act of 2003 went a step further in requiring
the dissemination of materials alerting U.S. citizen travelers
that sex tourism is illegal, will be prosecuted, and presents
dangers to those involved.
In evaluating how other countries are addressing human
trafficking, H.R. 972, the Trafficking Victims Protection
Reauthorization Act of 2005, would require adding, as a minimum
standard for eliminating trafficking in the State Department's
annual report, measures to reduce the demand for commercial sex
acts and for participation in international sex tourism. We
should hold ourselves to the same minimum standard and play a
leadership role for other countries in this regard.
My comments today will focus on Big Apple Oriental Tours in
Bellerose and Poughkeepsie, New York, and the G&F Tours of New
Orleans, Louisiana. I will speak about these sex tour companies
because in their methods of operation, they demonstrate the
typical activities of sex tour companies. I will also speak
about them because the lack of action against them by both
Federal and State prosecutors is also typical of our country's
inadequate response to the demand side of the trafficking of
women and children.
From its location in New York, as Congresswoman Maloney
mentioned earlier, Big Apple Oriental Tours was advertising its
services, communicating with potential sex tourists to persuade
them to travel with Big Apple Oriental Tours, making airline
and hotel reservations, and arranging for local tour guides in
the destination countries to introduce men to women from whom
they could buy sex. The local Big Apple representative who
escorted the men to the clubs was also available to negotiate
the sex acts to be purchased and their price with the mamasan
who controlled the women in these bars and clubs.
G&F Tours in New Orleans is currently conducting its
activities in precisely the same way, even using the same tour
guide as Big Apple in Thailand.
It should be simple to prosecute a company that so
blatantly accepts money to facilitate and arrange commercial
sex acts. New York penal law section 23020 makes it a class A
misdemeanor when a person knowingly advances or profits from
prostitution. Penal law section 23025 makes it a Class D felony
to knowingly advance or profit from prostitution by managing,
supervising, controlling or owning, either alone or in
association with others, a house of prostitution or a
prostitution business or enterprise involving prostitution
activity by two or more prostitutes.
Despite the clear language of the New York penal law and
the uncontroverted activities of Big Apple Oriental Tours,
Equality Now campaigned unsuccessfully for 7 years with the
Queens County District Attorney to prosecute Big Apple Oriental
Tours for promoting prostitution. Only when the case was
brought to the attention of New York Attorney General Eliot
Spitzer in 2003 was a civil proceeding to shut down the company
undertaken, and a criminal prosecution subsequently commenced.
The criminal case was dismissed, and then the dismissal was
reversed on appeal. We are now waiting for another grand jury
proceeding, and hoping that the case will finally go to trial.
No other State-level prosecution against sex tour operators
for promoting prostitution has even been attempted, despite
most States have similar prohibitions of such activities of
those in New York that I just described.
I would like to note that from the beginning of our
campaign 7 years ago, Congresswoman Maloney has been
tremendously supportive of our efforts to close down Big Apple
Oriental Tours and prosecute its owner/operators. I would like
to thank her for her support, which has been instrumental in
leading finally to the case currently under way.
The Federal prosecutors have been equally unwilling to
address the demand for trafficked women and girls created by
sex tour operators and their customers. Unless it can be proven
that children are involved, they are not interested. Very often
minors are involved, but it is usually impossible to prove.
Moreover, as a matter of principle as well as practicality, law
enforcement interest in sex tourism should not be confined to
cases involving minors.
Section 2421 of Title 18 of the United States Code, known
as the Mann Act, provides a 10-year sentence for anyone who
knowingly transports any individual in interstate or foreign
commerce with the intent that such individual engage in
prostitution or in any sexual activity for which any person can
be charged with a crime.
Section 2422(a) makes it a crime for anyone who knowingly
persuades, induces, entices or coerces any individual to travel
in interstate or foreign commerce to engage in prostitution or
in any sexual activities for which any person can be charged
with a criminal offense.
These provisions of the Mann Act could be effectively used
against United States sex tour operators, but the Department of
Defense has so far failed to apply this statute against them.
Neither of these sections requires that the individual being
transported or induced or persuaded to travel in foreign
commerce be the prostituted person or the victim. In other
words, transporting johns in foreign commerce, which is exactly
what sex tour companies do, falls within the scope of the Mann
Act.
In virtually every popular sex tour destination country,
such as Thailand, patronizing a prostitute is illegal, and
johns can be charged with a crime for purchasing sex acts.
Although both of the Mann Act sections just described could
be applied to sex tour operators who every day induce, persuade
and ultimately transport individuals in foreign commerce to
engage in criminal sexual activity, Equality Now has now not
been successful in its efforts over the past 6 years to get the
Department of Defense, United States Attorney's Offices in the
Eastern District of Louisiana and the Southern District of New
York to apply the Mann Act against G&F Tours----
Chairwoman Pryce. Ms. Neuwirth, you are going to have to
sum up because your time has expired.
Ms. Neuwirth. Sorry.
Equality Now welcomes the End Demand for Sex Trafficking
Act, and thank you for your sponsorship of this bill. The bill
includes the needed clarification that the Mann Act does apply
to sex tour operators who transport purchasers, as well as
sellers of commercial sexual acts. We hope this clarification
will facilitate law enforcement efforts to end sex tourism. And
more generally, we welcome the focus on demand for
prostitution, which is the engine driving the commercial sex
industry. Thank you.
Chairwoman Pryce. Thank you. And I am so sorry, we are due
to have another vote in about 10 minutes, so I wanted to leave
time for the other witnesses as well. So thank you.
[The prepared statement of Jessica Neuwirth can be found on
page 39 in the appendix.]
Chairwoman Pryce. Ms. Leidholdt.
STATEMENT OF DORCHEN A. LEIDHOLDT, CO-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
COALITION AGAINST TRAFFICKING IN WOMEN
Ms. Leidholdt. Congresswoman Pryce, Congresswoman Maloney,
members of the subcommittee, I am grateful for this opportunity
to address the subject of the economics of sex slavery.
In addition to speaking as a founder and co-executive
director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, which
has been working against all forms of commercial sexual
exploitation of women and girls since 1998, I am speaking as
director of the Center for Battered Women's Legal Services,
Sanctuary For Families. It is a provider of legal and social
services to domestic violence victims in New York City
primarily, but has assisted many victims of sex trafficking in
the United States.
We have been asked to focus on the economics of the
international sex trade, and this is a formidable task for
several reasons. First of all, much of the industry operates
underground, is run by organized crime groups that don't
undergo financial audits or file tax returns. Second, only
recently have criminal justice agencies had the legal mandate
and motivation to investigate traffickers and other sex trade
predators. And finally, myths about the agency of women in the
sex industry accompanied by obliviousness to the role of men,
both as patrons and profiteers, has led both governments and
civil society to view the industry as inevitable, harmless, and
its economics is a matter of little consequence.
Thankfully all of this has begun to change. The magnitude
of the industry's harm to women and children propelled into
conditions of exploitation and slavery, the millions of lives
maimed and destroyed can no longer be ignored. At the same time
the growth of the industry over the last two decades in
particular, the enormous profits made has caused social
scientists, journalists and economists to begin to pay
attention and to numbers crunch. If we analyze this growing
body of data while following the money trail, focusing, as the
Norwegian feminist group Kvinnefronten urges us to do, on the
buyer, the bought and the business, a picture of the industry's
economics and its economic and human toll begins to emerge.
First the buyer. The economics of the global sex trade in
women and children starts with the dollars, or pesos, or bhat
in the pockets of prostitution buyers, known as johns in the
United States, kerb crawlers in the United Kingdom, and more
often than not as ordinary husbands and fathers in their
communities. Although the amount they spend on purchased sex
varies from country to country and within the sex industry's
specialties, their collective demand fuels a gigantic global
industry estimated by a 2004 European Parliament report to turn
over more money each year than the total of all of the military
budgets in the world. This doesn't include the money generated
by the sex industry's Internet sites, which promote and
facilitate this trade.
In the U.S. alone, Internet pornographers make an estimated
$1 billion annually, a figure that is expected to climb to 5-
to $7 billion by the year 2007.
Research shows that like perpetrators of domestic violence,
the buyers of prostitution come from all races, classes,
nationalities and walks of life. One study shows that about 70
to 90 percent are married men. While discretionary income
facilitates their purchase of the body of a women or a child,
buyers often spend income their families desperately need for
necessities. Instead of being used to feed, cloth and educate
their children, this money is spent in ways that place their
families and communities in jeopardy, at the increased risk of
HIV/AIDS and the criminal activity that is part and parcel of
the sex trade.
The money is also spent in ways that reinforce the buyer's
perception of women as goods available for a price, a
perception that is not confined to his activities with
prostituted women and children, but spills over into his
interactions with other women, his wife, the women in his
workplace, the woman he encounters in the street. In other
words, buyers' transactions inside the sex industry reinforce
and bolster gender stereotyping and inequality in the rest of
society.
The bought. The most acute and damaging manifestation of
gender inequality, of course, is the buyer's interaction with
the woman or child he purchases. Even if he does not batter or
rape her, a frequent reality for sex industry victims, research
demonstrates that the act that he purchases is experienced by
her as a violation. One victim, who went on to found the first
organization of sex industry survivors, called the sex of
prostitution ``bought and sold rape.'' a Russian trafficking
victim I work with at Sanctuary for Families likensit to being
strangled.
Thousands of testimonies like these gathered by social
scientists and organizations conducting research into the sex
trade have led many to conclude that not only is prostitution a
severe practice of sex discrimination, it is a form of violence
against women and children that leaves them physically and
psychologically traumatized.
Often the buyer's money doesn't even make its way into the
hands of the woman or girl whose body he purchases, but is
handed off to the individual or group that owns her. When she
does take the money, its possession is usually transitory. It
is rapidly handed off to her pimp, trafficker, madam or
husband, used to pay off inflated debts, or sent back to the
family members who sold her into slavery.
Research shows that even for the ostensible free agent, the
money made from prostitution is spent on the drugs or alcohol
she needs to numb her pain and depression so that she can
endure another day in the sex trade. The romantic fantasy that,
quote/unquote, sex work is a means to women's economic and
sexual empowerment, I think described by some of the--
Congresswoman Maloney when she talked about some of the
interaction with groups that have reached out to her, has been
punctured by the work of organizations of sex industry
survivors led by courageous women like SAGE's Norma Hotaling,
Breaking Free's Vednita Carter, and GEM's Rachel Lloyd, who
have documented prostitution's grim physical, psychological and
economic toll, hardly a job like any other as its adherents
claim.
Many organizations promoting the point of view that this is
a job like any other have strong financial connections to the
sex industry. A couple of years ago I met a woman who held
herself out as the leader of the sex workers in Mexico City,
only to learn that her real work was actually running a
brothel.
Chairwoman Pryce. Ms. Leidholdt, I will have to ask you to
sum up, too. I am sorry. We will have time to get back to you
all in questions.
Ms. Leidholdt. I have many, many statistics about the
business. I am afraid I am going to just turn to my
recommendations at the very end.
When we followed the sex industry's money trail from the
hands of the buyer, past the bought, into the coffers of the
business, it is clear that addressing and stopping the demand
for all forms of commercial sexual exploitation is essential if
we are to curtail human trafficking and its devastating
consequences.
The Coalition applauds the Trafficking in Persons Office
for its focus on demand, and urges Federal authorities to
continue to look to Sweden for inspiration and guidance. We
wholeheartedly support the End Demand for Sex Trafficking Act,
especially the incentive it provides State and local law
enforcement to marshal their resources against the buyer and
the business. We hope that the swift passage and implementation
of this legislation will lead to other even stronger Federal
measures that will hold accountable law enforcement agencies
that violate equal protection guarantees by penalizing and
stigmatizing sex industry victims while ignoring the buyers who
ensure their continued exploitation.
The sex industry and its lobby have long tried to deny the
link between prostitution and trafficking, even though research
consistently demonstrates that most trafficking is for purposes
of prostitution. If we address only one of the faces of this
many-headed hydra, our efforts to stop the trafficking of women
and children will be in vain. The Coalition is grateful to the
Trafficking in Persons Office, which under the leadership of
Ambassador John Miller has helped expose the many and
interrelated facets of the global sex trade----
Chairwoman Pryce. The gentlewoman's time has expired. Your
full statement will appear in the record, and we will get back
to you with questions.
[The prepared statement of Dorchen A. Leidholdt can be
found on page 32 in the appendix.]
Chairwoman Pryce. Ms. Thompson, thank you.
STATEMENT OF LISA L. THOMPSON, LIAISON FOR THE ABOLITION OF
SEXUAL TRAFFICKING, THE SALVATION ARMY NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS
Ms. Thompson. Today we have heard human trafficking
referred to as modern-day slavery, and I would like to take
that slavery analogy a step further and introduce to you what I
call the sexual gulag. The term ``gulag'' is used to describe
networks of prisons or labor camps, and during the Soviet era
the country built a network of prisons for slave labor called
gulags so vast and brutal that the word was adopted into the
English language, and its use is synonymous with inhumane and
torturous prison conditions.
The Soviet regime and its gulags has collapsed, but a new
gulag system has risen to take its place, the sexual gulag. The
sexual gulag is a global system made up of hundreds of
thousands, if not millions, of brothel, bars, strip clubs,
massage parlors, escort services and streets where people are
sold for sex. My use of the term ``gulag'' to describe this
exploitation is not hyperbole. The analysis laid out in my
written testimony details the many chilling similarities
between the two systems, particularly the scale of the systems
and the dehumanizing treatment of those within the systems. But
today we only have time to examine one point of commonality,
and that is a purpose.
The primary purpose of the Soviet gulag was an economic
one. They produced a third of the country's gold, much of its
coal and timber, and a great deal of almost everything else.
But as you will see, the Soviet gulag and the sexual gulag
share the same purpose, an economic one. The principal
difference between the two is that the sexual gulag limits its
exploitation to one industry, the sex industry.
The value of the global trade in women as commodities for
sex has been estimated to be between 7- and $12 billion
annually. However, as the information I am going to share with
you demonstrates, these estimates are astonishingly low. As I
share this information, it is important to keep in mind the
four following items: One, all prostitution of persons under 18
is de facto sex trafficking. Two, a high prevalence of foreign-
born women in a country's sex industry is highly indicative of
sex trafficking. Three, the vast majority of adult women in
prostitution experience levels of physical and psychological
abuse that plainly classify them as victims of sex trafficking.
And four, victims of sex trafficking are used in various forms
of commercial sexual exploitation such as prostitution,
pornography and stripping. Thus, prostitution and sexual
trafficking are intrinsically related; the existence of
prostitution is the only reason sex trafficking exists.
Now my main point. The sexual gulag is big business. In
Japan, where prostitution is not legal, but widely tolerated,
the sex industry is estimated to make $83 billion a year. There
are an estimated 150,000 foreign women in its sex industry,
many from the Philippines, Thailand, Korea, Russia and Latin
America.
Prostitution in the Philippines, a de facto legal industry,
now is the fourth largest source of gross national product for
the country. The sex industry in the Netherlands is estimated
to make almost a billion a year, and it is a major destination
country for trafficked women. In Germany, where prostitution is
legal, an estimated 400,000 prostituted persons serve 1.2
million buyers a day, in an industry of an annual turnover of
18 billion U.S. Dollars.
Now, in Germany, one of 12 cities to hold the World Cup
matches, the city is installing a series of drive-in wooden sex
huts so as to capitalize on the expected boom in the local sex
trade when the games are in town. In 2003, an IPO of brothel
shares was introduced on Australia's stock exchange. And a 1998
study by the IOL said that the sex sector made up as much as 14
percent of Thailand's gross domestic product.
The report said, the stark reality is that the sex sector
is a big business that is well entrenched in the national
economies and international economy, with highly organized
structures and linkages to other types of legitimate economic
activity. According to the reports, the revenues generated by
the sex industry were crucial to the livelihoods and earnings
of potentially millions of workers beyond the, quote,
prostitutes themselves. Owners, managers, pimps, related
entertainment industry, segments of the tourism industry,
cleaners, waitresses, cashiers, parking valets, security
guards, medical practitioners, operators of food stalls,
vendors of cigarettes and liquor, property owners who rent
premises to providers for sexual services are just some of
those who profit from the existence of a sexual gulag.
In an interview of Ms. Lim, the woman who edited the IOL
report, she said government policies had encouraged the growth
of tourism, promoted migration for employment, promoted export
of female labor for earning foreign exchange, and thus
contributed indirectly to the growth of prostitution.
It is clear from the monumental profits generated by the
sex industry that the fight against the sexual gulag is a
battle like that of David against Goliath; those who have
profited have grown extremely powerful, and it will take our
relentless energy, creativity and sizable resources and
strategic planning to bring the giant down.
Current U.S. policy recognizes the innate harm in
prostitution, acknowledges the symbiosis between prostitution
and sexual trafficking, and we have a national presidential
security directive which makes this link. But we need to do
more, including we want to see passage of the End Demand Act.
We are fully behind that. But I would also suggest that the
Congress mandate a report to be done by the international--in
the State Department the Bureau of Narcotics and Law to look at
organized crime and the financial aspects of trafficking. That
would be very productive.
In addition, we need to enhance the minimum standards of
the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act to
include provisions such as whether the Government of a country
sponsors and supports laws tasked with reducing demand for
international and domestic trafficking in persons as a tier-
rating estimate, as well as whether or not the Government has
legalized its sex industry. Have they legalized pimping,
pandering, brothel-keeping, soliciting? These are factors that
should be considered for reducing them in their tier ranking.
Thank you.
Chairwoman Pryce. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Lisa L. Thompson can be found on
page 47 in the appendix.]
Chairwoman Pryce. I know that 5 minutes is not very long to
devote to this very, very important subject, and I apologize,
but those are the rules, and we will just try to get--and there
is the votes. Well, we have probably about 5 minutes. Let me
ask the first question just real quickly.
We are trying to get a handle on some money laundering and
the economy that this terrible crime supports. And how do we
get those statistics? Who can this committee call upon to start
to educate us? Mrs. Maloney and I were just saying how
difficult it is to get our arms around this. Any advice to the
committee?
Ms. Leidholdt. Well, in preparing my testimony, I really
tried to find out what information there was on money
laundering, and there is very little information out there. I
know that Professor Donna Hughes, who authored The Natasha
Trade, has addressed it. And I don't know if she has testified
before this subcommittee, but I think that she would be an
excellent person to ask. And she has documented considerable
money laundering; for example, during the late 1990s, about $10
billion, proceeds from trafficking in weapons, drugs and
prostitution in Central Europe and the United States, was
laundered through the Bank of New York by a Ukrainian-born
crime boss. She has also documented a great deal of money
laundering of the profits of prostitution and sex trafficking
from Eastern Europe into businesses, banks, and real estate
ventures in Israel. So I think Professor Hughes might be a good
person to reach out to.
Chairwoman Pryce. Ms. Thompson, you mentioned that Treasury
is a good place to start.
Ms. Thompson. The State Department's Bureau of
International Narcotics and Law, they already do investigations
on organized crime, and we just need to ask them to expand
their purview and look at trafficking. It is under the global--
under Paula Dobriansky's office at the State Department.
Chairwoman Pryce. Mr. O'Connor.
Mr. O'Connor. On page 13 of the Trafficking in Persons
Report, it says that the FBI estimates there is $9.5 billion in
revenues spent each year in human trafficking. It would be
fascinating to have someone from the FBI testify on how those
numbers were gathered.
Chairwoman Pryce. Mrs. Maloney, I will yield to you.
Mrs. Maloney. There is just so much to ask, and we have to
go vote.
I consider sex trafficking and prostitution violence
against women the worst form--I consider any discrimination
violence against women, and I consider this the worst form. But
since we have been working on it, believe it or not I have been
contacted by several unions to, quote, legalize prostitution
and to make it a clear distinction between prostitution and
trafficking. And they find it offensive that as, quote, sex
workers that enjoy their trade, that we are acting like they
are incapable of making decisions on their own.
And to me, I have a visceral reaction against the entire
trade. I feel it is exploitation--I cannot imagine any other
reason but exploitation. But I wanted to give that to you to
hear what your response is to that.
We live in a free society. One of our States, Nevada, has
legalized prostitution. And if you want to think about it and
get back to us in writing, or if you could respond to it. It
caught me totally off guard. I did not even know what to say,
because in my opinion it is exploitation and violence. Would
anyone like to comment?
Ms. Neuwirth. I would like to comment briefly on that, I
think there are two categories of support for prostitution
coming from a different place. One, the idea--it is an ideology
support, that prostitution equals work; it is a form of labor
that should be recognized and legitimated. And I think we
simply just disagree with that, it is wrong. If you look in the
trafficking report, figures are quoted, 89 percent of the women
in prostitution want to escape. I don't think most people see
this as a form of work, but there is an ideology minority that
has been put there for that position.
I think more commonly what you find is people are coming at
it from a humanitarian point of view: We want to help these
women; if we make it legal, it will be safer. Again, I feel
that is completely the wrong direction. And that was an
argument that was made, of course, with respect to slavery,
let's just make it safer, more manageable; don't put all the
slaves in a hold. It is just the wrong way to think about it.
We want to end this institution. And before we talk about the
right of prostitution, we should talk about the right to not
have to be a prostitute.
Mrs. Maloney. Any other comments?
Ms. Leidholdt. Well, I am just very suspicious. Who are
these unions; and in fact, are these really the voices of women
who have been in prostitution? I mean, one thing we find, a
little bit like domestic violence, when you are in an abusive
and oppressive system, you don't have the freedom to speak out
against it, and you say what your masters want you to say. Once
you get out, you hear something very different. Norma Hotaling
represents that point of view.
But when we have looked at who is speaking out and saying
this is a job like any other job, this is free choice, very
often we are finding groups with very, very close ties to the
sex industry. I mean, the sex industry has a lot of money and a
lot of power, and many of these groups are indebted to the sex
industry financially.
Ms. Thompson. And just earlier we were speaking among
ourselves, and Jessica made an incredibly poignant point about
how legalization really creates the perfect umbrella for money
laundering; what a better opportunity than when you normalize
an activity that you can hide, you know, criminal activity
under that legal regime. So I think that would be another
compelling reason not to legalize.
But like in the United States, the average age of entry
into prostitution is between 12 and 14. So we are talking about
children coming into prostitution, grow up in prostitution; one
day they are a victim, the next day this is a choice. Now, that
is simply because of a misunderstanding about what is going on
in prostitution. And to quote one survivor, she said, ``You
feel like a piece of hamburger meat, all chopped up and barely
holding together.'' And that is the predominant view. There is
always going to be, as Jessica pointed out, the minority of
people who have experienced prostitution who tout it as
liberating, but that is the minority.
Mrs. Maloney. Sir.
Mr. O'Connor. I can talk about minors. We rescue 15-, 16-,
17-year-old girls. If we can get them out of the brothels
within a month or two of them getting there, they are always
very thankful. If we get them out 5, 6, 10 months after they
get there, they are not thankful at all when we first rescue
them.
These are orphans, or people who have been isolated from
their families. They have been brutalized, and they have been
told that the police will rape them if they are rescued. They
are extremely afraid. And so when you see a 15-year-old telling
you that, no, she wants to go back to the brothel, it is
devastating.
Mrs. Maloney. I just to want say--our time is up, but I
think all of you are extraordinary, and your testimony was
incredibly moving. I could listen to you all day. But we will
not be coming back, the Chairwoman tells me, but if you could
get to us any examples of what you have heard that is happening
in the States around our country in combating this violence, it
would be helpful.
And also, I think the story of Jessica Neuwirth with Big
Apple Tours, where it is obviously against our laws, against
the laws of the other countries, yet the law enforcement people
we went to--and we went to many, many offices--said they were
powerless to react to it. And it shows the need, that we do
need the law that we are working on. And if you have other ways
that you think we should--other things we should be working on,
if you could get it to us, we would really appreciate it. Thank
you very much.
Chairwoman Pryce. Ms. Moore, you have been patient. And
there is probably about 7 minutes left. Would you like to take
just a few minutes and ask a question or two?
Ms. Moore. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. I, too, am very,
very interested in this topic, and I appreciate the thrust and
focus of this panel to look at the buyers in the industry. One
of my trepidations about this topic has always been to wage
some enforcement battle against the victims, and so I am happy
to see this focus. Thank you.
Chairwoman Pryce. Thank you. And once again, the record
will remain open for 30 days for any member who was here--or
even who wasn't here--who would like to put forth some
questions. And so if you wouldn't mind answering those if any
come forward, we would really appreciate it.
Chairwoman Pryce. The demands of a congressional day in
terms of our voting schedule are really not of our own making,
and we just don't have any control over them, but we do so much
appreciate what we know you do day in and day out, and once
again, is it is so hard to sum up in 5 minutes. But hopefully
we will continue in this battle together. Thank you for your
presence here today, and we are adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:33 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
June 22, 2005
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.001
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.002
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.003
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.004
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.005
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.006
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.007
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.008
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.009
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.010
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.011
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.012
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.013
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.014
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.015
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.016
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.017
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.018
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.019
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.020
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.021
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.022
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.023
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.024
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.025
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.026
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.027
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.028
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.029
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.030
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.031
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.032
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.033
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.034
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.035
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.036
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.037
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.038
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.039
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.040
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.041
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.042
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.043
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.044
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.045
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.046
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.047
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.048
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.049
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.050
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4400.051