[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
EFFECTIVE ACCOUNTABILITY: TIER RANKINGS IN THE FIGHT AGAINST HUMAN
TRAFFICKING
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH,
GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND
INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
APRIL 29, 2014
__________
Serial No. 113-193
__________
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
DANA ROHRABACHER, California Samoa
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio BRAD SHERMAN, California
JOE WILSON, South Carolina GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
TED POE, Texas GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
MATT SALMON, Arizona THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina KAREN BASS, California
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
MO BROOKS, Alabama DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
TOM COTTON, Arkansas ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
PAUL COOK, California JUAN VARGAS, California
GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina BRADLEY S. SCHNEIDER, Illinois
RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III,
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania Massachusetts
STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas AMI BERA, California
RON DeSANTIS, Florida ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California
DOUG COLLINS, Georgia GRACE MENG, New York
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
TED S. YOHO, Florida TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
LUKE MESSER, Indiana JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
Amy Porter, Chief of Staff Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director
Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and
International Organizations
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania KAREN BASS, California
RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas AMI BERA, California
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
WITNESSES
The Honorable Mark Lagon, global politics and security chair,
master of science in Foreign Service Program, Georgetown
University (former Ambassador-at-Large for Trafficking in
Persons, U.S. Department of State)............................. 7
Mr. Brian Campbell, director of policy and legal programs,
International Labor Rights Forum............................... 17
Mr. Blair Burns, vice president of regional operations, Southeast
Asia, International Justice Mission............................ 44
Ms. Nathalie Lummert, director, Special Programs, Migration and
Refugee Services, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.......... 53
Wakar Uddin, Ph.D., director general, Arakan Rohingya Union...... 71
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
The Honorable Mark Lagon: Prepared statement..................... 10
Mr. Brian Campbell: Prepared statement........................... 20
Mr. Blair Burns: Prepared statement.............................. 48
Ms. Nathalie Lummert: Prepared statement......................... 56
Wakar Uddin, Ph.D.: Prepared statement........................... 75
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 96
Hearing minutes.................................................. 97
The Honorable Christopher H. Smith, a Representative in Congress
from the State of New Jersey, and chairman, Subcommittee on
Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International
Organizations:
Written statement for the record by Ms. Mara Hvistendahl....... 98
Written statement for the record by Nora E. Rowley, M.D.,
M.P.H........................................................ 101
EFFECTIVE ACCOUNTABILITY: TIER
RANKINGS IN THE FIGHT AGAINST
HUMAN TRAFFICKING
----------
TUESDAY, APRIL 29, 2014
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health,
Global Human Rights, and International Organizations,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 o'clock
p.m., in room 2200 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon.
Christopher H. Smith (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Smith. The subcommittee will come to order.
Good afternoon and welcome.
First of all, let me apologize for the lateness in
convening this hearing. We did have a series of votes. And so,
I do apologize for that delay.
Welcome to this afternoon's hearing on the power of holding
countries accountable in the annual Trafficking in Persons
Report, including its tier rankings, for government successes
or failures in the fight against human trafficking.
Experts have observed that there are more slaves in the
world today than at any previous time in history. With the
Trafficking in Persons Report and tier rankings, the United
States is ensuring more accountability and progress, more than
ever we believe, in the fight to rid the world of modern-day
slavery.
Many joining us this afternoon have been in this fight for
more than a decade, at least from the year 2000, when a law
that I authored, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act,
created a comprehensive policy that not only established the
Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons at the
Department of State, but also the annual Trafficking in Persons
Report.
The success of the TIP Report and rankings is beyond
anything we could have hoped for at the time. From presidential
suites to the halls of parliaments, to law enforcement assets
and police stations in remote corners of the world, this report
focuses anti-trafficking work in 187 countries on pivotal goals
of prevention, prosecution of the traffickers, and protection
for the victims.
Much of the praise for the success of the TIP Report is due
to the incredibly effective Ambassadors-at-Large who have led
the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons and
their highly-dedicated staff. Ambassador Mark Lagon is one of
them, and he is here with us today. We are honored to have him
and look forward to hearing from him with his testimony.
Each year the trafficking office evaluates whether a
government of a country is fully complying with the minimum
standards for the elimination of human trafficking or, if not,
whether the government is making significant efforts to do so.
The record is laid bare for the world to see and summarized in
a tier rankings narrative. Tier 1 countries fully meet the
minimum standards. Tier 2 countries do not meet the minimum
standards, but are making significant efforts to do so. Tier 3
countries do not meet the standards and are not making
significant efforts to do so. Along with the embarrassment of
being listed on Tier 3 as an egregious violator, such countries
are open to sanctions by the United States Government.
Over the last 14 years, mor than 100 countries have enacted
anti-trafficking laws, and many countries have taken other
steps required to significantly raise their tier rankings. Some
countries openly credit the TIP Report as a key factor in their
increased and effective anti-trafficking response.
We created the Tier 2 Watch List in the 2003 TVPA
reauthorization. This list was intended to encourage good-faith
anti-trafficking progress in a country that may have taken
positive anti-trafficking steps late in the evaluation year.
Unfortunately, some countries made a habit of last-minute
efforts and failed to follow through year after year,
effectively gaming the system.
To protect the integrity of the tier system and ensure it
worked properly to inspire progress in the fight against human
trafficking, Congress in 2008 created an automatic downgrade
for any country that had been on a Tier 2 Watch List for 2
years, but had not taken significant effort enough to move up a
tier.
The President can waive the automatic downgrade for an
additional 2 years if he has certified ``credible evidence''
that the country has a written and sufficiently-resourced plan
which, if implemented, would constitute significant efforts to
meet the minimum standards.
Last year was the first test of the new system, and it
worked. China, Russia, and Uzbekistan ran out of waivers and
moved to Tier 3, which accurately reflected their records. In
this afternoon's hearing, we will evaluate whether these
countries have made any significant progress over the last
year. I am particularly concerned that China's trafficking
crisis continues unabated.
The recent U.N. Commission of Inquiry report on North Korea
provides horrifying evidence of the trafficking of North Korean
women to China for sex, brides, and labor. I would note,
parenthetically, that I have chaired at least five hearings
that we have heard trafficking victims tell their story, North
Korean women, the lucky ones who are finally free from the
slavery that they found when they crossed the border into
China.
An estimated 90 percent of North Korean women seeking
asylum in China are trafficked for these reasons. Thousands of
women a year leave desperate situations in North Korea, only to
end up in a brothel or forced marriage, a tragic and
astonishing fact.
China's response has not been to provide protection for
victims or to prosecute traffickers, and they are signers of
the refugee convention, and they completely abrogate their
responsibilities of refoulement under the refugee convention.
They hunt down and repatriate North Koreans, send them back to
hard labor, long imprisonments, and even execution.
North Korean women are not the only victims. By 2020, more
than 40 million Chinese men will be unable to find wives in
China because of China's shortsighted and abusive one-child
policy, which, coupled with modern abortion technology has
triggered the mass abortion of tens of millions of baby girls,
a human rights abuse in and of itself. Sex-selective abortions
have also created a huge trafficking magnet, pulling victims
into forced marriages and brothels from countries in proximity
to China and beyond.
China's extremely modest and overly hyped suggestion that
it might relax the Draconian one-child-per-couple policy is
unlikely to mitigate disaster and may be further counteracted
by the spread of sex-selection abortion technology to even more
of rural China. Whether the birth limitation is one child or
two children in special cases, birth limitation policies
constitute abuse, cruelty, and exploitation without precedent
or parallel for baby girls and, by extension, the rest of
society.
The Government of China is failing not only to address its
only trafficking problems, but is creating an incentive for
human trafficking in the whole region. Although she could not
join us today, renowned author Mara Hvistendahl, author of
Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls and the
Consequences of a World Full of Men, will be submitting
testimony for the record specifically on the effect of the sex
ratio imbalance as the cause of human trafficking and the
proliferation of marriage agencies in China which traffic women
from poorer countries into China and sell them into marriage.
The hearing this afternoon will also take a look at a
second set of countries this year that must be automatically
downgraded unless they have made significant efforts to fight
human trafficking. These countries include Thailand, Malaysia,
Afghanistan, Chad, Barbados, and Maldives. Burma may receive a
Presidential waiver in order to avoid a downgrade to Tier 3,
but the facts on the ground don't justify that course of
action.
Cutting across Burma, Thailand, and Malaysia is the tragic
plight of the Rohingya minority. Rohingya are leaving Burma by
the thousands to escape religious persecution. However,
according to reports put out by Reuters, Thai authorities are
selling Rohingya to human traffickers, where they are held in
tropical gulags until relatives pay ransom. Those who cannot
pay the ransom are sold into sex slavery or hard labor and may
die from abuse or disease. Thai authorities have done little to
stop this practice. Their efforts at prevention and prosecution
are said to be losing steam.
Rohingya are often trafficked to Malaysia, where they are
exploited for labor, the sad fact is that many Rohingya, a
persecuted Sunni Muslim minority in Burma, hope to find refuge
in Malaysia, a majority Muslim country. Burma is the source of
Rohingya trafficking in the region. Policies of discrimination,
child limitation, forced birth control, and violence push
Rohingya minority to leave Burma and leave them as vulnerable
refugees.
The Burmese Government is culpable in this trafficking and
the regional problems that their policies create. The Burmese
Government has done little to stop trafficking of these
individuals. Reports indicate that authorities profit from the
sale of Rohingya traffickers and women are held at military
bases as sex slaves and many men are used for forced labor.
Though these practices have gone on for many years, I believe
they are underreported in the State Department's TIP Report.
Displaced by war and the Burmese military, women and
children from the Kachin tribe in Burma are also subjected to
human trafficking. Roija, an 18-year-old woman living in an IDP
camp in northern Burma, was lured to China with the promise of
a restaurant job. Once in China, she was bussed to a rural
village and locked in a room. According to her testimony, she
cried for 3 days and begged those around her to let her go. She
was told to just give up and was sold as a bride for $5,312.
The importance of accurate tier ratings in TIP Report
country profiles cannot be overstated. That is why we are
having this hearing. Again and again, we have seen countries
turn 180 degrees and begin the hard work of reaching the
minimum standards after the TIP Report accurately exposed with
a Tier 3 rating and a truthful country report of each country's
failure to take significant action against human trafficking.
I will never forget two of our closest allies, Israel and
South Korea, both were on Tier 3. I remember meeting with their
Ambassadors who had files demonstrating to all of us and anyone
who would listen, especially the TIP office, what measures they
were taking to mitigate this terrible crime, these crimes that
were occurring under their watch. And both of those countries
got off Tier 3 when they took substantive action.
So, this hearing is an attempt to further inform all of us
and, by extension, the TIP office, of your concerns, experts in
the field, and I look forward to hearing your testimony.
I would like to yield to Dr. Bera.
Mr. Bera. Thank you, Chairman Smith.
And I know Ranking Member Bass is on her way, after votes,
here. So, I will defer and let her make an opening statement.
I just want to applaud the committee on your commitment,
Mr. Chairman, and dedication to mitigating human trafficking.
We have had a number of hearings, both here in the subcommittee
as well as the full committee hearing. As the examples you
pointed out, there is nothing more inhumane or reprehensible
than human trafficking and our values as Americans clearly
reflect the need that we have to stand up for the values that
we hold dear the value of the dignity of life.
Human trafficking occurs in virtually every country around
the world, despite our efforts to end this horrible injustice.
According to the International Labor Organization, nearly 21
million people were human trafficking victims in 2012, and
traffickers receive more than $32 billion a year.
Tragically, our own country is no exception to this, with
an estimated 300,000 children at risk each year in the United
States for commercial sexual exploitation. This is a
particularly important issue to me because it is a challenge in
my home town of Sacramento.
Sacramento is among the top U.S. cities that suffer from
human trafficking, particularly childhood prostitution. And
Sacramento, unfortunately, because of its location and many
transportation routes, often becomes an entry point for other
areas of the country.
As we have discussed in this committee previously, one way
the State of California is working on combating human
trafficking is making sure there are lots of eyes on the
ground. That is by training the public to look for those
warning signs, so that they can be vigilant and notify
authorities. This training certainly is incredibly important
because, again, there is no more reprehensible crime, but we
have got to raise that community awareness. So, again, we have
those folks in the neighborhoods looking for signs of
suspicious activity.
In addition, employing a victims-centered approached where
victims have access to social services and are empowered to
take actions and steps toward the right direction in mitigating
human trafficking. Again, it is very important for us to not
revictimize the victims, but to help them rebuild their lives.
Since the State Department's reports were first launched,
120 countries have established anti-human trafficking laws. In
this regard, it is incredibly important that the State
Department continue to place countries in appropriate tiers, so
we can find better ways to cooperate and stop trafficking, both
internationally and at home. It is that leverage of proper tier
placement that is very important, and I look forward to hearing
about that from the witnesses.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Dr. Bera. Thank you for
your comments, and I look forward to working with you even
further on this important issue.
I would like to now yield to Randy Weber, the vice chairman
of the subcommittee and, also, the author of the trafficking
law in Texas, when he was a member of the legislature there.
Mr. Weber. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to echo my colleague down there, the good doctor's
comments about it is a terrific scourge and it is something
that needs to be stamped out. In Texas we understood that.
You know, they call a lot of the buyers of sex, actually,
purchasers of sex, or POSes. And I told the last panel, I said,
``We call them `POS' in Texas, too, but it is not the exact
same connotation.'' And offline, I might tell you what that
stands for.
But, yes, we had a very important bill, House Bill 4009, in
the Texas Legislature where we strengthened the definition of
human trafficking, where we increased the penalties of human
trafficking, where we made sure that law enforcement knew that
these young girls that are pressed into slavery, basically,
aren't always willing prostitutes, for example. Then, you dig
deeper, look deeper.
We actually made a Web site with HHSC, the Health and Human
Services Commission, where they put it up online and they
brought together all the NGOs and the different organizations
and law enforcement, where they could go to get training. We
had three, I think it was either three or four, seminars around
the State each year where they would go and hear speakers, hear
about the background.
We like to say that everything is bigger and better in
Texas, and it certainly is. Unfortunately, though, in this
particular realm, we hold the record. Twenty-five percent of
the human trafficking in this country is in Texas, and that is
not one of the records that we want. And so, we set about to do
something different, to change that.
So, I applaud you all for being here, and I applaud, Mr.
Chair, you for putting this hearing on, and look forward to
what the witnesses have to say.
I yield back.
Mr. Smith. I would just say that those who are at risk or
victims are safer because of the work you did, landmark work,
in Texas.
I would like to now introduce our distinguished panel,
beginning first with Ambassador Mark Lagon, who was the
Ambassador-at-Large from 2007 to 2009 in the Office to Monitor
and Combat Trafficking in Persons.
Ambassador Lagon went on to become executive director and
CEO of the anti-trafficking nonprofit, the Polaris Project.
Currently, Ambassador Lagon is the global politics and security
chair at Georgetown University's master of science in Foreign
Service program and adjunct senior fellow for human rights at
the Council on Foreign Relations.
Then, we have Mr. Brian Campbell, who is responsible for
International Labor Rights' foreign policy, legal and
legislative advocacy, and runs its campaign to end child labor.
For several years, Mr. Campbell has led advocacy efforts in
state-sponsored forced labor in Uzbekistan's cotton industry,
working closely with child labor NGO partners in Uzbekistan to
elevate the role of civil society in the country, promote
enforcement of existing laws, policies, and standards that
protect workers' core labor rights, and develop and improve
legal and soft law instruments.
We will, then, hear from Mr. Blair Burns, who is vice
president of the Regional Operations for Southeast Asia at the
International Justice Mission, where he oversees IJM's work in
Cambodia, Thailand, and the Philippines to bring freedom and
justice to victims of human trafficking and sexual assault.
He also leads IJM's local and national strategies to reform
the justice systems in these countries to ensure protection to
the poor from violence.
Prior to his role, Mr. Burns worked with IJM in India,
where he led a team to rescue more than 700 people from
slavery.
I note, parenthetically, that IJM worked very closely with
me and my staff, and with Mark Lagon over on the Senate side,
when we were writing this legislation. And Gary and the rest of
the team really had a great impact on the legislation, and I
want to thank them for that.
Then, we will hear from Ms. Nathalie Lummert, who is
director of special programs with the U.S. Conference of
Catholic Bishops' Migration and Refugee Services, where she
manages initiatives relative to unaccompanied children and
trafficking victims and immigrant detention.
She has over 15 years of experience with forced migration
issues and is an expert in case management, program
development, and advocacy for various migrant populations.
Prior to her work at the USCCB, Nathalie worked with the
UNHCR and with at-risk populations, such as the homeless and
runaway youth. Thank you, too, for your leadership.
And finally, we will hear from Dr. Wakar Uddin, who is the
director general of the Rohingya Union, where he is a key
leader and advocate for Rohingya citizenship in Burma and for
international political and humanitarian support of the people.
He is also a founder and chairman of the Burmese Rohingya
Association of North America, which works closely with various
organizations to ensure the welfare of refugees and immigrants
in the United States and in Canada.
Ambassador Lagon, if you could provide your testimony?
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE MARK LAGON, GLOBAL POLITICS AND
SECURITY CHAIR, MASTER OF SCIENCE IN FOREIGN SERVICE PROGRAM,
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY (FORMER AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE FOR
TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE)
Ambassador Lagon. Chairman Smith, members of the committee,
I thank you very much for inviting me. It is a special pleasure
to look at the upcoming Trafficking in Persons Report with the
legislator most responsible for putting that tool in the policy
toolbox for the United States.
This is an issue of robustly bipartisan concern, and I want
to say I am pleased to see President Obama's personal
engagement in the annual meetings of the Presidential
Interagency Task Force on Trafficking. He used the occasion on
April 8th to focus on victim protection, and I would like to
say a word about that a bit later.
Secretary Kerry and his team at the State Department
deserve praise for going through with automatic downgrades of
Russia, China, and Uzbekistan to Tier 3 in the TIP Report last
year.
I would like to speak to a few countries of particular
concern meriting close scrutiny this year.
Malaysia is among those countries that face an automatic
downgrade to Tier 3. It desperately needs to amend its anti-
trafficking law to allow victims to live, travel, and reside
outside of government facilities. It needs to increase efforts
to prosecute fraudulent labor recruiters, and it needs to
increase training to avoid government complicity in
trafficking.
Thailand, in Southeast Asia, is also on the cusp of an
automatic downgrade. I would just like to say, as an aside, I
think Thailand is an example, I found personally, of perhaps an
unfortunate addition to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act,
in the 2013 reauthorization that the House acceded to, drafted
by the Senate. It gives credit in the minimum standards to
countries that have conferences and partnerships with NGOs and
other entities. Well, you know, I have worked with the Global
Business Coalition Against Human Trafficking. I believe in
partnerships. But when I went to speak at a conference in
Thailand on Rule of Law last fall, that is not evidence that
Thailand is doing more. Government action is what matters.
Reuters reported this month that the Thai Government had
shared statistics with the United States on human trafficking,
but their veracity is suspect, particularly for the reason that
the Rohingya people trafficked from Burma don't seem to be
counted. They seem to be treated as human smuggling victims.
In this region of Southeast Asia, one sees a particularly
acute problem in the seafood sector. I testified before the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Natural
Resources Committee on human trafficking in illegal,
unreported, and unregulated fishing. But trafficking doesn't
just occur on the high seas. When that seafood comes to shore,
it has got to be processed, and many migrants are subject to
trafficking, just like Burmese victims I met 7 years ago, as
Ambassador, on the outskirts of Bangkok. And that abuse
persists today. That is a shame.
Also in the East Asian region, otherwise admirable,
affluent, democratic allies New Zealand and Japan, well, have a
good record of spending resources elsewhere in the region, but
they deserve some scrutiny for their conduct at home.
New Zealand has for a number of years been assigned to Tier
1, but look at the narrative of last year's report. The
government hasn't prosecuted or convicted any offenders in the
last 7 years nor has it identified any trafficking victims in
the last 9 years.
Japan deserves on the merits no more than a Tier 2 ranking.
It is very much in the power of Japan to ratify the U.N.
Palermo Protocol and pass a comprehensive anti-trafficking law,
and it hasn't done it.
When I am asked what region of the world exhibits the worst
human trafficking, my answer is always the Arabian Gulf. There,
documented guest workers, foreigners from South and Southeast
Asia, and increasingly from Africa, as well as women, are not
treated as human beings in full, not accorded access to
justice.
In particular, I am concerned with Qatar, which has earned
a Tier 2 ranking the last 2 years. It is of special interest,
given its preparations for the 2022 World Cup. Major sporting
events cause a dual hazard of human trafficking in the
construction of arenas and in the sex trafficking that spikes
during the events.
Mr. Chairman, I admire the fact that during the Super Bowl
last year you spoke to that sex trafficking hazard in your own
State of New Jersey.
Well, in Qatar there was a report 2 weeks ago claiming that
1,200 men had lost their lives since construction work started,
far ahead of any loss of life or harm in Brazil and South
Africa preparing for World Cup games, or even Beijing in
preparing for the Olympics.
Qatar is not alone in its responsibility. The source
countries of migrants who are abused also are. And the
Government of Nepal is a good example. By not regulating its
labor recruiters who woo its nationals into debt, and for not
more forcibly defending its nationals in diplomacy, it is a
shame that Nepal is not doing more. It is too taken with the
remittances that seem to make up a quarter of its economy.
India, in South Asia, has the highest incidence of human
trafficking globally. But one case outside of India deserves
special attention. The arrest of the Indian diplomat Devyani
Khobragade in the United States for trafficking of a domestic
servant calls attention to the special priority that the
Trafficking Victims Protection Act places on government
officials' complicity in TIP.
The U.S. regulation to penalize flagrant or repeated abuses
of countries whose diplomats are bringing third country
nationals into the United States has never been invoked. It is
about time it is.
Afghanistan faces an automatic downgrade to Tier 3, with
families selling children for prostitution, insurgent groups
forcing children to serve as suicide bombers, and labor brokers
driving Afghan men, women, and children into forced labor
abroad. We ought to, long after the U.S.-led invasion, be
candid about the reality on the ground.
A couple of more cases I would like to cite are ostensible
success stories. Brazil, year after year on Tier 2, has had
labor inspectors rescuing forced labor victims by the
thousands, but it wasn't until last year's report that a case
of labor slavery was documented as having earned an honest-to-
goodness prison sentence as opposed to a halfway house, a
community service term, or some suspended sentence.
Brazil is more broadly emblematic of a global pattern of
impunity for labor trafficking. Continuing the statistical
disaggregation introduced in my own tenure as Ambassador, the
2013 report revealed that only 15 percent of prosecutions for
TIP globally were for labor, rather than sexual exploitation.
And that was double the 7 percent, a meager figure, the year
before.
In Europe, there remains a problem for demand for sex
trafficking. How meaningful can the anti-demand efforts of
nations which the TVPA minimum standards require the TIP Report
to account for if sex buying is legal and, frankly, encouraged
as a tourist industry by the Dutch, German, and other
governments?
In these examples, generally, one sees two imperatives for
the U.S. anti-trafficking policy globally. First, fighting
demand. It is intolerable to keep suggesting boys will be boys
with the purchase of commercial sex. Sex trafficking grows in
this swamp. It is for this reason that I support legislation
sponsored by Congressman Hultgren to add a provision to the
TVPA minimum standards which assesses whether national
governments that have it in their power to criminalize sex
buying, by the ``POSes'' that Congressman Weber spoke of, do
so.
Second, of the three famous P's of prosecution, protection,
and prevention, protection of victims must come first. If the
United States Government is spending so very little in this
area relative to, say, corporate welfare and agribusiness
welfare, how can we expect developing nations to advance victim
identification, shelter capacity, physical/medical care,
therapy for deep-layered traumas of victims, job training, and,
finally, job placement, as the ultimate dignity-reclaiming step
for a victim?
In conclusion, Congress would do well to focus on demand
and survivor empowerment. By focusing on them in oversight and
legislation, it will contribute to the actual contraction and
eventual abolition of what amounts to slavery in our time.
Thank you.
Mr. Smith. Ambassador Lagon, thank you very much for your
testimony.
Without objection, your full statement will be made a part
of the record, along with that of all of our distinguished
witnesses.
Ambassador Lagon. I appreciate that, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lagon follows:]
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Mr. Smith. All right, now, Mr. Campbell, if you would
proceed?
STATEMENT OF MR. BRIAN CAMPBELL, DIRECTOR OF POLICY AND LEGAL
PROGRAMS, INTERNATIONAL LABOR RIGHTS FORUM
Mr. Campbell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to start by saying that my testimony today is
possible only through the sacrifices made by hundreds of
Uzbekistani citizens who risk their lives year after year to
fight against the mass crimes the Government of Uzbekistan is
committing against its own people.
Equipped with pen, paper, camera, and specialized training
in monitoring and interview methodologies, the human rights
defenders across the Uzbekistan band together in networks to
anonymously and effectively gather as much evidence as possible
about the Government of Uzbekistan's forced labor system. At
great risk to them and their families, they find ways to get
evidence out of the country to their colleagues at
organizations like the Uzbek-German Forum in Germany and the
Association for Human Rights in Central Asia, based in France,
and others, so the information can be shared publicly.
And I am here to say that their sacrifice has begun to bear
fruit, and I have some good news to share, Mr. Chairman. Thanks
in large part to your commitment, the commitment of the
Congress as a whole in fighting against the crime of forced
labor in Uzbekistan, the United States Department of State made
the right decision last year and allowed the automatic
downgrade of the Government of Uzbekistan to Tier 3 in its
Trafficking in Persons Report. The decision was vital in
convincing the Government of Uzbekistan to drop its
longstanding opposition to the monitoring of the cotton harvest
by the International Labor Organization. It was shortly after
the decision was published last June that the Uzbekistan
Government finely relented and signed the agreement to let the
monitors in.
As a result of this pressure, I am happy to report that the
Government of Uzbekistan granted a reprieve to thousands of its
own children under the age of 14 from having to participate as
forced laborers in the cotton harvest last fall. Thousands of
children were saved from the debilitating work of harvesting
cotton by hand in a hazardous, often toxic working environment.
Thousands of young children were saved from the fate of Amirbek
Rakhmatov, a 6-year-old, first-year schoolboy from Vobkent
District of Bukhara who died while out picking cotton with his
mother last year.
Unfortunately, the bad news still dwarfs the good news.
Despite the presence of ILO monitors, the Uzbek Government
continued its forced labor system for cotton production. It
continued to operate a state-order system or command economy
for cotton production that is underpinned by an extensive
system of state-sponsored forced labor.
Use of coercion begins with farmers and, then, increasingly
over the course of the year, extends to all of its citizens and
the system is administered by government officials nationwide.
The government establishes a quota and, then, compels farmers
to meet that quota and compels farmers to sell their cotton to
the government. The government earns over $1 billion annually
from this forced labor system. Farmers who fail to meet the
government-established quota for cotton production continue to
face severe consequences, loss of land, prosecution on criminal
charges, and physical punishment included.
During the harvest, farmers regularly report being scolded,
humiliated, and beaten at their regular meetings held in their
local communities in which they are supposed to report on their
progress in fulfilling their cotton quota. To harvest the
cotton, the Uzbek Government continued to systematically
mobilize children aged 16 and 17 throughout the country and,
also, 15-year-olds in many regions. They also, in different
regions, depending on the local governor, mobilized the younger
children as well, the children under 14 years old.
Forced labor was organized through the state education
system and the threat was expulsion from school. The forced
mobilization of the harvest began in September and continued
through November.
In addition to children, the government systematically
forced adult farmers, public sector workers, private sector
workers, unemployed citizens, and those in receipt of public
welfare benefits to labor. Authorities forced pensioners,
mothers receiving social benefits, and other citizens to pick
cotton under the threat of losing those benefits on which they
depend.
Under pressure from authorities in higher positions,
administrators of public institutions and private business
owners forced their workers to pick cotton under the threat of
dismissal from their jobs. University administrators forced
their students under threat of expulsion. Teachers and public
sector professionals participated in the cotton harvest only
because, if they didn't, they would lose their public sector
jobs.
Despite the undeniable evidence of forced labor, the
Government of Uzbekistan continues to publicly deny that it
operates a forced labor system for cotton production. They were
very clear to the ILO stating directly that they do not operate
a forced labor system.
In fact, to perpetuate this myth, the Government of
Uzbekistan tried to impose on the ILO certain conditions for
their monitoring that made truly independent monitoring
impossible. For example, the monitors were government officials
from Uzbekistan who were accompanying the ILO.
Despite these efforts to prevent independent monitoring,
though, the ILO was still able to corroborate the civil society
reports of the serious and continued use of forced labor by the
Government of Uzbekistan. And the ILO findings were, then,
corroborated again by the World Bank Inspection Panel who had
sent the monitoring team to look into the forced labor possibly
touching their projects. Their findings were very clear that
their projects, when investing in agriculture in Uzbekistan,
could benefit the forced labor system of cotton production.
While we are confident that the ILO will continue to do its
duty to use whatever diplomatic path it can find to end this
forced labor problem, and we hope that they will continue to
impress upon each and every government official that forced
labor is a crime in violation of international law, we see no
evidence that the Government of Uzbekistan is committed to
ending its highly-profitable forced labor system and holding
those who have perpetuated these mass crimes accountable under
the law.
We must all remember forced labor is a crime. Those
investing in the cotton system, like Daewoo International
Corporation from Korea, Indorama Corporation from Singapore, or
even those who want to sell tractors and irrigation equipment
to the government, made possible possibly by contracts funded
by banks, the World Bank, possibly the Asian Development Bank,
if they are offered, their potential for liability is very
clear. Section 18 U.S. Code 1589 prohibits any person from
knowingly benefitting from forced labor. Those who do face up
to life in prison.
And then, the Tariff Act of 1930 prohibits cotton products
from being sold in the United States that are made with forced
labor. And this is what happened to Indorama Corporation last
October when they could not import their Uzbek cotton product
into the United States.
For companies who are investing outside the cotton sector,
the risks are just as great that they will get pulled into the
forced labor system as well. This is what happened to General
Motors, whose employees were compelled to pick cotton during
the harvest for the third consecutive year. And the people who
compelled them? The Federation of Trade Unions of Uzbekistan,
which is not an independent trade union. It is an agency of the
government, but, also, one of the ILO social partners, and they
were working with managers from the General Motors plant in
Andijan.
To end my testimony, I just want to say very clearly that,
based on the evidence by human rights monitors, reports from
the ILO and World Bank that the Government of Uzbekistan
continued to impose a forced labor system for cotton
production, while at the same time denying its existence, and
the recognition of the sacrifices made by human rights
defenders who risk their lives in fighting against the
government's crimes, we adamantly urge the United States
Department of State to maintain Uzbekistan on Tier 3 and to
utilize all the tools at its disposal to bring an end to forced
labor in Uzbekistan.
Very specifically, we also call on the U.S. Government to
exercise the sanctions made available under the TIP law.
Utilize your voice and vote at the World Bank, at the Asian
Development Bank, and prevent any investment that is going to
benefit the forced labor system. We don't tolerate it for our
own companies. We should not tolerate it for the multilateral
institutions, either. Investing in forced labor is investing in
a crime, and it cannot happen.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Campbell follows:]
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----------
Mr. Smith. Mr. Campbell, thank you very much for your
clarity and for your insights.
Last year Ambassador Lagon spoke about America's pathetic
embrace of slavery which was in significant part about cotton.
So, here we have it occurring in Uzbekistan, and I think your
words couldn't have been more clear.
I would like to now yield to Mr. Burns for his testimony.
STATEMENT OF MR. BLAIR BURNS, VICE PRESIDENT OF REGIONAL
OPERATIONS, SOUTHEAST ASIA, INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE MISSION
Mr. Burns. Thank you.
As you said, my name is Blair Burns, and I work for
International Justice Mission. IJM is a global team of
attorneys, investigators, social workers, community activists,
and other professionals working in over 20 communities
throughout the developing world.
I have been with IJM for 10 years and I oversee our work in
Southeast Asia, where our offices focus primarily on combating
the commercial sexual exploitation of children. Prior to my
current position, as the chairman mentioned, I lived in
Chennai, India, where I directed our programs to combat forced
labor slavery in India.
Thank you for asking me to testify today. My children don't
actually believe that I am testifying before Congress. They are
very cynical little people.
And, Chairman Smith, thank you so much for your long time
of leadership on anti-trafficking. It matters. It matters quite
a lot.
The 2013 Global Slavery Index indicates that there are more
slaves today in our world than at any other point in human
history. I have met a lot of them. They are people just like
you and me. They are fathers and mothers, friends and
coworkers, sons and daughters, grandparents and children, all
of whom have the same hopes and dreams that we have to live
lives of happiness, freedom from violence, and safety.
Some might have us believe that they are slaves because
they are victims of abject poverty, but that belies the fact
that every country in the world has poor people, including this
one, but only a minority of countries has a problem of slavery
and human trafficking thriving within its borders.
Slavery and sex trafficking are violent crimes. Such
criminal enterprises fester and thrive only because local
justice systems fail to enforce the laws that are against them.
Why does slavery not fester and thrive in our country?
Because the Government of the United States brings great
resources to bear against those who would perpetrate such
violence.
But let me clarify. I am not here today to tell you
horrific, dramatic tales about how bad things are. I am not
here to draw you into an even more bleak picture. Rather, I am
here to point you to some things that I am seeing in this fight
that are very good, to point you to some places where women and
men of goodwill are turning the tide against global slavery, to
tell you more about an example of the great power of the United
States being used rightly, to provide effective leadership to
end one of the great tragedies of our time.
To put it quite clearly, in 10 years of doing this work
across Asia, I have seen no action of a Western government that
is more effective at anything than the annual release of the
Trafficking in Persons Report by the Department of State. I
have had senior government officials in every Asian country I
have visited from India to the Philippines tell me in private
that their highest trafficking-related priority is to improve
their nation's tier ranking on the next TIP Report.
In my experience, the actions of these countries have borne
out what they have told me behind closed doors. I want to tell
you two stories.
We have worked in the Philippines since 2001. Since that
time, our offices have seen over 1,000 girls and women rescued
from commercial sexual exploitation and hundreds of
perpetrators jailed for their crimes. In 2007, with funding
from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, we launched an
anti-trafficking program in Cebu, the second-largest city in
the Philippines. Before beginning operations, we conducted a
baseline study to measure the prevalence of children offered
for commercial sex, to measure the extent of the crime.
We, then, began operations by partnering with local justice
system officials to enforce the Philippines' laws against the
trafficking of children. The first thing we learned was that,
as of that point, the laws were not being enforced at all. In
our research we could find no evidence of any criminal
prosecution of any trafficker in Cebu. We found that, in
general, law enforcement lacked both the will and the capacity
to act, but we also found that there were officials of goodwill
who wanted to serve their country.
Early in the project we partnered with the Philippines
National Police Regional Command to create, train, and mentor a
dedicated regional anti-trafficking unit. After just a few
years, by 2010, over 70 suspected traffickers and pimps were in
jail, as their trials progressed through the Philippines'
glacial criminal justice system.
And that is when some remarkable things began to happen.
First, we conducted another study on prevalence and published
the results. We found that the number of children offered for
commercial sex had dropped by 79 percent in Cebu, 79 percent.
In other words, with the sudden, unexpected, and sustained
enforcement of the law, it finally became truly illegal to
traffic children for sexual exploitation in Cebu.
And so, what did most of the traffickers then do? They
found other ways to make money. They stopped exploiting
children.
Second, in 2010, the TIP office put the Philippines in the
Tier 2 Watch List for the second year in a row. And just 2
years before that, the Congress required that countries could
only stay on the Watch List for 2 years in a row. For those of
you who might have voted for that, brilliant move. The
Philippines was in grave danger of losing a lot of coveted
foreign aid.
And third, a new administration came into power in Manila.
And so, in late 2010, the new Secretary of Justice, Leila de
Lima, came to Washington for a meeting at the World Bank. She
was in town for part of 1 day and called me to meet with her at
the Embassy.
We sat down. She looked me in the eyes and said, ``Tell me
about your program in Cebu, and tell me how we can replicate
that success throughout the rest of my country.'' I had a few
ideas for her.
Shortly thereafter, the Supreme Court directed all courts
in the Philippines to fast-track the trafficking cases. We
began to see cases that once took 10 years to move through
trial reach judgment in one to three. We worked with the
Secretary as she cleaned up and reestablished the Anti-
Trafficking Unit of the National Bureau of Investigations in
Manila. Whereas agents of this unit once made barely-veiled
death threats to our staff, they quickly became some of the
closest law enforcement partners we had.
The Philippines National Police, under a different ministry
than Justice, decided to replicate the dedicated Anti-
Trafficking Unit in Cebu. It stood up units in Manila and
Pampanga, incorporated our training curriculum into their
regular training program, and partnered with our offices to
provide ongoing mentorship to the units. Today they are in the
process of incorporating these units into a single national
command.
So, what is the result? Today the trafficking of children
is truly against the law in the Philippines, and everybody
knows it. Why? Because that law is now enforced. And not only
is the law being enforced, it is being sustainably enforced by
elements of the Philippines justice system that are largely
operating independently of IJM or any other NGO. When we
conduct additional prevalence studies this year and in 2016, we
fully expect to see further dramatic reduction in the violent
crime of trafficking.
And the story is quite similar in Cambodia, where things
were once even worse. There, in 2003, we found entire open
markets where minority Vietnamese girls ages 6, 7, 8, and 9
were sold for a few dollars to any foreign pedophile who could
find his way to Phnom Penh.
The police and senior Cambodian Government officials knew
exactly what was happening, yet took no action. Western
governments were also unwilling to speak out. But, by 2005, the
TIP Report put Cambodia on Tier 3, and we then have the
government's attention.
In response to earlier recommendations from the TIP office,
Cambodia had already stood up a national-level anti-human-
trafficking department, but the officers of this department
were both untrained and lacked any will to conduct any
trafficking operations.
With help from USAID, we launched a world-class police
training program for the department, and then, we began ongoing
case-by-case mentorship with the trained officers. We have
continued that mentorship for nearly a decade.
Slowly, but surely, the anti-human-trafficking department
rose up into an effective law enforcement agency. Today the
public does what was unthinkable then. When a girl goes
missing, they call the police. We know this because, when that
happens, the police call us.
The department proactively enforces the law across the
country and prosecutors and courts have followed suit. We have
seen 187 convictions of traffickers in Cambodia in our cases
alone.
So, what is the result of real law enforcement in Cambodia?
In late 2012, we conducted a prevalence study. The results were
remarkable. Less than 1 percent of all sex workers were minors
under the age of 15. Data collectors in three cities found no
one offered for commercial sex under the age of 12.
Thank you for inviting me today, and please let me know if
you have any questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Burns follows:]
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Mr. Smith. Thank you very, very much, Mr. Burns, for your
testimony. You have made so many good points.
Unfortunately, we have two votes. So, we will have to
interrupt.
Ms. Bass. Now?
Mr. Smith. Yes, we are in the final 8 minutes of the first
one.
So, I apologize again to our two remaining witnesses. And
if anyone has to go, obviously, you go, but we regret we won't
get to ask you questions.
But you did make a very good point, Mr. Burns, about when
they were on Tier 3 in Cambodia; it got their attention. I have
found, and I know Ambassador Lagon more than anyone else has
found over the years, that when they are on Tier 3, I don't
care who they are. They may protest--the Greeks protested
mightily when they were placed on Tier 3--but it gets their
attention. And naming and shaming is an important part of this
process, but it ought to be followed by tangible sanctions,
which often is not the case.
But thank you for your excellent testimony.
I would like to yield to Ms. Bass, if she has anything.
Okay. I don't want to cut your testimony short, Ms.
Lummert. So, if you don't mind, we will stand in brief recess,
then come right back. These are the last two votes of the day.
So, again, I apologize.
[Recess.]
Mr. Smith. The hearing will continue.
I would like to ask--you were done, right, Mr. Burns? Yes.
STATEMENT OF MS. NATHALIE LUMMERT, DIRECTOR, SPECIAL PROGRAMS,
MIGRATION AND REFUGEE SERVICES, U.S. CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC
BISHOPS
Ms. Lummert. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the invitation to
speak today. I have a longer written testimony, but in my oral
remarks I will focus on the Church's anti-trafficking efforts
domestically and internationally and the partnerships which we
think need to continue to expand in the efforts to combat human
trafficking.
As you may know, His Holiness Pope Francis has elevated the
issue of human trafficking as a priority for the global Church.
At a conference I attended at the Vatican this month, the Holy
Father called human trafficking ``a crime against humanity and
an open wound on the body of contemporary society.''
This conference, organized by the Catholic Bishops
Conference of England and Wales, gathered senior law
enforcement and Church leaders from around the world to
coordinate around combating human trafficking. The conference
initiated a new international network of Bishops Conferences
and law enforcement agencies working together to combat human
trafficking. Pope Francis emphasized the importance of the
complementary approaches of law enforcement and humanitarian
efforts working together on this issue.
It would be impossible for me to describe all the work of
the Catholic Church globally in the area of human trafficking
in 5 minutes; however, examples include COATNET, a coalition
led by Caritas International, working across borders; Talitha
Kum, an international network of women religious in 75
countries; Catholic Relief Services; Bishops Conferences; and
the pastoral presence of the Apostleship of the Sea, the
Church's maritime ministry present in over 200 ports globally.
The efforts of the Catholic Church in the U.S. are included
in my written testimony.
In March, the Vatican also announced a new partnership
called the Global Freedom Network with the Anglican Church and
the Grand Imam of al-Azhar, Egypt. The overarching goal of the
initiative is to eradicate modern-day forms of slavery by
encouraging governments, businesses, educational and faith
institutions to rid their supply chains of slave labor.
The Global Freedom Network will focus upon: One, raising
awareness and education of the scourge at all levels of
political life; two, assisting countries with developing a
strategic plan to eradicate slavery and cleanse supply chains;
three, facilitating support for the victims; four, advocating
for enactment and reform of laws in countries which would help
end trafficking and provide support for its victims.
This is an exciting initiative that will be operated out of
the Vatican, but, no doubt, will rely upon the assistance of
the Catholic Church and other faith leaders worldwide,
including the United States, to meet its goals.
The Catholic Church in the U.S. is well-positioned to
assist with the goals of the Global Freedom Network. Migration
Refugee Services of the USCCB is engaged in anti-trafficking
work, including protection of victims and education and
awareness aimed at prevention.
As you know, Mr. Chairman, the Bishops Conference also
advocates on human trafficking issues. We have worked with you
and other elected officials to enact the Trafficking Victims
Protection Act and its subsequent reauthorizations. We are
proud of these efforts and the protections in U.S. law for
trafficking victims, but our work and yours is not done. In our
written testimony we cite trafficking bills before the House of
Representatives that should be considered and passed by this
body, including legislation addressing supply chains and
prohibiting excessive foreign labor recruitment fees for legal
workers.
The U.S. also needs to fully implement current law,
including Section 104 of the TVPRA which calls for best-
interest determinations to identify child victims in other
countries.
In our written testimony we also highlight the importance
of partnerships and ask for continued expansion of these. The
TIP Report, admirably, attempts to include all partners in all
aspects of fighting human trafficking. The Bishops Conference
is thankful for this and asks for the continued expansion of
faith-based groups as multi-level stakeholders in the global
fight.
The Bishops Conference does not normally comment on tier
rankings, but we do point to the populations that we are aware
of that need particular attention and that should be considered
as being impacted. Included among these are refugees that we
are resettling to the U.S. and that we are aware of
internationally through U.S. Bishops' delegations to impacted
regions, seafarers, and, also, among the most vulnerable,
unaccompanied children, including unaccompanied children from
Eritrea that are in Ethiopia and other places subject to
trafficking through the Sinai; unaccompanied children in
Central America that we have seen being vulnerable to human
trafficking.
Catholic Church partners are natural first responders and
also bring expertise and knowledge. The Church is a voice for
the voiceless, including in the most remote areas of the world
where trafficking is occurring, including such examples as the
fishing industry among seafarers, Eritrean refugees in Africa,
and the border areas, such as in our own region, including
Mexico and Central America. These voices can and should inform
our national/international approaches to combating human
trafficking.
I will close my remarks about the importance of
partnerships by drawing upon the example of the meeting at the
Vatican on trafficking. During that meeting, stakeholder
inclusiveness was highlighted in its most pure form. In
addition to reaching out to law enforcement leaders, the Holy
Father also focused his attention on and met with survivors of
human trafficking. And these survivors also spoke to law
enforcement and Church leaders, urging them to make stronger
efforts.
Mr. Chairman, in conclusion, I would like to thank you for
your leadership on this important issue. The U.S. Catholic
Bishops continue to look forward to working with you and your
colleagues on eradicating the scourge from the earth. As Pope
Francis tells us in his Joy of the Gospel, the issue of human
trafficking truly involves everyone.
Thank you, and I look forward to answering any of your
questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Lummert follows:]
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----------
Mr. Smith. Thank you very, very much for your testimony and
for the great, great work that the Catholic Church is doing
around the world, and this new reinvigoration by Pope Francis.
We know the Church was there working, and you were right to
point out that when we were writing the original statute, which
took three long years to get enacted, the USCCB, your General
Counsel, you, your group, the USCCB was very involved with the
actual writing of the text. So, I want to thank you for that as
well.
I would like to now introduce Dr. Uddin.
STATEMENT OF WAKAR UDDIN, PH.D., DIRECTOR GENERAL, ARAKAN
ROHINGYA UNION
Mr. Uddin. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and
committee members, for giving me the opportunity to speak, to
testify before the committee.
I would like to focus on a particular ethnic minority in
Burma known as Rohingya. This issue that human trafficking and
the smuggling issue of Rohingya in western Arakan State, Burma,
is not new. It has been simmering for decades. However, due to
some media reporting and the reports from the Arakan Project by
Chris Lewa from Thailand, and, most recently, the writers/
reporters has opened up this issue to the international
community, and it has received widespread attention, the
Rohingya smuggling and trafficking issue.
Mr. Chairman, the primary cause of these Rohingya
trafficking and smuggling, the root cause, is the situation on
the ground in Arakan State in western Burma. The human rights
violations, persecution, ethnic cleansing, actions of Burmese
forces are tantamount to some kind of pre-genocide, precursor
for pre-genocide crime against humanity. All these conditions
faced by Rohingya people in western Arakan State in western
Burma, in Arakan State, are the primary cause, the root cause
of these subsequent events taking place for the persecution.
This trafficking of Rohingya victims, actually, this
trafficking has two phases. One is a smuggling phase and
another one is the trafficking phase itself.
The situation on the ground is so terrifying. It has been
terrifying for quite some years. The victims, the Rohingya
victims have nowhere to go. They are the victims of violence,
persecution. Their villages have been burned, and they have
been arrested for inciting violence, accusation of inciting
violence, and they have been accused of burning their own
homes. The police, Burmese police, have arrested hundreds of
Rohingya men and women with the accusation that they burned
their homes, to show the international community that, look, we
are under ethnic cleansing and to have a better house to be
built, to get more aids, that kind of accusation.
This morning I received phone calls from victims from
Arakan State. The authorities in Burma, local authorities, I
should say, and the members of RNDP, Rakhine National
Democratic Party, local officials have primed the Rohingya
families ready for trafficking, ready for smuggling and
trafficking.
If you hear their arduous journey living in Arakan State,
they cannot take the horror anymore. If you hear the arduous
journey to Malaysia, Thailand, it is heartbreaking, the
victims.
We had a victim here 3 days ago at the University, at
American University, at an event that she has given an account
of her own horror she faced. She was supposed to come here
today, but she couldn't.
The sequence of events, let me describe the sequence of
events, how it takes place. The homeless Rohingya families, the
victims, including men, women, and children, they don't have
anywhere to go. In certain areas, in northern Arakan State
there are no IDP camps. So, whether there are camps are not,
these people are vulnerable to fall prey into smuggling rings.
So, they want to leave Arakan State, finding refuge anywhere in
the world. So, that is the priming of the victims by the
smugglers.
The smugglers, the ring, the cartel, they board the
families to the smaller boats, smaller, rickety boats, and,
then, they ship them to larger vessels docked a few miles off
the coast in Bay of Bengal. There are women, there are
children, there are elderly, and there are also young men who
are evading, absconding police because the police has issued an
arrest warrant to arrest them. And once they get arrested, 10-
to 30-year prison for arson, accusation of arson and violence.
So, those, also, young men had to leave along with their
families.
What happened is, when they leave, the man particularly
leaves; the family members left behind are mainly women and
girls and their wives, their mothers, and they also become
fallen to prey of the forces. They will be taken hostage. The
women will be taken hostage by the forces and Buddhist Rakhine
extremists and they will be confined in their camps and
villages and become sex slaves.
Just currently, there are serious issues. Several hundred
Rohingya women and young girls, even minors, have fallen into
traps of the sex slaves locally in Arakan State, in army camps,
in settlement villages, and other places.
Now these people who are leaving Burma with families, they
go; they are leaving for anywhere they can find shelter, they
can find refuge. So, these boats start taking them, sailing
them south. Hopefully, their destination is Malaysia because
they feel that they will find safe haven in Malaysia, but often
they do not reach Malaysia.
There are reports of boats sinking, people drowning because
of the rough weather. Their navigation is not good. They get
lost in the ocean. And the worst thing, Mr. Chairman, is that
they are running out of food and water, while they are sailing,
running out of fuel. They are drifting. They have drifted to
India. They have drifted to Sri Lanka.
And then, they often arrive in Thailand, as often Thai
coast guards will pick them up and take them to detention
centers. Often, these folks will land at the Thai coast, and
those victims who are taken to prison and camps, then, at that
point the trafficking phase will start. Until this point that
they arrive Thai, it is smuggling. They are smuggling by these
rings.
When they arrive in Thailand, Thailand does not have a
refugee law that provides status to these refugees, asylum to
these refugees. So, they are kept in the camps indefinitely.
Then, they have a thing called option two. The Thai police,
Thai immigration officers then try to get rid of them, send
them away from the Thai detention center through collaboration
with cartels. Then, these men, women, children are sent to
southern Thailand in sex slave camps, hard-labor camps, and
other places.
Often, Thai authorities separate women and girls from the
family members, telling them that they need better protection,
and they are taken somewhere else and there is no record of
returning them. They never come back. We don't know where they
are. Later, we found out that they have ended up in the trade
of sex slaves. That is what happened in human trafficking when
the Rohingya victims are sent to camps in Thailand.
And the other scenario, Mr. Chairman, is those people who
are not picked up by Thai authorities, but they landed
themselves at the coast, and they are taken by the cartels into
the camps and taken hostage, demanding ransom. You have to pay
such-and-such amount of money to get released. So, they have
phones. They are sophisticated. They have a phone system that
makes them call their relatives in Malaysia, people who went
before and working there, and demanding thousands of dollars
for ransom. And then, upon the delivery of the cash, these
victims are released. Often, all the people, the victims, could
not find their relatives and neighbors and friends in Malaysia
to save them, and they are languishing at these camps. And
then, the women and girls, minors as little as 8 years,
according to their testimony that they gave to me, are traded
as sex slaves.
So, these are the situation the Rohingya people are facing,
starting from Arakan State, as persecution, a victim of
persecution, to smuggling, to trafficking.
Now how can we allow this to happen in this day and age, in
this century? These people, the Rohingya victims, because of
their fate, this trafficking, they are falling victim, the
situation on the groundin Arakan State.
I do not see any end to this, unfortunately, to this entire
sequence of events, unless the situation on the ground in
Arakan State is resolved. It is great that there are tiers,
categories for different countries, for Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3.
And President Obama has had a waiver for Burma, reportedly,
about this trafficking issue. And is it incentive, we are
wondering? If it is an incentive, is that working? Is the
Burmese Government looking into this issue on the ground, where
the horror is originating, ending in Thai and Malaysian border
with trade of sex slaves and hard-labor people?
If the waiver is working, that is a great thing. But I am
afraid that the Burmese Government will enjoy this waiver and
will not look into the situation on the ground. If you cannot
go to the root cause of this, I don't see any other way to
solve this issue.
So, our appeal on behalf of the Rohingya people, I appeal
to the international community, to the committee, to our
Government, that we need to insert greater pressure on the
Burmese Government to solve the issue on the ground with their
reinstating their citizenship, giving them all their human
rights, recognizing the ethnicity as Rohingya. They are
refusing to recognize Rohingya as an ethnic minority, which has
been documented historically, that existed in Burma before the
'60s.
Once their citizenship is given back to them, their rights
are given back to them, they are recognized as a national race,
an ethnic minority, and then, I think we are close, one step
closer to solving these human smuggling and trafficking issues
in Arakan State, Burma.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Uddin follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
----------
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Dr. Uddin.
I would agree with you about the importance of really
taking a hard look at Burma. You know, the release, and now
somewhat reintegrated great Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung Sang
Suu Kyi should not be allowed to gloss over other egregious
human rights abuses, especially as they relate to trafficking.
So, I do think your point--and perhaps Ambassador Lagon
might want to speak to this--but the waiver authority, when we
wrote that, wasn't meant to be the rule; it was meant to be the
exception. It was meant to be done in good faith in a
diplomatic embrace of the country that could easily be
designated Tier 3, to say, ``Look, we want to work with you. We
want to get to the point where you are meeting those minimum
standards,'' which are what we need to apply to every country
of the world, including the United States.
The waiver authority has been exploited by both parties,
unfortunately. And frankly, that is not the Ambassadors-at-
Large's fault; it is the regional bureaus' faults and people
higher up, and particularly the Ambassadors who sometimes
develop a little bit of a ``clientitis.''
So, my hope is that there will be an effort made to really
say, waiver authority, only use it as an exceptional tool, not
as something that is just automatically meted out because it is
a lot easier to do so.
I will ask a couple of questions, yield to Ms. Bass, and
then, to my good friend, Mr. Marino. Then, I have some
additional questions I would like to get to as well.
But let me just ask you, if I could, Mr. Ambassador, you
know, one of the reasons why I voted against the Leahy
amendment when it made its way over here, I had the competing
bill that we wanted to bring up because it had a number of
substantive changes that were not included in the Leahy
amendment, but one of them was the cut in the TIP office's
budget. Now they claim they can craft together monies from
various spigots rather than have a straight-up, transparent
authorization.
But the other was the language that tilted in favor of the
regional bureaus' additional gravitas in making decisions as to
who goes on Tier 3, Tier 2, Tier 1, and Watch List. We haven't
seen that play out yet. But that was a huge fight when we did
the original TVPA back in 2000, that the regional bureaus
didn't want this bill. They were against this bill. I met with
so many of the people, you know, the Assistant Secretaries, the
various desk officers. Then, we had round-the-clock meetings--
over 3 years you have a lot of meetings--with State Department
people, very good people, but they didn't want it.
And now, people who want to sideline or, you know, put
trafficking on page 5 of the talking points, may have
disproportionate influence on the Secretary, unless you have a
very, very powerful Ambassador-at-Large. But, even then, he
might get drowned out.
Because, as we all know--and I will finish with this in
terms of the question--when we did the first leader of the TIP
office, we could not get Ambassador-at-Large language into the
bill there was so much objection to it. So, we went with just
the director, came back in 2003 and put Ambassador-at-Large
because we wanted that gravitas to be equal to the weight of
the work that he or she had to do.
So, if you could speak to that, Mr. Ambassador?
Ambassador Lagon. Well, you ask a great set of questions. I
was disturbed, too, by an element of the 2013 reauthorization
that was ostensibly meant to provide that there would be
consultation between the regional bureaus and the TIP office.
But the fact is that who has the pen, having been given to the
trafficking in persons office on the preparation of the report,
has been very important.
And I will say a very hard-headed official Deputy Secretary
of State, Richard Armitage, actually was crucial to the
decision about how that would first get implemented. I think it
would not be a good idea to hand that pen over to the regional
bureaus.
There is a constructive tension in the Department in which
the overall picture of U.S. interests on multiple issues and
the contexts of a state, you know, maybe it is a state at war,
maybe there are real capacity issues, are brought forward by
regional bureaus. But the fact that the experts on this in the
trafficking in persons office are the ones who are principally
charged with drafting, is essential.
I do want to say one thing about personnel. The number of
personnel is not everything. I would like to see the voice of
the Ambassador-at-Large in the office raised, but it is not
always the case that more is more. Some of the nimbleness of
the office, some of the special qualities that you embedded in
the legislation to act as a voice for civil society benefit
from nimbleness.
Mr. Smith. If I could just ask you one other question,
because it was you, when you were Ambassador, who finally
elevated the issue of China and the nexus with the one-child-
per-couple policy to its rightful place, and I will always be
deeply grateful, all who care about human rights, I believe.
No other nation on earth has so systematically exterminated
the girl child in utero by way of sex-selection abortion than
China. As I said, we are going to have hearing testimony from
Mara Hvistendahl, the author of Unnatural Selection: Choosing
Boys Over Girls and the Consequences of a World Full of Men,
her testimony, which we will make a part of the record.
But there is no doubt whatsoever that the magnet driving
the Chinese situation are the missing daughters. They are gone,
exterminated systematically every year since 1979 as part of
the one-child-per-couple policy. Tens of millions, minimally--
some put it as many as 100 million; nobody knows for sure--but
the ratio is without precedent in all of human history, and
won't turn around anytime soon.
So, the bride-selling and the trafficking, the magnetic
effect of that dearth of women will occur and only get worse
going on. I don't know how, frankly, the State Department could
possibly designate China anything but a Tier 3 country, given
the fact that they are surging toward more demand, based on the
missing girls.
And secondly, some of the very minor things that I have
seen, you know, one of you mentioned earlier just attending a
conference does not make a trafficking plan or any reason to
rejoice. It is a step and that is all it is.
If you could speak to that?
Ambassador Lagon. Yes, you know, there are many reasons for
serious scrutiny of China, on this issue of the demographic
matter and others, with lots of faults on human trafficking.
But the combination of the population policy, even if it is
liberalized some--and we should watch with great skepticism
whether the announced leadership reforms in population policy
pan out--and attitudes which continue to stand throughout
Chinese society about the value of a male child over a female
child. That isn't changing, and that is, indeed, the magnet,
combined with China's inhumane policy of not treating those who
flee North Korea as refugees.
They are under great pressure. Someone, a woman who comes
over fleeing a desperate economic and political situation in
North Korea, or a man as well, will be facing the fate of being
deported back to North Korea for possible punishment or even
execution. That is a huge situation of leverage.
And when that is added to the magnet of a desperate desire
for women as wives and as sex partners, you have a cocktail for
a tremendous human harm.
Mr. Smith. I have other questions, but I will hold off and
ask Ms. Bass if she would proceed.
Ms. Bass. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. As always, I
appreciate your leadership on this issue for many, many, many
years.
So, I just wanted to ask several questions of various
panelists, starting with Ambassador Lagon.
I know that the White House recently launched a public/
private partnership to combat trafficking with the use of
technology. Since I missed your comments earlier, I didn't know
if you could talk about that and highlight some of the methods
and strategies that are being used.
Ambassador Lagon. Well, I am a big believer in partnerships
as the lifeblood of the anti-human-trafficking movement. To her
credit, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton emphasized
that as a fourth ``P.'' Before her, the former head of the U.N.
Office on Drugs and Crime, Antonio Maria Costa, also said that
there should be a fourth ``P'' of partnerships. And I think,
truth be told, the Bush administration approach was one that
believed in those partnerships as well.
I think we should all look at ways that technology can be
used, including crowdsourcing, to help the funding of NGOs and
for looking at big data. But I think we should take care to
remember that it is, in fact, an idea that every human being is
of equal value and the people who are working in NGOs and
businesses and government are the ones who really make the
difference.
High technology and big data for studying patterns, these
are tools, and we should just remember these are tools in the
service of trying to fight this terrible scourge.
Ms. Bass. Are they being used? And how about the State
Department? Has the State Department embraced the technology?
Maybe you could give us some examples of where they were?
Ambassador Lagon. Well, I think that, actually, the U.S.
Agency for International Development has probably been on the
forefront of trying to use technology, pursuing/offering up a
challenge to potential grant applicants for the use of
technology.
Ms. Bass. Oh, is it in the process? Like they have a
Request for Proposals out or something?
Ambassador Lagon. They are, indeed, asking for people to
come forward and working with a series of universities around
the United States to try to figure out ways to use social media
and ways to use high technology.
One of the projects of the U.S. Agency for International
Development is, in fact, an ability for you to be able to take
your handheld out and scan a product and have a sense of its
supply chain.
Ms. Bass. Oh.
Ambassador Lagon. That is a nascent effort----
Ms. Bass. Right.
Ambassador Lagon [continuing]. But a promising one.
Ms. Bass. Another question, and this is related to the
Netherlands. I wanted to ask you, I think last year you were
critical of the Netherlands as a Tier 1 country. We know that
in the Netherlands prostitution is legal. Anybody who has been
there has seen it.
But I wanted to know how the State Department has asserted
that prostitution and human trafficking are linked, but how
does it factor in the decisions around the TIP Report?
Ambassador Lagon. Well, I think there has been a subtle
change in the approach of the office. I think in the Bush
administration and under the Obama administration there has
been an emphasis on demand, but I do think that there is
perhaps less emphasis on the importance of fighting sex buying.
Let me be clear when I talk about, you know, the legal
regime. What I am concerned about is putting the men who would
be buyers of sex on the hook. And I think it is important not
to punish women who are in the sex industry----
Ms. Bass. Right.
Ambassador Lagon [continuing]. Whether or not they are
human trafficking victims.
I think the model is not working in the Netherlands, and
there have been really fascinating press stories on the model
failing in Germany, where trafficking has spiked because of the
legal regime. And country after country, the UK, France, and
across the ocean, Canada, are pursuing legal changes to try to
punish the sex buyers and move toward a more Nordic model.
Ms. Bass. Right. I appreciate that.
I didn't hear your testimony, Mr. Campbell, but I read your
testimony about Uzbekistan. And I was wondering if you could
talk about that in terms of the forced participation in the
cotton harvest and if anything has changed. And also, you know,
in terms of the textile industry, I don't know if any of our
companies are sourcing from there.
Mr. Campbell. Okay. Thank you, Congresswoman.
To get right to the point, the situation continues largely
unabated, that there continues to be forced labor compelled by
the government and it involves children; in certain places it
is younger than 14, but largely 15-, 16-, 17-year-old children
from across the country, and it involves adults who come from
all sectors, both the public and private sector for employment.
And so, the situation continues. It is an urgent situation.
Where it has changed a little bit--and I covered this a little
bit in the testimony--was, because of the pressure, the
pressure from this committee, the pressure from the U.S.
Government, the Uzbek Government granted a reprieve for
children under 14 years old across the nation from being
systematically mobilized from across the nation. Now children
under 14 continue to be mobilized in different parts by local
government officials and stuff. So, they were mobilized still
as a part of that system. Now whether they were systematically
mobilized across the country, no, there were parts of the
country that actually replaced their labor with adult forced
labor.
Unfortunately, what we have not seen is a change in their
attitude toward the issue of forced labor in any way. I will
just pull a quote really fast from the International Labor
Organization which stated very clearly that ``The Government of
Uzbekistan continues to deny that it has a forced labor
problem.''
It has invited the ILO to help advise it on understanding
what its forced labor problem might be, although that has been
pretty clear to everybody for years. It is also they have
invited the ILO, I think just announced yesterday the ILO will
send in a decent work team to do some education amongst the
government. But we are still talking about education about a
problem that the rest of the world has known about for years.
Ms. Bass. They say it doesn't exist.
Mr. Campbell. Yes. And in terms of supply chains----
Ms. Bass. Right.
Mr. Campbell [continuing]. I will say that the garment
industry in the United States and the American Apparel and
Footwear Association has been a tremendous supporter to clean
their supply chains of this forced labor cotton.
I mean, there is no question it is getting into our supply
chains. Can we find it? It is really hard. The closest we have
been able to really come was we know who is processing the
cotton in Uzbekistan. There is a company, Daewoo International,
a large Korean company, that has operations globally. They are
processing that cotton and selling that cotton, and they are in
full knowledge of the fact that they are benefitting from this
forced labor system. They even said so on their own Web site.
What they said was, what we can't do as a textile company
is address this issue because it is a government forced labor
problem in Uzbekistan.
Ms. Bass. They don't have to source from there.
Mr. Campbell. Well, I can't speak for Daewoo. I imagine
that they would fear losing this guaranteed supply of very
cheap cotton. I imagine that they would fear losing really what
are their only major processing, yarn processing facilities for
their other manufacturing.
But that is the processed yarn. What we also are trying to
learn more about, and we can find, for example, the cotton, the
raw cotton is going to Bangladesh. The raw cotton is going to
China. What we are trying to find out is who in Bangladesh, who
in China is buying the raw cotton, because it is our opinion
that this cotton is made with forced labor. Our laws prohibit
the importation of goods made in whole or in part with the use
of forced labor.
Ms. Bass. Okay.
Mr. Campbell. So, what we are trying to do is learn. I will
congratulate, and I would like to say that the Department of
Homeland Security and the Customs and Border Patrol and
Immigration and Customs Enforcement have taken this situation
very seriously.
What we understand, though they will tell you they can't
comment on an ongoing investigation, we received a response to
a Freedom of Information Act request that we had sent whereby
we were able to confirm that, at our request on a petition we
filed last year, the Department of Homeland Security has opened
an investigation into Indorama Corporation and into Daewoo
Corporation. And partly as a result of that investigation, a
shipment of cotton yarn from Uzbekistan was denied entry into
the United States last October.
We don't have the final outcome. What we hope is that the
investigation into those two corporations will continue because
those are criminal violations. And to the extent that either
corporation is subject to the jurisdiction of the United
States, they should be prosecuted for these criminal
violations.
Ms. Bass. Okay. Thank you.
My final question I wanted to ask Ms. Lummert. One of the
issues in trafficking that is of major interest to me is
trafficking domestically here in the United States, not of
primarily females from overseas, but girls right here.
We know that a large percentage of these girls have a
relationship to the child welfare system and they have fallen
through the cracks for a long time. We just kind of assumed
that any girl that ran away ran away and didn't realize that
she was necessarily being forced and trafficked.
And so, you spoke about the Catholic Church's work
domestically. I was looking through your written presentation,
and that part of it just was mainly talking about girls coming
from overseas to here.
So, my question to you is, is the Catholic Church involved
in any kind of systematic way, focusing on the trafficking of
girls here domestically? I know there are some males, but it is
primarily girls. And if there is an organized effort on the
Catholic Church's part?
Ms. Lummert. Right. The Catholic Charities network in the
U.S. is very extensive and they operate foster care programs
throughout the country. Within those foster care programs, of
course, they are seeing victims of trafficking domestically.
Some of them may have been foreign-born, but they are
trafficked within the U.S. as well.
One of the things that we are doing is looking at our model
of refugee foster care network that actually has served victims
of trafficking, some of whom are brought in internationally,
but some whom also have been trafficked within the U.S., to
look at what has worked with that model of care and the
services. We have served about 100 survivors of trafficking,
children, girls and boys, both labor and sex trafficking, to
see what are the practices that they are using and evaluate
those practices. We hope to have that available soon.
But what we are seeing from that work is the importance of
having a trusting relationship with the service providers, a
mentoring relationship with the professionals working with the
children. We think that that will also be very valuable to the
domestic child welfare system as well who are serving American-
born children.
Ms. Bass. Yes, and maybe I can follow up with you because I
would just caution a little bit that I do understand how in
some ways it might be applicable, but I think there are a lot
of ways it is not, and especially with a lot of the groups that
are working with kids who were born here. And so, maybe there
can be some relationship where we could be helpful to share.
One of the things about this field is that there is a real
lack of evidence-based practices dealing with this population,
period. But I do worry because over the years the focus has
been on the international, and I don't think we have paid--you
know, we are certainly beginning now, and a lot with your
leadership and the TIP Report, I think the situation in
domestic trafficking is different.
In the Los Angeles area, for example, some of that
trafficking is done by street gangs. And so, it is really
important to understand that different programs and practices
might be needed.
Ms. Lummert. One of the networks that I think that we could
follow up with and get more information from is the Covenant
House organization. They are involved with homeless and runaway
youth.
Ms. Bass. Right.
Ms. Lummert. In fact, I used to work with them. They are
involved with a Catholic coalition against trafficking as well.
They are seeing this population.
As you know, the children who are emancipating from foster
care in the U.S. are the ones that are particularly vulnerable.
The ones in foster care and the ones who are emancipating from
foster care, they are vulnerable to the trusting relationship
that these traffickers make the children believe that they
have.
Ms. Bass. Right.
Ms. Lummert. They are exploiting the vulnerable situation
and the lack of this trusting relationship or any protection
system that is in place for them.
Ms. Bass. Right, and I am sure you are aware that the age
of emancipation, which is a term for which we probably should
find a new one, is 18, but the average age that these girls are
being trafficked is 12.
Ms. Lummert. That is right.
Ms. Bass. So, they are being recruited far before, well
before they would reach the age of emancipation. So, hopefully,
we can work together in the future.
I work a lot with my colleague Tom Marino. We co-chair the
Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth. And so, this has become a
particularly important issue to us.
Thank you.
Mr. Smith. I would like to now yield to Tom Marino from
Pennsylvania. Now we know, parenthetically, he was the U.S.
Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, so a very
accomplished prosecutor at that.
Mr. Marino. Thank you.
Karen is right, we work a great deal on foster care/
adoption. We see so many things taking place that we are trying
to bring to the public's attention more and more here in the
United States, particularly when it comes to the trafficking of
young people, young girls.
I, too, do not like the term that is used, this
``emancipation.'' It turns one's stomach to see what we see in
our Caucus.
I have a concern here. I was reading a report by the UNODC,
the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. It was gathered
from 155 countries. And Executive Director Costa said that most
countries, most of these 155 countries deny that there is any
trafficking taking place.
One question I have for the U.N. is, why do we have
trafficking, human trafficking, tied up in a drugs- and crime-
gathering unit? We should have a very aggressive, specific unit
totally devoted to human trafficking, starting right here in
the United States and in the U.N.
In my last several months of U.S. Attorney in the Middle
District of Pennsylvania, I guess it was about 7 or 8 years
ago, we prosecuted one of the largest human trafficking rings.
It took place in certainly Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey,
and I think it went into Delaware, but I am not quite sure
about that.
We sent a couple of real bad fellows away for a very, very
long time. And this was not a situation where they persuaded--
look, I am 61 years old--I call these ``young girls,'' out for
sex. I mean, it was threats. It was taking hostage. It was
beating these young girls. And if you would have heard the
testimony coming from these victims, it would have broken your
heart. But we put these guys away just about forever.
I kind of miss those days from putting these culprits away.
But this percentage of human trafficking within this report
indicated that 79 percent of the human trafficking is for sex;
18 percent of it is from forced labor. And as a matter of fact,
in West Africa--and it is usually children in forced labor--100
percent of the children that are trafficked, 100 percent of
those trafficked are children in these areas, and most of it is
close to home.
So, the point I am painstakingly getting to is, once again,
the United States steps up to the issue here at the U.N., but
what is the U.N., in and of itself, doing? My patience is
growing very, very thin with the United Nations. They talk a
good game, but we don't see the results across the board on
many issues, but particularly this issue.
Ambassador Lagon. Mr. Marino, could I speak to that?
Mr. Marino. Please.
Ambassador Lagon. It is a good set of questions.
I came to head the State Department's human trafficking
office from the bureau that dealt with the U.N. And one of the
threads in my career has been working on the U.N., including a
book on international organizations I am about to publish.
You asked really good questions. First, the U.N. Office on
Drugs and Crime has played a leading role because the original
treaty in the U.N. on human trafficking was attached to a
transnational criminal networks treaty. I think it is
problematic where there to be a singularly U.N. Office on Drugs
and Crime approach. It should not surprise you that
coordination between different agencies of the U.N. is crummy,
a technical term, crummy.
Mr. Marino. To say the least.
Ambassador Lagon. There are good actors. UNICEF does some
good work. The International Labor Organization does some good
work. Outside of the U.N. system, the International
Organization for Migration does some very good work.
The U.N. solution to a problem with coordination is to
create multiple coordinating bodies, which don't really improve
the situation. The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, I think,
would do a better job itself, to the degree that it is
involved, if it would help train countries to implement laws.
Because the major problem in human trafficking around the world
is that countries have enacted laws and they have ratified this
U.N. Palermo Protocol on trafficking, but they are not
implementing it.
Mr. Marino. But let me interrupt there because that looks
good from a political standpoint, but if it is not enforced.
And I think many times in these countries it is just for
politics; okay, let's show the world that we are taking care of
this.
However, it boils down to revenue is certainly generated
from child trafficking, particularly in the labor area, but
also in the sex trade. So, these are countries that just, once
again, give lip service. And we at the U.N., and the United
States to a certain degree, we take it. Why are we not calling
out in a general session of the United Nations--I would love to
stand up there and read off the list of countries and the
leaders of those countries, you know, where they have a law;
some of them don't have a law, but what enforcement have they
done?
Ambassador Lagon. Right.
Mr. Marino. I mean, it is about time we call these people
out publicly.
Ambassador Lagon. I entirely agree with you. So, two
points.
First, I think, despite the desire of the U.N. to have its
own global report, the two that it has put out have not rivaled
the State Department's report in their seriousness and
completeness.
And then, secondly, it is indeed exactly a problem of
promises in rhetoric and on paper in laws and treaties, and not
having action. I used to call this ``the loop,'' while I was
head of the human trafficking office, a country would go up in
its ranking when it passed a comprehensive law. And then, a
couple of years later, you would see it wasn't enforcing it,
and it went down again.
Mr. Marino. I see my time is running out. But I say this
with all good intentions. I would leave this position in a
heartbeat if I had the authority and the team to go
internationally and investigate and bring these people to
justice.
And I yield back.
Mr. Smith. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Marino.
Let me ask Ms. Lummert a couple of questions, if I could.
In your testimony you list the unique contributions of
faith-based partners in the fight against trafficking. How can
the U.S. Government better include faith-based perspectives and
expertise in the fight?
I do want to thank you for your 6 years as administrator of
grants to foreign victims found in the U.S. As your testimony
clearly points out, more than 2200 survivors of trafficking and
over 500 of their family members were served during that time.
I was, frankly, deeply distressed, disturbed, and tried to
find some legal way of changing it, and could not find it with
a reluctant Senate and with the administration taking the
position it took.
But when Kathleen Sebelius put out her Request for
Proposals and said that organizations that refer for abortion
will be given preference, they sealed the deal, sadly, at HHS
and picked the winners not based on competence and the ability
to positively affect the lives of trafficking victims, but
based on who does abortions. As you know, the HHS reviewers
looked at your program and gave it superlative marks, and these
were the independent-minded HHS reviewers who looked at what do
you do, what is your capacity, and how well did you do it. And
unfortunately, it went to other organizations that scored far
below you, at least one which I found extraordinarily
distressing.
But it has been my experience--and you may or may not want
to speak to this--that faith-based has been given an arm's
length approach by many over the years. When we first did this
bill, there was a large number of people who wanted to exclude
the faith-based side. They did it with PEPFAR. They have done
it with other programs of the Federal Government. I am the one
who authored the conscience clause on PEPFAR. It won by two
votes in the Foreign Affairs Committee. So, it was not a slam-
dunk, so that faith-based healthcare could be included.
So, my question, you know, you spoke eloquently about the
initiative by Pope Francis to bring Christians, Orthodox, and
Muslims together, but I think that is a new platform for
further jumping off and doing more, particularly on the
prevention and protection side. Because I have been in shelters
all over the world, and so many of those shelters are run by
faith-based organizations. And I have been astounded how much
healing happens in a faith-based shelter where the love and
almost like the 12-step program for AA. If it wasn't for the
God side of it, some people would never get to that point where
they can overcome their addiction to alcohol or drugs. And I
have seen it time and time again, that joy in the eyes of a
woman who has been trafficked and cruelly exploited, but with a
smile on her face because she has found new hope in her own
life.
And Sister Eugenia, I have been to her programs in shelters
in Rome and met women, one woman who was from Nigeria. As a
matter of fact, Greg and I, he will recall this. She had been
trafficked for 5 years, and this woman had joy unspeakable
about her new life and was soon going to be getting married. I
mean, she really had turned her life around through that
shelter. And the same way in Lima, Peru; name the place, I have
seen them.
And so, how do governments, how does our Government stop
this arm's length? I find it with the European Union approach.
I am the Special Representative for Human Trafficking for the
Parliamentary Assembly for the OSCE, the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe. My counterpart a couple of
years ago, she and I used to fight over it--she said no faith-
based in the shelters; they are not allowed.
I was in Sarajevo at a shelter and they told me in the
shelter they wouldn't allow any Muslims, Christians, or Jews,
or anyone with faith, to come in and assist the women. I was
not only shocked, but I was disappointed and argued with them
for the better part of an hour.
So, we need, it seems to me, to recognize the extraordinary
value that faith-based brings to healing and prevention, so
protection. If you could elaborate on that?
Ms. Lummert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The meeting that I was at at the Vatican, one of the
impetuses of that was the collaboration between law enforcement
and the Catholic Church in England, and, in particular, for
example, what they are doing there is the religious community,
the religious Sisters are actually working in collaboration
with Scotland Yard to identify victims of trafficking, because
the law enforcement recognized that there is only so much they
can do to identify victims of trafficking. And they recognized
the Church can play a role in prevention, in awareness in the
communities most at risk, and also in identifying more than the
law enforcement can themselves.
Here in the U.S. one of the initiatives that we have is
working with the Customs and Border Patrol and the Inspection
Officers to provide informational briefings on identifying
victims of trafficking, in particular, children. And we have
had positive response from that. The officers say that they
feel like they can be more aware and know what to do as a
result of those briefings.
What we bring to that is child development expertise. We
bring our expertise in knowing about particular cases of child
victims of trafficking who have been identified in the U.S. and
that education, then, is helpful to them. So, we are hoping to
be able to expand that as an example of a collaboration with
law enforcement.
Mr. Smith. Thank you.
Mr. Burns, you spoke, and it was very encouraging to hear,
how the Philippines and Cambodia reacted to tier rankings, you
said trafficking against women is truly enforced and that they
are taking seriously their obligations, and it is making a
difference in the lives of children.
We have always believed, I and others, Mark Lagon I know as
Ambassador, that when you chronicle something, when you
honestly ascribe a real value to it pro or con based on the
record, people stand up and take notice, particularly when
there is a penalty phase down the line, or a potential one.
What happens when we go the other way and take a pass,
punt? When somebody should be dropped, as you said with
Uzbekistan--and I do think, Dr. Uddin, you would like to see
Burma as a Tier 3 country as well. You raised the question and
I think your bottom line would be that it would be a Tier 3
country. When we don't do it, what happens to the victims and
to trafficking in that country? Do we unwittingly enable it?
Mr. Burns. I don't think I would go as far as to say that
we enable it because I think the responsibility to govern the
country still rests with the country, but we certainly don't
help. I think what IJM would say is this goes to the point that
the TIP office needs to be very independent. It needs to be
free to, as I think Ambassador Lagon said, honestly and perhaps
scientifically evaluate all the nations of the world and give
them the appropriate tier ranking. So, we would favor anything
that gives them more independence, such as we supported the
bill to make them a bureau.
But, yes, I think you can take the experience in the
Philippines and see that the Philippines was quite motivated to
protect its citizens because of the downgrading on its tier
ranking. And had you not done that, they wouldn't have had that
motivation and we would have had great difficulty getting them
to enforce the law.
Mr. Smith. Greg Simpkins and I and Piero, also on our
staff, and two other Members were in the Philippines right
after the typhoon.
Mr. Burns. Yes.
Mr. Smith. And frankly, there seemed to be among the NGO
community definitely--we were with CRS most of the time and
USAID--but there seemed to be a great recognition that children
could be trafficked, and women, of course, under the cloud of a
catastrophe.
We met with two high-ranking officials, the Foreign
Minister as well as the Health Minister, and they seemed to get
it as well. So, would that comport with your view that they are
very serious?
Mr. Burns. Absolutely. In fact, my examples went to the
government taking trafficking seriously in the Philippines. But
the public, too--and this is probably a bit unique in the
Philippines because the Philippines pays great attention to
what the United States does--the public is very conversant in
the trafficking issues. And I had people just on the street
quote to me various aspects of the TIP Report.
Mr. Smith. Dr. Uddin, you note in your testimony that one
of the trafficking routes for Rohingya victims runs from Burma
to Malaysia. You also note that Thai authorities have
participated in the trafficking of Rohingya. Have Malay
authorities also engaged in trafficking of Rohingya who have
arrived in or moved to Malaysia? And what happens once they
arrive in Malaysia?
Mr. Uddin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the question.
As of now, there is no report of Malaysian authorities,
Malaysian police force or immigration involved in trafficking
like there is in Thailand with Thai forces.
When the victim arrives in Malaysia, they are reported to
be confined into hard laborers and forced laborers, underaged
laborers, things like that. We have not seen any reports of sex
slavery issues in Malaysia, but if there are any, they are
reportedly near the Thai border. But primarily the sex issues
of underaged and women are along the border of Malaysia and
Thailand. There are camps there. On the other side there is a
wooded area, forested areas. There are some isolated islands.
That is where it is taking place.
According to reports, the Malaysian Government reportedly
is sympathetic to Rohingya refugees more than Thailand, and
according to the report, they have responded somewhat
positively to Rohingya issues. There are no reports of
brutality against refugees, what we have seen on the Internet
and the pictures. The Thai police is doing it. The Thai
Government is refusing it.
So, as of now, we have not seen anything from the Malaysian
side, but that is not to say that it could not happen in the
future, because this problem is escalating, getting bigger on a
daily basis. More people are leaving Burma. More people are
leaving Arakan State. Approximately 40,000 refugees, people,
have moved through Thailand in 2013. That is a lot of people,
40,000 people.
So now, are we going to prevent that or is it going to be
more than 40,000 this year in 2014? So, once things escalate
and spill over to Malaysia, this sex trade thing can spill over
to Malaysia. Even Indonesia, we didn't have many refugees in
Indonesia a couple of years ago. Now we have several hundreds,
probably in thousands, in Indonesia. This local issue in Burma
in Arakan State, this normal local issue, is becoming a
regional issue, and I am afraid it is expanding, escalating
into a global issue.
Mr. Smith. Thank you.
Let me ask Ambassador Lagon, if you would speak to the
issue of Vietnam, whether or not they ought to be a Tier 3
country, in your view? China as well, would you designate them
or keep them on the Tier 3 list?
You mentioned New Zealand and, then, the fact that there
has not been any serious prosecutions in the last 9 years. That
is one I didn't anticipate. Maybe why New Zealand?
Regarding the Japanese businessmen who are traveling to
Southeast Asia, I mean, what is Japan doing to mitigate this
terrible problem of trafficking? And that would go from some
parts of South America as well, particularly Peru.
And then, finally, you also note in your testimony that
many EU nations, member states, have been discussing stronger
attempts at combating demand by focusing on enforcement on the
buyers of commercial sex in general. How does the commercial
sex industry, which I think is an absolute nefarious industry--
and I often get criticized for being whole-heartedly against
it--and human trafficking overlap? Do you have any indication
of the manner that an EU-wide ban on purchasing of sex would
change the sex trafficking patterns of the EU?
Ambassador Lagon. Lots of good questions. I will be brief.
I am very concerned about the situation in Vietnam and the
situation for Vietnamese citizens who migrate elsewhere, and
the situation of labor recruiters. I also am concerned about
trafficking within Vietnam, and I think it deserves close
scrutiny for receiving the lowest of grades.
As for China, you know, it is very good that it finally was
subjected to the downgrade without any waivers. I think there
are any number of reasons, some of which we talked about
before--the demographic situation, and the vulnerability of
North Koreans but also the movement of people within China
without a social safety net which also makes them vulnerable to
human trafficking. I, myself, am not in the trafficking office
right now, but I don't see any grounds for raising China's
ranking.
I think we just need to look at the gap between a ranking
and between a narrative. In the case of New Zealand, it is
striking. You know what happens in the State Department? When
there is a disagreement between a regional bureau and the
trafficking office, and it is refereed at the most senior
levels of the Department, if the trafficking office loses and
the ranking is higher than it recommended, then it gets more of
an opportunity to incorporate in the narrative the facts. And
you will notice some gaps.
A country which has not found a victim or prosecuted a
perpetrator in 7 years is one for which you have to ask the
question, is it really meeting the minimum standards? It
shouldn't get credit for just doing good work in less-developed
countries in the region.
Of the many problems in Japan, I am concerned about those
who are tourists elsewhere. It is a fact that there are
Westerners who are child sex tourists and customers of
commercial sex that drive sex trafficking in the Asian region,
but, in fact, there are Asian tourists that are the major
drivers. And the Japanese tourists are among them. Government
authorities and businesses in Japan need to take responsibility
for that.
On your final question about the commercial sex industry, I
do not believe that prostitution and sex trafficking are one
and the same, but prostitution is the enabling environment. If
there was not a sex market, there would not be these huge
profits to be made by sex traffickers.
The situation of human trafficking around the world is one
in which the traffickers reap big profits and seeks out a
situation of low risk. I believe that if Europe as a whole took
on the Nordic model, then some of the successes that one sees
in Sweden would be enjoyed elsewhere. And the opposite model
has been a manifest failure, most markedly seen in the case of
Germany.
Mr. Smith. Let me ask you, Mr. Campbell, very quickly, the
ILO Convention 182 enforcement, you know, the deployment of the
ILO monitoring team, you did mention in your testimony that
they were hindered, and yet, they still were able to come to
some very profound conclusions. Could you just say how large
was the team? How were they hindered? Were they threatened?
Were people who talked to them threatened? Did they have to
find clandestine ways to make contact with people, so that they
could take accurate notes about what was happening?
Mr. Campbell. Sure. Thank you for that great question,
because it is complicated.
The reason the ILO is hindered is because they view
themselves as a body of social partners. That would be the
governments, the employers, and the trade unions. It is the
only U.N. agency that is set up with those tripartite partners.
In the case of Uzbekistan, those partners are one and the
same. The government, the trade union, and the employers are
all agents of the government. They are not independent. So,
therefore, the ILO social partner model breaks down
significantly when entering into Uzbekistan.
The way that the monitoring was conducted from the
methodology in their report was one ILO monitor ran a team of
up to 40 local government officials who were designated by the
Uzbek Government. The Uzbek Government required the ILO to only
look at and report on violations of Convention 182; 182 is the
Convention on the Worst Forms of Child Labor. Included in that
Convention as a worst form of child labor is forced child
labor.
But, with that extremely-limited definition, the ILO was
not allowed to look at the issue of forced labor generally. So,
therefore, they had to find very creative ways to get that
information out in their report. For example, they had quotes
that said, ``We have concerns about the way labor is
recruited.'' They can't come right out and say it because the
report has to be approved by all the social partners, and in
this case the social partners were the Uzbek Government.
And so, I think in a different way that they were
interfered with. And again, I am not holding the ILO
responsible for this. It is their constitution. They have to
follow their own rules. I suppose in this regard what I would
say is that there were efforts across the country in advance of
the ILO getting there to make sure that people who were going
to report out on the harvest were saying what they were
supposed to say.
In one very stark example--and this is just a real shame--a
journalist, his name was Sergei Naumov, he was just days before
the ILO appeared in his area, where he had been documenting the
continued enforcement of labor to harvest cotton; he was
photographing it. He was arrested, held incommunicado for
eight, I think between 8 and 10 days. I will have to double-
check. He was not allowed to communicate out that he was even
arrested and all of that happened while the ILO was out there
trying to monitor in that region.
So, I think the government has made extreme efforts in
order to look like they are cooperating with the ILO, but they
have used some very unknowable procedures, and they are very
difficult to understand from the ILO perspective because it is
all within the ILO. They have used some procedures to their
advantage.
I would strongly encourage the International Labor
Organization and its social partners, which work very well
together on this issue--the employers and the unions is the
only case at the ILO where the International Organization of
Employers and the International Trade Union Confederation are
on the same page.
This is a tremendous opportunity. Unfortunately, we are
not, as an international community at the ILO, looking at the
issue of Convention 105. Convention 105 prohibits the
mobilization of labor for economic activity by a government.
That is exactly what is going on here.
And so, therefore, I hope this year the International Labor
Organization at its meetings this summer, at the Committee on
Application of Standards, will take up the issue of Convention
105. By doing so, the Uzbek Government will no longer be able
to deny they violate that Convention. They are only able to do
it now because they keep trying to push us in a different
direction. They are trying to say, ``See, look. Look at what we
are doing for our children.'' They want us to ignore what is
happening to the adults.
Unfortunately, the ILO's hands are tied in this manner, but
they will have a decent work program. And I hope that they can
start these conversations. But, again, they have agreements to
begin talking about talking about the problems. What we need is
action, and that is not what is happening.
Thank you.
Mr. Smith. Just a couple of final questions.
Again on New Zealand, we have had more trafficking
prosecutions in my congressional district than the entire
country of New Zealand. We just had a recent one in Lakewood,
New Jersey, for example. And in and around the Super Bowl, in
the days and weeks leading up to it, 70 women were liberated,
including 25 minors, and some 40 pimps were arrested in
connection--some were already being put under surveillance
before the Super Bowl, but it was all released right around the
Super Bowl time.
In regards to the TVPA, in my opinion there has been
somewhat of a disconnect between we do the right thing on, at
least we hope we do, designating countries, and that is a tug-
of-war within the State Department. The reason why we are
having this hearing is to give advanced notice to the TIP
office and others where you and us and others are thinking they
ought to be going, because you are experts in the field.
But the second shoe to drop is the penalty phase, and that
often lags to the point of nothing happens. And if you don't do
something enough, the offending countries say it is a worthless
gesture. Why have penalties if you are not going to impose
them?
Nowhere is that more clear than in the International
Religious Freedom Act, where time and again individual
countries are named as a Country of Particular Concern and they
never get sanctioned.
Anyone who would want to touch on that? Your thoughts on
that? The penalty phase, China, were they ever penalized for
being a new Tier 3 country?
You mentioned, Ambassador Lagon, about Japan. Why is Japan
given such a non-look, if you will. As you said, they have not
signed onto Palermo. There has not been a whole lot done there,
and there are problems with sex tourism, particularly of
Japanese businessmen.
Ambassador Lagon. Well, actually, the question on Japan is
whether it goes down from Tier 2. Let me say that one of the
greatest sources of friction that I have faced in my time as
the Ambassador was the concern of Japan that it was not getting
Tier 1 like every other G7 country.
Even the U.S. Embassy, where there is often resistance to
taking up tough human rights and human trafficking issues, was
adding things to the list that we were taking to the Japanese
Government about what it needed to do.
As far as the sanctions that would go along with Tier 3, it
is odd that the countries that get sanctions are the ones that
already have sanctions. I will say that the moral opprobrium,
the stigma, that goes along with the lowest ranking may be the
most powerful element of Tier 3. But the United States is
leaving on the table leverage that it might have by actually
using those sanctions.
And some of the cases that my colleagues have pointed out
here of the United States using its voice and vote in
international financial institutions show another way that the
United States could help assert pressure.
I will say that when Moldova faced Tier 3, its designation
with status from the Millennium Challenge Corporation was put
under threat when the United States gave it Tier 3 in 2008.
That really matters.
Mr. Smith. Yes?
Mr. Campbell. Congressman, on the issue of sanctions, I
think it is important to recognize that it is not just an issue
of sanctions. And the voice and vote I think is the best
example.
What it is, it is a common-sense policy to avoid investing
in a forced labor system in Uzbekistan. I wouldn't view it as a
sanction. I would view it as an instruction that the United
States Government should be avoiding what we prohibit already,
which is investing in forced labor.
And so, I would say that it should be a matter of course
that, when a government is downgraded to Tier 3, if the
international financial institutions are going to invest in
those sectors that are the cause of that downgrade, we must, as
a matter of course, use our voice and vote to prevent that from
happening. Otherwise, we will just be throwing money after or
into a forced labor system.
Mr. Smith. Yes, like to add anything, Dr. Uddin?
Mr. Uddin. Yes. I would like to see that the waiver of the
Burmese Government, President Obama giving the waiver, we need
to monitor that very closely and designate any improvement. If
there is no improvement, it has to be reevaluated.
I would love to see the Burma, the great country that I
know of, coming off this list, of Tier 2, from Tier 3 to Tier
2, Tier 1, and gone. I would love to see that, but we know what
needs to be done. We need to make sure that the Burmese
Government knows, and they know, also, what needs to be done,
so they can get off the list.
And I would like to give the opportunity to the Burmese
Government with this incentive, this waiver. And we hope that
the Burmese Government will take a look at it seriously and,
then, address the issue on the ground, the root cause of the
issue, rather than chasing the smugglers, arresting the
smugglers, traffickers, and punishing them. That is clipping
the tip of the leaves, not the roots of the tree. So, that is
what we hope, that the Burma Government will cooperate with the
international community and resolve the issue on the ground. I
am sure that the rest of the sequence of events can be
prevented.
Mr. Smith. Would anybody else like to add anything before
we close?
[No response.]
You have been very gracious with your time. A thousand
pardons for all those interruptions.
But this transcript will be used. We will share it with our
leadership, Republican and Democrat. We will get it down to the
TIP office, make sure that Ambassador Luis CdeBaca, who is very
responsive and very capable, will have the benefit of your
testimonies. And as soon as we get a transcript, he will have
the benefit of your incisive answers to questions, so that they
have the most informed input from people who are truly expert.
And that is the five of you.
So, thank you.
The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5:16 p.m., the meeting was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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Material Submitted for the Record
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Material submitted for the record by the Honorable Christopher H.
Smith, a Representative in Congress from the State of New Jersey, and
chairman, Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights,
and International Organizations
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