[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 106 (Thursday, September 9, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1570-E1572]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    JOHN MILLER, AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. FRANK R. WOLF

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 9, 2004

  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I submit for the Record the speech made on 
September 7 by John Miller, Ambassador-at-Large for the Office to 
Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. I hope that you find it 
compelling.

       Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Thank you so much for your kind 
     words, and even more for

[[Page E1571]]

     your inspiring words on modern-day slavery. I believe you are 
     the first Secretary of State to call trafficking in persons 
     by its true name: modern-day slavery. Without your 
     leadership, and the leadership of President Bush, we would 
     never have made the progress we celebrate today.
       And thank you, Under Secretary Paula Dobriansky. You first 
     raised my name for this position and gave me the opportunity 
     to work on one of the premier human rights issues of the 21st 
     century.
       I see some colleagues and former colleagues from the 
     Congress here today. They have come even though Congress does 
     not start the fall session until later today. Congressman 
     Frank Wolf, whose counsel led me to take this position. 
     Senator Sam Brownback and Congressman Chris Smith. But for 
     their work and the work of Paul Wellstone and Sam Gedjenson 
     there would not be the Trafficking Victims Protection Act and 
     the office I head. Senator Chuck Schumer, who is taking a 
     leadership role on this issue. Congressman Diane Watson, who 
     flew from California to be here, and Congressman Barney 
     Frank. And my former colleagues Barbara Kennelly and Linda 
     Smith.
       And thanks also to the many senators and congressmen who 
     sent personal representatives: Senators Lugar, Durbin, 
     Clinton, and Cantwell, Majority Leader DeLay, House Committee 
     on International Relations Chairman Hyde, and Congressmen 
     Barton, Gallegly and Sherman, Kolbe and Coble, Pitts and 
     Saxton, Dunn and Pryce, Lantos and Sherman.
       My thanks also to the many in the executive branch who have 
     come--the large contingent from the White House and National 
     Security Council, including my friends Elliot Abrams and 
     Michael Gerson. And my thanks to the many colleagues from 
     so many agencies who have worked together on the Senior 
     Policy Operating Group on human trafficking at the 
     direction of the President. And, of course, my thanks to 
     all those who have come from the various parts of the 
     State Department, including my own office.
       Marking the growing importance of modern-day slavery around 
     the world I also want to recognize and show appreciation for 
     the attendance of the ambassadors from countries such as 
     Sweden, Benin, Kazakhstan, Cambodia, Nigeria, Indonesia and 
     the Philippines, and diplomats from other nations such as 
     Bangladesh, Mexico and Ukraine.
       And, last but not least, I want to thank my son, Rip, for 
     coming all the way from Seattle.
       When I came back here to Washington 18 months ago I knew 
     little about modern-day slavery. I am indebted to many 
     citizens, public servants and NGOs who worked on the issue 
     long before me and took the time to tutor and encourage me. 
     To all of you, I say thanks.
       What is this issue we call modern-day slavery? Last week I 
     gave a keynote speech at the new National Underground 
     Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati. We discussed the 
     differences between slavery in the 19th century and the 21st 
     century. Today, we do not have government-sanctioned slavery 
     based on color; today, more often we have slavery based on 
     gender and age. Today, the slavery is not just on plantations 
     and in homes; it is in factories and armies as well, and 
     especially in brothels. But the slave masters use the same 
     tools today as the earlier slave masters: kidnapping, fraud, 
     threats and beatings, all aimed at forcing women, children, 
     and men into labor and sex exploitation. And slavery once 
     again reaches into every country in the world. We had a grim 
     reminder of this in our own country today with a Washington 
     Post story on convictions of two kidnappers who put women 
     into forced prostitution.
       Who are these victims that bring us here today? Who are the 
     individuals whose bodies and souls have suffered?
       I picture the victims I have met in my travels. Tina, a 
     teenage Indonesian farm girl lured and forced into domestic 
     servitude in Malaysia. Lord, a Laotian youngster, beaten, 
     tortured and forced to work in an embroidery factory in 
     Thailand. Katya, a Czech teenager lured to Amsterdam with a 
     promise of a restaurant job, her passport seized, her 2-year-
     old daughter threatened so she would service 10 and 15 men a 
     day in a brothel. And so many more. . . .
       These are the individuals who make up the millions held in 
     slavery within countries or trafficked across international 
     borders.
       These are the individuals used by organized crime to make 
     billions of dollars every year so we now, incredibly, speak 
     of the drug trade, the arms trade--and the people trade.
       But today is not about bleakness and despair in the human 
     rights, health and public stability challenges we face. Today 
     is about progress and hope. What a group we have here today. 
     Yes, President Bush and Secretary Powell have taken the lead, 
     but in this election season of conflict it is a tribute to 
     the power of this issue that we have here today a coalition 
     of Democrats and Republicans, a coalition ranging from 
     feminists to evangelical Christians, all of us committed to 
     ending this scourge. The NGOs in this room have done so much 
     to pass laws, to jail the traffickers and to heal the 
     afflicted.
       You have inspired the public servants here, particularly 
     the staff of the Trafficking in Persons Office. We are a 
     small office in a big department, but what an office! 
     Spurring programs and news media coverage around the world, 
     putting out this report that has helped spur almost 3,000 
     convictions of traffickers across the globe last year, spur 
     scores of anti-trafficking in persons laws, and spur debates 
     leading to law enforcement and victim protection actions from 
     Guyana to Bangladesh to Japan. To every person who works in 
     the Trafficking in Persons Office, thanks.
       But all that is prologue. What can all of us working 
     together do in the future?
       First, let's start with language. Back in the time of the 
     Underground Railroad, owners talked about ``field hands,'' 
     but they were describing slaves. Today, words like 
     ``laborers'' and ``sex workers'' are often used to describe 
     modern-day slaves. We must try to stop that.
       Second, we can continue focusing on the source countries 
     that supply slaves. We can do this by increasing education 
     efforts that warn potential victims. We can support economic 
     alternatives for victims. We can set up more shelters to help 
     the victims. And we can help stamp out corruption and throw 
     the traffickers in jail. Just as faith-based groups were the 
     leaders in setting up the Underground Railroad, we now need 
     faith-based, feminists, and community groups to take the 
     lead.
       Third, we must focus more on the demand for slaves. The 
     slave victims may start out in poorer countries, but they 
     often end up in wealthy destination countries in Europe, Asia 
     and North America. That's where the market is. The slavery in 
     earlier centuries existed because of the demand of sugar 
     plantations in Brazil and the Caribbean, the demand of 
     tobacco and cotton farms in the American south. The Secretary 
     of State said at the President's Interagency Task Force on 
     Human Trafficking that we cannot ignore demand today. That 
     means smashing the forces of organized crime in destination 
     as well as source countries; it means education directed at 
     those who create and make up the market.
       And when we talk about demand, we must also talk, as 
     President Bush did at the U.N. last fall, about child sex 
     tourism, a major force behind child sex slavery. Yes, child 
     sex tourism may go on in distant lands, but the pedophiles 
     come from wealthy countries. More countries need to pass laws 
     such as the Protect Act passed on a bipartisan basis by the 
     Congress and signed by President Bush in April 2003. That law 
     strengthened law enforcement's ability to prosecute and put 
     in jail predators back home, no matter where in the world 
     they commit this repulsive crime.
       Fourth, we must continue to highlight the issue by putting 
     out reports such as the Justice Department's Assessment of 
     U.S. Government Activities to Combat Trafficking in Persons 
     and the Secretary of State's annual Trafficking in Persons 
     Report.
       Fifth, we can urge that law enforcement anywhere not just 
     prosecute the victims but go after the perpetrators and 
     exploiters.
       Sixth, we must insist on abolition. As Hugh Thomas 
     documents in his History of the Atlantic Slave Trade, in the 
     19th and earlier centuries, many well-meaning citizens said, 
     ``We can't end the slave trade; let's get better ventilation 
     on the slave ships; let's get better mats and wooden beds and 
     more rations and improve the health of the slaves.'' The 
     Dutch government back then even boasted how clean and neat 
     and well managed their slave ships were. When English critics 
     visited the English slave ships, the slave masters had the 
     slaves sing and dance to convince the visitors to go back and 
     tell Queen Elizabeth that the slaves were happy and there of 
     their own consent. And the slave trade went on.
       Today victims, often fearful, tell visitors they are fine 
     and happy. Well-meaning people say, ``We can't end slavery, 
     so let's get better ventilation in slave factories; let's get 
     condoms into the brothels.'' These measures are good and will 
     help the victims, but they won't end the victims' slavery. We 
     cannot lose sight of that goal.
       Last, we can encourage the news media to report on modern-
     day slavery and praise them when they do. Increased public 
     awareness can lead to many good things.
       We all know this struggle will be a long one.
       But so was the struggle in the early 19th century led by 
     William Wilberforce in the British Parliament. And long was 
     the struggle of the American abolitionists like Frederick 
     Douglass and Harriet Beecher Stowe and Levi Coffin that took 
     decades. We need their dedication and energy and patience.
       This is a struggle that goes back to the book of Exodus 
     that I took the oath on where the Lord told Moses to tell 
     pharaoh to, ``Let my people go so they can serve me.''
       This is a struggle that goes back to the Declaration of 
     Independence with its call for the ``inalienable rights of 
     life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.''
       In some ways our struggle is easier than the one facing the 
     19th century abolitionists. We do not have to violate laws to 
     help the victims as the early abolitionists did.
       When Wilberforce first raised the slavery issue, another 
     member of Parliament asked, ``What right do you have to 
     impose British values on the world?'' Well, today, while some 
     governments may look the other way, no government officially 
     supports slavery and almost all have signed international 
     covenants recognizing that freedom must prevail.
       I remember visiting Eastern Europe after the fall of the 
     Iron Curtain and receiving the thanks of so many. In the 
     decades ahead I want America to earn and merit the thanks of 
     those who languish in slavery today. I believe America is 
     great when she is good. We are called on--again--to move 
     towards the abolition of slavery in every country, including 
     our own.

[[Page E1572]]

       There is so much for all of us to do today. Yes, this is a 
     struggle. But as the great Frederick Douglass said, ``If 
     there is no struggle, there is no progress.'' We can all be 
     part of the 21st-century abolitionist movement. And like our 
     forbearers, we will be victorious!
       God bless all of you for your friendship and support in 
     this struggle. Thank you.

                          ____________________