[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000-2001, Book III)]
[October 28, 2000]
[Pages 2352-2355]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]
Statement on Signing the Victims of Trafficking and Violence
Protection Act of 2000
October 28, 2000
Today I am pleased to sign into law H.R. 3244, the ``Victims of
Trafficking and Violence Prevention Act of 2000'' (the ``Act''). This
landmark legislation accomplishes a number of important objectives and
Administration priorities. It strengthens and improves upon the Nation's
efforts to fight violence against women. It also provides important new
tools and resources to combat the worldwide scourge of trafficking in
persons and provides vital assistance to victims of trafficking. And it
helps American victims of terrorism abroad to collect court-awarded
compensation.
This legislation builds on the ``Violence Against Women Act of
1994'' (VAWA), which created new Federal crimes and enhanced penalties
to combat sexual assault and domestic violence, and established new
grant programs for law enforcement agencies, prosecution offices, and
victim services organizations to fight violence against women. It also
authorized funding for education, outreach, and prevention programs,
which have helped to create coordinated community responses to violence
against women throughout the United States. While we can certainly take
pride in what we have accomplished since 1994, we know we must do more.
To that end, H.R. 3244 reauthorizes VAWA and improves on the original
bill by establishing several new initiatives.
I am particularly pleased that H.R. 3244 reauthorizes VAWA's grant
programs through Fiscal
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Year 2005. The Act improves several current programs by setting aside 5
percent of VAWA grant funds for tribes and directing resources toward
certain traditionally underserved populations, such as victims of dating
violence, older women, and women with disabilities. The Act requires
certain VAWA's grantees to facilitate the filing and service of
protection orders without cost to the victims. The Act authorizes a
civil legal assistance program for victims of domestic violence, sexual
assault, and stalking, who desperately need help with legal matters
related to their abuse. The Act authorizes appropriations through Fiscal
Year 2005 for the National Domestic Violence Hotline, battered women's
shelters, and rape prevention and education grants. H.R. 3244 requires
national standards and protocols for conducting sexual assault forensic
examinations, as well as establishes supervised visitation programs,
which will help ensure that children are safe when visiting with their
parents and that battered women remain safe during visitation exchanges.
The Act also will improve the ability of Federal prosecutors to
prosecute interstate crimes of domestic violence, stalking, and
violations of protection orders. The Act creates an interstate
cyberstalking offense. The Act enhances the enforcement of protection
orders across State and tribal lines by prohibiting registration as a
prerequisite to enforcement of out-of-state or tribal orders and by
prohibiting notification of a batterer without the victim's consent when
an order is registered in a new jurisdiction. Moreover, the Act amends
the Parental Kidnaping Prevention Act to expand emergency jurisdiction
to cover domestic violence, thus enabling victims who flee abuse to
obtain custody orders without returning to the jurisdiction where the
batterer resides.
Of great importance, H.R. 3244 restores and expands VAWA's
protections for battered immigrants by helping them escape abuse and by
holding batterers accountable. The Act establishes a new nonimmigrant
visa classification, which will offer greater protection to victims,
while strengthening the ability of law enforcement agencies to detect,
investigate, and prosecute cases of domestic violence, sexual assault,
trafficking, and other violent crimes.
I am confident that enactment of these provisions and the other
improvements to VAWA contained in H.R. 3244 will substantially enhance
our efforts to end violence against women in America and provide
essential services to victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.
Similarly, the Act's anti-trafficking provisions represent a major
step forward in my Administration's ongoing effort to eradicate modern-
day slavery. In 1998, on International Women's Day, I issued an
Executive Memorandum directing my Administration to combat this
insidious human rights abuse through a three-part strategy of
prosecuting traffickers, protecting and assisting trafficking victims,
and preventing trafficking. We worked hard with Democrats and
Republicans in Congress to craft comprehensive and effective legislation
that would strengthen our ability to implement this strategy. I am
pleased that this bipartisan effort has resulted in this landmark anti-
trafficking legislation.
Over the past several years, we have taken every opportunity to
shine a bright light on this dark corner of the criminal underworld, in
part by continually raising with leaders around the world the need to
work together to combat this intolerable and reprehensible practice.
Last spring, the United States and the Philippines co-hosted a regional
conference attended by over 20 Asian and Pacific nations to develop a
regional action plan to combat trafficking and protect trafficking
victims. The United States proposed and recently concluded 2 years of
negotiations on a United Nations protocol to combat trafficking in
persons which, for the first time, will require countries everywhere to
criminalize trafficking and will provide a framework for enhanced
protection of and assistance to victims.
I want to thank the First Lady,
the Secretary of State, and the
Attorney General for their leadership on this
important issue. The Secretary of State, as Chair of the President's
Interagency Council on Women, has led my Administration's interagency
development and coordination of international and domestic anti-
trafficking efforts. The First Lady has worked tirelessly to bring this
issue out of the shadows. She has helped to mobilize the international
community to address trafficking as both a human rights issue and a
global crime problem. The Attorney General created the National Worker
Exploitation Task Force to work in partnership with other agencies,
particularly the Department of Labor, to coordinate the investigation
and prosecution of trafficking and other cases of exploitation. The Task
Force is training our Nation's
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Federal law enforcement officials and has established a hotline to
report trafficking cases.
The Act creates new felony criminal offenses to combat trafficking
with respect to slavery or peonage; sex trafficking in children; and
unlawful confiscation of the victim's passport or other documents in
furtherance of the trafficking scheme. It also creates a new ``forced
labor'' felony criminal offense that will provide Federal prosecutors
with the tools needed to prosecute the sophisticated forms of
nonphysical coercion that traffickers use today to exploit their
victims. Under H.R. 3244, any person convicted of any of these new
criminal offenses would be subject to forfeiture of his or her assets
and required to pay full restitution to his or her victims. These new
offenses and the tougher sentences called for by this legislation will
assist Federal prosecutors in ensuring that traffickers are convicted
and appropriately punished for their crimes.
The Act also authorizes essential services and protections for
victims of trafficking. Within the United States, H.R. 3244 establishes
a Cabinet-level interagency task force to combat and monitor
trafficking, provides eligibility to trafficking victims for a broad
range of Federal benefits, and requires procedures to improve Federal
law enforcement's identification of trafficking cases and to provide for
trafficking victims' safety and assistance while in the Government's
custody. The Act also authorizes the Attorney General to provide grants
to develop programs to assist victims of trafficking. A cornerstone of
H.R. 3244 is that it makes trafficking victims eligible for a temporary
nonimmigrant visa so that they can remain in the United States to help
law enforcement in the prosecution of traffickers and receive needed
protection and assistance.
The Act establishes international initiatives to enhance economic
opportunity for potential victims and public awareness programs on the
dangers of trafficking and available protections for victims. The Act
encourages other countries to take steps to implement protection and
assistance for trafficking victims and to prosecute traffickers, and
authorizes the President to assist countries to help them meet certain
minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. The President may
withhold assistance from countries that are not making significant
efforts to bring themselves into compliance with these minimum
standards. Traffickers can themselves be sanctioned. H.R. 3244 also
expands existing reporting on the nature and extent of trafficking in
each foreign country, which will build upon the Department of State's
current coverage of this issue.
Traffickers who prey on vulnerable women and children should have no
place to hide, and victims of trafficking must be treated with dignity
and afforded vital assistance and protection. I expect this legislation
to be of immense benefit in rooting out this despicable practice and in
helping future Administrations carry on the vital work that this
Administration has begun.
The Act also contains new authorities to compensate American victims
of terrorism and their families. I am pleased that the Congress and the
executive branch have been able to reach agreement on legislation that
reflects our shared goals: providing compensation for the victims of
international terrorism and protecting the President's ability to act on
behalf of the Nation on important foreign policy and national security
issues.
There are certain provisions worth noting. First, those persons
electing to receive 110 percent of their awarded compensatory damages
with statutory interest and court-awarded sanctions relinquish all
rights and claims to all amounts awarded and will be deemed to be
compensated in full for their judgments. Those persons electing to
receive 100 percent of their compensatory damages with statutory
interest and court-awarded sanctions relinquish all rights and claims to
compensatory damages and amounts awarded as judicial sanctions, and,
necessarily, any related interest, costs and attorneys fees. So as not
to interfere with important national interests, H.R. 3244 makes clear
that persons who receive such payments are prohibited from attaching or
executing against certain types of property in order to satisfy other
amounts awarded.
Second, Congress has reaffirmed in this Act my statutory authority,
which is the authority provided under the Trading with the Enemy Act (50
U.S.C. App. 5(b)), where appropriate and consistent with the national
interest, to vest foreign assets located in the United States for the
purpose, among other things, of assisting, and where appropriate, making
payments to victims of terrorism.
Third, H.R. 3244 repeals the Presidential national security waiver,
provided by section 117 of the Treasury and General Government
Appropriations Act, 1999, which was applicable to
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the requirements of subsections (a) and (b). Section 117(b), which
amended the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act to permit awards of
punitive damages against certain defendants in certain circumstances, as
well as section 117(a), have never been operative because I executed the
national security waiver on October 21, 1998. In its place, H.R. 3244
provides a national security waiver applicable to section 1610(f)(1) of
the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, and addresses the other national
security concerns covered by my earlier waiver by repealing section
117(b) of the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act, 1999,
and modifying section 1610(f)(2) of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities
Act. Upon my signing of H.R. 3244, I am exercising the discretion given
to me by section 2002(f) of this Act to waive section 1610(f)(1) of the
Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.
Fourth, H.R. 3244 makes the United States fully subrogated to the
rights of the persons who receive payments under this Act, to the extent
of the payments. The Congress reaffirms my authority to pursue these
subrogated rights as claims or offsets against Iran in appropriate ways,
including negotiations leading to any normalization process. In
addition, no funds are permitted to be paid to Iran, or released to
Iran, from property blocked under the International Emergency Economic
Powers Act or the Foreign Military Sales Fund, until such claims have
been dealt with to the satisfaction of the United States. The
determination that the claims have been dealt with to the satisfaction
of the United States will be subject to Presidential discretion.
This legislation is a measure of the United States Government's
commitment to the victims of terrorism, to deter future acts of
terrorism, and to defend the United States from its evils. It is not
designed to preclude any other means to this end. The United States will
continue to pursue an aggressive, comprehensive policy incorporating
diplomacy, law enforcement, intelligence, and other means to protect its
citizens.
In conclusion, I would like to recognize and congratulate the
bipartisan sponsorship of, and support for, the ``Victims of Trafficking
and Violence Prevention Act of 2000.'' Its enactment is an achievement
of which all involved may be justly proud. It will serve us well in the
years ahead as we continue to do what is needed to detect and eradicate
trafficking in persons, violence against women, and other reprehensible
forms of criminal conduct.
William J. Clinton
The White House,
October 28, 2000.
Note: H.R. 3244, the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection
Act of 2000, approved October 28, was assigned Public Law No. 106-386.