[Senate Hearing 112-605]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
S. Hrg. 112-605
THE NEXT TEN YEARS IN THE FIGHT AGAINST HUMAN TRAFFICKING: ATTACKING
THE PROBLEM WITH THE RIGHT TOOLS
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JULY 17, 2012
__________
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts, Chairman
BARBARA BOXER, California RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey BOB CORKER, Tennessee
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho
ROBERT P. CASEY, Jr., Pennsylvania MARCO RUBIO, Florida
JIM WEBB, Virginia JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma
JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire JIM DeMINT, South Carolina
CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
TOM UDALL, New Mexico MIKE LEE, Utah
William C. Danvers, Staff Director
Kenneth A. Myers, Jr., Republican Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Abramowitz, David, vice president, Policy and Government
Relations, Humanity United, Washington, DC..................... 7
Prepared statement........................................... 9
Burkhalter, Holly, vice president, Government Relations,
International Justice Mission, Washington, DC.................. 17
Prepared statement........................................... 20
Kerry, Hon. John F., U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, opening
statement...................................................... 1
Pinkett Smith, Jada, actress and advocate, Don't Sell Bodies, Los
Angeles, CA.................................................... 3
Prepared statement........................................... 5
Additional Material Submitted for the Record
Two articles submitted as an attachment to David Abramowitz's
prepared statement:
Testimony of Neha Misra, senior specialist, Migration and
Human Trafficking, Solidarity Center....................... 50
Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking letter to U.S. Senate
Committee on Appropriations................................ 55
(iii)
THE NEXT TEN YEARS IN THE FIGHT AGAINST HUMAN TRAFFICKING: ATTACKING
THE PROBLEM WITH THE RIGHT TOOLS
----------
TUESDAY, JULY 17, 2012
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:35 a.m., in
room SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. John F. Kerry
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Senators Kerry, Boxer, Cardin, Webb, Durbin, and
Rubio.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN F. KERRY,
U.S. SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS
The Chairman. The hearing will come to order.
Thank you all very much for being here with us this
morning.
We meet this morning to discuss one of the great moral
challenges of our time, the fight against human trafficking.
Really, that is almost a light word for what it is. It is
really slavery, modern-day slavery.
We have barely broken the seal on the 21st century, but
already it has been marked by an all too familiar nightmare:
the enslavement of men, women, and children for the purposes of
forced labor, sexual exploitation, and other egregious
violations of human rights. Trafficking in persons is really a
blight on world communities. It can be found on Thai fishing
boats where Cambodian men are lured under false pretenses and
subjected to forced labor at sea. It ensnares young Nepalese
women who are coerced into a sex industry that ships them off
to destinations in the Persian Gulf, and it steals away the
lives of Haitian children who are taken from their families,
deprived of education, and forced to labor in a home that is
not their own.
It is remarkable that there are an estimated 27 million
people enslaved in the world today and up to 800,000 people
trafficked across international borders each year. With annual
profits as high as $32 billion, this criminal enterprise--and
that is what it is, a criminal enterprise--has inhumanely
commercialized large swaths of humanity where everything, even
the lives of young boys and girls, are up for sale.
This is not a new issue and it is not one that Americans
come to without bearing our share of responsibility. According
to the 2012 Trafficking in Persons Report, ``the United States
is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women,
and children, both U.S. citizens and foreign nationals,
subjected to forced labor, debt bondage, involuntary servitude
and sex trafficking.'' That is an amazing statement and I hope
it would inspire outrage in everybody.
Edmund Burke once said that all that is necessary for the
triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. Well, we cannot
stand by and do nothing as housekeepers brought to the United
States found themselves imprisoned in their homes. We cannot
stand by as migrant agricultural laborers are enslaved by their
American employers and subjected to unfair wages and labor
practices while they toil to pay off large recruiting debts.
Slavery, whether in the United States or abroad, must be
recognized, rejected, and eliminated. We must identify the
problem in all its forms, confront the challenges that
undermine our best efforts and pinpoint the tools that are most
effective at overcoming them. And that is what we are here to
discuss today.
The fight against trafficking in persons has always
inspired strong bipartisan support in Congress. In 2000,
Congress passed, and President Clinton signed, the historic
Trafficking Victims Protection Act which established a
coordinated U.S. Government framework based on the so-called
three P's: prevention, protection, and prosecution. To these
three P's, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has added a
crucial fourth, partnerships with local governments and
organizations.
A comprehensive U.S. response to the global scourge of
human trafficking is long overdue and we know that much work
remains to be done. We can start by focusing our development
efforts on the underlying causes of human trafficking,
including the economic factors that render men, women, and
children vulnerable to exploitation. We must also engage in a
multifaceted approach and work in coordination with law
enforcement agencies, victim services, and community
organizations. We must focus on prevention strategies that
target transparency and business supply chains, eliminating the
market for slave-made goods, and of course, we must assist
other governments in their efforts to build sustainable public
justice systems so perpetrators of human trafficking are held
accountable.
It is a pleasure to be here today. There are a number of
colleagues who will join us. Senators Boxer and Cardin have
been very involved in this issue and have shown leadership on
it along the way, and last year, along with Senator Leahy and
others, we introduced the Trafficking Victims Protection
Reauthorization Act. I intend to continue to work closely with
my colleagues to ensure that we put together a strong and
effective antitrafficking program that can tackle this
obviously horrific and unfortunately widespread challenge.
In the end, none of us can escape our moral obligation to
be a leader in the fight against this modern-day slavery.
History teaches us that we are safest and stronger when the
world hears from America and when America takes the lead and we
share the destiny of all people on this planet. That has always
inspired people and it always will. But the triumph of
injustice is manmade and so too can injustice be undone at the
hands of good men and women who take action.
To help us do that today, we are fortunate to have three
people who understand their obligation.
Jada Pinkett Smith is a passionate and articulate advocate
for combating human slavery. Inspired by her daughter, Willow,
who is here with us today, she conceived the campaign ``Don't
Sell Bodies,'' and today she is applying her talents to raise
awareness of this issue around the world.
David Abramowitz is vice president for Policy and
Government Relations at Humanity United, and previously David
served as chief counsel of the House Foreign Affairs Committee
where he helped author the Trafficking Victims Protection Act
of 2000 and the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims
Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008.
And finally, we have Holly Burkhalter, vice president for
Government Relations at the International Justice Mission.
Holly is one of our leading advocates against human slavery,
and together with her colleagues at IJM, she has pioneered
innovative partnerships with local law enforcement agencies and
worked tirelessly to promote sustainable public justice systems
across the globe.
So we welcome all of you and look forward to hearing your
insights about how we can take on this complex and pressing
challenge.
Senator Lugar, I think, is tied up at the Agriculture
Committee, so we will proceed directly to your testimonies.
Jada, if you would lead off, and then Mr. Abramowitz and Ms.
Burkhalter. And thank you again very much for being here with
us. Your full testimonies will be placed in the record as if
read in full. If you want to summarize, it is up to you, but we
appreciate your time. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF JADA PINKETT SMITH, ACTRESS AND ADVOCATE, DON'T
SELL BODIES, LOS ANGELES, CA
Ms. Pinkett Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Lugar, and the distinguished members of the committee and
staff. It is an honor to be here with you all today to discuss
the important issue of human trafficking.
In 1865, just 3 months after Congress approved the 13th
amendment abolishing slavery, Frederick Douglass addressed the
American Anti-Slavery Society, urging the society not to
disband. ``They would not call it slavery, but some other
name,'' he said. ``Slavery has been fruitful in giving itself
names and you and I and all of us had better wait and see in
what new skin this old snake will come forth.''
So as we all know, Douglass was right. This old monster is
still with us. Today there are an estimated 27 million slaves
worldwide, more than at any point in history. We call these men
and women and children the victims of human trafficking. They
represent every nationality, ethnicity, age group, and they can
be found everywhere, including here in the United States. Here,
almost 150 years after the abolition of slavery in the United
States, conservative estimates suggest that 40,000 people are
enslaved on our soil at any moment.
Now, this is an ugly and too often invisible problem. Until
recently, I like many people was unaware of its prevalence and
magnitude. It took my 11-year-old daughter, Willow, who is here
with us today, to bring it to my attention. After watching the
Kony 2012 video and learning that children in Africa were being
stolen from their families, forced into sexual slavery or used
as child soldiers, she started doing some research. She
discovered that this was not only happening to children in
Africa or far-off places, but that children in every country,
including our own, are being forced into slavery. Now, this
spurred me into action. I began to educate myself on this issue
as well--reading, traveling, meeting survivors and service
providers, law enforcement, public officials, and everyday
citizens fighting against slavery.
Now, here with us today I decided to bring three survivor
soldiers that I would like to recognize. We have Minh; we have
Monica; and we have Jamm.
Now, Minh was sexually abused by her father beginning at
the age of 3. At age 11, her father began selling her to other
men. At 14, Minh's mother felt she was not receiving her fair
share of the money that Minh was generating, so she began
selling her herself. All of this torture and abuse was taking
place while Minh attended public school, received straight A's,
and played competitive soccer. It happened right underneath
everyone's noses.
Now, here we have Monica who ran away from an abusive home
and was on the streets at the age of 15 where she was kidnapped
by seven men. They all beat her, raped her, and eventually
turned her over to another man who forced her to sell her body
for his financial gain. Monica was constantly in and out of the
juvenile justice system 16 times between the ages of 15 and 17.
Jamm was an HIV-negative child born to parents diagnosed
with AIDS who died by the time she was 10. Jamm was forced to
live with her mother's sister, a woman who is a unified
district school teacher in Los Angeles Public School System.
And there she experienced further sexual abuse from her aunt,
her aunt's husband, and her cousins. For 4 years, her aunt sold
her to over 100 pedophiles and child rapists. Trying to escape,
Jamm stole her aunt's cell phone to try and call for help. Her
aunt called the police to report the phone stolen and at age
15, Jamm was arrested.
Now, today through hard work, perseverance, and support of
social programs, Minh is a graduate student at UC-Berkeley
getting her MSW and Ph.D. in social welfare. The recipient of a
prestigious fellowship, Minh is studying the long-term impact
of child abuse, trauma recovery, and studying the health and
well-being of survivors of human trafficking.
Monica was introduced to a wonderful program that serves
commercially sexually exploited children called MISSSEY. She
progressed on to become a part-time MISSSEY staff member and
began working part-time for Youth Radio. During her time at
Youth Radio, Monica was one of two key reporters that produced
``Trafficked'' which was later awarded the Peabody Award,
Gracie Award, and the Edward R. Murrow Award. Currently Monica
is a full-time staff member at MISSSEY and a part-time student.
And finally, we have Jamm, and she was finally recognized
as a victim and offered the specialized help that victims of
human trafficking need. She is enrolled at West LA College for
the fall term. She is working hard so that she can transfer to
USC in the fall of 2013.
These women are just three of the faces of human
trafficking, but they remind us of why we are here today. The
United States has been a leader in the fight against human
trafficking for more than a decade, and Congress has been at
the forefront of those efforts. In 2000, again in 2003, 2005,
and 2008, members of both parties came together to pass the
Trafficking Victims Protection Act containing provisions to
combat domestic and international trafficking and to assist
victims of trafficking. The law also authorized millions of
dollars in expenditures across a range of Government agencies
to support these efforts. Now, I have met beneficiaries of
those expenditures in the United States and abroad, and I have
seen firsthand the transformative effects of those programs,
women, girls, men, boys whose lives were stolen and restored.
Now, despite these great efforts, the problem of human
trafficking is growing here in the United States and abroad.
Meanwhile, the TVPA expired last year. While some TVPA programs
have received appropriations for fiscal year 2012, future
funding is not guaranteed. Now, as a result, Government
agencies and their implementing partners are constrained in
their ability to develop and implement long-term interventions.
As we look forward to the next decade, we must renew our
commitment to ending the scourge of slavery. This means
reauthorizing the TVPA, ensuring that antitrafficking programs
receive adequate funding. Fighting slavery does not cost a lot
of money. The costs of allowing it to exist in our Nation and
abroad are much higher. It robs us of the thing we value the
most, our freedom. And we know what that freedom is worth. We
have paid a high price to defend it here and abroad.
For those of us joined in this effort now, let our legacy
be to deliver on the promise of the Emancipation Proclamation,
making freedom a reality for all who have been victimized, like
the women who are here with us today, and for our future
generations.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Pinkett Smith follows:]
Prepared Statement of Jada Pinkett Smith
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Lugar, and distinguished
members of the committee and staff. It is an honor to be here with you
all today to discuss the important issue of human trafficking.
In 1865, just 3 months after Congress approved the 13th amendment
abolishing slavery, Frederick Douglass addressed the American Anti-
Slavery Society, urging the Society not to disband. ``They would not
call it slavery, but some other name,'' he said. ``Slavery has been
fruitful in giving itself names . . . and you and I and all of us had
better wait and see . . . in what new skin this old snake will come
forth.''
Douglass was right, this old monster is still with us. Today there
are an estimated 27 million slaves worldwide--more than at any point in
history. We call these men, women, and children the victims of human
trafficking. They represent every nationality, ethnicity, and age
group, and they can be found everywhere, including here in the United
States. Here, almost 150 years after the abolition of slavery in the
United States, conservative estimates suggest that 40,000 people are
enslaved on our own soil at any moment.
This is an ugly, and too often invisible, problem. Until recently,
I--like many people--was unaware of its prevalence and magnitude. It
took my 11-year-old daughter, Willow, who is here with us today, to
bring it to my attention. After watching the Kony 2012 video and
learning that children in Africa were being stolen from their families,
forced into sexual slavery or used as child soldiers, she started doing
some research. She discovered that this wasn't only happening to
children in Africa or far off places, but that children in every
country--including our own--are being forced into slavery. Spurred into
action, I began to educate myself on this issue as well--reading,
traveling, meeting survivors and service providers, law enforcement and
public officials, and everyday citizens fighting against slavery.
Here with us today we have three incredible survivors that I would
to recognize: Minh, Monica, and Jamm.
Minh was sexually abused by her father beginning at the age of 3.
At age 11, her father began selling her to other men. At 14, Minh's
mother felt she wasn't receiving her fair share of the money Minh was
generating so began selling Minh herself. All of this torture and abuse
was taking place while Minh attended public school, received straight
A's and played competitive soccer. It happened right under everyone's
noses.
Running away from an abusive home, Monica, on the streets at the
age of 15, was kidnapped by seven men. They all beat and raped her and
eventually turned her over to another man, who would force her to sell
her body for his financial gain. Monica was recidivated in and out of
the juvenile justice system 16 times between the ages of 15 and 17.
Jamm was an HIV negative child born to parents diagnosed with AIDS
who died by the time Jamm was 10. Jamm was forced to live with her
mother's sister, a woman who is a unified district schoolteacher in the
Los Angeles Public School System. There, she experienced further sexual
abuse from her aunt, her aunt's husband, and her cousins. For 4 years,
her aunt sold her to over a hundred pedophiles and child rapists.
Trying to escape, Jamm stole her aunt's cell phone to try and call for
help. Her aunt called the police to report the phone stolen and at age
15, Jamm was arrested and treated like a criminal.
Today through hard work, perseverance and the support of social
programs, Minh is a graduate student at UC-Berkeley getting her MSW and
Ph.D. in Social Welfare. The recipient of a prestigious fellowship,
Minh is studying the long-term impact of child abuse and trauma
recovery, and studying the health and well-being of survivors of human
trafficking.
Monica was introduced to a program that serves commercially
sexually exploited children (MISSSEY, Inc.). She progressed on to
become a part-time MISSSEY staff member and began working part-time for
Youth Radio. During her time at Youth Radio, Monica was one of two key
reporters that produced ``Trafficked,'' which later was awarded the
Peabody Award, Gracie Award and the Edward R Murrow Award. Currently
Monica is a full-time staff member at MISSSEY and a part-time student.
Jamm was finally recognized as a victim and offered the specialized
help that victims of human trafficking need. She is enrolled at West LA
College for the fall term. She is working hard so that she can transfer
to USC in the fall of 2013.
These women are just three of the faces of human trafficking, but
they remind us of why we are here today. The United States has been a
leader in the fight against human trafficking for more than a decade,
and Congress has been at the forefront of those efforts. In 2000, and
again in 2003, 2005, and 2008, members of both parties came together to
pass the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), containing
provisions to combat domestic and international trafficking and to
assist victims of trafficking. The law also authorized millions of
dollars in expenditures across a range of government agencies to
support these efforts. I have met beneficiaries of those expenditures
in the United States and abroad. I have seen firsthand the
transformative effects of those programs. Women, girls, men, and boys
whose lives were stolen and restored.
Despite these great efforts, the problem of human trafficking is
growing, here in the United States and abroad. Meanwhile, the TVPA
expired last year. While some TVPA programs have received
appropriations for fiscal year 2012, future funding is not guaranteed.
As a result, government agencies and their implementing partners are
constrained in their ability to develop and implement long-term
interventions.
As we look forward to the next decade, we must renew our commitment
to ending the scourge of slavery. This means reauthorizing the TVPA and
ensuring that antitrafficking programs receive adequate funding.
Fighting slavery doesn't cost a lot of money. The costs of allowing it
to exist in our Nation and abroad are much higher. It robs us of the
thing we value most--our freedom.
We know what that freedom is worth. We have paid a high price to
defend it here and abroad. For those of us joined in this effort now,
let our legacy be to deliver on Emancipation's promise, making freedom
a reality for all who have been victimized--like the women here with us
today--and for future generations.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Jada. I appreciate it.
Mr. Abramowitz.
STATEMENT OF DAVID ABRAMOWITZ, VICE PRESIDENT, POLICY AND
GOVERNMENT RELATIONS, HUMANITY UNITED, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Abramowitz. Mr. Chairman, Senator Rubio, Senator
Durbin, thank you for holding this very important hearing and
thanks for giving me the opportunity to testify today.
I work for Humanity United, which is a philanthropic
organization based in San Francisco that works on building
peace and advancing human freedom, including through the fight
to combat modern-day slavery.
Mr. Chairman, as you know and as you stated in your fine
opening statement, human trafficking remains a huge problem
around the globe. Just last month, the International Labor
Organization issued a new global estimate that used a
definition very similar to the one in U.S. law that you have
worked so hard on that estimated that any given moment, there
are 21 million people in forced labor in modern-day slavery.
But these are not just numbers. I just want to compliment
Ms. Pinkett Smith for raising out three specific examples of
survivor voices, which has always been an important element of
the trafficking movement, to elevate survivor voices, to
demonstrate that this is an abuse that can be overcome and
people can move on with their lives. So I just want to thank
you for doing that and I want to thank the courage of those who
are willing to stand forward and have their stories, which are
very difficult stories, be told.
As we continue to combat this challenge, Mr. Chairman, I
want to highlight several lessons of the past decade that I
think we have learned.
First, we have learned that traffickers most often use
coercion and fear not chains to enslave victims. But that is
often not well understood by the U.S. public who more focus on
the inability to leave as opposed to these subtle forms of
coercion.
Second, we have learned that sex and labor trafficking
frequently go hand in hand. When I was in Nepal in 2010, I was
shocked to hear from service providers that such dual
exploitation is as high as 90 percent of those who have left
their villages seeking better opportunities.
Third, we have learned how widespread trafficking is and
that in any given week, each of us may well have eaten, driven,
dressed, or texted with some product that involves in part
modern-day slavery.
Fourth, and in that connection, we have learned that we
need an all-of-the-above approach embracing many disciplines
and engaging many actors. And perhaps we can talk about that in
the dialogue to come.
Mr. Chairman, let me sketch out some of the solutions to
these problems which are described in detail in my written
statement.
First, developing coalitions and partnerships can maximize
impact. At Humanity United, we support the Alliance to End
Slavery and Trafficking, which is a group of 12 U.S. human
rights organizations that work on slavery both here and in the
United States, and we are also trying to foster collaboration
between civil society at the State and local level around the
United States with law enforcement. We have to build these
types of local partnerships not only in the United States, but
also globally.
Second, as you indicated, Mr. Chairman, we need to address
supply chains but also foreign labor recruiters. Some companies
are signing up to a zero tolerance policy in their supply
chains, and in 2010, a number agreed to more detailed
implementation guidelines that could make a real difference in
fighting modern-day slavery.
Additionally, the new California Transparency in Supply
Chains Act now requires transparency on what companies are
doing to eliminate modern-day slavery from their supply chains.
This will allow us to learn from the leaders in this field but
also urge the laggards to do more.
Civil society and the private sector are also developing
new standards to reduce exploitation by foreign labor
recruiters, many of whom you suggested are creating some of the
terrible exploitation that we have seen in the fishing industry
in Thailand. These sometimes unscrupulous actors not only lure
girls to the brothels of Phnom Penh but have also put legal H-
2B workers in forced labor in the U.S. shrimping industry on
the gulf coast. The new standards to address this issue include
greater transparency on terms of employment and the complete
prohibition of fees, and all businesses that use foreign labor
recruiters should demand that these standards be met.
We also have to develop smarter interventions in vulnerable
communities, expand our assistance to survivors, and increase
prosecution of perpetrators. And I think we can discuss some of
these later in the hearing.
But, Mr. Chairman, I have to say that as much as we have
learned over the last 10 to 12 years, we must be honest that we
still need to invest more in learning. We need to hone in on
the interventions that really work and while we know something,
some important elements, we need to learn more.
Mr. Chairman, as my colleagues will say and as Ms. Pinkett
Smith has said, much of what has happened in the last 10 years
is based on strong U.S. leadership which has to continue.
First, we need to strengthen U.S. diplomacy, as discussed
in my written statement.
Second, the United States can do more on supply chains. The
Department of Agriculture recently put out voluntary guidelines
on trying to keep slavery out of food supply chains, and they
have just put out at the end of last month a $5 million RFA,
request for proposals and agreements, to try to see how we can
pilot those new guidelines. I think it is very exciting and
something we should be looking at carefully.
Senator Rubio is going to be holding a briefing on supply
chains on this Thursday afternoon, and hopefully that can lead
to Federal legislation mirroring the California Transparency
Act.
And I would also like to see the Department of Labor issue
long-delayed supply chain guidelines as mandated by current
law.
Third, the United States can reinforce standards on foreign
recruiters as laid out in my statement. I note that recent
Department of Labor rules for H-2B workers actually put in some
key protections, not enough in our view, but certainly very
important steps forward. But those rules are now under attack
in the U.S. courts and they are subjects to an appropriation
rider that I hope the Senate reconsiders during the legislative
process.
Fourth, the United States can pass the TVPRA, S. 1301,
which you have had such a huge role in authoring, Mr. Chairman,
as well as Senator Rubio with the cosponsorship of both Senator
Durbin and Senator Cardin. And I do not think I could speak any
more eloquently about the importance of that legislation than
Ms. Pinkett Smith did. But there are also some other
legislation regarding Government contracting and strengthening
child welfare protections that I think deserve a review.
Finally, this committee can help increase the priority
trafficking is given by ensuring that assistant secretarial and
ambassadorial nominees are routinely asked questions about
trafficking and you bring this issue up when you travel abroad.
This is a low or no-cost intervention that can yield tremendous
benefits over the long term as countries and officials see this
as a continuing important element of U.S. foreign policy.
Mr. Chairman, we obviously still have a distance to travel
in our efforts to end this scourge. As we approach the 150th
anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation this September, we
must be humbled that slavery is still present in the United
States and even prevalent around the world. We in civil society
stand ready to partner with you and together to try to take
more steps on the path toward eradicating this modern-day
slavery and advancing the cause of human freedom.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Abramowitz follows:]
Prepared Statement of David S. Abramowitz
Mr. Chairman, Senator Lugar, and other distinguished members of the
committee, thank you for holding this hearing on one of the most
terrible human rights abuses of our times--the widespread occurrence of
modern-day slavery and human trafficking, and thank you for giving me
the opportunity to testify today.
Mr. Chairman, I am the Vice President of Policy and Government
Relations at Humanity United. Humanity United is a philanthropic
organization based in San Francisco, CA, that works to build peace and
advance human freedom by combating human trafficking and ending modern-
day slavery and also works to build peace here in the United States and
around the globe. As I will discuss below in more detail, our work
targets several key tipping points toward advancing human freedom, from
funding people who directly combat human trafficking in their
communities to engaging multinational corporations, who have the
ability to eliminate forced labor in their products and services.
scope and nature of trafficking in persons and modern day slavery
Mr. Chairman, human trafficking continues to inflict suffering on
tens of millions of people around the globe. It is one of the most
pressing human rights challenges of our time, yet also crosses over
into such diverse areas as transnational crime, international
humanitarian law, domestic and international labor frameworks, and
migration, among others.
Just last month, the International Labor Organization (ILO) issued
a new report on the prevalence of forced labor, using a definition that
substantially overlaps with most forms of human trafficking and modern-
day slavery. ILO estimates that at any given moment, 20.9 million
suffer from this these abuses,\1\ with private estimates ranging as
high as 27 million. The U.N. Office of Drugs and Crimes has cited
estimates that human trafficking in all its forms yields $32 billion in
profits every year.\2\ And despite this committee's good work and
international efforts by a wide array of countries, some believe that
the worldwide economic downturn has led to a surge in human trafficking
as those desperate for some way to sustain themselves become more
vulnerable to the predators who perpetuate modern-day slavery.\3\
Mr. Chairman, this is not a matter of numbers: each individual
story of tremendous suffering and exploitation is a human rights
tragedy that violates our values and beliefs. As you know, this is also
not a far away problem that affects distant lands. It remains a shock
to most Americans but thousands of adults are trafficked into forced or
exploitative labor right here in the United States, and some experts
estimate that 200,000 to 300,000 U.S. children and youth are at risk of
being trafficked into commercial sex.\4\ Moreover, the number of calls
to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center hotline has grown by
338 percent from 2008 to 2011, from 5,748 to 19,427.\5\
Each victim of trafficking and modern-day slavery deserves to
become a survivor. They deserve the assurance their own lives will be
protected, their perpetrators will be convicted, and the trafficking of
others will be prevented. And we need to help raise their voices.
looking forward: four lessons from the last 10 years
As we look forward, Mr. Chairman, we should also think about the
lessons we have learned over the last 10 years, a few of which I will
highlight here.
First, Mr. Chairman, we have learned so much about the many forms
and pernicious nature of this abuse, which is less visible and harder
to identify than in previous centuries. Instead of shackles and chains,
traffickers use debt, coercion, fear, and intimidation. Actions of
modern-day slavers include seizing travel documents, creating hidden
fees that become impossible debts to pay off, and threatening police
retribution or violence against family members at home if the victim
tries to leave.
Yet the public remains confused about these techniques. Humanity
United recently commissioned research on U.S. commodities and their
relationship with slave labor. Preliminary findings suggest that the
average citizen focuses on the physical inability to leave, rather than
these more subtle forms of coercion. This antiquated public perception
is something that we need to change if we expect the broader public to
become fully engaged on the full spectrum of issues that are of
concern.
Second, we have learned that the sometimes-divisive dichotomy
between sex and labor trafficking is an unhelpful lens for examining
this phenomenon, as sexual abuse is a driver of vulnerability and those
exploited for labor also find themselves sexually exploited as well.
When I was in Nepal in 2010, service providers suggested that the
figure for such dual exploitation is as high as 90 percent of those who
have migrated, a figure I found shocking.
Third, given our understanding that in any given week each of us
may well have eaten, driven, dressed or texted with some product that
is made, at least in part, with forced labor or slavery, we must look
to a wider range of actors to really impact this problem.
Fourth, and in that connection, the multidimensional challenges of
this issue requires us to collectively address this abuse from all its
different perspectives. Whether one views trafficking and slavery
through a prism of human rights, transnational crime, labor violations,
humanitarian law, migration, sexual violence, child welfare or other
varied frameworks, we must all come together and find new ways to
collaborate with each other in order to create a comprehensive approach
to this issue. Let me give one example of how this comprehensive
approach is evolving: Even though domestic service in homes has often
been excluded from traditional ``work'' and therefore has remained
unregulated, last year a new convention negotiated under the auspices
of the ILO was developed that will help prevent abuses by creating a
new framework to protect those who are all too often exploited out of
sight of everyone but the abuser.\6\ We are not there yet but we are
getting there.
developing approaches to combating trafficking
in persons and modern-day slavery
Mr. Chairman, at Humanity United we believe there are achievable
solutions to this heinous abuse. As I have just suggested ending
trafficking and slavery requires a unity of effort between civil
society, the private sector, and governments around the world.
Nongovernmental organizations and law enforcement can reach out to
communities to educate at the local level, help free victims, and
provide essential services to survivors, as well as advocate for
improved policies and practices. The private sector can help ensure
that its supply chains are free of slavery and labor exploitation, down
to the raw material level, and that their employees do not personally
reap the benefits of trafficking. Philanthropic institutions can fund
and produce new learning from path-breaking initiatives. And
governments can ensure that they are not inadvertently involved in
modern-day slavery and can also institute policies and fund programs
that can reduce and eventually eliminate widespread use of these human
rights crimes in individual countries.
Developing Coalitions
At Humanity United, we lead and support a coalition of 12 U.S.-
based human rights organizations working to end modern-day slavery and
human trafficking in the United States and around the world. The
Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking, or ATEST, advocates for
lasting solutions to prevent labor and sex trafficking, hold
perpetrators accountable, ensure justice for victims and empower
survivors with tools for recovery. ATEST has been working on the
implementation of the groundbreaking Trafficking Victims Protection Act
of 2000\7\ (TVPA) and its progeny as well as making proposals for the
reauthorization of the TVPA that has been under consideration during
this Congress and related legislation. ATEST also seeks to further
elevate the voices of survivors, help advance the broader U.S.
movement, and enhance its engagement with the business community.
(Humanity United is also looking to engage the business community and
other stakeholders directly to try to eliminate forced labor,
trafficking, and modern-day slavery around the world, as I will refer
to later in my testimony.)
Humanity United is also working with State and local law
enforcement officials and civil society organizations in California,
Texas, Illinois, and New York to further the establishment of
intelligence-driven and evidence-based investigations and related
collaboration to assist in better understanding and responding to human
trafficking and modern-day slavery in the United States. Our efforts
began in California and have achieved significant gains through the
committed leadership and partnership of California Attorney General
Kamala Harris, with the collaboration of the California Police Chiefs
Association, the California State Sheriffs Association, and the Fusion
Center established after the terrorist attacks of September 11, which
was created to share information on combating terrorism threats. By
utilizing counterterrorism methodologies, increasing education, and
creating and widening networks, early findings suggest that more
intensive collaboration can allow law enforcement and civil society to:
Better understand the scope and diversity of the human
trafficking problem;
Increase recognition of the indicators of human trafficking,
and better understand the profiles of human trafficking victims
and perpetrators; and
Increase individual and community capacity and resources to
investigate and respond to identified and suspected human
trafficking incidents.
Coalitions and partnerships, including south-south partnerships,
are also starting to occur in other countries, and can similarly be
effective in dealing with national and regional issues.
Addressing Supply Chains
Humanity United is currently leading research and initiatives to
better understand forced labor, trafficking, and modern-day slavery in
global supply chains. At Humanity United, we believe business and
markets can be influential partners and instruments in building peace
and advancing human freedom. Corporations, with their worldwide reach
and deep engagement with labor--either directly or through their
contractors and subcontractors--have the opportunity to ensure that
severe exploitation is eliminated in all their operations from the
assembly of their products to the sourcing of raw materials.
Increasingly, members of the business community are recognizing that
they have not only the opportunity but also the responsibility to stop
trafficking and modern-day slavery, and consumers are increasingly
expecting them to exercise that responsibility. So do we.
We also need to recognize, however, that this work is not easy.
Much of the most severe exploitation occurs at the very bottom of the
supply chain. Whether it is the charcoal mined with slave labor that is
used to make the pig iron to build the automobiles we drive or the
shrimp on our tables that are peeled in sheds by unpaid Burmese
refugees in Thailand, global corporations will need to go deep into
their supply chains to ensure the products we all use are untainted by
modern-day slave labor. Humanity United is conducting research and
engaging in initial programming on shrimp, palm oil, and gold, as well
as other commodities, and hope to engage with companies in the near
future on ways they can ensure they are not using forced labor or other
forms of modern-day slavery.
Over the last 10 years, companies have begun to demonstrate an
interest in doing more themselves. In 2006, the Athens Ethical
Principles were agreed to by hundreds of partners, which include zero
tolerance for trafficking, promoting awareness, encouraging adoption of
the principles by the suppliers and their subcontractors, and reporting
and sharing information on best practices.\8\ In 2010, a number of
leading companies agreed to the Luxor Implementation Guidelines to the
Athens Ethical Principles, which described 68 different standards, 31
mandatory and 37 recommended, that put real flesh on the bones of these
very general principles.\9\ These 68 standards are serious benchmarks,
which, if implemented widely, would make a real difference in reducing
and eventually eliminating trafficking and modern-day slavery.
Mr. Chairman, despite those companies who are beginning to
implement these guidelines, others are further behind, particularly on
implementing the more detailed guidelines. This lack of consistency
needs to be addressed. We were encouraged when Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger signed into law S.B. 657, the California Transparency in
Supply Chains Act of 2010. Beginning this year, S.B. 657 requires every
company that does $100,000,000 of business in that State to disclose
what efforts--if any--they have in place to eliminate slavery and
trafficking from their supply chains. This will allow all of us to
assess the companies reached by that law, and whether business leaders
are doing what they should and to identify the stragglers that need to
be worked with and urged to do more. ATEST is in the process of
reviewing the disclosures that have been made in order to help
determine the effectiveness of this legislation and ways to move
forward given these new disclosures.
Foreign Labor Brokers
In addition, Mr. Chairman, the governments and the business
community need to address the issue of foreign labor recruiters and
brokers--one of the leading drivers of the phenomenon of slavery and
trafficking today. Using clever lures and subtle forms of coercion,
unregulated and unscrupulous labor brokers can induce people to cross
borders thinking that they are going for legal work, only to trap them
into modern-day slavery. Last year the Helsinki Commission received
detailed testimony on these practices, and I have attached a statement
from that briefing by Ms. Neha Misra of the Solidarity Center on May
23, 2011, to my testimony.
In this regard, Mr. Chairman, let me make a few brief points. Mr.
Chairman, it has become clear that exploitation is not only occurring
in the brothels of Pnomh Penh or in the rice mills of southern India.
It is happening as labor recruiters and brokers supply workers to the
palm oil plantations of Malaysia and construction projects in the Gulf
countries. It is happening as recruiters deceive young girls with
promises of legitimate work only to bind them into sexual exploitation.
The continuing difficulty of working on these issues, whether
within a framework combined with sustainable development and
multistakeholder initiatives or on their own, is demonstrated both in
Ben Skinner's recent reporting on modern-day slavery in the fishing
industry,\10\ or the story told by the Department of State's 2012 TIP
Hero, Vannak Anan Prum, who was trafficked into that industry and then,
upon escape, sold into slavery at a palm plantation in Malaysia.
Finally we must recognize that action is needed at home, as this
exploitation is happening in our fields, in our factories, and on our
maritime areas. You may well have recent news reports that legal
foreign guest workers brought here under the H-2B program became
victims of forced labor while working in the shrimp industry on the
Gulf Coast.\11\
As you may also know, in 2010 the Justice Department handed out
indictments related to a case of 400 Thai workers who were lured to the
United States with the promise of good work at fair pay in U.S.
agriculture, and even obtained a visa under the H-2A program. Instead
they were forced to take on crushing debt, their passports were
confiscated, and they were told that if they complained, they would be
deported.\12\
Mr. Chairman, it has been good to see the private sector and civil
society also collaborating to develop reforms in this area. Earlier
this year, Manpower Group, a private foreign labor recruiting firm, and
Verite, a U.S. nongovernmental organization, unveiled ``An Ethical
Framework for Cross-Border Labor Recruitment.''\13\ Similarly, after
extensive consultations with a wide range of stakeholders, the
Institute of Human Rights and Business, located in London, issued the
Dhaka Principles for migration with dignity.\14\ Both the Dhaka
Principles and the Manpower/Verite Framework includes an emphasis on
compliance with legal structures, including immigration; transparency
on terms of employment; and the complete prohibition of fees related to
recruitment and training. These are critical benchmarks that should be
adopted by all foreign labor brokers, and all businesses relying on
foreign labor should demand their use. I will say more about U.S.
efforts on this score in a moment.
Developing Smart Interventions in Vulnerable Communities
Mr. Chairman, beyond these structural reforms, we also need to
continue to develop smart interventions at the local level to prevent
trafficking and reduce vulnerability. USAID's new Counter Trafficking
in Persons Policy released earlier this year is an example of how
programs on education, microcredit, and other locally based development
tools can be targeted toward vulnerable communities in ways that can
help reduce the prevalence of modern-day slavery.
In my view, this integrated approach is critical. In the late 1990s
and in the years after the TVPA of 2000 was adopted, antitrafficking
prevention efforts tended to focus solely on improving awareness, with
an emphasis on the dangers of trafficking and the need to remain in
local communities. Yet these efforts were unable to overcome the ``push
factors'' of social discrimination, gender-based violence, and the
dearth of economic opportunities. Nor was it able to always compete
with the ``pull factor'' reflected by stories of individuals who had
successfully left their communities for a better life. And it did not
impact the local communities around the world who were suffering under
debt bondage in their own villages, bonded into generational work at
rice mills or brick kilns. At the same time, traditional community
development projects to improve health, education, and economic
opportunities were frequently not specifically targeted to communities
who are vulnerable to trafficking
Increasingly, we have seen the development of programs that
integrate traditional development and tailored antitrafficking
approaches--increasing access to education as a way to pull children
out of domestic servitude; awareness raising to help communities
understand both the right to, and the risks of migration; promotion of
workplace rights; microcredit to create new opportunities, and
agricultural assistance to allow for at least successful subsistence or
more. For example, World Vision is conducting a program in the
Philippines funded by the International Labor Affairs Bureau (ILAB) at
the Department of Labor (DOL) that combines radio and television
awareness raising with policy advocacy, improved education, raising
livestock and microcredit to help prevent the use of children in
domestic work, mining, and the sex trade. I understand that this
program has been estimated to reach 31,000 children and their families.
Of course, not all donors, including private donors, have the
resources to always program such integrated approaches, and there
remains value in looking at individual interventions to see if they can
make a difference. However, that should be the direction that we all
aim toward as we try to work at the various aspects of the challenges
in vulnerable communities.
Still, Mr. Chairman, we have to recognize that the ``push'' and
``pull'' factors I described above are ever-present in vulnerable
communities. As long as social discrimination exists and women do not
have equal access to economic opportunities, or work such as domestic
labor is not recognized and protected, disadvantaged communities will
seek work in locations or industries that make them vulnerable to
exploitation. Therefore, we also need to equip vulnerable populations
with tools to ensure they are not exploited, as well as put in place
some of the protections I have described above. Otherwise we are like
the king who commanded the tide to stop coming in.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, despite some of the learning I have
described above, we must be honest that we do not yet know all that we
need to understand in order to create the sustainable interventions
that address the many factors that allow this scourge to persist. A
high investment must be made in learning what works, including by
expending resources on both long-term and short-term studies. In the
few instances this has been done, we have come to better understand
what works. Of course we must simultaneously recognize that phenomena
is highly localized, and that traffickers frequently change their
approaches, and we must not overgeneralize. Yet, with the
multidimensional aspects of these phenomena, and the profound impact we
can have on people's livelihoods, we must do more to learn what works.
Helping Survivors and Prosecuting Perpetrators
In addition to many of the prevention mechanisms I have just
described, we of course need to continue to address protection and
prosecution, the other two pillars of the so-called three P's. Clearly
we will not be able to eradicate every form of slavery in the near
term, so we must increase our ability to care for the victims and be
relentless in pursuing the perpetrators.
The road from victim to survivor is a long one. First, they remain
at risk if they are left in a vulnerable situation or are treated as
criminals themselves, perpetrating the fear of law enforcement
instilled by so many of their traffickers. Law enforcement and other
first responders, sometimes those who are inspectors or immigration
officials, must be trained to identify trafficking victims so they can
either be brought out of their situation or, if found, are not treated
like a criminal, as are many women who are forced into commercial sex.
Second, once they are freed, they must be provided with critical
services. Not all countries can provide all services, but security in a
supportive environment is one service that should have priority.
Recognizing this, the U.S. Government has pressed other countries to
provide shelters for trafficking victims. However, in a number of
cases, detention facilities have been simply renamed shelters, and
those countries have claimed credit for compliance. This is simply not
an acceptable approach, and shelters must be combined where possible
with psychosocial services to allow victims to overcome the trauma of
being under the control of others. In countries with more resources,
having case managers who can identify particular needs and find
available resources for victims can be critical. Legal assistance for
the victim can also be critical, as victims may have access to civil or
administrative remedies to help them start a new life, but no
understanding of how to access them.
Third, as they move to becoming survivors, victims need help
reintegrating into society. This may mean overcoming stigma faced back
in their local communities, or assistance in finding new ways of
supporting themselves economically and socially in the communities
where they have been freed.
Nor should we ignore prosecution of perpetrators. Despite all the
dimensions of the issue, at the end of the day, trafficking is a crime,
as recognized by the Palermo Anti-Trafficking Protocol to the
Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime. While there may be at
times alternative approaches in particular cases, prosecution is a key
tool to creating deterrence and achieving justice. Labor frameworks and
cooperation with business have their place, but the worst perpetrators,
including the pimps who enslave children and the unscrupulous who seek
to increase profit by exploiting workers must be under threat of
prosecution from national authorities. One area that needs to continue
to be addressed is prosecution of corrupt government officials who
create a safe space for trafficking to take place. I draw your
attention to the 2011 UNODC report, which provides important data on
the nature of this corruption.\15\
maintaining the leadership role of the united states
Mr. Chairman, much of what we have learned and much of the positive
developments we have seen would not have been possible without U.S.
leadership. I want to commend this committee for the work it has done
in helping to sustain this leadership, including the work it has done
this Congress on S. 1301, the Trafficking Victims Protection
Reauthorization Act of 2011.
Maintaining Diplomacy. In particular, the Department of State's
Trafficking in Persons report mandated by the Trafficking Victims
Protection Act of 2000, has been a real catalyst for change, and given
civil society around the world an opening to reduce many of these
terrible practices. Whether inducing cooperation between the United
States and Cambodia on combating sex trafficking, increasing the
urgency of stopping exploitation of foreign labor among the Gulf
Cooperation Countries or increasing the efforts of Nigeria to impede
trafficking of women to Italy, the political impact of the report and
its tier system is well recognized, even by its original skeptics.\16\
We should be taking steps to strengthen the Office to Monitor and
Combat Trafficking, ensure that it continues to be a center of
excellence and drafter of the report, and the report itself remain a
catalyst for change. In that context I am concerned by some of the
recommendations in the Report of the Office of the Inspector General,
including some implicit criticism of the TVPA itself, and the idea of
ending the physical publication of the report. While I am still
studying this just-issued report, I do note that it also raises fair
concerns regarding the lack of cohesion within the Department and the
effect of the so-called ``automatic downgrade'' provision that may be
skewing assessments under the tier system.
In addition, in many ways, the U.S. Government is making progress
in many of the topics that I have discussed above:
Engaging Civil Society. Since the beginning, the TIP office has
engaged with civil society to determine how to most effectively combat
human trafficking. And in the last 5 years, other Departments,
including the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland
Security, have been engaged in an increasingly interactive dialogue
with civil society, for which both the Bush and Obama administrations
should be commended. We are currently engaged in an active conversation
with the administration regarding how best to improve assistance to
survivors in the United States and to prevent U.S. Government contracts
from intersecting with trafficking, areas the Senate more generally
should be looking at more concretely.
Supply Chains. With respect to supply chains, the United States is
doing more to help identify solutions. The voluntary guidelines issued
by the Consultative Group created by the Department of Agriculture
point to key principles for this work, and I want to commend the
Department of Agriculture for dedicating $5 million to support
project(s) to pilot test specific elements of the guidelines. In
addition, we also hope that the standards being reviewed by the
Department of Labor as mandated by the Trafficking Victims Protection
Reauthorization Act of 2005, which have been delayed by some time, will
also make a contribution in this area. We hope Congress can push the
Department of Labor to issue those guidelines soon. We also understand
that other agencies are developing learning in this area and we look
forward to their conclusions as well.
Finally, we believe that the policies behind the California
transparency law I described earlier could be strengthened by requiring
similar provisions in Federal law covering the broadest possible range
of companies throughout the United States. H.R. 2759, the Business
Transparency on Trafficking and Slavery Act, has been introduced in the
House to implement this very recommendation, and I want to commend
Senator Rubio, a member of this committee, for offering to hold a
briefing later this week to educate Members of this body on this
important reform more generally. And later today, ATEST will host a
live Webcast that will consist of a panel of experts on supply-chain
issues that will be very illuminating.
Foreign Labor Brokers. The United States is also looking at the
issue of foreign labor recruiters. If the United States adopts a
framework for ensuring that these types of abuses does not occur here,
and applies it to both foreign recruiters and recruiters based in the
United States, we can make a huge impact--both to prevent abuses within
our borders and to promote the elimination of abuses around the world.
This House has already adopted such an approach once. In the House-
passed version of the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims
Protection Reauthorization Act of 2007, the House adopted such a
structure by a near unanimous vote. Unfortunately, that did not become
part of the final legislation.\17\
ATEST has reviewed this House-passed provision and made suggestions
to improve this foresighted measure. ATEST's proposal, which has been
provided to the committee, provides for a number of different
protections, many of which mirror the recommendations of the Ethical
Framework and the Dhaka Principles: elimination of fees, transparency
and disclosure of contract terms, and a registration and enforcement
system that penalizes recruiters and complicit employers who do not
follow the requirements of the system.
Mr. Chairman, the focus of this provision is on disclosure,
although the revised provision has some enforcement mechanisms as well.
There may be some skepticism about the ability of disclosure to address
such serious abuses. I note, however, that I have repeatedly heard that
one of the most effective parts of the 2008 reauthorization was a
requirement to give all legal visa holders information on their rights
in the United States, which has led to a significant increase in
reporting of trafficking victims through the national hotline.
A provision that reflected many of ATEST's recommendations was
included in the introduced version of the Smith-Berman version of the
Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2011,\18\ but
this version of the legislation does not appear to be moving through
the legislative process at this time. The Senate version of the
legislation, S. 1301, addresses this issue by requiring a GAO study of
these issues. This is certainly an important step, but many think we
know enough about these phenomena and we should be moving on to reform
now.
Indeed, the DOL recently promulgated regulations for one visa
category, the H-2B nonagricultural workers that took some important
steps toward limiting abuses by foreign labor recruiters as one part of
a much-larger rule. Unfortunately, these regulations are being
challenged in court, arguing that DOL does not have the authority to
issue such regulations. Moreover, the FY 2013 Labor-HHS Appropriations
bill includes a rider that would prohibit funds for the implementation
of these new regulations. Mr. Chairman, given the abuse of these
programs, demonstrated by such cases as the Thai workers, Indian
welders, and the recent Gulf shrimp case, I hope that you and other
Members of the Senate will seek to eliminate provision as the bill
moves through the legislative process. I have attached to my testimony
a letter from the ATEST relating to this provision.
Reauthorizing the TVPA and other legislation. Another key element
of U.S. leadership is ensuring continuing reauthorization of the TVPA.
I want to commend, you, Mr. Chairman, for your leadership with S. 1301,
and also the other 46 Senators who are supporting this legislation. We
would urge the Senate to move on this legislation as soon as possible.
I and other civil society organizations are eager to work with you and
the other leaders of this legislation to address any unresolved issues
and bring this bill the floor.
Mr. Chairman, there are other individual pieces of legislation that
are moving through Congress that I note that S. 2234, the End
Trafficking in Government Contracting Act of 2012, introduced by
Senator Blumenthal, Senator Portman, and nine other Senators, looks to
end trafficking and related conduct by entities that receive Federal
grants or contractors. At the same time, House is reviewing H.R. 2730,
the Strengthening the Child Welfare Response to Human Trafficking Act
of 2011, a bill that would make combating trafficking a higher priority
in state child welfare systems. A briefing is being held on this
legislation tomorrow on the House side. I have already referred to H.R.
2759, the Business Transparency on Trafficking and Slavery Act.
Helping to Make Combating Trafficking a Priority for U.S. Diplomats
and foreign governments. Finally, Mr. Chairman, there is a way this
committee can make a singular contribution to combating trafficking. As
you know, Mr. Chairman, there is always a debate as to whether it is
better to create a special office, or ensure that all Ambassadors and
Regional Assistant Secretaries and other senior State and USAID
officials see this as their responsibility. You can make both a reality
by ensuring that these officials get asked questions about this issue,
making them understand that they will be held accountable for their
actions in this area. Senator Rubio asked such questions at the
confirmation hearing for Deputy Secretary Bill Burns to great effect,
and I believe that similar questioning can go a long way to creating a
more cohesive approach by the State Department in response to this
critical issue. Similarly, when you travel internationally, asking
questions at embassies and of foreign governments can demonstrate that
this is a congressional as well as executive branch priority. This is a
low or no cost intervention that could yield tremendous benefits over
the long term.
conclusion
Mr. Chairman, Senator Lugar, we have obviously learned much about
efforts to end human trafficking and modern day slavery, but we still
have a distance to travel. As we approach the 150th anniversary of the
signing of the Emancipation Proclamation this September, we must be
humbled that slavery is remains present around the United States and
even prevalent elsewhere. If this committee continues to act in a
bipartisan manner, you can ensure an even greater impact, save ever
more victims, and help the exploited in their journey to move beyond
their terrible experience and become survivors. We in civil society
stand ready to deepen the conversation and work with you to ensure that
we are working together as partners on the path toward eradicating
human trafficking and modern-day slavery and advancing the cause of
human freedom.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Senator Lugar for all the work you
have done on this and so many other issues.
----------------
End Notes
\1\ ILO Global Estimate of Forced Labour, http://www.ilo.org/
wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_norm/---.
\2\ http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/abolishing-slavery-
eradicating-human-trafficking.
html.
\3\ David Arkless, Manpower, Inc., Speech at Carnegie Council,
February 18, 2010, reprinted at http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/
resources/transcripts/0260.html.
\4\ http://ecpatusa.org/2011/10/ecpat-usa-turns-20/.
\5\ This number reflects both crisis calls by victims but also tips
and other communications. http://www.polarisproject.org/resources/
hotline-statistics.
\6\ International Labour Organization, Convention Concerning Decent
Work for Domestic Workers (No. 189), 2011, available at http://
www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=1000:12000:0::NO:::.
\7\ Pub. L. 106-386, Div. A, Oct. 28, 2000, 114 State. 1466,
codified at title 22 USC 7101-7102.
\8\ Athens Ethical principles, www.ungift.org/docs/ungift/pdf/
Athens_principles.pdf.
\9\ Luxor Implementation Guidelines to the Athens Ethical
Principles: Comprehensive Compliance Programme for Businesses,
available at http://www.unglobalcompact.org/news/92-12-12-2010.
\10\ The Fishing Industry's Cruelest Catch, http://
www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-02-23/the-fishing-industrys-
cruelest-catch.
\11\ Foreign Labor on American Shores, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/
07/09/opinion/forced-labor-on-american-shores.html?_r=3&smid=fb-share.
\12\ ``Six People Charged in Human Trafficking Conspiracy for
Exploiting 400 Thai Farm Workers,'' Press Release, U.S. Department of
Justice (Sept. 2, 2010), found at http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/
September/10-crt-999.html.
\13\ See http://www.verite.org/ethical-framework-for-intl-
recruitment.
\14\ http://www.ihrb.org/about/programmes/
dhaka_principles_for_migration_with_dignity. html.
\15\ UNODC, ``The Role of Corruption in Trafficking in Persons,''
www.unodc.org/documents/human-trafficking/2011/Issue_Paper_-
_The_Role_of_Corruption_in_Trafficking_in_ Persons.pdf.
\16\ See, e.g., Anne T. Gallagher. ``Improving the Effectiveness of
the International Law of HumanTrafficking: A Vision for the Future of
the U.S. Trafficking in Persons Reports'' Human Rights Review12.1
(2010).
\17\ Sec. 202(g), William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims
Protection Act of 2007, 110th Cong., 1st Sess. (passed by the House on
December 4, 2007).
\18\ See section 234, Trafficking Victims Reauthorization Act of
2011, H.R. 2830, 112th Congress, 1st Sess. (as introduced).
[Editor's note.--The two articles submitted with Mr Abramowitz's
prepared statement can be found at the end of this hearing in the
``Additional Material Submitted for the Record'' section.]
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Abramowitz. Thank you very
much.
Ms. Burkhalter.
STATEMENT OF HOLLY BURKHALTER, VICE PRESIDENT, GOVERNMENT
RELATIONS, INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE MISSION, WASHINGTON, DC
Ms. Burkhalter. Thank you, Chairman Kerry. I have two
things to thank you for before beginning my testimony. One is
for the great honor of appearing before four of the U.S.
Senate's great antitrafficking heroes, Mr. Rubio, yourself, Mr.
Cardin, and Mr. Durbin. It is really a treat for me.
The other thing I just have to say is that for this 58-
year-old mom, you have made me awesome to my teen daughters and
modern and cool. It is not every day one gets to testify with
David Abramowitz.
[Laughter.]
The Chairman. We get it.
Ms. Burkhalter. I was just waiting, just giving you a
little moment to appreciate it.
The Chairman. No. You gave us plenty of time. Thank you.
Ms. Burkhalter. Thank you for having us.
My name is Holly Burkhalter. I am vice president for
Government Relations at International Justice Mission. We have
15 and soon to be 16 overseas offices. We are a human rights
service provider. Six of those offices work with local police
to help actually rescue trafficking victims from both labor
exploitation and sexual exploitation, and the rest of the
offices work on sexual assault and other violent crimes against
the poor and vulnerable.
Much of what I have to say today is taken from our field
work in Cambodia and the Philippines and India.
You do not need me to tell you that this is a sad story; we
hear about it every single day at IJM. When we pray for our
clients and for the victims and for the investigators who are
going into the field and looking for victims of slavery and
working with authorities to bring them out. We do not always
succeed and it breaks our hearts.
But at the risk of minimizing their suffering and pain,
which I do not mean to do, rather to honor it, I would also say
that in the year 2012, the story of confronting modern-day
slavery is actually a good news story. And I will tell you why
I think that is the case.
First of all, it is quite clear to me that trafficking and
slavery can be stopped. Having been in the human rights field
for 30 years-plus, something of a child worker myself back in
the late 1970s, I have never seen other violent, massive,
pervasive crimes respond so quickly to pressure from both
diplomacy and from local law enforcement. We do not see this on
rape. We do not see it on genocide. We do not see it on child
sexual assault. We do not see it on property grabbing from
widows. But uniquely, because trafficking and slavery is a
crime motivated by greed and motivated by the desire to make
vast amounts of money off another's body, it is actually quite
responsive when the law is enforced. There are all kinds of
other things that are needed, and I do not need to minimize
them. Education and development and poverty reduction. But it
is first and foremost a crime of violence and abuse that must
be treated as a crime as you said in your opening statement,
sir, and I could not agree more.
Let me give you a picture of what it looks like when a
country that had a real problem with child sexual exploitation
did something about it and what the numbers can show us, I
think, by way of encouragement and highlighting something that
could be and should be replicated.
IJM was given several years ago a grant from the Gates
Foundation, quite unique for the foundation, to work on
improving our antitrafficking and rescue model and our
perpetrator apprehension. Both those things are integral to
IJM's work in the field: Victim rescue and perpetrator
apprehension and accountability. And they helped us do a
baseline prevalence study in the place we selected to do this
work which was Cebu in the Philippines, the second-largest city
in the country which has a significant child sexual
exploitation problem, sex tourism, a large red light district,
lots of children in the trade.
We had an independent criminal research association conduct
the survey. We taught them how to go looking for minors in the
sex industry posing as potential customers, and then we got a
baseline. They found several hundred children. And then we went
to work with our Philippine Government partners to do
everything we could to help develop a justice system that was
predictably and professionally responsive to the crime. We went
under cover with them. We trained the police. They designated a
special unit. There were a number of things that were integral
to the success of the regional antitrafficking task force,
which eventually rescued about 380 girls and apprehended about
90 perpetrators. We now have a number of those cases in the
Philippine courts wending their way slowly. That is an area for
needed improvement.
But the part of the story I want to leave with you is what
we found after 3 years of work--and it really is the Philippine
Government's success, not IJM's. When we did another baseline
prevalence study, the investigators found that the availability
of minor girls in the brothels and karaoke parlors and bars and
sex entertainment venues in Cebu had been reduced by 79
percent. Now, it does not mean it is gone forever and it does
not mean that the Philippines has a Good Housekeeping Seal of
Approval, but it did show that a concentrated effort, an
investment by an NGO, not by a government, but in this case by
an NGO and a wonderful donor--the Gates Foundation--and a
serious engagement and a long-term engagement with a government
could make big improvements.
I will tell you that effective and unified U.S. diplomacy
was a big part of what helped make that model work. When the
Trafficking in Persons Office and the embassy and our regional
bureaus all speak from the same song sheet and are amplifying
the voices of reformers within the foreign government, then
something can happen. We do not get that bang for the buck when
our TIP Office is being undermined by our regional bureaus or
by an embassy that has lots of other things that are on their
minds, quite understandably. But if the trafficking issue is
undermined, then we have the TIP Office out here on the fringe
and that does not work so well. That will not give you the
results that we saw in the Philippines.
The end of that piece of a good news story is that the
Philippine Government has asked us to replicate the model in
two other locations and we are doing so. We have gotten small
grants from both the Trafficking in Persons Office and USAID to
continue and amplify that work.
It is just a tiny sliver, a piece of good news, but one I
think that shows that law enforcement and victim care and
appropriate prosecution can start to dry up the trade quite
disproportionately fast because once a number of people go to
jail, the other people who are in this business look around and
say, ``hey, I do not want that to happen to me'' and they get
out of that business.
A second piece that I think is good news for us in July
2012 is that the American people from across the political
spectrum not only support this issue and care about this issue
but they are demanding that our Government do something about
it. And I think it is reflected in the wide number of members
and Senators from across the political spectrum who do care
about this and are doing something about it. You know, you can
see it in the original odd couple marriage of Chris Smith and
Paul Wellstone back in 1999, and it has been that way ever
since. And that is kind of unique in this town and in the
international human rights field. It is a joy to work on the
issue with our friends from across the political spectrum.
But it gives you not only the opportunity but the
obligation to do something bigger. You have done many good
things and it is not enough. And as the Nation that still leads
the world, we have an American public that is animated both by
our experience of freedom but also the American experience of
slavery and that toxic piece of our historic DNA, that wants
you to do something more and wants the President to do
something more.
I think a great model for what can happen when the U.S.
Congress and the American President work together on a big, big
problem is PEPFAR where George W. Bush and a democratically
controlled Senate and a Republican controlled House put
together an enormous foreign aid package to break the back of
the modern-day global AIDS pandemic. All of you were a part of
that and continue to be a part of that, and it has changed the
world. It has changed the world. We need a PEPFAR for slavery.
We need Focus Countries like we had in the bill that Senator
Boxer introduced several years ago, the Child Protection
Compact Act. We need strategies and we need money and we need
political pressure directed where the resources go so that they
will be used well and we need data to monitor how well programs
are working. It is not impossible. It is not like we do not
know what could work. There are all kinds of things going on.
There just is not enough of them. They need to be scaled
because I can tell you slavery is at scale and the response to
slavery has to be at scale as well.
Finally, I will echo my colleagues' support for the TVPRA.
It just does not look good, when there are innovations in
slavery and trafficking every day, that we cannot pass the
innovations we need to keep our tools sharp to deal with it.
I would also highlight the End Slavery in Government
Contracting bill that some of you have worked on. It is a
wonderful piece of legislation moving through the Senate now.
It was passed by the House. It is another bipartisan effort
that we would love to see because it cleans up slavery in our
own labor supply chain in our embassies abroad, and it is a
must-do legislation this year. I am sure it can be done.
Finally, I think I would like to just say a word about the
wonderful tools and institutions that we have to combat
slavery. The genius of the 2000 act that put in place an office
to do just this thing has borne enormous fruit over the years.
We have an annual report. We have a grantmaking program. We
have the best expertise in the world that works for the U.S.
Government at the TIP Office. It should be a bureau because
they deserve to be standing on equal footing. They negotiate in
good faith--and everyone is in good faith, but they negotiate
the trafficking issues with the regional bureaus, which have a
much bigger portfolio. But Congress said we want one office to
have one portfolio, the antitrafficking and antislavery
portfolio. They have grown a lot thanks to you and your
investment in the TIP Office, but diplomatically and
politically in this town, they are standing about 6 feet lower
than their interlocutors at the State Department, and it is
well past time that they should be a bureau.
I would like to close belatedly by thanking you for your
kind attention and by thanking my own staff, especially Melanie
Beifuss and Annick Febrey, for helping prepare this testimony
and keeping me sane year-round. I would also like to thank your
staff. It is a delight to work with Emily Mendrala and Paul
Foldi with Mr. Lugar's staff and, of course, our good friend,
Ann Norris, and Ariana from Senator Boxer's staff. We love you
and you have made us so welcome in your offices. It matters
greatly; it gives us great encouragement. We even tell our
field offices when friends in Congress care about what is going
on with them, and it matters to them as well.
A special word of thanks to Mr. Lugar. I would have loved
to tell him personally how much he has meant to both the human
rights movement and every great cause, and I hope you will pass
the word on to him. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Burkhalter follows:]
Prepared Statement of Holly J. Burkhalter
Thank you, Chairman Kerry and Senator Lugar for inviting me to
testify at this important hearing on modern day slavery and ways to
confront and eradicate it. It is an honor. I also wish to express my
thanks to you both for having made this issue a priority in the United
States Senate. My name is Holly Burkhalter, and I am the Vice President
for Government Relations for International Justice Mission (IJM.) IJM
is a human rights organization with 15 overseas offices that works with
local governments to rescue victims of sex trafficking and labor
slavery and helps local police and prosecutors apprehend and prosecute
perpetrators. Our antislavery offices are in the Philippines, Cambodia,
and India.\1\ IJM's on-the-ground experience in combating trafficking
will inform my recommendations today for a roadmap for the coming
decade.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ IJM offices in Africa and Latin America investigate the crimes
of sexual assault of children, property expropriation from widows and
orphans, and police abuse of power.
\2\ In this testimony I use the term ``trafficking'' in the way it
is defined in the TVPA. As such, I view it having the same meaning as
slavery. Accordingly, the words are used interchangeably in this
document.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Why does slavery persist today? Mr. Chairman, you have asked us to
reflect on the major factors that facilitate the proliferation of
trafficking and slavery around the world. Explanations abound for the
modern prevalence of slavery, including poverty, women and girls'
subordinate status, the caste system, lack of education, cultural
traditions, migration, and so on. These and other factors are of course
part of slavery's context, and investments in such things as poverty
reduction and girls' education can and should be directed toward
slavery-prone countries. But it is a mistake to imagine that the worst
forms of trafficking cannot be eradicated until poverty has been
abolished, or all children are educated, or international migration has
been rationalized.
The most important feature of slavery is that it is a crime. There
are victims, and there are perpetrators. Furthermore, it is a violent
crime but it is also an economic crime that generates enormous wealth
for perpetrators, be they traffickers, pimps, slaveowners, or complicit
government officials. Unless and until local police, prosecutors, and
judges join forces to deter the crime of slavery by providing a
credible and predictable threat of imprisonment for those engaged in
it, there are no natural limits to its spread.
If donor governments and international agencies were to expose and
stigmatize governments that are complicit in or tolerant of slavery and
provide extensive assistance to help deserving governments build robust
public justice systems that locate and free slaves and apprehend
perpetrators, this crime would diminish and eventually vanish.
What tools do we have to confront slavery? When Congress enacted
the Trafficking Victims Protection Act in 2000 there weren't many
models for study and replication. Today, thanks to the Office to
Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, USAID, nongovernmental
organizations, and U.S. diplomats in Washington and around the world,
we have a whole array of effective tools--diplomatic, financial,
technical, and political--that can inform U.S. antitrafficking policy
in the coming decade. I have seen some of the most promising in
countries where IJM is working.
Diplomacy: As you know, the TVPA includes minimum standards by
which to evaluate governments' response to trafficking and
authorization of an annual antitrafficking report. Over the past 10
years, the TIP Office has fielded talented and hardworking researchers,
analysts, and diplomats to gather information on the phenomenon of
slavery around the world. Their excellence is apparent in the quality
of the report. The creation of three ``Tiers'' (and eventually a
fourth, the Tier 2 Watch List) to rank countries gives the report
additional seriousness and weight. These tools have been so valuable to
the cause of eradicating slavery that other human rights interest
groups, such as international women's rights advocates, are requesting
a ``TIP Office'' of their own.
Not surprisingly, there are sometimes tensions between the TIP
Office, which has only one mandate--to confront slavery--and the State
Department's regional bureaus and embassies, which have a host of
issues and concerns to steward with foreign governments. This reality
should not be a criticism of the TIP Office or a deterrent to TIP's
monitoring, reporting, and diplomacy. Congress created the office with
a specific antitrafficking mandate precisely because the traditional
bureaucracy was not giving the issue the prominence it deserves. The
TIP Office exists to do that. In my view, the TIP Office should not be
encouraged to water down its mandate or conform to the broader mandate
of the regional bureaus or the embassies. Rather, the regional bureaus
and embassies should be instructed to step up their own messaging to
amplify the TIP Office--and Congress'--concerns about modern day
slavery.
This committee's legislative language in the Trafficking Victims
Protection Reauthorization Act, S. 1301 would, if enacted, engage
embassies and regional bureaus more directly in the fight against
modern day slavery. The SFRC recommended that antitrafficking
specialists be named at U.S. Embassies to help collect information and
convey concerns on a regular basis. The provision also requires
regional bureaus to be engaged in developing country antitrafficking
strategies. While the TIP Office should retain leadership on U.S.
antitrafficking policy and drafting authority for the TIP Report, your
provision would enhance diplomacy, reporting, and a unified U.S. voice
on slavery. I hope and expect that the Senate will enact S. 1301 before
adjournment this year and send it to the House for consideration so
that these and other important provisions can take effect in 2013.
When the TIP Office and regional bureaus or embassies are out of
sync, governments failing to meet minimum standards to eradicate
trafficking get mixed messages. Invariably slavery eradication is the
loser--and that means children, women, and men in slavery are the
losers. Speaking in a strong and consistent voice about trafficking and
slavery, with regional officials and embassy staff endorsing and
amplifying the TIP office's concerns does not mean sacrificing other
U.S. interests. Surely our diplomatic corps is capable of advancing an
antislavery policy while simultaneously engaging effectively on
economic, military, and geopolitical concerns.
I have seen how effective the U.S. Government can be when it does
speak in one voice about trafficking. The Philippines is a country with
a significant trafficking/slavery problem and its Government was not
taking significant steps to address it. Accordingly, the State
Department ranked Philippines on the Tier 2 Watch List. Pursuant to
2008 changes to TVPRA, countries could only stay on Tier 2 Watch for 2
years and then would be downgraded to Tier 3 if substantial
improvements were not forthcoming. The U.S. Government used this
political tool to encourage the Government of the Philippines to
undertake serious measures to address both labor and sex trafficking.
The U.S. Embassy, led by Ambassador Harry Thomas, Jr., engaged the
Philippine authorities with the same strong message they were hearing
from JTIP authorities. The Government of the Philippines took the
matter very seriously. Among other measures, the authorities issued a
judicial circular that placed antitrafficking cases on a fast track.
While prosecutions are still slow, the circular has begun to make a
difference.
The Philippine Government solicited IJM's help in scaling up
investigations of child prostitution, rescue, and apprehension of
suspected perpetrators. IJM's collaboration with local police and
judicial authorities in Cebu under the auspices of a grant from the
Gates Foundation had resulted in a 79-percent reduction in the
availability of children for exploitation in Cebu's sex venues. The key
to these important results was the police designating a specific
antitrafficking unit which received training and worked closely with
IJM investigators, lawyers, and social workers. The Government of the
Philippines is now replicating that model with IJM in Manila and in
Pampanga (Central Luzon).
Another innovation in Cebu that is now being replicated elsewhere
in the Philippines is the creation of a separate, comfortable, victim-
friendly office to receive trafficking victims where they can meet with
social workers and provide their testimony to judicial personnel.
Before the creation of this separate space, called ``Her Space,'' by
IJM in collaboration with the Philippines Department of Social Welfare
and Development, victims were questioned in the presence of
perpetrators.
In recognition of these and other efforts, the Philippines was
removed from the Tier 2 Watch List last year and raised to Tier 2. The
Government of the Philippines deserves full credit for the advancement.
But the U.S. Government's effective and unified diplomacy played an
important role, and reflects well on the Embassy, the Regional Bureau
and the TIP Office.
Law Enforcement: I'd like to single out the importance of
professional law enforcement as an area where donor governments and
international development institutions can and should make strategic
investments. Donors have, for good reason, been reluctant to invest in
police forces. Ill-disciplined police in many, if not most, countries
around the world actually prey upon the poor. As the expression goes,
if you are a poor person who had a crime committed against you, you
have a problem. If you go to the police, you have two problems. Nowhere
is the problem of police abuse more apparent than in the abuse of women
and men in the sex industry. Serious human rights organizations, have
reported extensively on violence, illegal detention, theft, rape, and
other abuses by law enforcement officials against those in
prostitution. In many countries police themselves are complicit in
trafficking or ignore it. It is understandable that donors are wary
about strengthening an institution that is itself implicated in
trafficking.
It is not acceptable for police to abuse, arrest, and extort money
from women under the cover of ostensible ``antitrafficking'' sweeps.
Roundups where dozens of women are swept into prisons, only to be
released when their pimps pay off a bribe, have absolutely nothing in
common with effective and professional policing. Donors and NGOs that
work with local police can and should condemn such behavior, which
hurts innocent women and sets back the antitrafficking cause. In IJM's
experience, mentoring and professionalizing police to rescue
trafficking victims and apprehend perpetrators also improves their
behavior with regard to adults in the sex industry.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ For more information on police and trafficking, see http://
www.antitraffickingreview.org/, ``Sex Trafficking, Law Enforcement and
Perpetrator Accountability,'' by Holly Burkhalter, June 2012.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
One important innovation that was immensely helpful in improving
the capacity, competence, and will of local police to rescue
trafficking victims and apprehend perpetrators is a specialized local
force designated for this work. In Cebu, for example, IJM worked
closely with a newly created Regional Anti-Trafficking Task Force (RATT
Force) whose sole function is enforcement of local antitrafficking law.
By keeping key police and officers within the force (as opposed to
rotating them out), giving them specific duties, and providing through
IJM extensive training and mentoring the Cebu RATT Force was the key to
sharply reducing child victimization there.
IJM has had a similar experience in Cambodia, where the Anti-
Trafficking and Juvenile Protection force, under the excellent
leadership of Gen. Bith Kim Hong, has largely ended the exploitation of
young children in the sex industry. Recently, the ATJPF led efforts to
investigate and prosecute a corrupt major in the municipal division of
the ATJPF who was receiving kick-backs from brothel owners for
protecting them from police rescue operations. Major Rattana (who fled)
was convicted in absentia. This is an exceedingly positive development
for Cambodia that speaks well for the Cambodian Government, which, to
our knowledge, has not previously tried and convicted a member of its
own police officials for complicity in trafficking.
State Department Bureau: Given the importance of its work and the
enormity of slavery around the world, the United States Government's
antitrafficking capacity should be enhanced considerably. IJM strongly
recommends that the State Department Office to Monitor and Combat
Trafficking be upgraded to a State Department Bureau. There are several
reasons for this recommendation. First, the U.S. Government should do
everything in its power to recruit and retain the best of its
personnel, including career Foreign Service officers, to the cause of
combating slavery. Joining an office does not offer the same
opportunities for advancement within the diplomatic service that
joining an embassy or a bureau does and most likely discourages some
excellent officers from joining it. Second, it is vitally important
that the Office's Coordinator have the same status as his counterparts
at other State Department Bureaus. There is a stature gap between an
Office Director and an Assistant Secretary that does not serve the
antislavery cause well.
Reporting and Monitoring: Honest and thorough reporting on
trafficking issues and government's responses are the necessary
backbone of effective diplomacy. Fortunately, the State Department TIP
Office is home to our Nation's brain trust on modern day slavery--the
highly expert men and women who research, monitor, and write the annual
State Department Report on Trafficking in Persons. Many of those
individuals have been in that role since the office was created. I
would single out Mark Taylor, who leads the research and production of
the report, as one of the world's greatest experts on modern day
slavery in the world.
The TIP Report's usefulness as a diplomatic tool was enhanced 2
years ago when Secretary Clinton directed the TIP Office to include the
United States in the report, along with 186 countries. In the past, the
Justice Department has issued a separate report on the U.S.
Government's response to trafficking. By including it in the actual
volume that foreign leaders read, the U.S. has signaled its willingness
to be judged by the same standard as the rest of the world--standards
in the TVPA that are drawn directly from international law and
universally applicable.
The quality of the report is very high, but I believe that
political considerations occasionally erode the ranking system. We note
this especially with respect to countries on the Tier 2 Watch list. A
number of countries that did not actually meet Tier 2 standards were
``promoted'' to it from the Tier 2 Watch List at the end of the 2-year
limit. There are a handful of countries on the Tier 2 Watch List for
the second year right now, including China, Russia, and Uzbekistan that
certainly do not meet the Tier 2 standard. But the State Department
because of political considerations unrelated to trafficking may feel
that they should be moved up to Tier 2.
Rewarding countries with an improved TIP tier that they do not
deserve is not what Congress had in mind when it passed the TVPA in
2000. There is general agreement among policymakers who care about
trafficking and NGO's that the Tier 2 Watch List is an appropriate
category to maintain. The standards for each of the four tiers are
well-known by policymakers at home and abroad, and are a realistic and
appropriate ranking process. Unwittingly, the automatic up-or-down-
grade is complicating the work of assessing a country's position on one
of four tiers. Even though the ``up or out'' provision was extremely
helpful in persuading the Government of the Philippines to address
trafficking seriously, elsewhere the provision has been used to move
undeserving countries up to Tier 2, rather than down to Tier 2 where
they belong. This year the Congress should maintain the Tier 2 Watch
List as a fourth tier but eliminate the 2-year time limit.
One final recommendation about the JTIP Report deserves mention. A
recently released report by the State Department Office of the
Inspector General recommends ending the publication of the report in
book format and making it available exclusively online so as to accrue
a small cost savings. I respectfully disagree with this recommendation
and urge the committee to insist on annual publication. This report is
a precious tool in the hands of people all over the world. Many do not
have access to the Internet. It is important that it be physically
present on the desk of every diplomat, judge, prosecutor, and police
commander who serve in slavery-burdened countries. It is important that
it be on each of your desks, and that it be handed to visiting
officials. Please do not throw away a tool whose importance has been
acknowledged by antislavery activists around the world, including our
own.
Resources: We in the NGO community are grateful to the Congress for
protecting antitrafficking funds from cuts and even increasing them
modestly in the past several years. We do not take it for granted in
the current difficult budget climate. Having said that, however, we
know, and you know, that eradicating modern day slavery requires more
resources than are available. The world needs to see effective models
of slavery eradication that can be documented and replicated. Our dream
is for the President and Congress to do for slavery what President
George W. Bush and the 108th Congress did for global HIV/AIDS.
The State Department JTIP Office and USAID should each be resourced
to engage the struggle effectively around the world. USAID's February
2012 Counter-Trafficking in Persons Policy is excellent and provides an
outstanding framework for the Agency's contribution to slavery
eradication which I commend to your attention. IJM appreciates USAID's
commitment to data collection and impact assessment. The antislavery
movement desperately needs information and data from various
investments and innovations to rescue slaves, apprehend perpetrators,
and deter the crime. USAID's expertise in community-based solutions
(including development models for successful, community-supported
civilian police forces) is highly valuable to the field.
I would also like to applaud USAID's Counter-Trafficking Code,
which includes high standards for USAID employees that extends,
importantly, to contractors, sub-contractors and grantees. IJM has
called for all U.S. agencies to adopt comparable standards.
Getting the United States House in Order: In closing, I wish to say
a word about S. 1301, the TVPRA. As you know, the bill passed out of
the Senate Judiciary last October and is still awaiting a vote by the
full Senate. We're missing a critical opportunity to sharpen our tools
to fight the crime of trafficking. The Senate bill includes a number of
important innovations, including a provision to pursue slavery
eradication in several ``focus countries,'' enhanced protection for
victims of trafficking in the U.S., and increased capacity for JTIP to
respond to situations of emergency and disaster. Failure to reauthorize
this landmark legislation for the first time in 12 years sends the
wrong signal about U.S. leadership on this issue to the rest of the
globe and sends us a step backward. We need to pass S. 1301 this year.
One other piece of significant legislation will be before the full
Senate in the near future: the ``End Slavery in Government
Contracting'' bill, sponsored by Senators Blumenthal, Rubio, and
others. The legislation, if enacted, would require contractors of
overseas labor for U.S. Embassies and bases to adhere to certain
standards that would eliminate bonded labor slavery among third country
nationals working in such countries as Iraq and Afghanistan. Current
standards and practices by the Department Of Defense have not
eliminated the problem of subcontractors pocketing taxpayer money and
exploiting poor men and women who had been promised well-paying jobs.
Both the House and Senate have held extensive hearings on this matter,
and there has been considerable media exposure of the problem. S. 2234
offers a sensible roadmap to end exploitation, and in some cases out-
right slavery, in overseas operations. When this measure comes up, most
likely in the context of the national defense authorization, I urge all
Senators to support it.
In conclusion, I would like to thank the Chairman for his attention
to the issue of human trafficking over many years. I would also like to
say a special word of thanks to Senator Lugar, who is one of the great
foreign policy leaders of our day. It has been a great honor to appear
before you, Senator Lugar. I would want this occasion to reflect how
grateful I am to you for your commitment to the great foreign policy
issues of our day, including trafficking, violence against women and
girls, and genocide. I also wish to recognize and thank your superb
staff, who have always welcomed me and other NGO representatives. Their
excellence reflects on you and on the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee.
The Chairman. Well, we certainly will. Thank you very much,
Ms. Burkhalter. I really appreciate all of your comments and
particularly the expressions of thanks to the staff and others.
I want to thank all of you for the very important testimony
that was presented here today. And I know my colleagues are
going to want to dig in a little bit and we are going to want
to explore this.
Let me begin, if I may, by--first of all, I want to thank
Humanity United and the International Justice Mission for their
long commitments on this and for all that you have
accomplished. I remember back in the year 2000--1999 actually--
Senator Frist and I began the effort to write the first AIDS
bill which became PEPFAR ultimately, and I am proud of that and
I am proud of what we did particularly getting the support of
Senator Jesse Helms and ultimately passing it in a divided
Congress, but we came together around that. And I think
everybody can be proud of the story that followed from that,
and it really is predicate for what could be done here and I
want to explore that a little bit now if we can because I think
we can build a critical mass to do more.
It is disturbing, obviously, that there are as many people,
that it has probably grown, not diminished even though we have
made progress in certain places. And so there has to be a much
more concentrated global effort on this.
I particularly want to thank Minh and Monica and Jamm for
coming here today. I think it is so important for people to be
able to see real people that it has affected and whose lives
were turned completely upside down but who have turned their
lives back by yourselves, by your courage. It is really a
remarkable thing and we are very, very grateful to you for
coming here today and being willing to put yourselves out there
as leaders now.
One of the things I want to ask--and first, just as a
matter of information, with respect to both Minh and Monica,
the crimes that you describe and the lives that they led, were
those both in the United States also?
Ms. Pinkett Smith. Yes.
The Chairman. So all three represent extraordinary----
Ms. Pinkett Smith. What trafficking looks like in our
country.
The Chairman. In our own country.
Ms. Pinkett Smith. Absolutely.
The Chairman. Can you share with us perhaps a little bit
more about at the end Ms. Burkhalter was saying do something
more. And I wonder if each of you could sort of flesh that out
a little bit now. What is the single most important thing that
we can do. Give us an order of priorities, if you will, of what
you think would have the most impact here. Needless to say, I
think if there were a little more naming and shaming and public
face to some of this, it would be particularly helpful, and I
think we ought to work a way into this, into the prosecution
and tracking of this in order to guarantee that happens more.
I used to be a prosecutor. I spent a number of years
running one of the 10-largest county prosecution offices in
this country. And frankly, until I came to the Senate and began
to learn about this off of this committee, I had no idea that
these kinds of things were happening right here in our own
country in such a broad criminal enterprise without the kind of
focused attention of the Justice Department and others that I
think we ought to have. And there is a huge question as to why.
So maybe you could share with us what that order of
priority might be that we can step up our effort here within
the Congress to focus on this. Anybody who wants to lead off.
And the other question I wanted to ask you, Jada,
particularly is what have you learned in the course of Don't
Sell Bodies and in your involvement with these survivors about
how you make this transition from victim to survivor and
whether there is, obviously, much more that we could be doing
with respect to that for people.
Ms. Pinkett Smith. Yes. I believe that we need more
adequate funding for programs that can actually, first, protect
young women and men who are victims of trafficking and then
also the programs that help transition our young people from
those traumas into being able to create and develop lives so
that they are not only survivors, but they are thriving. These
young ladies that are here with us today are young women who
are not just surviving but they are thriving.
The Chairman. Did they each come through a program?
Ms. Pinkett Smith. Monica has come through a fantastic
program that I believe is based in Oakland called the MISSSEY
program which happens to be a very, very strong program that I
got introduced in going to the HEAT Watch conference in
Oakland.
And Minh, no. But as I said before, Minh is at Berkeley.
Minh is also very active with the Californians Against Slavery.
And we are going to work very hard in California to push
the CASE Act that we have right now which will be the toughest
antitrafficking law that we have in this country.
The Chairman. Mr. Abramowitz, Ms. Burkhalter, can you speak
to the order of priority?
Mr. Abramowitz. Well, Mr. Chairman, you have really put
forward a very difficult challenge because, as I think I laid
out and as I laid out in my testimony, one of the major
challenges with respect to this phenomenon is that it covers so
many different areas. You have got labor. You have got crime.
You have got human rights. You have got child welfare. So
really to try to talk about things in isolation I think is
somewhat of a mistake. We need to think about an overall,
integrated approach.
For example, in the U.S. law enforcement context, I think I
would just point to two things that we need to do. One is, I
think that we need more training at the local level including
our own Federal agencies but also the Wage and Hour Division
for the Department of Labor and also State and local law
enforcement. These are the people who first come in contact
with these victims if they are involved in a situation where
they are doing a law enforcement investigation, and I think
some of the problems that we have heard about today go to the
point where they do not identify these individuals as
trafficking victims. They think that they are prostitutes or
they are illegal aliens or whatever the situation is, and then
it just goes into this very negative slope downward in terms of
trying to not only help these individuals but also using them
to craft the various crime organizations that are out there. We
need to be able to have them identified. Then we need to have a
comprehensive service approach. I am somewhat familiar with the
Oakland program. I have heard very, very good things about it.
And it is really this integrated approach to victim
services. In particular, there are actually, under the TVPA and
other things that Congress has done, a number of different
programs that are available, but they are spread out among
various different entities in the Federal Government and the
State government. And one of the things that many service
providers ask for is there needs to be additional money for
some sort of case management system so that an individual--
whereas one individual can say, OK, if you need that, let us go
to HHS. Oh, you need that? The Office of Victims Crimes at the
Department of Justice actually does very well on that one. Oh,
let us go to the local law enforcement because California
happens to have this great program. So you need someone who
knows, who has expertise, and can really bring that together.
And then I would say just on the international front, Mr.
Chairman, I think there is a similar sort of approach that
needs to be done as well. We know about how to deal with
survivors and how to prevent trafficking, but we have to create
a similar integrated approach. You know, it used to be that
awareness alone was the idea. Let us just create awareness and
people will move. It is very unrealistic. Between the push
factors of gender discrimination, social discrimination, and
other reasons, there are ways that we need to overcome in a
much broader fashion.
Thank you for the time, sir.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Can I ask the cameras to minimize the clicking, if
possible? I know you have got to take some pictures, but you
must have more than a million pictures of Will Smith in the
last half hour.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Abramowitz. But we don't have enough pictures of Holly
Burkhalter, Mr. Chairman.
[Laughter.]
The Chairman. Holly, did you want to answer that?
Ms. Burkhalter. Just real quickly. I would just reiterate,
first of all, you have some models, tools, diplomatic and
foreign aid. And what we need is political support. You know,
for example, governments really do care where they land on the
four tiers that are in the law that you passed and that the TIP
Office, in collaboration with the regional bureaus, assigns.
Those that get downgraded may not like it very much, but they
care a lot. We hear about it in the field because they come and
say ``what can we do to get off that bad tier?'' I mean, that
is exactly what happens. At IJM we are there to work with the
governments and help bring them along and get them to rescue
kids. We are not going to be involved in public naming and
shaming. But others need to be. We are there to be technical
assistants on rescue and perpetrator apprehension.
But if the tier-ranking process becomes politicized and
becomes undermined and the report becomes weakened because of
other considerations, then we have lost this marvelous tool
that has, I think, made the United States response to
trafficking and slavery since 2000 so strong.
And I will tell you--you know this--the executive branch
cares about what you care about. If you have ambassadorial
nominees up here and you ask them about trafficking and slavery
in the country where they are going and when the administration
does something bone-headed and gets a letter from Republican
and Democratic Senators saying what is up, they care and they
listen and it supports the movement inside the bureaucracy.
Please do not neglect your own significance in terms of
boosting strong diplomacy.
Second of all, I really do not think that we can expect to
see trafficking confronted successfully around the world or at
home without money, and I think the American people want the
money spent for this. They want it spent successfully and in
outcome-producing, carefully monitored interventions that are
collaborative with governments that want to respond well. We
need many, many more models like that. That is why I like the
PEPFAR model of making long-term commitments. But you could add
in a sort of MCC component where you have an agreement, you
have a strategy that holds up and it is going to bear fruit,
and the receiving government is accountable for measurable
outcomes. I think the American people would love that.
And we could build the knowledge base on what worked. I
mean, what can Brazil teach India? You know, what kind of
interventions for survivors worked in Cambodia and should be
looked at for Vietnam? I think we are just at the beginning of
that conversation. It could be built but it is not going to be
built without a large investment, and it is one I think we can
afford even in these tough times.
The Chairman. I appreciate those answers. My time is up. I
want to pass on and get everybody else involved here.
But here is what I am very clearly drawing from this, and I
think I want to work with my colleagues here, each of whom have
an interest in this predating this. The legislation we have
now, I think, is frankly too tame and too limited compared to
what this needs. And thinking back to the experience that I
alluded to a moment ago about prosecuting, I started one of the
first victim witness programs and several task forces,
including rape counseling and other things, and it was not
until we created the concentrated effort that the awareness
grew and people began to do exactly what you have just said, to
sort of teach people about it or talk about it and integrate it
into what we were doing.
This needs to be more integrated. This needs to be
clarified in a way that instructions are going out to assistant
U.S. attorneys, that there is coordination with the district
attorneys offices, that there is a national understanding about
this, and that investigations are undertaken with the
interconnectedness, the connecting of the dots sort of
integrated into that. And I think we can do that. I think we
have the ability to make that happen in a legislative effort.
So I am going to try to work with my colleagues here to see if
we cannot piece that together. It is not dissimilar to what we
did in the context of AIDS, but it has a whole prosecutorial/
law enforcement component to it as well as victim witness
services and other kinds of things. So I think you have clearly
put that on the table in a way that inspires me to at least say
that I think we ought to try to piece that together, and we
will do that.
Mr. Abramowitz. And, Mr. Chairman, just briefly. The
National Association of Attorneys General for the 50 attorneys
general around the States have a very strong interest in this
matter, and I am certain that would be very interested to work
with you on this.
The Chairman. Well, we work with them closely. We work with
them anyway. But I promise you we will follow up with them and
work with them very closely.
Senator Rubio.
Senator Rubio. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for
having this hearing. I think this is fantastic. I appreciate
the time you have given it and all of you for being a part of
the panel today.
I care a lot about the international component of this, but
I think one of the things that gives us credibility to address
it is the stuff we are doing here domestically at home. And let
me just share with you my experience. And I think, Mr.
Abramowitz, you started to touch upon this, and I want to dig
deeper on it.
In our work on this, both in my time in the State
legislature and here, one of the things I run into is this
conflict. By the way, what I am about to say in no way should
be taken as an assault on the intentions of the people that are
involved in this. But some folks in law enforcement and
interested parties who struggle with the notion that the young
ladies and others who are being trafficked are actually victims
as opposed to perpetrators--I struggled with trying to explain
to people that, in fact, these folks are not willing
participants in a criminal enterprise even if they are 21 or 19
or 20. In essence, it is hard to explain that to people because
when you interact with a victim, they have been so emotionally
battered and so psychologically battered that they may act like
a willing participant but, in fact, they have been trapped by
those circumstances. I am probably not explaining it right, but
I think you get the gist of it. And it has been difficult to
interact with some in law enforcement who want to have the
ability to treat them as perpetrators, in essence, to put them
on the stand, to force them to testify against the pimp or the
trafficker, and more importantly, to be able to punish them.
And it has gotten really difficult to overcome that with some
groups.
I was hoping we can dig into that a little bit deeper today
not just through your testimony here but when we leave here
today because I think it is one of the things that is holding
us back from making more progress.
There was a State legislative initiative this year in
Florida that created a safe haven, basically a safe harbor for
people who have been trafficked. And we ran into some
resistance from law enforcement. That was ultimately overcome
about not being able to put the victims in jail and treat them
as willing participants. I think you get the gist of what I am
getting at.
So you have probably encountered that as well, and I do not
know what we can add to the debate about that today. I would
love to hear your insight on that. And I hope we will
concentrate more on that because it is really one of the things
that is holding us back from getting even more people on board.
Mr. Abramowitz. Senator Rubio, I think this is an issue
that really harkens back to the very beginning of the efforts
to combat human trafficking. You know, when I was on staff on
the Foreign Affairs Committee and we had our first meeting with
the Justice Department to try to discuss implementation, this
issue immediately came up. These individuals are part of the
conspiracy and we need to turn them against their traffickers
so that we should withhold assistance, we should withhold
various things until they are willing to testify.
And I think one of the pernicious aspects of that
particular attitude is that it makes the victims more afraid of
law enforcement. So the very thing that they are trying to
accomplish, which is to try to bring the victims out and then
perhaps, if they can, be as brave as some of the women behind
me and come forward with their stories, then actually prosecute
them, they are actually diminishing that.
Now, I will say that we have made strides in this area. I
think that the whole notion of a victim-centered approach,
which was sort of the buzzwords that were created in the Bush
administration, which they have really been trying to
implement, have made a difference. Yet, there is still a
prosecutorial imperative to try to get the bad guys, and that
creates an incentive to try to turn these often women but also
men and boys to try to provide testimony when they are not
ready for it.
And I guess I would say that the real challenge in this
area--and I think you felt this when you were in Florida--is
that even though at headquarters you do see evolving approaches
on this score--and they really do believe this--when you get
out in the field, I have talked in candor with DHS and they
will say, ``yes, we do have field agents who still just see
these people as illegal prostitutes who need to be thrown out
of the country right into the hands of their trafficker back in
Mexico who will then be retrafficked right back across the
border.'' So I think that is the real challenge. I always try
to get State and local law enforcement and also in the field
people understanding this. That requires training and I think
with some of the work that we are trying to do to try to bring
civil society in closer partnership with law enforcement so
that they can try to really educate them as to the needs here.
Ms. Pinkett Smith. To add to what you were just saying,
which I feel very strongly about, I also think it could be
helpful, too, to have support for survivor leadership that can
help with that education. Many of us who speak about this
issue--we have secondhand information or thirdhand information
versus we have survivors that have firsthand information and we
have a lot of survivors out here who are willing and very
capable to lead us in these efforts as well. So I think that
that could also be an aspect of our education and continue to
learn what this is about and what it looks like.
Mr. Abramowitz. I totally agree with that.
Ms. Burkhalter. If I could make a quick comment. We work
internationally and domestic issues are not my expertise, but I
have had the good fortune to talk with many of my fellow
antitrafficking friends.
And one of the issues that troubles me greatly is the fact
that something like 80 percent of the children who are picked
up in prostitution on the streets come out of the foster care
system. And the foster care system can be literally a training
ground for children to be pimped out. They are abused in foster
care. They are on the street. They get picked up. They go to
juvenile detention. They are abused in juvenile detention. When
they get out, they have no place to go and they have no home,
and they are back on the street again. There has got to be a
stop to that immediately. If jail is the only safe place for a
child who has had crimes committed against them, then something
is very badly broken.
We are working in IJM, in collaboration with the Polaris
Project, to try to get State laws passed that would require
this safe haven approach that you referred to, Senator Rubio.
New York has one. They are hard laws to pass because they cost
money. But giving a child from the streets a safe place to live
and caregivers who love them and trauma-focused care and
getting them health care and mental health care and life skills
and schooling--you do not get that in juvie. The only way to
break that cycle is to start treating child victims as exactly
what they are, and we are not doing it in the United States.
And do please take a look at that foster care system. There is
legislation out there and it deserves a look.
Senator Rubio. Thank you. My time is up. My only comment--
and you might be able to help me with this afterward--is it
would be great--and maybe it exists--if there were a, for lack
of a better term, speakers bureau of survivors available that
we could use to interact with both folks who I think need to be
convinced about the victimization aspects of this, but also for
educating young people who might be susceptible. I do not know.
Maybe that exists already if there is such a place, but I would
love to know about it.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Rubio.
Senator Boxer.
Senator Boxer. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you
all.
It is horrifying to think about what is going on sometimes
right in our neighborhoods and certainly around the globe. To
me, when we just look at the issue of children, the facts are
that today right now 5.5 million children are somehow being
forced into labor that they do not want to do that they should
not be doing. The total number of people, 21 million people,
right now as we sit here and 5.5 million of them kids. So we
need to have a zero tolerance starting with the kids, just zero
tolerance. And I want to talk a little bit about that and ask
you some questions.
Ms. Pinkett Smith, I thank you so much. You know, in
California, we see a lot of celebrities and many of them do
wonderful things. You are one of those. I thank you so much.
And I thank your whole family because we all know when one puts
on the uniform of social justice, the whole family puts it on.
And I am very, very grateful.
So in your testimony, you tell the stories of three brave
young survivors who are here, and their stories are so
important because they focus on America. And I know, because I
have asked, that each of them experienced--Minh, Monica, and
Jamm--this horror in California and the cities that were
mentioned to me were Oakland and Los Angeles and San Jose. Is
that correct?
Ms. Pinkett Smith. Yes.
Senator Boxer. And I have a home in Oakland, and this is
going on right in my neighborhood. There is no question about
it.
And I know about HEAT Watch, which stands for Human
Exploitation and Trafficking Watch, which you have been
involved in, Ms. Smith.
And so instead of going into all that, I want to ask you
about Prop. 35 because it is a chance----
Ms. Pinkett Smith. Yes, it is.
Senator Boxer [continuing]. To get the word out.
Mr. Chairman and colleagues, our State has a measure on the
ballot, Prop. 35, so that Californians can take a stand against
human trafficking. And what it does is some of the things you
were talking about. It would increase prison terms for human
traffickers. It would require convicted sex traffickers to
register as sex offenders. It would require all registered sex
offenders to disclose their Internet accounts. It would require
criminal fines from convicted human traffickers to pay for
services to help victims so that we would have some resources
to match what we are trying to do here with our resources being
limited, unfortunately, and in my view wrongly, but that is
another debate for another time.
So I want to ask you--I think both Mr. Abramowitz and Ms.
Smith know about this proposition. Can you give us a little bit
of discussion about how it is going and do you feel comfortable
and confident? Do you have a lot of endorsements?
Ms. Pinkett Smith. Oh, absolutely. I would say that we have
gained a lot of support as far as the prop is concerned. We
still have a ways to go as far as awareness and getting people
to understand, once again, how important it is to have these
laws in place because this is something that is actually
occurring in our own country, and being that California--we
have three of the major hotspots in regards to trafficking. But
I would say that, yes, we are gaining a lot of support. I feel
very confident.
Senator Boxer. Good.
Ms. Pinkett Smith. I feel very confident. And we are going
to go, starting in September, real hard campaigning for that
prop.
Senator Boxer. Good. And before I ask Mr. Abramowitz, I
would like to take a page out of what Senator Rubio said. I
think for that proposition to gain credibility, hearing the
stories of these young people would be very, very helpful to do
that. Whatever I can do to help, whether we have a few fora
around the State, whatever, let me know if I can be of help.
Ms. Pinkett Smith. OK, thank you.
Mr. Abramowitz. Well, briefly, Senator Boxer, I just want
to say that another factor here is Attorney General Kamala
Harris and the work that she is doing. As you know, she is a
huge leader in this issue, has been for years, and she is in
the process of doing a statewide review of the activities of
law enforcement, et cetera to try to determine what the next
steps are. And I think that that report, which hopefully will
be due well before the November elections, can really be a
platform to really talk about how these issues are so important
and create greater awareness about the proposition and also
perhaps a platform to try to bring out some of these stories.
Senator Boxer. Well, we owe it to these three women who
came forward to get that done.
Ms. Burkhalter, let me thank you for everything you do. You
thanked us but you are the leader and we are just following
because we know that you speak truth to us.
I want to ask you about a specific case because sometimes
we get lost in the big numbers, the millions. I want to ask
about one case. This is an international case that you were
involved in at your organization. A Russian pedophile,
Alexander--how do you pronounce it?
Ms. Burkhalter. Trofimov.
Senator Boxer. Trofimov. He was arrested in Cambodia in
2007 for buying sex from 17 very young girls and originally
sentenced to about 15 years in prison. But he was pardoned by
the Cambodian Government in 2011 and released after serving a
fraction of his sentence. And I joined a number of colleagues
in expressing outrage, particularly since Cambodia has received
significant antihuman trafficking assistance from our Nation.
Fortunately, the Cambodian Government ultimately relented,
rearresting Mr. Trofimov, and extraditing him to Russia. But
this never should have happened. At the time of his rearrest,
he was living with a 12-year-old girl. Those were the reports
that we got.
Why do you think we saw the release of Mr. Trofimov by the
Cambodian Government?
Ms. Burkhalter. Thanks for bringing it up and thank you for
helping us with it--as did Mr. Rubio and others--I am really
grateful.
That case was our case. IJM investigated Alexander
Trofimov. He did not pay young girls for sex. He abducted them
and he did have at least 17 young victims that IJM discovered
and, working with local police, got the girls to safety and
into aftercare, and arrested Mr. Trofimov. We helped represent
the girls at trial. We have a Cambodian lawyer that is a member
of the bar, and he told me, Holly, when you were in that
courtroom--and this is not a courtroom like this room. It is a
small room and the windows are open and it is full of people
and there are benches. And he said half the benches in the
courtroom were filled with the victims, the little girls, who
Trofimov had hideously, sadistically abused. He was quite a
monster. And I am sorry to say that in public, but it is the
truth.
It was interesting because at the time the Russian
Government had warrants pending against Alexander Trofimov for
raping girls as young as nine in Russia. But he went to
Cambodia thinking that with his many millions, he could do what
he wanted.
It was actually a great testimony to the Cambodian
Government in spite of the millions of dollars that Alexander
Trofimov had invested in the country in an entertainment center
of some kind on Snake Island, that the judge, even though there
was a lot of money flashing around, did the right thing. They
sentenced Alexander Trofimov to 7 or 8 years.
And then he was pardoned and released. And I think that
that is simply a story of a government that is in transition
where there are tendencies to go both ways. There are
modernizing and reforming tendencies. We are working with them
and they are excellent. The head of the antitrafficking force
is superb. He has a very good group of people who are trying
their hardest. And then you have other factors in that country
and other members of law enforcement and other political actors
who are not on the up and up. And I imagine that money had a
big part to do with it.
The really great part about this story is there are
Cambodians of good will to support. The United States
Government, which started out with a rather modest response,
was a little disappointing. I was wanting more of a shouting
from the rooftop sort of response on this. But then, along came
six good Senators who urged the administration to really speak
out and demand that the Cambodians rearrest Trofimov and
extradite him to Russia. It was in a way to try to support the
people in Cambodia and the Cambodian Government that were
asking for this. And that is exactly what happened. They
changed their position from the December release until the
rearrest which I believe happened just last month, and he will
now be prosecuted in Russia for crimes against Russian kids.
I think this goes to show that in some, not all, countries,
what the United States cares about becomes a matter of
importance, and then that helps develop--not our standards but
international standards and Cambodian law standards and help
those who want to do the right thing. The United States is
capable of doing so with the good, strong push from the U.S.
Senate and the administration.
Thanks for asking.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Boxer.
Senator Cardin.
Senator Cardin. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for
conducting this hearing, and let me thank our witnesses for
their testimony.
I particularly want to thank Minh, Monica, and Jamm for
being here. We hear about numbers and the statistics and they
are shocking to us, and then we move on to the next subject.
But when we see the individual that is affected by it, it does
motivate us to action. So I just really want to underscore how
important it is for victims to come forward and to tell their
stories.
In my capacity on the Helsinki Commission, I have had a
chance to visit the victims. I have been to rescue centers in
Europe and talked one on one with victims of trafficking. And
you hear their stories, which are in many cases kind of
similar. Usually young women in a country where there is little
opportunity read an advertisement about an opportunity in
another country for legitimate employment, by the way, and a
legitimate future. They basically have to mortgage themselves
in order to get there. Once they get to the country, they are
abused. They have no papers. And you have the complicity of the
local law enforcement. So the person is trapped and many are
unable to escape that.
So I really do applaud the efforts that you all are making.
We have made progress. Make no mistake about it, but we have a
lot further that we need to go to end this modern-day slavery.
Ms. Burkhalter, I just want you to know in naming and
shaming, we are taking action in this Congress. The bipartisan
Magnitsky bill has been approved by this committee, will be
approved by the Senate Finance Committee later this week, which
says to human rights violators that we are going to name you
and shame you and take action if the country in which you live
fails to do that. We do not want you living with impunity when
you have done these horrible things. So we are taking action.
I want to get to the point that you raised, though, about
elevating the Trafficking in Person Bureau and how the TIP
reports currently operate. First, I applaud Secretary Clinton
for including the United States in the TIP reports. We now get
a status as to progress within our own country because I think
many of us thought America was immune from this form of modern-
day slavery and that if it existed, maybe it was on the fringes
of a few people coming in from other countries that were being
abused. But as has been pointed out by the testimony today, it
is a problem in our own country that needs to be addressed.
My question to you is, could you just talk a little bit
more how you elevate the current capacity that we have within
the State Department dealing with trafficking and particularly
how--I would invite any one of you to respond to that--how do
we use that type of information? And you are right. What tier
you are on is important to a country, and when they come into
our offices--and I would encourage Members to take up your
recommendation as we meet with nominees for ambassadors or we
meet with foreign dignitaries--to have that TIP report in our
possession and to challenge the country that you are either
going to represent the United States or they are represented in
our office to take steps to improve their records. And we know
exactly what they need to do. The TIP report is pretty specific
as to why they are on a certain tier.
But how do we improve our capacity here, and how do we use
that, our international interests that the United States has
been a leader? In the OSCE, we have established high
priorities. Countries are taking note of it. But how do we
elevate that? And the comment you made that it is not on par
with other commitments we have made in other bureaus in the
State Department. Could you be more specific?
Ms. Burkhalter. Well, I think it should be a bureau. I
mean, it has been an office. It is a good office. It is an
excellent office. But there are really important implications
about it not being a bureau. For one thing, Foreign Service
officers who want to move in their career and do well and
thrive, when they come to an office, it does not have the
prestige as going to a bureau. They are not on the same sort of
promotion track. It is not to say that the office is not
getting excellent staff, but it is not a place where Foreign
Service officers would automatically want to go, ``you know,
like gee, it is a career builder to go work on these issues
because it is an office.'' No, people want to go to the
bureaus. I am not a Foreign Service officer and I have never
worked inside the executive branch, but this is my
understanding.
Second of all, when you do not have someone on the level of
an assistant secretary to go into a tough meeting where the
issues are going to be on the table and you have got any number
of proper, competing important U.S. concerns, and then you have
another concern which is trafficking, those interlocutors are
not playing on the same field because you have an assistant
secretary versus a coordinator of an office. It would not
matter to me. I think the coordinator is quite wonderful. But
it matters a lot to people in the Career Foreign Service. That
is another problem, and it shows. It really tells.
So I think it should just be a bureau. We have many
bureaus. The Secretary of State created several new bureaus
unilaterally relating to conflict and reconstruction at the end
of last year. I think that was great. I think she should have
created the Trafficking in Persons Bureau or End Modern-Day
Slavery. I think it would just be great.
Senator Cardin. Mr. Abramowitz, I will let you respond, but
if you could also tell us how you think we could better
coordinate our focus internationally on rooting out trafficking
but use that also to advance our actions here in America.
Mr. Abramowitz. Thank you, Senator Cardin. Just, yes, very
briefly. I also think there is an issue of resources in the
JTIP Office. There has been cuts in the amount of money that
has been available to them to do their own programming. I think
one of the things that has stood them well in their efforts is
that when they say, look, country X has a challenge here, but
we can do something about it, we have grant money that we can
do to try to help them with the recommendations that you cited.
And that has been a very powerful lever for them to work
collaboratively at times both with the country, as in the
Philippines case, but also with the regional bureaus to try to
move these issues forward. So that is one point.
Second, I think that we have a very profound moment here on
your second question, which is the USAID has just put out their
countertrafficking in persons policy that is trying to look at
how to mainstream this issue within their development work so
that when they are looking at the awareness, education programs
more generally, microcredit, agriculture, how it is that they
can start looking at this in an integrated way. And I discussed
that in my testimony in terms of some of the things we have
learned.
I think one of the key issues here is that USAID, who has
been working in this area for quite some time--this is not a
new program for them, but they are really trying to put more
emphasis on it--is to look at what we have learned elsewhere.
For example, World Vision is implementing a program that the
Department of Labor has funded, the International Labor
Assistance Bureau, or ILAB, and they have come up with quite a
bit of learning on how to do some of these integrated
approaches. So one of the things we need to do is encourage our
own agencies who are working on these issues to learn from each
other so as they go forward, they use the best practices.
Thank you.
Senator Cardin. I thank you all.
And Ms. Pinkett Smith already commented about the need for
more resources, and that I think is across the board, not just
in the TIP Bureau but also as it relates to victims so that
they have confidence that they can come forward and know that
they will have the support that they need.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you very much.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Cardin.
Senator Durbin.
Senator Durbin. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and
thank you for this hearing.
It was a pleasure for me to bump into and meet Mr. Smith
and his daughter, Willow, and his lovely wife this morning, and
I am glad to be with you here. And I thank all of you for being
part of this.
I am chairing the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the
Constitution and Human Rights, and we have had two hearings on
human trafficking. The more I get into this issue, the more I
learn how many different facets there are of exploitation of
women, children, even exploitation of men. It is happening not
just around the world, but right here at home. There are
aspects of it that are frightening. To think that there is a
form of diplomatic slavery, which has been uncovered by the
Washington Post, where servants are brought from foreign
countries working here in this Capital City enslaved, literally
enslaved right here within a stone's throw of the U.S. Capitol,
that we are dealing with the reality of the fact that we carry
around in our pockets these cell phones and many of them
contain conflict minerals which are being mined in the
Democratic Republic of Congo and other places by slave labor
and we have passed legislation still waiting for the SEC to
implement it to try to make corporations be more responsible
and more accountable.
What we did in the committee as well is consider this whole
aspect of accountability. The law was written so that if you
did not commit the crime of trafficking in the United States,
you could not be prosecuted in the United States. We became a
safe haven. Well, that has changed. We passed a new law and it
gives the authority to prosecutors in this country to hold
human traffickers accountable even if their actions were
overseas. We are not going to be a safe haven in this
circumstance. And I am glad that that passed.
But there are a couple aspects of this that I still think
need to be addressed. One of them is what I call legal slavery
in foreign countries, child marriage, literally that a 12-year-
old girl in Niger--I think we have a poster here that came
recently from the Washington Post--a 12-year-old girl in Niger
married off and practically died in child birth at age 14.
Twice--Mr. Chairman, I thank you for this--we have passed in
this committee resolutions in the previous Congress and this
one condemning child marriage and this exploitation of children
in other countries. And twice it has died in the U.S. House of
Representatives. Want an assignment? Call them. Ask them why
they will not take this up. It has passed on a bipartisan basis
here. We need to make sure that it becomes kind of a standard
principle of our Government that we are going to protect
children and protect, in this case, young girls from this form
of exploitation.
And the other aspect of it is--and I agree with Senator
Rubio and Senator Kerry and others--let us look at ourselves
too. Nicholas Kristof is a friend and inspiring writer for the
New York Times and he has taken up this cause not just in
foreign lands but here in the United States. He takes a look at
the Web sites in America that are legally--right now legally--
really leading to prostitution but also exploitation of
children. He named one of them here, backpage.com--I hate to
give any publicity but only in a negative sense I am giving
that publicity--that is, in fact, financed by some of the major
investment banks on Wall Street. And 19 of us joined in a
letter protesting their trafficking not just of prostitution
but of children. And Kristof came up with chapter and verse.
My suggestion, as I step back and look at this, is thank
you for drawing our attention to it, but you have given us a
big assignment. Ms. Pinkett Smith, thank you for bringing in
these brave, young women and tell their story. But we have a
big assignment if the United States wants to establish a
standard and live by it and then enforce it in our foreign
policy around the world.
So I would like to just ask at this point the aspect of
child marriage, the aspect of using the Internet for this
exploitation. Ms. Pinkett Smith, do you have any thoughts on
those two issues?
Ms. Pinkett Smith. Well, my thoughts are, I am in complete
agreement that I need to write a few letters myself in support
of being against child marriage. And so now that I am thinking,
I am like that is something that we probably need to figure out
as a movement on dontsellbodies.org for our young people to get
involved with that for sure. And I will look to my team to get
more information on that definitely. But I am in complete
support of that idea. Absolutely.
Senator Durbin. Ms. Burkhalter, you have testified before
our subcommittee. Thank you for doing that. And we have made
progress. I think we have. We have a long, long way to go. And
I would like to ask you, as you look at this on the child
marriage aspect or on the use of the Internet even in the
United States for these purposes, where you think we need to
go.
Ms. Burkhalter. Internet issues are definitely not my
expertise, so I will not waste your time, though I do know that
there is some very good work being done by the DNA Foundation
and by the Center for Missing and Exploited Children. There was
a recent meeting in California. A number of these groups got
together. And I will work with your staff and get those names
and some of that information about what they are doing to you
after this hearing, sir.
I would love to see the child marriage bill pass. I had not
realized it had not.
Senator Durbin. Twice.
Ms. Burkhalter. And I do think that giving governments and
communities tools to help deal with this, you need both norm
change and you also need alternatives for girls as well as law
enforcement. It is not legal in almost all of the countries.
And so sort of a combination of approaches are the way to go.
But just as female genital cutting used to be the norm, it
is now changing. Child marriage can change too. I really am
happy that people have made it an issue. I know there is a huge
head of steam behind it in the NGO movement. But seeing it both
as a law enforcement and a development and a cultural norm
issue and finding ways to help vulnerable countries address it
on all three fronts is the way to go.
Senator Durbin. Thank you. I will just close by saying that
this exploitation takes so many forms, the sexual bondage which
we have heard of and is just ghastly, the debt bondage which is
also a close parallel, the forced labor issue, and other
aspects which were brought out in some of the Helsinki
Commission reports, I think really is a call to arms for all of
us to live these standards in America and then promote them
around the world.
Mr. Abramowitz. Senator Durbin, if I may just briefly. I
would just call your attention to a new U.S. global strategy on
children in adversity that the administration is working on. I
do not know very much about this. I have not been tracking it,
but some of our partners have. And it seems to try to put
exploitation in the widest possible frame. So I think it would
be useful to take a look at that as that comes out and see
whether child marriage is something that is also a priority
there.
Senator Durbin. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Durbin.
Senator Webb.
Senator Webb. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
holding this hearing and for all the witnesses. There are
people who have been speaking to you today, as you know, who
have worked in this area for a very long time.
I have been very concerned about an issue that I do not
think has been discussed yet, and I would like to raise it. Ms.
Pinkett Smith, your testimony today illuminates a big part of
this, and that is the notion that we need to be maintaining the
objectives and the standards of the existing legislation. But,
at the same time, I think we need to work harder to eliminate
some confusion and even resentment that exists in a number of
the countries where these TIP reports have been creating some
feelings that they have not been measured fairly.
The chairman mentioned in his opening remarks the four P's.
And certainly when we talk about prevention and prosecution and
then try to figure out how we can develop and maintain
partnerships with some of these countries, I think we really
need to work here in the Congress on having a clear, objective
methodology that everyone can understand around the world.
Right now, the TIP reports that we are talking about--these
annual rankings are actually rankings of countries against
themselves year by year. For instance, we started hearing about
this in East Asia where I have spent a lot of time. I am the
chairman of that subcommittee on the East Asian and Pacific. We
were hearing about this not only from the governments, but also
from our embassies. These are people who are dedicated to
solving these problems and these are not secondary issues over
there.
For instance, in 2010, we saw that Nigeria was listed as a
Tier 1 on the TIP report, Japan was a Tier 2, Singapore was a
Tier 2 Watch List because they were being rated against
themselves year by year rather than on some sort of an
international standard. And first, I think we can all agree
that different cultures around the world, different
governmental systems have different approaches, in prevention
versus prosecution for instance, that may not fit into the
matrix that we have been using.
If you take the same year 2010, and look at Transparency
International's Corruption Perception Index, we see that
Singapore was tied for No. 1 as the least corrupt country in
the world with Denmark and New Zealand in terms of perceptions.
Japan, which was a Tier 2 Watch List, was given a 7.8, ranked
17. The United States was ranked 22nd.
We have been trying to encourage a formula where you could
have countries ranked on an international scale rather than a
year-by-year scale against themselves or perhaps maybe two
scales to give these countries a way to deal with the ratings
that the United States are giving them and to be able to
explain them to their own people and internationally.
As this process was moving forward, the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs in Singapore issued a statement, and this goes
directly, Ms. Pinkett Smith, to your testimony here. They said
``We note that the United States has again unabashedly awarded
itself a Tier 1 ranking. Yet, the New York Times observed that
teenage girls coerced into prostitution in the United States
are treated not as trafficking victims but as miscreants who
are arrested and prosecuted instead of protected. This is
directly opposite to Singapore's approach. The United States
also suffers from serious problems with illegal immigrants,
many of whom are trafficked by well-organized criminal gangs
which seem to operate with impunity. On any objective criteria,
the United States has a more serious trafficking-in-persons
problem compared with Singapore.''
Now, I am not saying I agree with this 100 percent, but you
can get an idea of the resentments that exist in cultures that
are well developed and governments that are well run.
And so my question really is how do we reduce this
resentment and still maintain the objectives and the standards
of our legislation?
Ms. Pinkett Smith. I personally think that we have to take
trafficking as seriously on our own soil as we do in
approaching other countries as far as how other countries are
handling their trafficking matters. The chairman and I were
talking about this a little earlier. Just as far as
prosecution, we really have to hold accountable those people
who are trafficking on our soil. We have to really hold up the
standards of prosecuting those criminals. And so I think that
would definitely make a big difference in how we are looked
upon in that way.
Senator Webb. Thank you.
Mr. Abramowitz, what would your thoughts be in terms of
trying to create an international standard?
Mr. Abramowitz. Well, a couple of pieces. I think that as
Ms. Burkhalter was discussing earlier, I think some confusion
with respect to how countries respond to some of the rating is
because of some lack of cohesion within the State Department as
there is a discussion of what the exact standards mean, there
is sometimes a different view in the field versus what is
happening at headquarters. And I think one of the things that
JTIP and the regional bureaus together have been addressing is
trying to figure out how to create a more cohesive messaging
approach.
So as you know, Senator--and I want to say that we really
appreciate your strong interest in this issue and following up
on these issues--there has been an effort to try to have
conversations with regional officers in the field so that there
can be greater alignment within the Department about how they
talk about these issues and what is necessary.
I think that there is a challenge with respect to the
system because there is some relativity based in the law. For
example, on the issue of resources, there is a question when
the State Department is looking to evaluate where a country
goes, they fairly, I believe, look at the resources that the
country has to devote to the particular problem. So if a
country does not have very many resources but is really doing
quite a bit, that is, I think, seen as an important step by
that country even though a country that has more and is in a
better position to do some things apparently is doing less. So
there is some of that kind of relative approaches that are
built into the law in a way that is fair.
I would say that one point that I think is important to
mention, as Senator Cardin was earlier, is that while there are
some of these challenges, I think that countries know what they
need to do in order to improve their standing. Every year, I
think starting about 5 years ago, there were recommendations
that were instilled in the report itself saying this is what a
country has to do in order to perform better. And I think that
even if there is some discontinuity and they point to different
countries, it is fairly clear from the State Department as to
what they need to actually----
Senator Webb. I agree. Well, let me ask Ms. Burkhalter
because I am over my clock here. But, would you not think there
would be a good argument for, at a minimum, two different
standards? Something like a Transparency International standard
where a country like Singapore or Japan, which has organized
governmental systems, can see where we are ranking them on a
scale rather than simply against themselves?
Ms. Burkhalter. Sir, I have had the pleasure of talking
with your excellent staff, Marta and her colleagues, a number
of times, and so I feel like I am pretty familiar with the
issue. I have wrestled around with it for many months because
of the genuine effort to make our antitrafficking policies the
most successful, that animates the issue, is well worth our
support and consideration. I think some of the issues you
raised would take hours and a couple beers to really do justice
to.
But I would say----
The Chairman. We are for that. We are adjourned.
[Laughter.]
Ms. Burkhalter. I guess we are done.
Senator Webb. It is all about the beer.
Ms. Burkhalter. I think maybe just on behalf of my
organization, which is a Christian human rights group, you may
just strike that last sentence from the record.
But I would say, not meaning to be argumentative and
appreciating where you are coming from, particularly when you
refer to the Transparency International numerical system--I
would say in defense of the current system, which I think is a
good one, it is based on an international system. It is based
on the Palermo Protocol and it is an international standard
that governments are bound by.
Now, is each rendition and each tier ranking perfect? No,
because we already know that there are political considerations
that come in. I think it should be done as the clearest
possible articulation of how a country is doing on its own
trafficking problem. My problem with ranking countries vis-a-
vis others is that it is no help to a trafficking victim in
Singapore for its country to be ranked ahead of the Congo. It
is no help to a trafficking victim in Nigeria if their country
gets on Tier 1 but neighboring----
Senator Webb. Well, if I may, because I know the chairman
wants to shut this down. I have actually held a hearing on this
issue, and I am not trying to cut you off. I appreciate very
much the work that all of you have done on this.
But you could make that same argument about ratings on
media openness and these sorts of things. You could rate a
country against itself a year ago and have one rating, but if
you rated media openness among all countries, it would be
something completely different.
I am committed to trying to make this policy work, at the
same time to reduce the frictions that are causing it
problems--particularly in these more advanced cultures like the
Japanese and the Singaporean, and to a certain extent,
Thailand.
I do not mean to cut you off. If you want to say something
else, I am very----
Ms. Burkhalter. Well, I have a meeting with Marta in a
couple of days, so we will have time to talk about this.
Senator Webb. All of you, thank you for your testimony
today and for your work on this issue.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Senator Webb. I know you
are trying to find a way to deal with a problem, and I know
there is some resistance to it.
Is it fair to say that the four-tier system is kind of only
just now beginning to take hold and that people are beginning
to understand the brand, so to speak? Is that part of the
tension here or not, Ms. Burkhalter?
Ms. Burkhalter. From our experience in the countries where
we work--and we deal very closely with the governments. It is
not the universe. We are doing antitrafficking work in four
countries. They have a clear understanding of the tiers and
they have a clear understanding particularly when the embassies
are clear about it and are working with them on a regular
basis. They know what they are supposed to do. Sometimes there
are things that they need to do that they do not want to do and
sometimes they want help with things they need to do. So if
there is a lack of clarity, it is probably on the U.S. side and
that we can fix. If there is a lack of clarity in the field,
then having the U.S. Embassy team up with our TIP experts in
making sure that everybody is clear about the things that will
help a country really end its own trafficking problem, then
that is the system we need.
The Chairman. I gather that the 17 countries got a failing
report were Tier 3 and 42 were near the failing level. That is
Tier 3 versus Tier 2 Watch List. Is the distinction clear
between those, do you feel, sufficiently?
Ms. Burkhalter. Yes, I think it is clear.
The Chairman. What makes it clear?
Ms. Burkhalter. As David has testified, there is a broad
range in the crime and there is a number of things that need to
be done. And the things to solve slavery in our time cannot all
be done overnight. It is very hard to point to one proven
formula. There are things that clearly governments are
responsible to do: protect victims, prevent the crime, deter
the crime, put the bad guys in jail, et cetera. And to the best
of their ability, our TIP officers and experts are trying to
monitor that. They ask governments for data. Sometimes they get
it; sometimes they do not. But those are good measurements of a
government's political will to end this crime of modern-day
slavery.
And I think three categories are not enough. ``You are
making it. You are doing well. You are not making it, but you
are trying or you are flunking.'' I think Congress was smart to
create a fourth tier, and frankly I think they ought to just
keep the Tier 2 Watch between Tier 2 and Tier 3.
Am I answering your question? No. It seems not.
The Chairman. No. Well, you are. But what troubles me is
that, for instance, the quote from the Government of Singapore.
I mean, there is some legitimacy to the notion. You, yourselves
here, have articulated it that a lot of departments look at
some people who are brought in and they do not see a victim of
a conspiracy or slavery or trafficking or whatever. They just
see somebody who was on the street, throw them in the clinker,
you know, do what they do, and then they are back in the hands
of their pimp and they are back out on the street before long.
And so how we look at this attitudinally is pretty critical
in terms of our own bona fides, which is why I commented
earlier that I think we need to do a much better job of
coordinating all law enforcement initiatives with respect to
this and putting them into kind of a coordinated effort, if you
will.
Mr. Abramowitz. Well, Senator Kerry, if I may make a couple
of points. First of all, I think that it is also a question of
the state that you are looking at. I understand the urge to
have one objective standard. But if you look at some of our
evaluations of India, for example, which the rating is always
controversial because of the large number of debt bondage that
is in India, you often hear from those who look at these issues
say, well, you know, there is a Federal system there. Many of
these responsibilities are with the individual smaller six
state units. And some of them are doing well and some are not,
but we should not just throw out the baby with the bath water.
A similar issue exists here.
I think there is a clear line in terms of is the state
really showing a commitment, taking affirmative steps that
differentiates Tier 2 Watch List with Tier 3.
I think something that has come up in our conversations
with Senator Webb's office is a couple of other elements,
including the automatic downgrade provision that is going to
force countries from Tier 2 Watch List down to Tier 3 starting
really next year. And that is a provision that has done a lot
of good, but it also may lead to very difficult conversations
over the course of the coming year, and it is something I think
we do need to take a look at.
The Chairman. Well, I think what we need to do is this. I
think Senator Webb's reduction to effectively two tiers from
the four that we have today--I am not in favor of moving in
that direction. But I do think we can improve the metrics, if
you will, by which we are making our own judgments so that
people have confidence in it. Hopefully, you could deal with
some of the diplomatic unrest that occurs as a result because
people have a clarity as to how we are approaching it. I think
there may be some ways to improve on that. You might want to
think about that as you meet with Senator Webb. You are shaking
your head.
Ms. Burkhalter. Only, sir, because I have just been in the
human rights field so long and I have never once in my life
experienced that a foreign government enjoys being criticized
for their human rights record. They just do not.
The Chairman. They would enjoy it a lot more if they had
confidence that the country criticizing them had done due
diligence in its own efforts.
Ms. Burkhalter. Well, I think we certainly can do due
diligence here at home.
The Chairman. That is what I am talking about.
Ms. Burkhalter. But I think what Mr. Webb is talking about
is the--he is talking about changing the system by which we
rank them, and I disagree with that.
The Chairman. And I am not and I just predicated my
comments by saying I am not talking about doing that. But I am
talking about establishing our own bona fides----
Ms. Burkhalter. I agree with that.
The Chairman [continuing]. As much as we can, and I think
that would help enormously to address some of Senator Webb's
concerns.
Ms. Burkhalter. Well, that I do not disagree with.
But I would say that both Singapore and Japan have a long
way to go, and whether they are developed countries or not,
they are not doing well on trafficking and slavery. And that is
what they are being ranked on in the TIP report, and they are
never going to be happy with us until they clean up their act.
The Chairman. Mr. Abramowitz, could you say a little more
about the brokers and in what industries these brokers tend to
operate--we find them and what are the key protections that are
needed?
Mr. Abramowitz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is a very
important issue. I know Senator Rubio is very familiar with
this issue as well.
I think that the problem here is that foreign labor brokers
are working to supply labor to a huge number of industries. We
have had the cases of the Indian welders in construction. That
was a case that was in this country in the gulf coast. We have
seen a number of recent articles come out in the fishing
industry. I do not know if you have seen Ben Skinner's article
that came out earlier this year about the New Zealand fishing
industry and some of the terrible trafficking that has been
going on there and the horrible abuses on these fishing boats
that are sometimes at sea for long periods of time and the
workers are forced to work 30 hours in a row and 40 hours in 2
days. It is really horrific.
And then you have got a number of other agricultural
settings where this is occurring. For example, in palm oil, you
see that there are plantations where there is a significant
amount of labor that is provided that is needed and then the
brokers are trying to deliver that supply to these plantations
and it is a major problem.
In terms of protections, I think that the standards that we
are looking at are, first of all, being very, very clear with
the workers on the transparency of what is actually going to
happen, what they are going to do. One of the reasons the
government contracting bill has come up is because there were
these issues in Iraq where we had labor recruiters who were
recruiting labor to do work inside Iraq and their countries
actually prohibited them from going to Iraq. And so when they
got visas and exit permits to leave, it was all about how they
were going to the gulf to do construction projects in the gulf
countries. Suddenly they were in Iraq and they were outside any
protection because their home embassy did not have a particular
mission there.
The Chairman. So where could the most effective work be
done on this? In the source country or in the destination
country?
Mr. Abramowitz. My personal view is you need to do both.
There are these very interesting south-to-south partnerships
that are developing that are so-called corridor type of
programs where you have NGOs in the source country who are
trying to educate, you know, talking about they should not be
taking fees, which is the other big issue is that should not be
having fees that will get them in debt and then require their
family to pay these large fees off if they end up leaving their
employment. But then you have also someone in the destination
country that can follow up with them, ensure that they are
getting the protections that they need. And it is working from
both ends that is really going to be effective in this area.
The Chairman. No doubt we could do a lot in our diplomacy
to advance that.
Mr. Abramowitz. Well, it is one of the reasons that a
number of organizations have been pressing for increased
protections here in the United States on foreign labor
recruiters not because we have a huge wealth of terrible
foreign labor recruiters--we do have our problems--but because
we need to show leadership in this area. Just as you were
indicating, how can we complain and say you need to have a very
integrated foreign labor recruiter system if we do not have one
ourselves? So it goes exactly to the issue that you were just
building on a few minutes ago.
The Chairman. Senator Rubio.
Senator Rubio. Thank you.
I just want to take the opportunity that we are having this
hearing here today since one of the strategies we have
discussed today is naming and shaming people or organizations
that facilitate trafficking. And there is an issue I have been
involved in along with 18 other colleagues of mine and others
who I think have joined since then, and it regards Village
Voice Media, and I wanted to take a moment to talk to you about
that.
As you know, the classified Web site, backpage.com, is the
leading U.S. Web site for prostitution advertising. It is
estimated they make about $24 million a year off of these ads.
Some of those ads include a pimp who advertises services of a
14-year-old girl in Atlanta. He kept her in line by beatings,
threatening her with a knife, and shocking her with a taser.
Another of these advertisements was a Minnesota man who was
charged later with eight counts of child prostitution for
advertising two girls on backpage.com.
In fact, 51 attorneys general have asked Village Voice to
take down adult services ads as a result of this. In fact, the
National Association of Attorneys General found more than 50
instances of charges filed against people who trafficked or
tried to traffic minors on backpage.com. And just 2 months ago,
19 colleagues on a bipartisan basis here in the U.S. Senate
signed a letter asking them to close this down and a subsequent
letter to other advertisers on Village Voice asking them to
remove their advertisement because of their unwillingness to
stop this kind of advertising.
I know many of you have been involved in this and other
groups. Over 90,000 people--maybe it is now 100,000--have
signed a petition asking them to stop these advertisements. The
bottom line is that we know that on the leading advertiser in
this country of adult services, children, 14 years of age and
younger, 15-year-old girls, are being advertised and their
services are being advertised.
And I wanted to utilize this forum here today to call
attention to that. I know many in the audience are aware of it.
It is grotesque. It is unacceptable. It is disgusting. There is
no first amendment protection for child pornography and child
trafficking and prostitution. And I hope they will reconsider
the decisions they have made, and if they do not, I think all
of us here today and those interested in this issue have a
continuing obligation to shame them into doing the right thing.
So I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity.
The Chairman. Well, thank you, Senator Rubio. I think
everybody here would agree with you, and I thank you for taking
that moment to make your statement.
Senator Cardin.
Senator Cardin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to
follow up and concur with Ms. Burkhalter's comments in response
to Senator Webb.
I can tell you my own experience in dealing with countries
of Europe and Central Asia that is very clear. They understand
why they are in a certain ranking on the tiers and they know
what they need to do in order to improve. I do not think there
is any misunderstanding.
But I think perhaps a point that we could reach an
agreement with Senator Webb is that if you are a country that
has the resources and you have mature democratic institutions,
I think more is expected of you and that you should be leading.
And I think the United States can do a lot more. So I do not
take comfort that we can sit back and do nothing because we are
the highest rating under the TIP report. To me, the resources
America has, its leadership internationally on these issues
indicate that we should be doing more. And perhaps we can
figure out a way in which we can make that clearer so that we
are not trying to say that we have done what needs to be done.
We have a lot more that needs to be done. And I think that may
be a point where we could agree with Senator Webb.
But I think, though, the TIP report is very valuable. It is
not the only tool available and it should not be the only
evaluations that are being made. We should be doing a lot more
in that regard, but I would not want to see us let countries
off the hook because of trying to politicize the way that these
TIP ratings are made.
The second point I would make on law enforcement, if I
might. Some of the areas that I think have been the most
effective in dealing with trafficking is when you have law
enforcement cooperation between the origin country and the
receiving country and also transit countries, but the way. Let
us not forget the transit countries. You cannot get from A to B
without going through a lot of other countries. But when law
enforcement works together and sets up a strategy, it has been
much more effective in dealing with it because it is just not a
problem of one country or another. It really is in multiple
areas. And I think that is one area that we could perhaps
improve is the cooperative relationships among the different
countries in effective law enforcement in stopping these rings.
By the way, these trafficking centers are usually connected
with organized crime and they are hugely motivated by greed and
money, as has been pointed out. And without that type of
commitment from more than just one country, it is very
difficult to really root out these networks.
So, Mr. Chairman, I think this hearing has been extremely
valuable. I think we should look at some of the suggestions
that have been made, including elevating the presence within
the State Department and expecting more from our own country as
far as dealing with some of the root problems.
And once again, I particularly want to thank those who have
experienced firsthand the savage of slavery for being here and
thank our witnesses for their presentation.
The Chairman. Senator Cardin, thank you very much. Thanks
also for your longtime leadership on this. I thank each of the
Senators who are here. They have all had an interest in this
for a period of time.
I do think your comments about the law enforcement effort
really leap out at me. And I mentioned earlier there is no
question there is a huge amount of space here for significant
global law enforcement coordination on this and for some major
sting operations, some major inside efforts. This can be
significantly reduced. I mean, we are all still coping with
gambling and prostitution and other issues in every county in
America practically. But there is a difference between it
absolutely ripping at the fabric of life itself in a country
and in communities versus being a large nuisance and something
that you kind of put up with and cope with on an ongoing basis.
But it is not as damaging as this is. And I think we have a
long way to go to get to that with respect to this issue.
So it needs focus and we are going to find a way to do
that. Senator Cardin, I look forward to working with you and
others in order to try to do that.
I just have one last question maybe each of you could
answer, and that is sort of for the average person listening to
this, for the general public, a lot of people know about this,
but they feel pretty helpless. They say, well, what do I do
about that. That is law enforcement or that is the State
Department or whatever it is. Obviously, Willow felt
differently and I congratulate you for that, Willow. Is she
still hiding back there? OK. But I really tip my hat to her
because she got her mom involved and she has made a difference.
And I wonder if you each might just take a moment to comment on
how you think the average person could get more involved and
make a difference. Let us perhaps end on that note.
Ms. Burkhalter.
Ms. Burkhalter. I think they should send you 200,000
letters--you--from Massachusetts and urge you to do for slavery
what you did on HIV/AIDS.
The Chairman. Well, I will save them the mailing and the
writing. We are going to do that.
So what else do they do? What else can they do? I am in it.
Ms. Burkhalter. I actually do think that citizens need to
tell the people that represent them in Congress and their
President, whoever that is in the next term, that this is
something they care about, and the message can just be simple.
You know, I live in Ames, IA, and I care about modern-day
slavery and I want our country to lead and end it. And I
actually think it is why we have gotten as far as we have
because you gentlemen have enormous political space to operate
in, and you have the support of the American public. And what
we do at IJM is try to organize that support and tell you. We
have lobby days. We have a million postcards and make a total
nuisance of ourselves. But it is people in 50 States telling
you please lead, please spend my money, please end slavery at
home and abroad. That is what we are doing. We are leaving this
hearing and going right back to what we do, tweet, blog, all
those things I do not understand, but we are getting the word
out and giving people things to do.
Ms. Pinkett Smith. My daughter made a fantastic suggestion
as far as engaging people to start movements even in your
communities. I know that in Oakland and recognizing that there
was a motel that was basically supporting child prostitution
and neighbors watching young girls being brought in and out of
hotel rooms and gathering together and eventually with HEAT
Watch being able to have that motel shut down. So the more that
we can educate ourselves and being able to recognize what this
crime looks like, we can in our own communities keep our eyes
open, be very vocal about what is happening, and do something
about it.
Mr. Abramowitz. Just following up on a couple of points. I
think being aware is a very important issue. The invisibility
of this crime, as Ms. Pinkett Smith said, is so challenging,
and if we are going to try to bring out victims, create
synergies with law enforcement, try to build civil society,
individual citizens have to help. They have to help identify. I
think it is fantastic that the national hotline that Polaris
Project runs has seen a massive increase in the number of both
crisis calls from victims but also tips they have got. I think
the figure has gone up something like 340 percent over the last
4 years. It is very impressive. It is something we really need
to try to promote.
Second, of course, supporting resources. We are in a
difficult budget environment, Mr. Chairman. I do not have to
tell you that. You know much more about that than I do. And I
think while maybe 200,000 letters from Massachusetts is not
necessary, I think thousands of people acting in these areas
and pressing this across the wide political spectrum is very
important, and we are trying to build that.
And third, I think there is something about demanding more
from companies. This is a very difficult area. Humanity United
is actually doing some research on public attitudes regarding
how they view these issues, as I alluded to earlier. But
individuals need to try to demand more from their companies,
whether it is the code of conduct that hotels are signing up to
that ACPAC USA has been promoting for people to say, is your
hotel signing up to this code of conduct to make sure there is
no trafficking here because if it is not, then I am not staying
there. Or even asking about it and showing that there is a
demand or taking the slavery footprint program that will tell
you how much you are really involved in slavery and then trying
to talk about that more.
I went to Whole Foods the other day and said do you know
where your shrimp comes from, and do you know that that is a
problem? And they said, yes, we know that is a problem. We are
really thinking about what we do. So I think generating that
kind of energy with the private sector and making people
understand they care is another aspect of these issues that we
need to follow up on.
The Chairman. Well, that is the purpose of this hearing and
of other hearings. And I really appreciate everybody's
contribution to that effort.
I do think when you think about the fact that the three
survivors who are here today, Minh, Monica, and Jamm, each come
out of Los Angeles, Oakland, and I think it was San Jose--I
mean, think about that, folks. A lot of people in local
communities need to start opening their eyes and asking
questions and figuring out what they can do with their local
police departments, with their city councils, their mayors,
their State representative, the legislature, and other people.
There has got to be an increased awareness about this and we
have to think hard about the ways in which we, obviously, can
try to increase that.
I want to thank all of you. I want to thank spouses and
families. I know David Abramowitz's wife is here and children
also, and we are grateful to you for coming and being part of
this. And Mr. Smith did come to Washington today. We thank you
for that.
[Laughter.]
And we are grateful to everybody for helping to shed light
on this.
Transparency, sunlight go a long way toward holding people
accountable. That is the purpose of the TIP program, and we are
going to be very focused on this and I promise you, Ms.
Burkhalter, work with us. We want to try to put together this
comprehensive piece that we could introduce and hopefully get
bipartisan--I am confident we will get bipartisan support for
it.
So with that, we thank you for coming and we stand
adjourned. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 11:35 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
----------
Additional Material Submitted for the Record
Two Articles Submitted by David Abramowitz With His Prepared Statement
Testimony of Neha Misra, Senior Specialist, Migration and Human
Trafficking, Solidarity Center Before the Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe (U.S. Helsinki Commission)--``Slavery without
Shackles'': Labor Exploitation and the Trafficking of Vulnerable
Workers around the World
Thank you to the U.S. Helsinki Commission for the opportunity to
present the Solidarity Center's view about ``labor trafficking in
troubled economic times,'' and especially to highlight the
vulnerability of immigrant workers\1\ to trafficking and forced labor
within legal structures in the U.S. and around the world.
My name is Neha Misra. I am the Senior Specialist for Migration and
Human Trafficking at the Solidarity Center. We are an international NGO
that promotes and protects worker rights globally, working in over 60
countries. The Solidarity Center is an allied organization of the
American Federation of Labor--Congress of Industrial Organizations
(AFL-CIO), and a member of the Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking
(ATEST). Building upon more than 20 years of experience in the areas of
child labor and immigrant worker exploitation, the Solidarity Center
raises awareness about the prevalence and underlying causes of
trafficking for labor exploitation, and strives to unite disparate
forces to combat the problem. Since 2001, the Solidarity Center has
implemented more than 20 programs combating human trafficking in
countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka,
Pakistan, the Philippines, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Kenya, and the
Dominican Republic. These programs include initiatives that address
each of the four ``Ps'' that have become part of the antitrafficking
paradigm: prevention, protection of victims, prosecution (or as we
prefer to describe it, ``rule of law''), and partnerships.
trafficking for labor exploitation in today's global economy
The Solidarity Center especially appreciates the Helsinki
Commission's focus in this hearing on trafficking for labor
exploitation and the focus on ``abusive, unethical, and illegal
business practices that . . . contribute to human trafficking and
forced labor.'' As a worker rights organization, the Solidarity Center
has seen firsthand how violations of worker rights and the lack of
labor standards and protections for workers increase their
vulnerability to human trafficking.
Too often the media and the public see human trafficking only as a
crime of organized syndicates, of criminal gangs, or underground
criminals who exploit undocumented immigrant workers. While this is of
course true in some contexts, we are increasingly seeing trafficking
for labor exploitation happening in the context of legal structures of
employment and business--with traffickers who are employers and labor
recruiters, not gang members.
Examples abound around the world of human trafficking thriving in
the context of worker exploitation:
When immigrant workers are forced to pay high fees, often at
exorbitant interest rates, to labor recruiters to work in
another country, they are vulnerable to debt bondage--one of
the most pervasive forms of modern day slavery. This is the
case for 400 Thai workers who, according to a U.S. Department
of Justice indictment, were allegedly trafficked to the United
States by Global Horizons Manpower under the H-2A visa program
through false promises of decent work. The Thai workers ``took
on crushing debt to pay exorbitant recruiting fees, about
$9,500-$21,000. After they arrived in America, according to the
indictment, their passports were taken and they were set up in
shoddy housing and told that if they complained or fled they
would be fired, arrested, or deported.'' \2\ Millions of other
workers--including for example, Moldovan migrant agriculture
workers in Italy and Vietnamese workers toiling in factories in
Malaysia--can tell a similar story.
When buyers pressure suppliers all along supply chains to
achieve cutthroat prices for their products, workers are the
ones that bear the burden as labor costs are often the first
ones to be cut, increasing workers vulnerability to severe
forms of labor exploitation, including human trafficking. This
is the case for thousands of Burmese migrant workers who have
been subject to forced labor and physical, emotional, and
sexual intimidation in seafood-processing factories in
Thailand, which export to the United States. The factories rely
on trafficked workers to stay within the cost structure.
When labor laws and regulations are not implemented,
monitored, or enforced--when labor inspection is weak or
nonexistent--workers are vulnerable to trafficking for forced
labor and other forms of severe labor exploitation. When
workers face retaliation for trying to exercise their rights or
when workers lack access to avenues to address abuse, workers
are vulnerable to human trafficking. This is the case for
millions of domestic workers,\3\ agricultural workers, and
immigrant workers in the United States and around the world who
face extreme conditions of exploitation, including physical and
sexual violence, confiscation of passports, illegal
confinement, dangerous working conditions, and nonpayment of
wages. These workers are often explicitly excluded from the
protection of labor laws, even when they are citizens or
nationals of a country, and their work is often relegated to
the informal economy where there is little labor inspection.
In 2011, a slave may not be in chains or shackles, but they are no
freer. Slavery is not simply ownership of one person over another.
Modern day slavery is much more subtle. Trafficking victims toil in
factories that produce products that are exported to the United States,
Europe, and other destinations. Trafficking victims harvest vegetables
and process food that ends up on our dining room tables. They pick
crops or mine minerals that are raw materials in the products we buy.
They make the clothes and shoes we wear. They clean people's homes and
take care of the young, elderly, and sick. They are enslaved not only
through physical restraint, but also through coercion, fear, and
intimidation. In today's global economy, workers can be enslaved by
threats of deportation, lack of viable alternatives, and especially
debt.
While trafficking for labor exploitation has many facets, several
major trends in our globalized world endanger workers, particularly
those most at risk and most in need of protection. In developed
economies like in the United States and Europe, we are seeing an
increase in cases of trafficked immigrant teachers, nurses,
construction, and service sector workers--all in these destination
countries with valid visas, shining a light on the structural failures
within our economic and employment systems that increase immigrant
workers' vulnerability to severe forms of labor exploitation.
Multinational corporations, employers, businesses, labor recruiters and
others exploit these failures.
trafficking as an inherent vulnerability in
temporary labor migration schemes
Of particular concern are temporary labor migration schemes--
sometimes referred to as guestworker, sponsorship or circular migration
programs--that are increasingly being promoted by governments around
the world to fill demand for cheap labor. In practice, these schemes
create a legalized system and structure for employers to exploit
workers, and increase workers' vulnerability to human trafficking and
other forms of severe labor exploitation. Such programs have been
plagued by a long history of abuses ranging from labor violations to
visa fraud, debt bondage, involuntary servitude and trafficking for
labor exploitation. This includes, among many others, the U.S. H-2 visa
guestworker program, seasonal agricultural programs in Canada and
Europe, and the ``kafala'' or sponsorship system in the Gulf
Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.
The Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking or ATEST, of which the
Solidarity Center is a member, recently described the problem in a
submission to the U.S. Department of Labor as follows\4\:
It is by now beyond dispute that temporary ``guestworker''
programs have long worked to the detriment both of the U.S.
workers who are bypassed in favor of foreign workers, and for
the foreign workers who fall prey to unscrupulous employers and
their labor contractors.\5\ Of particular concern to our
members, key aspects of the program lead to human rights
violations such as debt peonage (or debt bondage), trafficking
for labor exploitation and involuntary servitude, all forms of
modern-day slavery. Guestworkers' vulnerability is greatly
increased by the use of labor recruiters or foreign labor
contractors who lure impoverished and desperate foreign workers
to jobs within the United States described as plentiful and
lucrative. The opportunity to work in the U.S. comes with an
intolerably high price tag that includes inflated
transportation, visa, border crossing and other costs, and
``recruitment fees.'' Often, workers literally mortgage family
properties or take out loans from loan sharks at exorbitant
rates in order to meet these obligations. Companies within the
United States claim no knowledge of their recruiters' actions
and escape legal liability on these grounds. The recruiters
themselves often remain beyond the reach of the U.S. legal
system.
Once guestworkers arrive in the United States, the well-paid
jobs that have been offered [often] do not materialize. Workers
are left without work at all, or without work for the length of
time promised them. Favorable terms and conditions of work
offered in the home country are replaced by harsh conditions.
Job contractors transfer workers, for a price, to other
contractors. Workers who are dissatisfied with the jobs face
overwhelming subtle and not-so-subtle pressures to acquiesce.
Passports and other immigration andidentity documents are
confiscated [by employers] to ensure that workers do not run
away. Families back home are threatened [by recruiters] with
physical violence, as well as family bankruptcy due to loss of
their investment in the worker. Workers who dare speak up for
their rights face job loss, followed by deportation to their
home countries and blacklisting. These factors lead workers to
fall into myriad situations that rise to the level of a severe
form of human trafficking, most notably coercion through abuse
or threatened abuse of the law or legal process.
As noted in a recent ILO report, these conditions create a
program that is ripe for human rights violations. Human
trafficking abuses involving H-2B visas have been documented
with frequency in recent media.
While the description above refers to the U.S. temporary
guestworker program, the same scenario repeats itself around the
world--for example, in Canada, Europe, the GCC, and around Asia. The
common element is that these workers are trafficked within legal visa
systems, fully documented, and that structural flaws within these
programs allow workers to be trafficked.
Two other major common themes emerge:
1. The role of foreign labor recruiters in taking advantage
of the lack of labor rights and inherent structural failures in
these programs to exploit immigrant workers; and,
2. The need to provide greater protections to workers and
opportunities for them to report abuses and advocate for their
own rights.
the role of labor recruiters in promoting human trafficking
Foreign labor contractors or recruiters are increasingly relied
upon by employers, businesses, and multinational corporations to
facilitate the movement of labor from one country to another. While
many labor recruiters behave ethically and are engaged in lawful
conduct, other recruiters are often complicit with or directly involved
in trafficking of workers. Recruiters often charge exorbitant fees for
their services, forcing workers into debt bondage, falsifying
documents, and deceiving workers about their terms and conditions of
work increasing vulnerability to human trafficking.
The incidence of known human trafficking cases involving foreign
labor recruiters is increasing dramatically in the United States. The
aforementioned Global Horizons case and the Signal workers case are
just two recent examples. Many U.S.-based service providers state that
regulating labor recruiters is one of the most important initiatives
needed to combat human trafficking in the United States--both labor
recruiters based in the U.S. and abroad. Employers rely on labor
recruiters who have operations both in the U.S. and in foreign
countries--as they use a system of subcontracting to find workers. The
operations of such recruiters need to be regulated on both ends of the
spectrum.
Stricter regulation of labor recruiters is needed to protect
workers entering
the United States from human trafficking and other abuses such as wage
theft. Stronger legal frameworks will help to prevent unregulated
actors from conspiring to fraudulently deceive workers about the terms
and conditions of work.
To that end, ATEST has made a series of recommendations to include
regulation of labor recruiters/foreign labor contractors in the 2011
Reauthorization of the Trafficking Victim Protection Act (TVPRA 2011).
Similar provisions were passed in the 2008 House of Representatives
version of the TVPRA. We have learned even more since 2008 about the
need for greater regulation of foreign labor recruiters. As such, ATEST
recommends, with the support of a number of worker and immigrant rights
groups in the United States, the following for inclusion in the 2011
TVPRA:
1. Elimination of Fees: No foreign labor contractor, or agent or
employee of a foreign labor contractor, should be allowed to assess any
fee (including visa fees, processing fees, transportation fees, legal
expenses, placement fees, and other costs) to a worker for any foreign
labor contracting activity. Such costs or fees may be borne by the
employer, but these fees cannot be passed along to the worker. This is
one of the most crucial elements to eliminate debt bondage for
immigrant workers.
2. Disclosure: Foreign labor contractors and employers must be
required to fully disclose to the worker in writing in English and in
the language of the worker being recruited, all of the terms and
conditions of their work. This includes:
The identity of the employer and the identity of the person
conducting the recruiting on behalf of the employer, including
any subcontractor or agent involved in such recruiting.
A signed copy of the work contract, including all assurances
and terms and conditions of employment, from the prospective
employer for whom the worker is being recruited, including the
level of compensation to be paid, the place and period of
employment, a description of the type and nature of employment
activities, any withholdings or deductions from compensation
and any penalties for terminating employment.
The type of visa under which the foreign worker is to be
employed, the length of time the visa is valid and the terms
and conditions under which this visa will be renewed with a
clear statement of whether the employer will secure renewal of
this visa or if renewal must be obtained by the worker and any
expenses associated with securing or renewing the visa.
An itemized list of any costs or expenses to be charged to
the worker. Including but not limited to: the costs of housing
or accommodation, transportation to
and from the worksite, meals, medical examinations, health care
or safety equipment costs, and any other costs, expenses or
deductions to be charged the worker.
A statement describing the protections afforded the worker
by U.S laws and regulations, including protections in the
Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (Division A of the
Public Law 106486), as well as relevant information about the
procedure for filing a complaint and the telephone numbers for
the Department of Labor hotline and the National Human
Trafficking Resource Center hotline number.
3. Registration: A Department of Labor administered process for
foreign labor contractors to obtain a certificate of registration.
Employers must be required to use only foreign labor contractors who
are properly registered under this system.
4. Enforcement: A Department of Labor established administrative
process for receiving, investigating, and adjudicating complaints
against the compliance of either employers or foreign labor
contractors. Criminal and civil rights of action for workers themselves
are also key to preventing trafficking.
5. Accountability: Workers must be protected from retaliation and
employers must be held accountable for the actions of foreign labor
contractors that they hire.
worker rights as a means to prevent trafficking for labor exploitation
As described earlier, immigrant workers must be included fully in
the protection of labor laws and have access to mechanisms to exercise
their rights and report abuses to reduce their vulnerability to
trafficking. Threats of retaliation, deportation, and visas being tied
to a particular employer all increase the incidence of trafficking for
labor exploitation. For this reason, ATEST also recommends a provision
for the 2011 TVPRA that provide temporary immigration relief to workers
who are whistleblowers of severe labor exploitation. There have been a
number of human trafficking cases recently in the United States where
workers who raised the alarm about severe abuse by employers have
initially been threatened with deportation as a way to keep them quiet.
These workers have had to remain in the United States in an
undocumented status in order to stay in the country to pursue their
cases against the abusive employers. After many years, these same
workers have been certified as trafficking victims and receive ``T''
visas, but had to struggle for many years without status. Examples of
this include the Global Horizons case and a group of Indian workers
known in the media as the Signal Workers. ATEST recommends that a
provision be included in the TVPRA 2011 to give trafficked workers like
these access to temporary immigration relief in the United States while
they pursue claims here, even if they are not initially identified as
trafficking victims.
trafficking in supply chains
Another major trend in the global economy is the use of
trafficking, forced labor, and slavery victims all along supply chains.
It is difficult to quantify the exact number of trafficking victims who
work in global supply chains but, as those supply chains reach down to
smaller and smaller suppliers, the chances increase that the labor
force includes trafficked people.
When employers (buyers and multinational corporations
(MNCs)) demand cheap or unrealistic pricing structures, they
should not be surprised to find severe labor abuses, including
slavery, in their supply chains.
Similarly, when employers contract out or hire unregulated
subcontracted suppliers, they should not be surprised to find
that they have trafficking victims in their production lines
When employers refuse to enforce or claim that it is too
difficult to monitor adherence to core labor standards in their
supply chains, they will find forced labor, debt bondage, and
other severe forms of labor exploitation there.
The Solidarity Center believes that the most effective way to
eliminate forced labor, debt bondage, and other forms of slavery in
supply chains is by empowering workers to have a voice in their
workplace, and supporting their right to organize and join unions. We
believe that governments, MNCs, employers, labor recruiters and others
must adhere to core labor standards and respect workers' human and
labor rights in order to affect change in practices all along supply
chains.
The existence of MNC codes of conduct have failed to curtail
trafficking practices in any number of sectors including garment/
textile, agriculture, and seafood processing. There is no easy solution
to this problem, but we know that a key deterrent is the ability of
unions and labor rights organizations to shine a light on these
practices through on-the-ground investigations. We believe it is
important that the Congress and administration support such monitoring
efforts, and the efforts of workers to monitor their own workplaces.
Ultimately, workers and trade unions must be empowered to monitor
supply chains because history shows that abuses in the
workplace only end when workers have the power to ensure that their
rights in
both International Labor Organization (ILO) conventions and national
laws are respected.
Governments must also play a major role in eliminating slavery in
supply chains. Examples abound of governments around the world
reluctance to hold employers accountable for trafficking in their
workplaces. Even when trafficking for labor exploitation is addressed,
the labor recruiter is blamed and not the employer who perpetrates the
exploitation.
This lack of political will translates into ridiculously few cases
of human trafficking for forced labor or other forms of severe labor
exploitation from being prosecuted around the world. When cases are
prosecuted, they often result in small fines and no jail time for the
perpetrators--barely a deterrent for exploitative employers. The U.S.
Department of Justice is playing an important leadership role globally,
by prosecuting high-profile cases, such as the Global Horizons case,
that may educate other governments of trafficking of temporary workers
and within supply chains. The Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking
in Persons (G/TIP) at the State Department also plays an important role
through its annual Trafficking in Persons Report in highlighting the
lack of (but need for) prosecutions for forced labor and other forms of
trafficking for labor exploitation in countries around the world.
The U.S. Government, however, must do more to ensure that U.S.
corporations are held accountable for their practices abroad. We must
increase government scrutiny of imports and exports to ensure goods
made by slave labor are not allowed in the U.S. marketplace. To this
end, the State Department needs to put more emphasis on site visits
overseas to suspect industries. To do this, it must expand the number
of labor officers and attaches in the field, something that the
Congress has called for generally but which the Department has yet to
act upon in any meaningful way.
In addition, the Department of Homeland Security must review and
rework the role of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in
overseas inspections. Currently, ICE must notify foreign governments of
their intent to inspect workplaces that export products to the United
States. Such notification results in the ``cleansing'' of these
workplaces to remove any signs of trafficking or forced labor. U.S. law
does not allow evidence collected by unions or nongovernmental sources
to be the basis for restricting the importation of products made by
slave labor. This must be reformed.
conclusion
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, in the opening of the 2010
TIP Report, ``Ending this global scourge is an important policy
priority for the United States . . . and no one should claim immunity
from its reach or from the responsibility to confront it.''
We agree. It is not an oversimplification to say that if we end
worker exploitation, we can end human trafficking. As the International
Labor Organization (ILO) has noted, ``Where labor standards are
rigorously adhered to, workers are well unionized and labor laws are
monitored and enforced--for all workers, indigenous or migrant--the
demand for trafficked people and services is likely to be low.''
Thank you, again, for the opportunity to testify and for your help
in combating global trafficking and supporting the rights of workers
everywhere. I welcome your questions.
----------------
End Notes
\1\ The term ``migrant worker'' is the internationally accepted
term for a person who migrates for employment, whether temporary,
seasonal, or permanent. In the United States, in everyday language,
``migrant worker'' refers to a seasonal or temporary worker, and
``immigrant worker'' refers to someone who migrates for work on a more
permanent basis, or who has residency rights. I will use the common
U.S. term of ``immigrant worker'' in my testimony modifying it slightly
to refer to any person who leaves his or her country of origin to find
a job abroad--whether temporary, seasonal or permanent.
\2\ Editorial, ``Forced Labor,'' September 7, 2010, http://
www.nytimes.com/2010/09/08/opinion/08wed2.html?_r=2.
\3\ The term ``domestic worker'' refers to a person who provides
services--such as childcare, cooking, and cleaning--to or within a
household.
\4\ ATEST Comments on RIN 1205-AB58, Temporary Non-Agricultural
Employment of H-2B Aliens in the United States (Employment and Training
Administration, 20 CFR Part 655 and Wage and Hour Division, 29 CFR Part
503), May 17, 2011.
\5\ Southern Poverty Law Center, 2007. ``Close to Slavery:
Guestworker Programs in the United States,'' http://www.splcenter.org/
pdf/static/SPLCguestworker.pdf; Closed and Criminal Cases Illustrate
Instances of H-2B Workers Being Targets of Fraud and Abuse, GAO 10-
1053; testimony submitted by members of the Guestworker Alliance for
Dignity to the House Committee on Oversight and Governmental Reform
Domestic Policy Subcommittee, ``The H-2B Program and Improving the
Department of Labor's Enforcement of the Rights of Guestworkers,''
April 9, 2009; The Costs of Coercion: Global Report under the Follow Up
to the ILO Declaration of the Fundamental Principles and Rights at
Work, International Labor Organization, International Labor Conference,
98th Sess. 2009 Report I(B), http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/
_--ed_norm/_--relconf/documents/meetingdocument/wcms_106230.pdf.
______
Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking,
Washington, DC, June 13, 2012.
Hon. Daniel K. Inouye,
Chairman, U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations.
Hon. Thad Cochran,
Vice Chairman, U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations.
Dear Chairman Inouye and Vice Chairman Cochran: On behalf of the
Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking (ATEST), a national advocacy
coalition of anti-human trafficking groups, we write to urge you to
vote NO on any amendments that will deny funding or delay the
enforcement of the U.S. Department of Labor's (DOL) H-2B prevailing
wage and comprehensive rules. We understand that such an amendment will
be offered during the Labor/HHS markup this week, and we urge you to
vote NO.
DOL's H-2B prevailing wage and comprehensive rules are critical
measures necessary to prevent human trafficking in the United States.
The DOL rules will make important progress towards eliminating the
history of criminal abuses that continue to plague this program. These
violations range from labor violations to visa fraud, debt bondage to
involuntary servitude, and discrimination to trafficking for labor
exploitation.
The DOL rules are a crucial piece of the United States fight
against human trafficking. Specifically, the DOL rules impose common
sense recruitment requirements so that companies first look to U.S.
workers to fill seasonal jobs, including those they have recently laid
off; they outlaw the exorbitant ``recruitment fees'' that have led to
human trafficking and debt bondage for many foreign guestworkers; they
require employers to disclose the names of their recruiters and to
prohibit them from charging fees--a major step in preventing human
trafficking; and they beef up DOL oversight of employers who use the
program in order to ensure compliance with the rules.
From December 2007 through March 2011, the National Human
Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC) received 459 calls referencing the
H-2A or H-2B programs. The majority of calls referenced situations of
labor exploitation of immigrant workers, including wage and hour
concerns, unsafe or hazardous working conditions, potential
discrimination, and forced labor.
Of particular concern to ATEST members, key aspects of the H-2B
program lead to human rights violations such as debt bondage and
trafficking for labor exploitation and involuntary servitude, all forms
of modern-day slavery. Relying on unscrupulous labor recruiters and
foreign labor contractors greatly increases guestworkers'
vulnerability. Labor recruiters and contractors, who operate in a
climate of impunity, lure impoverished and desperate foreign workers to
jobs within the United States described as plentiful and lucrative.
They rely on coercive tactics, charging guestworkers exorbitant illegal
fees that often force workers to stay in abusive or exploitative
working conditions under debt bondage.
Once guestworkers arrive in the United States, the well paid jobs
that recruiters and labor contractors offered do not materialize.
Workers are left without work at all, or without work for the length of
time promised them. Harsh conditions replace the favorable terms and
conditions of work offered in the home country. Workers who are
dissatisfied with the jobs face overwhelming pressures to acquiesce:
Job contractors transfer workers, for a price, to other
contractors.
Employers confiscate passports and other immigration and
identity documents are confiscated to ensure that workers do
not run away from exploitative conditions.
Families back home face threats of physical violence, as
well as family bankruptcy due to loss of their investment in
the worker.
Abuses from the H-2B program further stem from the fact that
guestworker visas are tied to a specific employer and thus they
may not change jobs even when abused. Workers who dare speak up
for their rights face job loss, followed by deportation to
their home countries and blacklisting. This fear of deportation
or retaliation increases their vulnerability to a whole host of
workplace abuses including underpayment of wages, lack of
overtime pay, discrimination, document confiscation,
restriction of movement, verbal abuse, threats, blacklisting,
and unsafe work conditions.
These exploitative conditions trap workers in myriad situations
that rise to the level of a severe form of human trafficking, as
defined by federal law, most notably coercion through abuse or
threatened abuse of the law or legal process.
In addition to protecting workers from abuse, these new rules can
promote change around the world. If the United States is to continue as
a leader in the fight to end human trafficking and modern-day slavery,
we need to start with our own government policies. This is why we urge
your support for the DOL rules, and ask you to vote NO on any
amendments to deny funding or delay enforcement of the H-2B prevailing
wage and comprehensive rules.
Thank you for your time and consideration. Please contact Cory
Smith, ATEST Senior Policy Advisor at [email protected] if you have
any questions or need additional information.
Sincerely,
Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking
(CAST); Coalition of Immokalee Workers
(CIW); ECPAT-USA; Free the Slaves;
International Justice Mission; Not For
Sale; Safe Horizon; Solidarity Center;
Verite; Vital Voices Global Partnership.
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