On June 13, the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and Human Rights held a hearing, “Best Practices and Next Steps: A New Decade in the Fight Against Human Trafficking.”
Chair Chris Smith (R-NJ) said, “Traffickers use airlines to move their victims, hotels to exploit sex trafficking victims, and unsuspecting buyers to pay for goods that have been made with raw materials tainted by forced and bonded labor. It is estimated that there are anywhere from 12 to 27 million sex and labor trafficking victims in the world at any given time. We know that organized crime, street gangs, and pimps have expanded into sex trafficking at an alarming rate. It is an extremely lucrative undertaking – a trafficker can make $200,000 a year off of one victim. Unlike drugs or weapons, a human being can be held captive and sold into sexual slavery over and over again. And we are just beginning to understand the full scope of labor trafficking…This hearing provides an important opportunity to see what new and effective measures are being taken by various stakeholders, and what the U.S. government can do to help encourage and facilitate those efforts. Of particular interest are the evolving roles of public-private partnerships. In the past five years, several effective initiatives that aim to prevent trafficking and assist victims have been undertaken by the private sector…This hearing will highlight the need to harness the insights and expertise of government and various actors from civil society alike…Such partnerships bring together a broader range of expertise, leverage resources to obtain better results, and spread awareness to people who can make a difference but who may otherwise never hear about human trafficking.”
Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA) said, “The non-profit organization Free the Slaves estimates that there are 27 million people internationally currently enslaved and within the United States; the U.S. Department of Justice estimates that nearly 18,000 men, women, and children are trafficked across our borders annually. Unfortunately, many trafficking victims do not receive the level of emotional and physical assistance that they need. One of the most disturbing elements of human trafficking is that a large percentage of trafficking victims are minors. In fact, the average age at which girls first become victims of sexual exploitation in the U.S. is 13. These young victims require special attention and care. As a longtime advocate for children, and particularly foster youth, I will be introducing legislation that will strengthen the ability of child welfare professionals to identify and support victims and will provide specialized support for trafficking victims within the foster care system. I look forward to working alongside my colleagues on this committee as well as joining forces with our witnesses today to move this legislation forward.”
Ambassador-at-Large Luis CdeBaca, director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons at the Department of State, discussed the importance of the Trafficking in Persons Report, saying, “As has been the case throughout the early years of this movement, strong and effective government action will continue to be central to this fight. Our best tool for assessing those efforts is the State Department’s annualTrafficking in Persons Report. This report currently ranks more than 180 countries, including the United States, according to a set of minimum standards set forth by Congress in the TVPA and consistent with the 3P Paradigm [prevention, protection, and prosecution]. In the report every country is ranked against itself in terms of its progress, and against its capacity to deal with this crime. A particularly relevant example for this subcommittee is the case of Nigeria. Though that country lacks the capacity of many countries in the developed world, its government has nonetheless developed innovative structures and partnerships for dealing with this crime. For the last two years, Nigeria has merited placement on Tier 1 in our report. I was happy to learn that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has asked a Nigerian delegation to demonstrate their innovative practices at a conference in Singapore next month. Leaders around the world have credited the Report as a motivating factor for government action. As Congress considers reauthorization, it is important that we maintain and strengthen this diagnostic and diplomatic tool.”
Ambassador CdeBaca added, “All governments can and must do more. Even if a country has a well established rule of law and sufficient economic resources, that does not mean its government can stand by and presume that the mere existence of an anti-trafficking law will be adequate to meet this challenge. In such cases where general legal and social systems function well, we must ask whether those systems are serving the victims of this crime, or excluding them. Victims are often unwilling or unable to self-identify, and because of cultural expectations or unfamiliarity with their rights, many do not even know they are victims of trafficking. That’s why it is incumbent upon such governments not only to aggressively prosecute traffickers, but to couple effective law enforcement with robust victim identification and protection efforts, and proactive attempts to prevent this crime. Effective implementation of a legal framework also means refining and strengthening available tools to adapt to a growing and changing understanding of modern slavery. For instance, in recent years we have learned about the particular vulnerability to trafficking among migrant populations, and the practices of unscrupulous labor recruiters who may move their victims across borders. We have recognized the widespread sexual abuse experienced by women in labor trafficking. While governments in the receiving countries must prosecute traffickers, engage in careful screening of potential victims, and protect survivors, it is also necessary for governments in sending countries to crack down on fraudulent recruitment practices. The future of this struggle must be informed by our evolving knowledge of this crime and the different ways to fight it.”
Deborah Cundy, vice president of Carlson, a privately held travel and hospitality company, and Nancy Rivard, president of Airline Ambassadors International, discussed the efforts of the travel and hospitality industry to combat human trafficking. Ms. Cundy said, “In 2004, Carlson was approached by the U.S. State Department to sign what is known as the travel industry’s Code of Conduct to protect children from sexual exploitation. We were shocked to learn that at any moment in time more than 2 million children are being sexually abused. In the travel industry, this abuse is sometimes played out in hotels at tourism sites around the world. There are hotels that are complicit in these activities but often they are unwitting facilitators. The Code of Conduct basically asks that the signatory train its employees in what to look for and how to report it so that the employee base becomes a virtual army of eyes and ears. The Code asks that the signatory raises awareness among its customers, that it includes language in its supplier contracts and corporate ethics policy repudiating the sexual exploitation of children, and that it reports annually on its activities to the Code Secretariat.”
Ms. Rivard added, “I founded Airline Ambassadors in 1996 for airline personnel using their travel privileges to help children. We are the only humanitarian organization of the overall airline industry and are leading the effort to raise awareness on the issue of human trafficking…Airline Ambassadors has developed training specific for airline, airport, and hotel employees to identify the visible signs of trafficking and protocols to respond. We provided training just before the Super Bowl, which had an overwhelming response and was attended by flight crews from four airlines, TSA [Transportation Security Administration], and airport employees.” Ms. Rivard continued, “On May 31, 2011, the flight attendant unions, APFA (Association of Professional Flight Attendants) and the AFA (Association of Flight Attendants), collectively representing 70,000 flight attendants from 22 airlines, joined Airline Ambassadors at Dulles Airport for the signing of landmark human trafficking legislation by the governor of Virginia. We are also partnering with the First Lady of the Dominican Republic, Sra. Margarita de Fernandez, to launch the first human trafficking web portal during the United Nations General Assembly in September 2011.”
Chai Ling, founder of All Girls Allowed, explained the connection between China’s “One Child Policy” and human trafficking: “The One-Child Policy and a cultural preference for sons has led to the elimination of millions of China’s girls, which in turn has created an influx of young men and an increased demand for brides. What has emerged is a black market of stolen children unlike anything the world has ever seen, leaving Chinese families fearful every day for the safety of their children. There are 37 million more men than women in China. Many of these ‘bare branches’ will never wed, settle down, and create their own families. Because of this, some Chinese families are willing to go to desperate measures to ensure that their sons will marry. Even with the costs of rearing a child, purchasing a child bride is the most economical way to guarantee that a son may wed when he is older. The cost of purchasing and raising a child bride is less than ten percent of the cost of a traditional wedding. This practice is not an age-old cultural tradition that should be respected. It is the kidnapping and selling of toddler girls to be raised as slaves. It is a recent, tragic consequence of the One-Child Policy and extreme poverty. Today in China, 550 children are stolen every day, usually from poor families unable to afford child care – that’s 200,000 children a year. In comparison, the U.S. sees 115 kidnappings per year. We can expect this problem to get much worse as the gender imbalance increases.” Ms. Ling added, “In April 2009, Chinese security and police forces launched a campaign to reunite trafficked children with their families. During this nine-month anti-trafficking campaign, police rescued a total of 14,717 women and children. Police also arrested 17,528 suspects, including 19 who had a level A (most wanted) warrant against them. The authorities have been able to match thousands more through various methods, including DNA databases and social media. The Ministry of Public Security has begun to crack down on organized crime groups trafficking children to be used as beggars. A new online campaign to publish photographs of child beggars is helping to reunite families with children who have been kidnapped. Yet, so far, our research has shown that very little to nothing is being done about the problem of child brides.”
“Tin, tungsten, tantalum, and gold are extensively mined in the Eastern Congo. These minerals are ubiquitously known today as ‘conflict minerals’ for their role in fueling the world’s deadliest ongoing conflict,” said Kevin Bales, president, Free the Slaves. He continued, “These tainted minerals follow a complex supply chain around the world, with most mineral supplies sold to smelters in Asia and Europe. Having been smelted, further refined, and processed, the minerals are incorporated into component parts, and then assembled by end user companies in a range of products, from portable electronics to medical devices to advanced aeronautics. At the end of these supply chains are consumers – who unintentionally play a role in fueling the conflict and underwriting modern slavery and the worst sexual violence in the world. Mr. Bales added, “Girls and women ultimately carry the greatest burden in this war, for their bodies are literally taken and used both as weapon and battlefield. In our meetings, group after group described how militias and the Congolese army alike target women and girls in their attacks on villages and will often take them into the bush to serve as sexual slaves. Some women and girls wind up in mining sites this way, while others are lured into mining zones by older women who promise to provide for them but in fact sell them for sexual exploitation in exchange for small quantities of mineral ore. Girls as young as twelve are prostituted by these older women, and there is great demand for young girls and teenagers. Still other girls are born into the mines, likely doomed to sexual predation from birth. From one account, women aren’t allowed to work in the actual mines. And because women make even less than men – less than a dollar a day – they often feel they must resort to prostitution, and indeed feel pressure from family to do so. The dearth of alternatives is particularly pronounced for girls since there are rarely schools near mining sites and they feel increased pressures from their family to contribute to household income in these communities, where inflation of prices on basic goods is extraordinary, and the cost of living prohibitive.”
David Abramowitz, director, Policy and Government Relations, Humanity United; and Philip Kowalczyk, president, The Body Shop Americas and executive board member, The Body Shop International, also testified.
