Highlighting a growing international problem, the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs held a hearing on February 22 to discuss international trafficking in persons, particularly women and children. According to the State Department, over one million women and children each year are trafficked around the world. Victims are either coerced, forced, or deceived into domestic or sexual servitude, sweatshop labor, or other debt bondage. Traffickers prey upon the vulnerabilities of potential victims, which more often than not stem from economic desperation. Subcommittee Chair Sam Brownback (R-KS) opened the hearing saying that trafficking rings were “the greatest manifestation of slavery in the world today.”
While there is widespread agreement that the issue of trafficking must be addressed, there is disagreement over the best approach. Several measures (H.R. 1356, H.R. 3244, H.R. 3154, S. 600, S. 1842) aimed at combating trafficking have been introduced, with each one taking a slightly different approach. At issue is the breadth of the definition of trafficking and the penalties for countries that fail to address the issue.
Late last year, the House International Relations Committee approved a bill (H.R. 3244) sponsored by Reps. Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Sam Gejdenson (D-CT), which included a broad definition of trafficking and imposed sanctions on countries failing to meet certain requirements with respect to trafficking (see The Source, 11/12/99). That bill represented a compromise between Reps. Smith and Gejdenson after an International Relations subcommittee approved a narrower bill (H.R. 1356) that only addressed sexual trafficking (see The Source, 8/6/99, p. 9). Since then, Rep. Gejdenson and Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-MN) have reintroduced comprehensive bills (H.R. 3154 and S. 1842) that aim to allay the concerns of the administration as well as advocates.
Addressing the breadth of the situation, Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs Frank Loy said that “trafficking in women and children is now considered the third largest source of profits for organized crime, behind only drugs and guns.” According to Mr. Loy, 45,000-50,000 women and children are trafficked annually into the United States. Of those trafficked, approximately half are trafficked into the commercial sex industry and the other half are trafficked into sweatshop or domestic labor. As such, he told the subcommittee that “if we are to be effective in our fight against trafficking, we cannot limit our efforts to one form of trafficking over another.”
Mr. Loy expressed his support for S. 1842, saying that “it goes the furthest in providing needed tools to address trafficking.” Although many of the bills introduced have similar proposals in terms of preventing trafficking, protecting victims of trafficking, and prosecuting traffickers, Mr. Loy reiterated the administration’s concern about imposing economic sanctions, such as those included in H.R. 3244. “Economic sanctions would exacerbate the root causes of trafficking by making the targeted countries poorer and leaving victims even more vulnerable to traffickers.”
Regan Ralph of Human Rights Watch also described the severity of international trafficking, detailing four Human Rights Watch investigations. One investigation revealed trafficking of Thai women into Japan’s sex industry, another documented trafficking of women from Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union into Bosnia, the third revealed trafficking of Burmese women and girls into brothels in Thailand, and the last demonstrated trafficking of Nepalese women and girls into brothels in India. Calling upon Congress to act quickly, Ms. Ralph said, “This is a crucial moment in the fight against trafficking….It is imperative that the United States take advantage of this moment and demonstrate its leadership on this critical human rights issue.”
Additionally, the subcommittee heard from a woman who was trafficked into the United States under the guise that she would be working in a restaurant. When she arrived, she was forced into a brothel where she worked for several months until it was raided by the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. She pleaded with the subcommittee: “We need the law to protect us from this horror.”
