On March 10, the House International Relations Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations approved, by voice vote, a bill (H.R. 972) to reauthorize the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (P.L. 106-386). In 2003, that law was reauthorized for two years and is now set to expire at the end of this year.
Bill sponsor Subcommittee Chair Chris Smith (R-NJ) praised the success of the original law, saying, “Today, governments around the world are enacting laws to combat trafficking, traffickers are increasingly likely to face prosecution and conviction, and governments, NGOs and faith communities have reached out to heal survivors of trafficking.” While H.R. 972 would reauthorize current anti-trafficking programs, Rep. Smith said, “The bill also offers solutions to a number of specific scenarios in which trafficking is a problem, but which our experience has shown could benefit from additional initiatives.”
Overall, the bill would authorize roughly $125 million in each of FY2006 and FY2007 for anti-trafficking programs across a number of federal agencies. Of that amount $15 million would be provided to the Department of Health and Human Services; $30 million to the State Department; $15 million to the Department of Justice; $30.6 million to the president; $10 million to the Department of Labor; and $15 million for the Federal Bureau of Investigation to investigate domestic trafficking in persons.
The bill would require the secretary of State and the administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), in consultation with the secretary of Defense, to conduct a study regarding the threat and practice of trafficking in persons generated by post-conflict and humanitarian emergencies in foreign countries and make specific recommendations to combat such practices. The bill also would require the U.S. government to “take such actions as are necessary to implement the recommendations contained in the report.”
H.R. 972 would require established sex offender registries to include convictions in foreign courts. Additionally, a new Guardian Ad Litem Program for child victims of trafficking would be established under the bill. The director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement at the Department of Health and Human Services would be given the authority to appoint a guardian to an unaccompanied alien child who is believed to be a victim of trafficking. The bill would require that the guardian be a child welfare professional who has received training on the nature of problems encountered by victims of trafficking, and the guardian would be charged with investigating whether the child is a victim of trafficking and helping the child receive services.
Further, the legislation would authorize $2.5 million in each of FY2006 and FY2007 to create a pilot program to establish residential treatment facilities in foreign countries for victims of trafficking. USAID would be charged with studying the issue and choosing two sites to operate the program.
The measure contains several provisions aimed at enhancing the prosecution of trafficking offenses. The bill would allow federal contractors working outside the U.S. to be prosecuted in the U.S. if they violate human trafficking or sexual exploitation laws while working abroad. Also, a new offense would be added to the Uniform Code of Military Justice to make it a crime to knowingly recruit, entice, harbor, transport, provide, or obtain by any means a person for the purposes of sex trafficking or trafficking for labor or services.
Under the legislation, the secretary of Defense, the secretary of Homeland Security, and the director of National Intelligence would be appointed to the current Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking, and the task force would be authorized at $5.5 million in each of FY2006 and FY2007.
The State Department would be required to add information to its annual Trafficking in Persons Report on measures taken by the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to prevent the involvement of the organizations’ employees, contractor personnel, and peacekeeping forces in trafficking in persons or sexual exploitation of victims. Additionally, the secretary of State would be required to certify that these multilateral organizations have taken appropriate measures.
H.R. 972 would establish a director of anti-trafficking policies within the Department of Defense to oversee the implementation of anti-trafficking policies within the department. The Department of Labor would be tasked with monitoring the use of forced labor and child labor in violation of international standards, providing information to the State Department regarding the trafficking in persons for the purpose of forced labor, developing a publicly available list of goods from countries believed to engage in forced labor or child labor, working with those involved in the production of said goods to establish best practices, and consulting with other departments and agencies to reduce forced labor and child labor.
Lastly, the Department of Health and Human Services would be authorized to identify best practices to reduce the demand for commercial sex acts within the U.S. and to create a program implementing those best practices. A new grant program would be authorized to provide grants to develop, expand, and strengthen victim service programs for victims of domestic trafficking. Additionally, $5 million in each of FY2006 and FY2007 would be authorized to establish residential treatment facilities in the U.S. for minor victims of domestic trafficking.
