Mikhail Bell
August 8, 2012
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On June 19, the State Department held its annual release ceremony for the 2011 Trafficking in Persons Report release. The compendium of global anti-trafficking progress assessed 186 countries this year, up from 82 in 2001. This year, the State Department elevated 21 countries from a lower tier, suggesting that human trafficking is overcoming the age old foreign policy challenge of political will.
By law the United States must issue the TIP report annually however it did not rank itself until 2010. “I think it’s important that we hold ourselves to the same standard as everyone else,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton affirmed.
“[The report] gives a clear and honest assessment of where all of us are making progress on our commitments and where we are either standing still or even sliding backwards. It takes a hard look at every government in the world, including our own,” she asserted.
The State Department’s sustained attention to trafficking in persons is connecting with audiences in nearly every sector of American life. The 2012 ceremony drew supporters and activists from far and wide as Hollywood celebrities Will and Jada Pinkett Smith attended the gathering. Despite the fanfare, international anti-trafficking organizations still took center stage.
Mrs. Smith recently announced plans to launch a website about the issue after her daughter Willow demonstrated concern.
The increased attention did not derail anyone’s focus. Notably, the unveiling honored leaders of two Christian-founded anti-trafficking organizations. Gary Haugen, International Justice Mission (IJM) founder and CEO, is synonymous with human trafficking advocacy and victim protection around the world. The TIP Report praised the former Department of Justice trial attorney’s efforts to “preserve rule of law around the globe” in its latest account of human trafficking. Since Haugen founded IJM in 1997 it has expanded its operations to over 15 countries.
Since 2006, the organization has aided approximately “4,000 victims of sex trafficking and forced labor” that led to “220 criminal convictions.” IJM’s most recent success was in the Christian and Muslim-inhabited Philippines, where local partners saw a 79% decrease in supply of minors for commercial sex.
A21, nearly 10 years younger than IJM, stormed onto the into anti-trafficking scene in 2007 with its Pentecostal founder Christine Caine as its public face. The Hillsong Church alumna, who is of Greek ancestry, opened their first office in Thessaloniki, Greece, against the advice of consultants. The experts weredeeply concerned about organized crime’s ability to restrict due process and intimidate victims. Since their inauspicious beginning, the organization has opened five more offices on three continents.
Peter Hyldgaard, Europe Director of the A21 Campaign, has assisted in victim protection by opening the organization’s first shelter. The edifice assisted 21 survivors in 2011 who were connected with a reintegration program that trained them in income generation techniques. Hyldgaard’s reach is international as he was a key actor in helping the organization open offices in the United States, United Kingdom, Bulgaria, and the Ukraine.
Secretary Clinton reminded: “we should take a moment to reflect on how far we have come, here in our country and around the world, but how much farther we still have to go to find a way to free those 27 million victims and to ensure that there are no longer any victims in the future.”
Ambassador-At-Large and Director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons Louis Cdebaca extolled the bipartisan nature of anti-trafficking efforts in a teleconference before the TIP report’s unveiling as “the Clinton Administration’s signature antislavery achievement continued and intensified by the Bush Administration and now taken to the next level by the Obama Administration.”
While America’s foreign policy arm embraces faith-based motivations for human rights activists, the domestically focused Department of Health and Human Services has picked a fight with U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The latter group was denied grant funding in the fall of 2011 because it refused to provide the “full range of reproductive services” to human trafficking survivors. The USCCB won the same grant six years prior without equivalent rancor from on high.
Steve Wagner, HHS’s anti-trafficking program director from 2003-2006, recently challenged his former employers. Speaking to the Catholic News Agency, he described the abortion push as ‘totally inappropriate” because it empowers traffickers. The Renewal Forum president also indicated that coercive pimps nullify informed consent as they are solely concerned with maximizing profits. In this scenario, the victim, who is, say, a 15 year old female runaway, would not have the option of bringing the pregnancy to term.
“Any person of good will, with any kind of moral conscience, would agree that a person should be able to provide informed consent before any kind of medical procedure is performed on them,” he concluded.
Interestingly, most government reports have expunged any references to the religious affiliation of anti-trafficking organizations. This pre-dates the Obama administration but suggests a focus on inclusion through mission over faith.
Globally, reported human trafficking convictions increased from 3,619 to 3,969 last year showing that governments are not afraid to pursue illicit actors wherever they operate. This number reflects cooperative efforts between governments, civil society, and law enforcement to disarm a common enemy.
Ironically, in the United States, where we fought a civil war to criminalize human enslavement, a religious organization has become a victim of friendly fire. While HHS shifts its focus to mandating a liberalized view of human trafficking victim services, understaffed vice units are trying to fight transnational crime syndicates in their cities, children are hosting baked sales to support international anti-trafficking organizations, and the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons is operating on a reduced budget to tackle a rapidly growing crime. Meanwhile, an agency has punished a religious organization for upholding a central tenant of their beliefs in valuing every life equally.
The debate appears to revolve around whether a faith-based organization is obligated to violate their conscience and refer minors to abortion clinics. However, it seems that cooperative, not coercive, mandates may be the order of the day. The dichotomous reception of faith-based organizations by government departments suggests this conversation will continue for some time to come.
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