“Human trafficking is an offense against human dignity, a crime in which human beings, many of them teenagers and young children, are bought and sold and often sexually abused by violent criminals.”
These were the words of President George W. Bush as he signed the 2005 Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) last month. At the signing ceremony, which took place on January 10, 2006, at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, President Bush declared the U.S. government’s ongoing commitment to fighting against trafficking and to reaching out and supporting its victims. Flanking the president were those members of Congress most instrumental in passing the legislation. Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) and U.S. Representatives Chris Smith (R-NJ), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), and Deborah Pryce (R-OH) received Bush’s praise for their passion and energy in the battle against trafficking.
President George W. Bush signs the 2005 Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act into law. He is watched by members of Congress who played a major role in this legislation: (L-R) U.S. Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-OH); Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS); U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ); and U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY). (Photo by Donna Hughes) |
The new law has a strong focus on trafficking both globally and in the United States. It combines reauthorization of the international Trafficking Victims Protection Act, as introduced by Rep. Smith, and passage of the domestically-focused End Demand Act, introduced by Reps. Pryce and Maloney. The latter is designed to curb the demand for commercial sex and to extend desperately-needed social services for those wishing to escape prostitution here at home. The combined bill passed unanimously in both houses of Congress in December 2005. Smith had proposed the original Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000, along with U.S. Representative Sam Gejdenson (D-CT), the late Senator Paul D. Wellstone (D-MN), and Senator Brownback.
Now the TVPRA of 2005 is the third public law of the United States to deal specifically with this offense against human dignity, justifiably referred to as “modern-day slavery.” Another related law, signed by the president in April 2003, is the PROTECT Act. That act strengthens law enforcement’s ability to prevent, investigate, prosecute, and punish violent crimes committed against children, including sex tourism.
Supporters of IRD’s religious liberty program have long been aware that slavery did not disappear in the nineteenth century. They know of the enslavement of tens of thousands of black Africans in Southern Sudan. But it has taken longer to expose this other form of modern-day slavery that abuses and degrades innocent human beings. The contempt for fellow human beings found in trafficking is not inspired by racism, as in slavery in Sudan, but by the pitilessness and greed of those who see other people as dispensable commodities. Traffickers are chillingly unconcerned for the well-being of their victims, because there is an endless supply of them. Traffickers’ victims are not selected by racial category, but by their vulnerability, their naiveté, and their desperation.
In trafficking, victims are forced, coerced, or tricked into labor or sexual exploitation. In some cases, abduction and physical force are used to capture victims. In other cases, victims are deceived by false promises of jobs and then forced to remain in bondage with threats to themselves and their families.
IRD Religious Liberty Program Director, Faith McDonnell, congratulates U.S. Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) on another human rights legislative success. |
According to the Facts About Human Traffickingreport from the Bureau of Public Affairs in May 2004, annually about 600,000 to 800,000 people – mostly women and children – are trafficked across national borders. An additional number of people are trafficked within their own countries. Of course, trafficking damages and destroys the individual victims. They are physically and emotionally abused, subject to sickness and disease, deprived of their human rights, and even killed. But trafficking also threatens the safety and security of every nation that it touches. It is a global health risk, and it fuels the growth of organized crime and its associated criminal activities. But it is definitely a money-making enterprise. The FBI reports that human trafficking generates an estimated $9.5 billion in annual revenue.
In today’s world, too often human traffickers abuse the trust of children and expose them to the worst of life at a young age. It takes a perverse form of evil to exploit and hurt those vulnerable members of society. Human traffickers operate with greed and without conscience, treating their victims as nothing more than goods and commodities for sale to the highest bidder. – President George W. Bush, January 10, 2006
U.S. Action to Stop Trafficking
America has a particular duty to fight this horror because human trafficking is an affront to the defining promise of our country. – President Bush
Since the signing of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000, the U.S. government has been fighting to end the trafficking of human beings around the world. The IRD is one of the founding members of a Washington, DC, coalition that helped to advance this legislation. The TVPA and the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2003 authorized the establishment within the U.S. State Department of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. The office is ably directed by Ambassador John J. Miller, who says that the office is on “a mission to eradicate modern-day slavery.” The Trafficking in Persons Report, which annually monitors the anti-trafficking efforts (or lack thereof) of 150 countries around the world, is produced by this office.
Another tremendous asset in the fight against trafficking came in February 2002, when the president signed an executive order establishing an Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. This task force ensures coordination between various U.S. government agencies, including the Department of State, the Department of Justice, the Department of Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Office of the National Security Advisor, and the U.S. Agency for International Development, in anti-trafficking efforts.
Efforts to crack down on domestic trafficking can be traced back to mid-2003. In a conversation with Ambassador Miller, U.S. Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA) expressed a desire that the protection from trafficking being offered to girls and women in other parts of the world extend to the United States as well. According to anti-trafficking activist Michael Horowitz, Wolf spoke of the need to deal with “the enslavement and destruction of runaway girls picked up at bus stations by malevolent predators, and of the need to take on a massive and criminal domestic commercial sex ‘industry.'”
A direct result of that conversation between the anti-trafficking ambassador and the intrepid member of Congress was the first-ever national training conference on human trafficking in the United States. That conference, held in Tampa, Florida, in July 2004, brought together federal, state, and local prosecutors and law enforcement officials, scholars, and advocates, as well as survivors and victims of sex trafficking. The IRD’s Faith McDonnell was recommended by the White House to the Department of Justice for participation in the conference. McDonnell was impressed by the efficient and dedicated tackling of trafficking by Department of Justice personnel at all levels. Horowitz described the conference as the “first shot fired in a growing effort to protect vulnerable girls from the devastations of prostitution and to end the free ride enjoyed by its criminal perpetrators and enablers.”
Anti-trafficking allies pose at the White House signing ceremony for the TVPRA: Lisa Thompson, director, Initiative Against Sexual Trafficking at The Salvation Army National Headquarters; Dr. Donna Hughes, Professor & Carlson Endowed Chair, Women’s Studies Program, University of Rhode Island; and Faith McDonnell, Director, Religious Liberty Programs, IRD. (Photo courtesy Barrett Duke) |
Passing laws is not the only way to combat trafficking. Grassroots advocates and scholars such as Dr. Donna Hughes, a professor at the University of Rhode Island, are working to educate the public and to confront the traffickers. In October 2005 a Lifetime television mini-series on “Human Trafficking” portrayed the international scourge of trafficking.
In December 2005 an equally dramatic real-life event took place. Anti-trafficking activists from the Polaris Project found out about a planned Chicago Players’ Ball. For 30 years, pimps have met in Chicago to celebrate the past year’s profits from the exploitation and abuse of women and girls. With only three days’ notice to plan an opposition campaign, members of the Washington, DC, coalition contacted religious and political leaders and activists in Chicago and turned the self-congratulating pimps’ party into a protest and demand for criminal prosecution. Dr. Hughes compiled an extensive report on the Players’ Ball Protest, complete with photographs and links to media coverage. Horowitz concludes, “The coalition now has the confidence, ability, and will to de-legitimize all coming Players’ Balls.”
The IRD continues to participate in anti-trafficking efforts. Coalition members are concerned that the new law has not yet been funded. Since the appropriations process had already taken place by the time the bill was signed, there was not an opportunity to secure funding through regular channels. In addition, we are troubled by the failure of U.S. agencies and the world community to trace the thousands of African Sudanese who remain enslaved to this day. We hope to see U.S. churches become strong advocates for victims of trafficking both here and abroad, and to join us in our effort to make the locating and releasing of Sudanese slaves a new facet of the U.S. Department of State’s trafficking office. Stopping the victimization and abuse of women and children by trafficking is a cause that should be supported by both official U.S. church agencies and the reform and renewal movements within the various denominations. In our ongoing efforts to reform the political and social witness of the churches, the IRD will urge their participation in this worthy cause, fighting against “modern day slavery,” and the worthy goal of bringing freedom, healing, and restoration to the captives.
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