**Statement of Michele A. Clark**

**Co Director**

**The Protection Project of the Johns Hopkins University School of
Advanced International Studies**

**House Committee on Government Reform**

# Subcommittee on Human Rights and Wellness

**"Trafficking in Persons in the United States: Unfinished Business"**

**July 8, 2004**

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee:

Thank you for the invitation to testify today before the House Committee
on Government Reform. It is an honor to be here to speak on behalf of
victims of trafficking - American women as well as women from over 40
countries trafficked into the United States and brutally thrust into
conditions of abuse, torture, serial rape and forced labor.

My name is Michele Clark and I am the co-director of The Protection
Project, a human rights research institute located at the Johns Hopkins
University School of Advanced International Studies. For the past seven
years, we have focused on documenting and analyzing the complex
dimensions of human trafficking in the Unites States and around the
world. We have worked with members of Congress and US Government
agencies as well as representatives of foreign governments and NGOs to
develop sound policy and practices in the war against trafficking and
conduct training, here and abroad, on the provision of services to
victims of trafficking, drafting anti-trafficking legislation, and
identifying victims of trafficking.

Over the past two years, Protection Project staff have traveled to over
30 countries on 5 different continents, and to cities around the United
States. On behalf of the many victims of trafficking we have spoken with
in places as diverse as the Amazon jungle regions of Peru, prisons in
the United Arab Emirates, villages of Moldova and neighborhoods of
Washington, DC, Atlanta, Chicago and San Francisco, I would like to
thank you for your strong support of the Trafficking Victims Protection
Act (TVPA) as well as the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization
Act (TVPRA), and your concerns, evidenced by this hearing, that these
Acts be fully and properly implemented.

## Public Misperceptions

The level of awareness of trafficking as a form of modern day slavery is
growing. An understanding of what trafficking is, however, and how it
impacts our daily lives, remains unclear. Our perceptions of human
trafficking in the US are fueled by myths and misperceptions. We are
confused and troubled, but because we do not understand, our default
emotional response is to distance ourselves from the tragedy around us.
What are some of the areas of misunderstanding?

-   We still confuse abusive alien smuggling and human trafficking.

-   We are still ignorant about domestic servitude in our own cities and
    find it hard to believe that human beings can be held in such
    conditions of slavery.

-   We tend to believe that, if there is trafficking, it us usually for
    commercial sexual exploitation.

-   We find it almost impossible to understand that clandestine brothels
    in affluent suburbs can exist, where women are forced to provide
    sexual services to men of the community and are then moved around to
    other cities in this country.

-   If we do pause long enough to consider trafficking as a reality, we
    associate it with large cities and ports of entry, border states, or
    states which have a history of migrant farm workers. What we do not
    recognize is that trafficking trends have shifted to the Midwest,
    the Northwest, New England, and the Southwest. According to the
    Assessment of US Government Efforts to Combat Trafficking dated June
    2004, trafficking cases have been documented in all but four states
    in this country.

-   And finally, we tend to believe that trafficking is limited to
    foreign men and women, boys and girls. We are not ready to admit
    that this could happen to our own.

**The Investigation and Prosecution of Trafficking Cases in the United
States**

According to the June 2004 Assessment of the US Government Activities to
Combat Trafficking in Persons, a total of 153 trafficking investigations
were open as of April 2004 within the Civil Rights Division of the US
Department of Justice. Between Fiscal Years 2001 and 2003, prosecutions
were initiated against 110 traffickers by the Civil Rights Division
(DOJ) and US Attorneys offices, with 78 convictions and guilty pleas
secured. In Fiscal Year 2003 alone, 30 defendants were charged. These
numbers all represent significant increases from the previous years,
with the rate of prosecutions having increased three-fold compared to
the three fiscal years prior to 2001-2002, and with the rate of
convictions doubling over the three fiscal years prior to 2001-2003.

## Continued Public Outreach

The Assessment of US Government Activities to Combat Trafficking in
Persons (June 2004) acknowledges a significant gap between the numbers
of victims of trafficking in the United States and the number of victims
which the US Government has been able to assist with immigration,
protective and social services. The US Government is therefore placing
the expansion of training and outreach at the center of its strategies
to reach more victims.

The US Government has engaged in a number of activities in order to
close the gap and increase outreach activity to victims. Some of these
activities have proven to be very successful. These include a public
information newsletter published by the Civil Rights Division of the
Department of Justice, launched in January 2004, and the Trafficking in
Persons and Worker Exploitation Task Force Complaint Line, launched in
February 2000, a toll-free phone line which allows individuals to call
in anonymous tips of suspected trafficking activity. Together with the
Department of Justice's other outreach activities, the Complaint Line
has provided invaluable assistance in the fight against trafficking.
*Over half* of the investigations opened since February 2000 have been
as a result of calls to the Complaint Line.

The US Government has also engaged in public awareness activities which
directly target victims of trafficking, such as the recent US Department
of Health and Human Services campaign entitled *"Look Beneath the
Surface."* This campaign is designed to encourage victims to come
forward with their cases by using public service announcements and
specialized victim targeted strategies including publications in
non-English newspapers and religious media.

There remains a need for more proactive approaches to reach victims of
trafficking which consist in large part of permeating the different
communities where victims tend to congregate.

## Commentary, Concerns and Recommendations

The Assessments of US Government Activities to Combat Trafficking in
Persons of 2003 and 2004 provide analyses of these various activities
and contain recommendations for subsequent action. I would like to
comment on some of these recommendations. I would also like to include
an additional concern, the use of the Internet as a modern day
recruitment station and auction block for victims of trafficking.

1.  **The Importance of Victim Identification**

In the winter of 2003-2004, The Protection Project conducted a training
program of law enforcement officials in nine countries of Southeast
Europe. Repeatedly, we spoke with heads of agencies that told us that
they had received funding for shelters, but that the shelters remained
unoccupied. "Where are the victims?" was a frequent refrain and one
which elicited a lot of shaking of heads as well as looks of great
consternation. Tentative answers included the fear and mistrust of
anyone in authority; the absence of information on victims' rights and
services, especially in the victims' own languages, and the fear of
reprisal of the traffickers if the women seek assistance or accept to
participate in legal proceedings.

In the United States, we find ourselves in a similar quandary. The total
of victims served remains very small. Even one rescued life is worth the
time, the effort and the funds. The challenge before us remains,
however, can we not reach more? What are the obstacles in our way?

It is imperative that we keep the challenge of appropriately identifying
victims of trafficking as a high priority on the national as well as
international anti-trafficking agenda. The consequences of relegating
this to a degree of lesser importance are serious:

-   Without accurate and comprehensive victim identification, the sense
    of urgency required to combat trafficking in persons will diminish.
    The ability of our government to quantify modern day slavery has
    improved dramatically but it remains difficult to reconcile the
    numbers of men, women and children trafficked into the Untied States
    (currently estimated at between 14,500 and 17,500 annually) with the
    small numbers of victims served, the few letters of certification
    issued, and the limited numbers of T-Visas issued.

> I am concerned that empty shelters and low service lists will
> eventually lead some to question the wisdom of these expenditures.
> This is the wrong approach. The correct approach is to identify and
> work with those groups having greatest access to trafficking
> populations in order to identify and serve victims of trafficking.

-   Proper victim identification ensures rapid intervention. How
    accurately law enforcement officials, social service providers and
    Good Samaritans identify a trafficked person will determine how
    quickly this person is able to be released from bondage and obtain
    legal, social, financial, and medical assistance.

-   Proper victim identification must include two main components:
    raising the level of understanding and knowledge within an entire
    community and conducting aggressive outreach into the indigenous
    neighborhoods where trafficking persons are likely to find refuge.

> A recent instance in Montgomery County, Maryland, highlights the acute
> importance of community understanding. Rita, a young woman from India,
> was brought to this country by a high-ranking official of her
> country's embassy in order to work as a domestic servant and to
> receive an education in the United States. Instead, Rita found her
> life transformed into one of servitude and bondage, working long
> hours, receiving no compensation, and being held captive in the home
> with no access to the outside world. Her one outing a week was to
> church. Her master's chauffeur, who waited for her and escorted her
> home at the conclusion of the service, drove her there. Finally, one
> woman noticed this quiet girl who always sat in the back, who dressed
> in the same clothes, who talked to no one. Thanks to the intervention
> of one woman, and the subsequent support of the entire church
> community, Rita is now free from captivity.

2.  **The Need for Expanded Partnerships**

The US Government alone cannot combat trafficking in persons on a scale
sufficient to eradicate the problem. The non-profit sector in this
country has a long and noble history of serving as both advocate and
implementer of social change, and this role is being sustained in the
fight against human trafficking.

An analysis of agencies that have been given federal funds in the past
two years reveals some interesting trends. Community-based organizations
have in fact received significant federal dollars. What is missing,
however, is the representation, among grantees, of the faith-based
community. While most of the organizations receiving federal funds in
2002 and 2003 for public outreach, service provision and technical
assistance and training in the United States were community based
organizations, in FY 2003, 2 out of 14 organizations which received
funding from the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of
Refugee Resettlement (HHS ORR) for domestic anti-trafficking work were
faith-based organizations and two out of twelve organizations receiving
anti-trafficking funds through the Department of Justice's Office of
Victims of Crime were faith-based organizations. In FY 2002, only one
faith-based organization received federal funding from ORR for providing
services to victims of trafficking out of a total of 14 organizations
that received funding. In summary, out of 40 grants awarded, 4 were to
faith-based groups. It is important to note that, while the new
federally funded public awareness campaign includes placing notices in
religious media, faith-based groups are not yet significant recipients
of federal anti-trafficking dollars.

I believe that this is an omission which deserves to be studied,
analyzed and addressed because, by this omission, we are eliminating a
group which can be a vital part of the solution we are all looking for.

As Protection Project staff have traveled around the world, we have
noted an interesting phenomenon: faith based shelters are full. In the
streets of Lima, Peru, a group of Catholic nuns walk the streets in one
of the city's worst areas in order to get to know the girls and to let
them know about their shelter. When the girls are ready to escape from
the streets, they know where they can go for shelter, skill training,
emotional support, physical care and, too frequently, child care for
their babies. The girls stay three years. When they leave, they are
provided with the means to establish themselves in a small business.
Over 60 percent of the girls who pass through this center have remained
off the streets.

In Limassol, Cyprus, a Russian Orthodox Priest succeeded in convincing
his Bishop to donate a home in an affluent residential neighborhood to
serve as a shelter for victims of trafficking. Fr. Savvas has mobilized
his parishioners to recognize victims of trafficking. Individuals who
worship in his church every week have rescued women who are then taken
to his shelter.

These are but two examples of hundreds of small organizations that are
filling a desperate need for aggressive outreach, compassionate care,
and personal as well as cultural sensitivity to the population they are
seeking to serve.

Based on observation and anecdotal evidence, I believe there are several
reasons for the success of these organizations:

-   They conduct active outreach into the communities where they know
    they will find victims. They make a point of getting to know
    individuals who could be victims of trafficking, learning their
    names, establishing relationships, and informing them about the
    services they offer.

-   They are trusted by the victims because they speak the same language
    and are often from the same cultural background.

-   They allow for longer stays, often up to several years, thereby
    allowing for not only immediate recovery but also deep emotional
    healing. The symptoms of victims of trafficking are similar to those
    of victims of torture. They require time to recover from serial
    rape, abuse, and humiliation.

-   Because the shelters have strong community ties, they are able to
    assist in the reintegration process much easier.

I believe that these claims are valid. However, further research is
necessary to validate them, and this will be one of my final
recommendations.

3.  **The Use and Abuse of the Internet: Recruitment Station and Auction
    Block**

For many of us, the challenges of technology are limited to coordinating
a Blackberry, a cell phone and a personal computer. Graduating to a more
complex level would be the un-spamming of our in-boxes. But for many the
new technologies, along with the concomitant ease and immediacy of
access accompanied by the exhilaration of anonymity, have created a new
kind of monster, turning the Internet into a new form of recruitment
station and a modern day auction block.

In August 2000, Lindsay Lavoie was abducted from her Tampa, Florida
home. Six months before, she had begun a relationship with a Greek man
named Kon Baehring over the Internet. Thinking at first that he was her
own age, Lindsay became completely enamored of her new friend and did
not flinch when he revealed his true age of 35. They exchanged love
letters via the Internet and the man proposed marriage. Baehring
arranged a clandestine meeting on a day when Linday pleaded sick and
stayed home from school. When Lindsay's mother returned from work, her
daughter was gone. A police investigation revealed that she had been
abducted and taken to Athens. When police entered Baehring's house, they
found large amounts of pornography and evidence linking Baehring to a
large cyber-conspiracy which was used to abduct a young and naïve woman
from her family. In the home of one of the conspirators, more child
pornography was found, including images of Lindsay Lavoie. The
investigation revealed that Baehring had a history of seductions, or
attempted seductions, using the Internet to establish relationships with
young girls.

An increasingly troubling modern day phenomenon is the rise of on-line
communities and their new function as auction block and recruitment
station. On-line communities provide individuals, primarily young
people, with instant access to thousands of "friends," including
romantic partners, party buddies, or career networking possibilities.
Newcomers create a personal profile which includes at least one photo
and a personal profile of likes and dislikes, interests, dreams and
other personal information.

The potential for pimps and traffickers is mind-boggling. Whereas
finding girls used to involve time spent in the street or bar, buying
drinks and driving from place to place, now all that is required is a
session to a local computer, plugging in a zip code and asking for a
listing of girls, 14-18, in a particular zip-code. It's a slave owner's
paradise: Instant availability, the advantages of anonymity, and no
accountability.

Not surprisingly, Internet icons are being used as vehicles to the flesh
trade. On March 2 of this year, eBay Taiwan posted an announcement
offering three young Vietnamese women for auction. The one caveat of the
add that also offered to provide medical certificates attesting to the
women's virginity was that the women were "for shipment only to Taiwan."
Advocacy Groups were alerted to the ad, and demanded its immediate
withdrawal. The request was immediately honored.

The challenges for Internet abuse are extensive and demand further
research, investigation, and a public awareness campaign all its own. We
have seen the ads for drug abuse, alcohol abuse, and tobacco abuse. It
is now time to see ads for Internet abuse.

4.  **Need for Additional Research**

Engaging in further research is necessary in order to successfully win
the war against trafficking. We would like to recommend that further
research be conducted in all of the areas we have addressed in this
testimony, including the development of enhanced methods to identify
victims of trafficking; the role of faith-based communities especially
in areas of victim outreach, shelter, reintegration and restoration; and
the implications of Internet abuse as it relates to human trafficking.
Research in each of these areas will be in compliance with The
Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) which states,
in Section 12A) that "The President... shall carry out research included
by providing grants to nongovernmental organizations as well as to
relevant United States Government Agencies and international
organizations...Such research shall, to the maximum extent possible,
include but not be limited to the following:

"(1) The economic causes and consequences of trafficking in persons."

"(2) The effectiveness of programs and initiatives funded by the Federal
Government to prevent trafficking in persons and to assist victims of
trafficking."

"(3) The interrelationship between trafficking in persons and global
health risks."

5.  **Remember the American Girls**

As my last recommendation, I would like to read a letter that I received
from a woman we will call Mary. She wrote it after listening to me talk
about the trafficking of foreign women into the US. I am quoting it to
you exactly as it was sent to me.

*Dear Michele:*

*I wanted to talk to you, to impress upon you that there are a lot of
American women who are also in the same predicament \[as women who are
trafficked from overseas.\] Pimps buy and sell women all the time,
between themselves, the clients, etc. You can sell one white blonde girl
in Mexico and get three Mexican girls in return. A girl who makes good
money on the street can sell for \$10,000 or more to another pimp.
Often, pimps make sure that they have sisters or friends, and split the
girls up. If one acts up or tries to escape, the other will be
punished.*

*I tell you these things from my own experience. I was bought and sold
between men in the US. I am a white female, born here. My daughter was
held hostage so that I could work. One year, I saw her for one day. My
mother, who is now 77, was beaten several times because of me. I have
seen many of my girlfriends killed. It is often easier to kill yourself
than to know you will be tortured all night when you get home and are
not able to sleep before you must go back to work. By torture, I mean
beatings, strangling, being cut, thrown out of the windows, etc. I have
been tossed out of a third story window. I have had 81 broken bones,
including my nose being broken three times, my jaw fractured, my ribs
have had 28 separate breaks. I have had my feet broken so that I could
not leave.*

*The "houses" in Vegas are used by pimps to train girls they do not want
to deal with. They take girls there for months at a time. The girls are
not allowed to leave without the pimp coming to get her. When he does,
the house gives him her cash. They cannot keep money on them in the
room. They are let out for a week or two at a time, the pimp spends some
time with her, buys her clothes and such. Then the pimp signs the girls
back in for another stint.*

*I know that trafficking is bad from other countries. I used to know
Chinese restaurants and massage parlors in Phoenix that would bring
girls in who only spoke Chinese. They were allowed to see only Chinese
men. They were not allowed to talk to anyone else. They are not allowed
out and are locked up when the owner of the store leaves. There are no
phones, no way to communicate. I know this because I used to know a
Chinese motel owner and his wife who were friends with the owner. He was
over often and the wife would tell me how sad she was for the girls. But
she could not say anything because of her husband. It goes on.*

Just please do not forget the American girls. There are girls here who
have no one to turn to either. They are exploited, abused, and used.
They are bought and sold and beaten or raped by men, even their own,
daily.

*They need you too.*

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to
allow me to speak to you today.