U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001

37–695 PDF 2007

S. HRG. 110–142

LEGAL OPTIONS TO STOP HUMAN TRAFFICKING

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE LAW

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MARCH 26, 2007

Serial No. J–110–24

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary

(

(II)

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont, Chairman 

EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts 

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., Delaware 

HERB KOHL, Wisconsin 

DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California 

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin 

CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York 

RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island 

ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania 

ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah 

CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa 

JON KYL, Arizona 

JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama 

LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina 

JOHN CORNYN, Texas 

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

BRUCE A. COHEN, Chief Counsel and Staff Director 

MICHAEL O’NEILL, Republican Chief Counsel and Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE LAW

RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois, Chairman 

EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts 

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., Delaware 

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

JON KYL, Arizona 

LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina 

JOHN CORNYN, Texas 

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas 

JOSEPH ZOGBY, Chief Counsel 

MARY HARNED, Republican Chief Counsel 

(III)

C O N T E N T S

STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS

Page

Durbin, Hon. Richard J., a U.S. Senator from the State of Illinois .................... 1

prepared statement .......................................................................................... 68

WITNESSES 

Becker, Grace Chung, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C. ................................................. 4

Burkhalter, Holly J., Vice President for Government Relations, International 

Justice Mission, Washington, D.C. ..................................................................... 11

Kaufka, Katherine, Supervising Attorney, Counter-Trafficking Services Program, National Immigrant Justice Center, Chicago, Illlinois .......................... 5

Vandenberg, Martina E., Attorney, Jenner & Block, LLP, Washington, D.C. ... 8

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 

Responses of Grace Chung Becker to questions submitted by Senator Durbin . 31

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD 

American Civil Liberties Union, Women’s Rights Project and Washington 

Legislative Office, statement ............................................................................... 38

Becker, Grace Chung, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., statement .............................. 44

Burkhalter, Holly J., Vice President for Government Relations, International 

Justice Mission, Washington, D.C., statement .................................................. 57

Department of Justice, Inspector General, Arlington, Virginia, memorandum . 65

Kaufka, Katherine, Supervising Attorney, Counter-Trafficking Services Program, National Immigrant Justice Center, Chicago, Illinois, statement ........ 71

Vandenberg, Martina E., Attorney, Jenner & Block, LLP, Washington, D.C., 

statement .............................................................................................................. 75

(1)

LEGAL OPTIONS TO STOP HUMAN 

TRAFFICKING 

MONDAY, MARCH 26, 2007

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE LAW, Washington, DC 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 3:02 p.m., in room 

SD–226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Richard J. Durbin, 

Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD J. DURBIN, A U.S. 

SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS 

Chairman DURBIN. Good afternoon. The meeting of the Human 

Rights and Law Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee 

will come to order. 

Unfortunately, my Ranking Member, Senator Coburn, had alerted me in advance that he had a difficult day and wasn’t sure he 

could make it back today. He is completely interested in this subject and I know will follow through his staff and otherwise on the 

findings of this hearing, and I’m sure other members of the Subcommittee will as well. But he has, from my point of view, an excused absence because of scheduling, which happens to us from 

time to time. 

This is the first time in the history of the Senate that we have 

created a Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law. I think it’s 

crucial at this point in time. Repressive regimes that violate 

human rights create fertile breeding for terrorism, war, poverty, 

and exploitation. Our Nation and our world will never be fully secure as long as fundamental human rights are not honored. 

Our first hearing was just last month. We addressed the issue 

of genocide and the rule of law, focusing on the mass killings and 

genocide in Darfur. I’m proud to say that, as a result of that hearing, we’ve introduced bipartisan legislation to promote divestment 

in Sudan and to expand the reach of U.S. law so that we can prosecute non-U.S. nationals who are in this country for crimes of genocide they committed abroad. We will continue to try to make this 

a Subcommittee that focuses on legislation, not just lamentations. 

Today we’re going to take up a topic which may be as old as 

mankind. From the beginning of time there has been evidence of 

exploitation and slavery. We haven’t been spared in our generation. 

At today’s hearing, we will consider the issue of human trafficking. Few issues in the world today raise as many human rights 

implications as this insidious practice. It’s estimated that one milVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:48 Sep 24, 2007 Jkt 037759 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\37695.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
2

lion people are trafficked across international borders each year, 

pressed into labor, servitude, or commercial sex by the use of force, 

fraud, and coercion. 

Human trafficking represents commerce in human misery. As an 

introduction to today’s hearing, I would like to show a very brief 

video on human trafficking. It begins with a short public service 

announcement put together by the United Nations to help raise 

awareness of the issue. 

The second part of the video is an interview with a trafficking 

victim from Cambodia. The purpose of these videos is to put a 

human face on the issue that we will talk about today. 

[Whereupon, a video was played.] 

Chairman DURBIN. Former General Secretary Kofi Annan has 

said: ‘‘The world is now wrestling with a new form of slavery, trafficking in human beings, in which many vulnerable people are virtually abandoned by legal and social systems into a sordid realm 

of exploitation and abuse.’’

If there’s any silver lining to this problem, it’s that the world is 

now beginning to open its eyes. There are 117 signatories to the 

United Nations’ trafficking protocol, and many of these countries 

have passed tough anti-trafficking laws in the past few years. 

The United States passed its first major anti-trafficking law in 

2000. We cannot discuss this issue in the U.S. Senate without mentioning the visionary leadership of the late Senator Paul Wellstone. 

Senator Wellstone called the trafficking of human beings ‘‘one of 

the most horrendous human rights violations of our time.’’

On the day Congress passed the Trafficking Victims Protection 

Act on October 11, 2000, Senator Wellstone went to the floor of the 

Senate. He was very happy that day, and you could tell when Paul 

Wellstone was happy. 

He praised his lead co-sponsor, Senator Sam Brownback, who 

has been a great champion of human rights for years. Senator 

Wellstone praised the broad coalition of groups that came together 

for the bill: human rights groups, women’s rights, evangelical and 

Jewish groups, and members of the Clinton administration. 

This is what Paul said: ‘‘I believe with passage of this legislation...we are lighting a candle. We are lighting a candle for these 

women and girls and sometimes men forced into forced labor.... 

This is the beginning of an international effort to go after this trafficking, to go after this major, god-awful human rights abuse.’’

Senator Wellstone’s commitment to stopping human trafficking 

and other human rights abuses stands as one of his most enduring 

legacies, despite his untimely passing a little over 4 years ago. 

The candle Senator Wellstone lit nearly 7 years ago is burning 

bright and we rekindle it today. Thanks to the passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 and the legal tools that Senator Wellstone gave us, we have made progress. 

The State Department, under the leadership of my friend and 

former colleague in the House, John Miller, pushed recalcitrant 

countries around the globe to pass anti-trafficking laws and to help 

victims. 

John called and regretted that he couldn’t be with us today, but 

he’s here in spirit. Of course, human trafficking is not just hapVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:48 Sep 24, 2007 Jkt 037759 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\37695.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
3

pening in far-off lands, it’s happening right here in the United 

States. 

The Department of Justice has done an admirable job of investigating and prosecuting trafficking cases. These cases are often 

very difficult to bring because trafficking victims are isolated, 

trapped, and frightened. If victims are able to break free, they are 

often reluctant to talk to law enforcement out of fear of deportation, arrest, or prison. 

For this reason, the role of victim and legal service providers is 

especially important in this fight against human trafficking. Organizations like the National Immigrant Justice Center in Chicago, 

which I am honored to represent, are trusted sources of aid for trafficking victims. These groups work closely with prosecutors to gain 

the trust of victims and make the case. 

At today’s hearing we will ask, 7 years after the passage of the 

Trafficking Victims Protection Act, what progress has the U.S. Government made in combatting human trafficking in the United 

States and overseas? What are we doing right, and what can we 

do better? 

What aspects of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act and its 

2003 and 2005 reauthorizations, should be changed or strengthened? Should Congress amend the law to make it easier and 

quicker for trafficking victims in the U.S. and their family members to receive a ‘‘T visa’’ and other government benefits? 

We’re also going to ask some hard questions. Why hasn’t the 

United States done more to punish U.S. contractors in Iraq and 

other foreign countries who engage in human trafficking? How can 

we hold foreign diplomats in the United States responsible for trafficking when we’re up against diplomatic immunity? 

I intend to introduce legislation that will address some of the 

problems after we’ve talked about them at this hearing and I’ve 

discussed them with my colleagues. Several parts of the Trafficking 

Victims Protection Act are set to expire at the end of this year, so 

this is a good time to look carefully at this law and figure out what 

we need to do to further the fight against human trafficking. 

At this point in time we’re going to turn to our distinguished 

panel of witnesses and ask each of them to make an opening statement of about 5 minutes. Their complete written testimony I commend to all who are here, because each one of them has taken the 

time to write a very good and probing statement about this issue. 

Will the witnesses, at this point, please stand and raise their 

right hands to be sworn? 

[Whereupon, the witnesses were duly sworn.] 

Chairman DURBIN. Let the record reflect that all four witnesses 

have replied in the affirmative. 

The first witness is Grace Chung Becker. Thank you, Ms. Becker, 

for being here. She represents the Department of Justice. She’s a 

Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division and 

helps supervise the Division’s human trafficking prosecutions. Before that, she worked at the Defense Department as Associate Deputy General Counsel. 

Before that, she worked right here, probably in this room, at the 

Senate Judiciary Committee. She was counsel to then-Chairman 

Senator Orrin Hatch in the 108th Congress. She served as a law 

4

clerk to two Federal judges here in Washington, and is a graduate 

of an outstanding law school, Georgetown, and the University of 

Pennsylvania Wharton School of Finance. 

Ms. Becker? 

STATEMENT OF GRACE CHUNG BECKER, DEPUTY ASSISTANT 

ATTORNEY GENERAL, CIVIL RIGHTS DIVISION, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Ms. BECKER. Thank you very much, Senator Durbin. Good afternoon, Chairman Durbin. It’s an honor and privilege to appear before the Committee today. 

For decades, the Civil Rights Division has been charged with enforcing statutes prohibiting slavery, involuntary servitude, and peonage. 

Human trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery that touches 

virtually every community in America, urban or rural, affluent 

neighborhoods, as well as poor communities. This is a crime that 

can occur anywhere, anytime, and against any vulnerable victim. 

Traffickers prey on U.S. citizens as well as foreigners. They use 

force, fraud or coercion against prostitutes, domestic servants, factory machinists, and migrant farm laborers. Victims have included 

college students coerced into commercial sex in Atlanta, homeless 

men forced to work as farm laborers in Florida, and individuals 

with hearing impairments forced to peddle sign language cards in 

the New York City subways. 

Human trafficking is a priority for the President and the Attorney General and I am pleased to report that the Civil Rights Division has adopted an aggressive strategy to fight this invidious 

crime. 

The Attorney General recently announced the formation of a 

Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit in the Criminal Section of the 

Civil Rights Division. The unit consists of an elite group of expert 

prosecutors who will provide investigative and prosecutorial assistance, as well as coordination. 

This unit is necessary because we’re seeing more complex cases 

involving multiple jurisdictions, multiple law enforcement agencies, 

and financial or organized crimes. The unit also serves as a resource for training, outreach, and policy development. 

The unit works closely with prosecutors within the section, as 

well as with U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, and Human Trafficking Task 

Forces around the country. These task forces reflect the Civil 

Rights Division’s victim-centered approach. 

They are comprised of members from Federal, State, and local 

law enforcement, and they also include representatives from nongovernmental organizations who provide much-needed services to 

restore the victims of this terrible crime. 

We work together to ensure that the victim’s safety and housing 

needs are taken care of, to see that their medical and psychiatric 

needs are also taken care of, and for our foreign victims, to cooperate in normalizing their immigration status. 

This victim-centered approach works. In conjunction with U.S. 

Attorneys’ Offices around the country, the Civil Rights Division has 

increased by 600 percent the number of human trafficking cases 

filed in court in the last 6 years. 

5

From 2001 till today, we’ve initiated about 725 investigations. 

Last year, we received one of the highest sentences ever in a sex 

trafficking case for two of our lead defendants: 50 years of imprisonment. We also received one of the highest orders of restitution, 

over $900,000, for a labor trafficking prosecution in Milwaukee. 

Let me just give you one example. The victim in this case was 

just 9 years old—that’s the same age as my daughter—when her 

parents were sold into servitude in Egypt. When she was 12, she 

was brought to the United States and forced to work as a domestic 

servant in Orange County, California. 

She was forced to cook for a family of seven, clean the entire 

house, and baby-sit the younger children. Meanwhile, the young 

girl could only eat leftovers and was forced to live in the squalor 

of the garage. The defendants controlled the child, who could not 

speak English, by taking her passport, assaulting her, forbidding 

her to make friends or to go to school. 

The defendants also threatened to report her older sister to the 

police in Egypt for previously stealing from the defendants if the 

victim ever tried to leave their employ. The defendants are now in 

prison and will likely be deported to Egypt after serving their sentence. They’ve paid $78,000 in restitution. By contrast, the victim 

is now studying in high school and can use her restitution money 

to achieve her dreams of going to college. 

But there is much more work to be done, and that is why I sup- port the President’s request for an additional $1.7 million for the 

Civil Rights Division. As the Civil Rights Division turns 50 years 

old, it remains committed to supporting the values of our Nation, 

including the liberty promised by the Thirteenth Amendment of 

our Constitution. 

Thank you. 

Chairman DURBIN. Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Becker appears as a submission 

for the record.] 

Chairman DURBIN. We will now hear from Katherine Kaufka. 

She works in Chicago at the National Immigrant Justice Center. 

She’s the supervising attorney for Counter-Trafficking Services, 

and she’s worked with many victims in Illinois and across the 

country. 

She’s a member of the Chicago Task Force on Human Trafficking 

and the Freedom Network USA, which is an important national 

network of service providers and attorneys who work with victims. 

Ms. Kaufka has written articles about trafficking victims’ services and has helped trained Federal prosecutors. She is a graduate 

of the University of Wisconsin Law School and the University of 

Michigan. 

Ms. Kaufka? 

STATEMENT OF KATHERINE KAUFKA, SUPERVISING ATTORNEY, COUNTER-TRAFFICKING SERVICES PROGRAM, NATIONAL IMMIGRANT JUSTICE CENTER, HEARTLAND ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN NEEDS & HUMAN RIGHTS, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 

Ms. KAUFKA. Thank you, Chairman Durbin. Thank you for the 

privilege of testifying today on behalf of survivors of human trafVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:48 Sep 24, 2007 Jkt 037759 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\37695.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
6

ficking who are victims of some of the most horrific human rights 

violations that we see today. 

I have represented dozens of trafficking victims at the National 

Immigrant Justice Center, a leading national advocate for the protection of human rights of non-citizens. 

Current anti-trafficking laws help victims every day, and we are 

grateful to Members of Congress for their critical support of these 

statutes. Nonetheless, the laws can be improved. In my testimony 

today I will address three areas of the law that fail to provide adequate protections for human trafficking victims. 

First, providing greater protections for victims and their families 

is critical. Second, the laws must ensure that victims who make an 

effort to cooperate with law enforcement are adequately protected. 

Third, we must recongnize the importance of responding to the special needs of children who are victims of human trafficking. 

Approximately 15,000 to 18,000 men, women, and children are 

trafficked to the United States every year. However, since the passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act over 6 years ago, almost 400 cases have been prosecuted on human trafficking charges 

and approximately 1,500 trafficking visas have been issued. 

While it was the intent of the statute to punish traffickers and 

protect victims, these statistics show that we have failed to fulfill 

our goals. We believe that a principal cause of this failure is that 

the burdens placed upon victims are simply too high. 

The first area I would like to discuss is the need to provide greater protection to trafficking victims and their families. Many victims 

are intimidated by the traffickers with threats against the safety 

and livelihood of immediate family. The victim’s fear of harm to his 

or her family often prevents the victim from reporting the trafficking crime to authorities. 

One client that we represent, whom I will call Anuja, was trafficked to a suburb of Chicago from a small Indian village when she 

was about 11 years old. She was forced to cook, clean, and take 

care of two small boys around the clock. 

Four years later, she managed to escape. Anuja was interviewed 

by law enforcement, but she was reluctant at first to tell her full 

story because she was afraid that the traffickers would hurt her little sisters in India, a threat that they had made to her many times. 

Anuja would have been better able to assist law enforcement if she 

knew her family was safe and if they could have supported her 

during the prosecution of her abusers in the United States. 

We recommend that victims of trafficking who cooperate with 

law enforcement have the option to be united with family to support them through the legal process. If those family members reside outside the United States, they should be allowed to enter the 

United States temporarily to aid the prosecution’s efforts. This 

change to the law will not only enhance victim protection, it would 

lead to more successful prosecution of criminal traffickers. 

The second issue that I want to address is the need to ensure full 

protection for victims who make an effort to assist law enforcement. Under current law, if authorities fail to respond or open an 

investigation, the trafficking victim who reported the crime will 

have no further opportunity to assist authorities and access protection. 

7

We represent a woman, Padma, and her two daughters who were 

brought from India to Countryside, Illinois in 1998 and forced to 

work at a restaurant. Padma and her daughters escaped in 2001 

and lived in hiding for years. They were too frightened to seek assistance until 2005, when a women’s shelter referred them to the 

National Immigrant Justice Center. 

Once she learned she could play a role in her case, Padma wanted justice for her family. We immediately reported the crimes to 

the Department of Justice and to the Chicago FBI office. 

However, it took Federal authorities a year to interview Padma 

and, consequently, it took a year for Padma and her daughters to 

be legally recognized as victims and to receive the protections and 

services that they needed. Padma’s earlier attempts to cooperate 

with law enforcement were not enough for her to be recognized as 

a victim under the law. 

We recommend that the survivor of human trafficking who 

makes a good-faith attempt to cooperate with law enforcement 

should be eligible for a trafficking visa. Where the victim tries to 

assist but law enforcement takes no action, the victim should not 

be denied protection. 

Finally, I want to speak about the need to enhance protection for 

victims of human trafficking who are unaccompanied children. 

These are, indeed, the most vulnerable of our victim population. 

Unfortunately, all too often authorities fail to recognize potential 

trafficking victims and treat children as alleged criminals. 

A client from El Salvador, whom I will call Sonia, was just 15 

years old when Federal agents discovered her in a brothel. She was 

interrogated for hours. Sonia was ashamed and fearful of both the 

traffickers and the Federal agents, so she said that at first nothing 

happened when she was in the brothel. Sonia was held in custody 

in Chicago and immediately placed in deportation proceedings. 

Sonia’s case demonstrates the great sensitivity that must be applied to cases involving children. We recommend that whenever authorities encounter a child in an environment that involves forced 

labor or commercial sex, officials should assume that the child is 

a victim of trafficking. At that point they should immediately refer 

the child to the Department of Health and Human Services for appropriate services and counsel. 

Let me sum up by reiterating the three critical improvements we 

recommend that you make to the current law. Providing protection 

not only to victims but also to their immediate family members will 

help these victims better assist law enforcement in prosecuting the 

traffickers. We must offer protection to victims who make a goodfaith attempt to aid authorities in the investigation and prosecution of human trafficking cases. To deny these victims protection 

is unjust. 

Finally, potential child trafficking victims must be immediately 

referred to the Department of Health and Human Services, provided appropriate services and guaranteed access to legal counsel. 

Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak. I would be 

happy to answer any questions. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Kaufka appears as a submission 

for the record.] 

8

Chairman DURBIN. Ms. Martina Vandenberg is an attorney in 

the Washington, DC office of the law firm of Jenner & Block. Last 

year, Ms. Vandenberg was the recipient of her law firm’s Pro Bono 

Award for her legal representation of trafficking victims, and her 

advocacy to end impunity for U.S. contractors who engage in 

human trafficking while serving with U.N. peacekeeping missions 

abroad. 

Ms. Vandenberg previously worked as the European researcher 

at Human Rights Watch, where she conducted extensive research 

and wrote reports on human trafficking in Bosnia, Herzegovina, 

Russia, Uzbekistan, and Kosovo. 

Ms. Vandenberg has taught at American University and has spoken nationally and internationally on women’s human rights issues 

and human trafficking. She is a graduate of Columbia Law School, 

Pomona College, and Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes 

scholar. 

Ms. Vandenberg? 

STATEMENT OF MARTINA E. VANDENBERG, ATTORNEY, 

JENNER & BLOCK, LLP WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Ms. VANDENBERG. Thank you, Senator Durbin. It’s an honor to 

testify before you today on a grave, grave violation of human 

rights, trafficking in persons. 

Over the past decade, Congress, the executive branch, and the 

non-governmental community, we’ve worked together to develop innovative criminal and civil remedies for traffickers—to bring traffickers to justice. But these gaps—gaps still do exist, and traffickers continue to operate with impunity, violating the human 

rights of trafficking victims every day. 

I’d like to focus briefly this afternoon on three concrete trafficking cases that illustrate these gaps. I’ll begin with the human 

rights norms, the substantive international law on trafficking, and 

then turn to case studies, one in Iraq, one in Bosnia and 

Herzegovina, and one in our own backyard just outside Washington, D.C. 

Trafficking in persons is a gruesome human rights violation, 

trapping men, women, and children in debt bondage, forced labor, 

and forced prostitution. Article 3(a) of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and 

Children, defines trafficking as the recruitment, transportation, 

harboring, and receipt of persons by threat or use of force, or any 

other means, for the purpose of exploitation. 

Research by Human Rights Watch and other human rights organizations has shown historically that States have treated victims of 

trafficking as illegal migrants, as criminals, or both, generally detaining them, prosecuting them, and then summarily deporting 

them. And while we do see some progress toward more victim and 

rights-focused policies, there’s still much to be done. 

On August 19, 2004, insurgents kidnapped 12 Nepalese men 

traveling on the road from Amman to Baghdad. All 12 were later 

executed. A Chicago Tribune reporter, Cam Simpson, launched a 6-

month investigation into the events leading up to their abduction 

and deaths. 

9

The Chicago Tribune series, ‘‘Pipeline to Peril,’’ and I have a copy 

for you today, uncovered a trafficking network that stretched from 

the remote mountains of Kathmandu to U.S. military bases in Iraq. 

The chain began with recruiters in the men’s villages who promised the men lucrative jobs in five-star hotels in Amman, Jordan. 

In exchange, they demanded enormous sums for up-front payments. Their families, desperate for the sons to find jobs abroad, 

took out loans, mortgaged the family farms, and paid interest rates 

of up to 36 percent per month. 

But the men, upon arriving in Jordan, instead of the luxury hotel 

jobs that they had expected, found that they were on their way to 

Iraq. They were stripped of their passports and held in apartments. 

They were passed from recruiter, to trafficker, to trafficker, and 

finally sent on the road to Iraq to serve at a U.S. military base for 

a subcontractor. Insurgents killed the Nepalese workers before they 

actually arrived at the U.S. base. 

The Department of Defense Office of Inspector General launched 

an investigation. But, troublingly, that investigation concluded that 

while it would appear that some foreign-based companies are using 

false pretenses to provide laborers to Halliburton subcontractors in 

Iraq, none of the allegations are against U.S. persons or U.S. contractors. 

There’s no indication that the Inspector General actually delved 

into the issue of criminal complicity, or even criminal conspiracy, 

by U.S. persons or contractors. Indeed, there is no hint of any investigation into the involvement by any of these U.S. contractors. 

Instead, there’s a conflation of criminal and civil law principles, 

a finding that there are ‘‘no privities of contact between DoD and 

the foreign companies allegedly guilty of these trafficking practices, 

and therefore that the U.S. had no jurisdiction over the persons or 

the offenses.’’

But that’s simply incorrect as a matter of law. Under the Military Extra-territorial Jurisdiction Act of 2000, the U.S. Government does have criminal jurisdiction over those who commit a 

crime, a felony that would be punished in the United States by up 

to a year, including trafficking crimes. 

The investigation also uncovered other troubling practices. Contractors routinely took and held the passports of third country nationals working on U.S. bases, forced them to live in substandard 

housing, and provided them with little decent food. 

Then General Casey issued an order demanding that contractors 

return the passports of third country nationals. Unfortunately 

Colonel Boyles, who was tasked with enforcing that order, testified 

before Congress in June 2006 that it was like pulling teeth to get 

the contractors to comply. 

So the bottom line is impunity, but that is just really business 

as usual. I would like to skip now to the case of Bosnia and 

Herzegovina, which is, perhaps, the poster child for impunity for 

defense contractors. 

Trafficking victims in Bosnia and Herzegovina, from Moldova, 

Ukraine, and other countries of the former Soviet Union had no 

idea that they would be trafficked into forced prostitution to serve 

trucker drivers, as well as peacekeepers, in Bosnia. 

10

In a 3-year investigation that I conducted for Human Rights 

Watch, researchers uncovered at least eight cases of U.S. personnel 

who allegedly purchased—purchased—trafficked women and girls 

as chattel. They purchased both their persons and their passports 

from local brothel owners. 

As in Iraq, the Department of Defense Inspector General confirmed that the allegations of trafficking were credible. In fact, 

their final report states ‘‘the evidence suggests that DoD contractor 

employees may have more than a limited role in human trafficking, 

but we were unable to gather more evidence of it precisely because 

there are no requirements and no procedures in place compelling 

contractors to gather such information regarding their employees, 

or to report it to U.S. military authorities.’’ That remains the case 

now years down the road. 

I’d like to now turn, briefly, to a domestic case. Recently, the 

ACLU filed a case against a Kuwaiti military attache ́ here working 

in Washington, DC for trafficking three Indian women he enslaved 

in his home, according to the complaint. The ACLU has provided 

a written statement today, and I commend it to you. 

Diplomats who traffic their victims to the United States under 

the cover of special visas also engage in slavery and they do so 

with near impunity. The bottom line is that trafficking victims, 

whether trafficked by diplomats or by regular U.S. citizens, need 

attorneys. By our count, only 20 cases nationwide have been 

brought under 18 U.S.C. 1595, which is the civil remedy created by 

the TPRA of 2003. 

Sadly, people trafficked by diplomats into the United States cannot use that as a remedy because those cases are routinely dismissed on the basis of diplomatic immunity. 

So let me just close by asking what is to be done, because I think 

that is the fundamental question that you posed at the beginning 

of the hearing, Senator Durbin. I have a series of detailed recommendations in my written testimony, but I’d just like to highlight a few this afternoon. I’m eager to work with you and your 

staff to implement the recommendations in full. 

First, we recommend that thorough investigations and, where appropriate, indictments, be done for trafficking for forced labor or 

forced prostitution by contractors and military personnel serving 

abroad. 

We believe that the T visa system should be amended to permit 

victims of trafficking who are the victims of contractors abroad to 

come to the United States to testify and to have access to T visa 

status with the hope of being able to adjust to regular immigration 

status. 

We’d like to see senior leadership in the Department of Defense 

assigned to combat trafficking, and we’d like to see a line item in 

the budget dedicated to trafficking in persons as well. 

We’d also like to call for an investigation of a lack of compensation for the executed Nepalese victims of trafficking under the Defense Base Act. Although they were killed several years ago, their 

families still have not been able to access any funds from the U.S. 

Government. 

11

I’ll end there this afternoon, but I’d like to, again, thank you for 

inviting me to testify. I’d be happy to answer any questions that 

you might have. 

Chairman DURBIN. Thank you. And without objection, the statement from the American Civil Liberties Union Women’s Rights 

Project will be made part of the record. 

Our last witness is Holly Burkhalter, the vice president of Government Relations at the International Justice Mission, a human 

rights organization that helps rescue trafficking victims overseas. 

Before joining IJM, Ms. Burkhalter was the U.S. policy director 

of Physicians for Human Rights, and before that, Advocacy Director 

at Human Rights Watch. 

At the beginning of her career she worked on Capitol Hill for 

Senator Tom Harkin, and for the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Human Rights and International Organizations. She 

is a frequent witness before Congress. We are happy to have her 

today. A widely published author on human rights issues, graduate 

of Iowa State University. Now I see the Harkin connection. 

Ms. BURKHALTER. Yes. 

Chairman DURBIN. Ms. Burkhalter? 

STATEMENT OF HOLLY J. BURKHALTER, VICE PRESIDENT 

FOR GOVERNMENT RELATIONS, INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE 

MISSION, WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Ms. BURKHALTER. It works out that way, though the record 

should probably be corrected. I worked for Tom when he was in the 

House, which just goes to show that they were employing child 

labor on congressional staff in those days. 

[Laughter.] 

Thank you, Chairman Durbin. It’s an honor to be here with my 

friends who are really the acknowledged experts on these matters 

in the United States. I’m honored to be associated with their testimony, as well as present my own. 

I don’t know if you knew this, but 200 years ago yesterday, on 

March 25, 1807, the abolition of slavery in the British Empire was 

enacted into law. It was basically signed into law by the king. The 

only way you could have come closer to commemorate that occasion 

was to have your hearing on Sunday, and I appreciate the fact that 

you did not. 

But here we are, 200 years later, to work on completing the great 

work that your political ancestor, the great parliamentarian, William Wilberforce, began. William Wilberforce—reminding me of 

Senator Proxmire a little bit—introduced the anti-slavery bill every 

year for 16 years until it was finally passed into law and enacted 

200 years ago. 

Now, the man who really is dear to my heart was Thomas 

Clarkson, who is the father, as far as I’m concerned, of modern 

human rights NGO activism. It was his indefatigable campaigning 

throughout Europe and the United Kingdom that educated ordinary citizens about the great crime against humanity that was 

slavery. 

By the way, he had the task of distilling 2 years of hearings, over 

3,500 pages of hearings, into a short account that would be accessible to members of parliament. I am feeling kinship with the man 

12

as I sit here, because I have a lot to say, now, and have about 2 

minutes to say it. 

But I want to bring your attention, on behalf of IJM—and in so 

doing thank my colleague, Kelly Carter, who is a legal intern with 

IJM helping me to prepare this testimony—to the legal tools that 

are already in our grasp, as is fitting on the 200th anniversary of 

a very important law that was exacted. 

I will discuss the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, that we’ve 

already discussed today, also the U.S. Trade Act with regard to 

preferences under the Generalized System of Preferences, and as 

well as make mention of the Millennium Challenge Account. All 

three are legal tools that are important instruments for ending 

modern day slavery. 

It is not so much the words of the law that need to be changed, 

although I do hear some of the recommendations. Rather, we need 

to see full and unvarnished implementation of the law that we already have. 

Let me start with TVPA. In my 25 years in the human rights 

field, I think it’s probably the most effective human rights law, of 

many that have been enacted, that condition U.S. foreign assistance on the performance of governments that would be beneficiaries. 

I think the most important reason why is that the law does not 

require governments to end all crime within their borders. That is 

not the standard. They do not put forward an unattainable standard, nor do they require that poverty be eradicated in every country in the world where there’s a trafficking program. 

The requirement is that there be a good-faith effort to end trafficking. For my money, a good-faith effort can actually be measured. It can be monitored, measured, and quantified in the form of, 

how is the government responding to the criminals who engage in 

the crime of trafficking? 

Trafficking is a different kind of crime than other crimes which 

my organization works on. We’re a service organization which has 

field operations in 13 countries. We have all kinds of human rights 

cases, a lot of rape cases, a lot of common sexual violence against 

women and girls and boys, we do a lot of police abuse cases. 

But this crime is different. This is an economic crime. It is a 

crime where there are clear victims and there are clear perpetrators. The perpetrators are getting rich off of it. Thus, a deterrence 

that could be measured in the form of number of prosecutions and 

number of people that actually go to jail. They don’t just get a 

hand-slap, they go to jail, and they would include officials that are 

colluding or turning a blind eye. And because it is an economic 

crime, the prosecutions have a disproportionate impact. 

Let me explain. If we were to deter rape and sexual violence in 

countries where it’s just really epidemic, it’s going to take a lot of 

prosecutions to kind of change the tolerance of that crime that is 

not economically motivated, for the most part. And we’re seeking 

to do that in countries where that’s the bulk of our case work, Guatemala, Uganda, Kenya, and elsewhere. 

But in the crime of trafficking in human beings, a couple of prosecutions really have a disproportionate impact. And that’s why trying to assess government’s alacrity in dealing with this stain upon 

13

the national honor can be measured, and should be measured, by 

the number of people that they’re going after and the jail time that 

they get. 

I don’t really see that happening. Countries that don’t want to 

provide information don’t provide information. We don’t have any 

way to judge them. But it seems to me, if they want to continue 

to be in good standing under the minimum requirements in our 

law, they ought to be held to account in that regard and we ought 

to do something about that. 

Accordingly, we need more sort of political support to link the 

two pieces of work in the GTIP office at the State Department, the 

piece of work that is the reports, that are excellent, getting better 

every year, and then the piece of work that is the diplomatic recommendations, the foreign aid assessments, et cetera. 

Let me turn, now, to the Trade Act. Interestingly, a piece of legislation that I am proud to say I did a little work on back in 1988, 

which is the labor rights and worker rights conditionality on trade 

benefits, (duty-free treatment for developing countries to bring 

their products into the United States.) 

The standards are written differently than the TVPA, but it’s the 

same category of crimes. It’s slavery. It’s labor slavery, it’s child 

prostitution, it’s child labor, and it’s debt bondage and forced and 

bonded labor, almost the exact same category of crimes as named 

in the TVPA. 

We’re not seeing, at the present time, the real, extraordinarily 

useful tool of the USTR holding hearings on some well-known violators and on some extraordinarily important export products that 

have been tainted with child labor. We’re not seeing that kind of 

scrutiny that would really be helpful. 

I don’t mean to bring a negative tone to the hearing, but in looking at the latest report that’s available from the USTR, a quick 

glance indicates that in 2005 there did not appear to be a single 

labor rights, or workers’ rights, or any slavery case even taken up 

for review. 

The only cases taken up for review by the Trade Representative 

were those brought by economic interests in the United States. I’m 

not saying that was an inappropriate thing to do, I just think we 

need to have a little support—bipartisan support for a thorough 

look at the conditions of worker rights, and particularly forced 

labor slavery and child prostitution in some of our major trading 

partners. I would love to see those benefits linked to the tier status 

that we already have in motion. 

The third—oh, my goodness. I’m way over time. But I want to 

just glancingly mention the Millemium Challenge Account, because 

it’s a lot of money and it goes to countries that have been found 

to be good actors in terms of governance. It’s an inspired and brilliant idea to use the good offices of the United States’ foreign assistance in very large amounts to support reform. Good governance 

includes anti-corruption efforts. 

The linkage between government corruption and trafficking and 

slavery is like this: you cannot traffick in human beings without 

the government at least turning a blind eye. In that way it’s different than, say, bringing heroin across borders. 

14

This is people we’re talking about, live people, my size. We’ve 

had cases of little girls in prostitution that were delivered to the 

people that bought them by the police. 

We have, on undercover camera taken by our undercover 

operatives posing as customers—our guys will literally negotiate 

police protection, you know, with a high-ranking police officer so as 

to pretend to take this child out. 

We should look carefully at trafficking and the work that governments are doing, because there are some who are prosecuting these 

cases, and jail time is coming to pimps, and brothel owners, and 

prosecutors, and labor traffickers, et cetera. Look at that in the 

context of MCA and you’ve really got something to measure, and 

a darned incentive for governments to do well. 

Well, in closing, I would just say that—that writing the good law 

is just the first step. And making the law live for the people who 

need it the most is another matter. 

You know, the law that was enacted 200 years ago yesterday 

didn’t actually start to have value and meaning in the lives of men, 

women and children who were chained aboard ships that were 

transiting the middle passage until the Government of Great Britain sent ships out to interdict them, literally. 

The difference between life and death and freedom and slavery 

was when someone actually sent a ship out there. And that didn’t 

happen really effectively for many years. 

The law was the beginning. The work, the work to save human 

lives, is what followed. This hearing’s a part of that, and I thank 

you very much. Sorry to go over time. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Burkhalter appears as a submission for the record.] 

Chairman DURBIN. Thank you very much. 

Let me acknowledge, also, the presence of Dr. Helga Konrad, 

whom I met earlier. Raise your hand. Thank you for joining us. 

She’s the former Austrian Federal Minister for Women’s Issues and 

served as a Special Representative on Combatting Trafficking in 

Human Beings at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in 

Europe from 2004 to 2006. Thank you so much for joining us. 

My apologies, first, to the panel of witnesses for asking you to 

restrict your comments on this to five minutes. It’s almost impossible. It reminds me of the time that I was invited to speak and 

the host said: ‘‘Take the first 3 minutes to highlight your Congressional career.’’ 

[Laughter.] 

And I said, ‘‘three minutes? How can I do it in 3 minutes? ’’ He 

said, ‘‘Speak slowly.’’ 

[Laughter.] 

I know that each of you could have spoken a lot longer. And let’s 

hope that during the questioning period, that we can get into a 

more in-depth discussion about some of the aspects that you raised. 

Before we get started, Ms. Becker, you made a distinction which 

I want to put on the record here between smuggling and trafficking, two different things. Because many of the things we’ve 

heard here suggests that people are being brought to the United 

States illegally and others not illegally. Could you make that distinction for the record? 

15

Ms. BECKER. Yes, Senator. Human smuggling, as you know, is a 

crime that involves the deliberate evasion of immigration laws. In 

a human smuggling case, you have individuals who are actually 

moved across international borders. 

In contrast, human trafficking, despite what the name suggests, 

does not necessarily involve the movement of people across an 

international border, or even across State lines. Human trafficking 

is really about force, fraud or coercion, and that is the key element 

that describes human trafficking. 

Chairman DURBIN. Thank you. 

Let’s get into trafficking victims’ services. I think that’s come up 

several times. Ms. Kaufka recommended that trafficking victims be 

eligible for a T visa, Federal benefits, even if law enforcement declines to investigate or prosecute the case. Under current law, a 

victim can generally only receive Federal benefits if there’s an ongoing investigation or prosecution. 

Ms. Becker, would this change in the law help you to have witnesses step forward and to prosecute cases of trafficking? 

Ms. BECKER. Let me say at the outset, Senator, that we think the 

system currently is working and we are being able to find victims 

using our victim-centered approach. And just to clarify, under the 

TVPA and the regulations, victims of a severe form of trafficking 

who are willing to cooperate with law enforcement are entitled to: 

(1) assistance as ‘‘potential victims’’, in other words benefits even 

before they are certified by Health and Human Services; and, (2) 

benefits whether or not there is a prosecution. There are mechanisms in place to provide some services to these victims. 

In addition, Senator, the anecdote raised by Ms. Kaufka, which 

is a disturbing one about Padma, is, in the Justice Department’s 

viewpoint, not a systemic problem. There may be individual instances where there has been delay, Senator, but that is certainly 

not how we train the thousands of Federal, State, and local law enforcement and NGOs. That is not the policy that we are pursuing 

at the Justice Department. 

Chairman DURBIN. Ms. Kaufka, what is your response? 

Ms. KAUFKA. It is correct that victims do have access to some 

services before they are formally recognized. ‘‘Formally recognized’’ 

means that they are given what is called ‘‘continued presence’’ or 

a T visa, which make victims eligible for public benefits, permission 

to work legally in this country, and legal status. 

These protections are not available to our clients before they can 

prove that they have cooperated in an investigation or prosecution 

of a case. 

There is limited funding available to victims to provide for emergency care: housing, food, shelter, and some mental health services. 

But that is temporary assistance and, in Padma’s case, will expire 

after a certain period of time. 

Chairman DURBIN. So while she was waiting, did you say a year? 

Ms. KAUFKA. Yes. 

Chairman DURBIN. From the time that she reported——

Ms. KAUFKA. She was ineligible for public benefits, she had no 

health insurance, she was not given permission to work, and she 

had no legal status. 

Chairman DURBIN. For a year? 

16

Ms. KAUFKA. For a year, both she and her daughters. 

Chairman DURBIN. Let me ask you about the family members. 

You make a good point, that if a victim feels that if their family 

members are going to be abused if they speak up, you say bring 

the family members, unite them, so that will help the prosecution 

in those cases. 

Ms. KAUFKA. Correct. 

Chairman DURBIN. Is that your experience? 

Ms. KAUFKA. Yes. We had a very successful case that was prosecuted by the Department of Justice recently out of Milwaukee, 

with a client who was a victim of domestic servitude. She was trafficked and enslaved for 19 years. For almost two decades, she had 

not seen her family. 

Chairman DURBIN. Nineteen years? 

Ms. KAUFKA. Nineteen years. Correct. And there were some 

threats made to her family. The Department of Justice assisted in 

paroling her parents into the U.S. for the last few months of the 

investigation and trial. 

Her parents provided an immense amount of support to my client. She stated that she doesn’t know if she would have been able 

to do it without her parents here, knowing that they were safe, and 

supporting her in the process. 

Chairman DURBIN. Ms. Becker, what do you think about that 

suggestion? 

Ms. BECKER. Senator, I think Ms. Kaufka mentioned the 

Calimlim case, which is one where we have been able to bring families, unite families, as the process is going on. I will say that we 

have also done something similar while a victim is—before the victim has gotten a T visa while they’re still under continued presence. 

And also, under current law there is an opportunity for victims’ 

families to be able to come to the United States as well an receive 

a derivative T visa. 

Chairman DURBIN. They can come to the United States? 

Ms. BECKER. Yes. You know, the visa program, of course, is administered by the Department of Homeland Secunty. The Justice 

Department’s role is very limited. We investigate and prosecute 

these cases. 

We also, wherever we can, provide supporting documentation for 

the victim pursuant to their request for continued presence or for 

a T visa. Part of the T visa program provides that they are able 

to have an opportunity to request their family come over. 

Chairman DURBIN. Ms. Kaufka, has that been your experience? 

Ms. KAUFKA. It is true that, under the statute, individuals who 

are eligible for a T visa can also apply for derivative status for 

qualifying family members. However, that process, even the application for a T visa, often comes after the initial investigation and 

prosecution of the case, after a significant period of time. And in 

the examples that I provide in the written testimony and talked 

about today, often that support from family members needs to come 

sooner. 

Some individuals may not be eligible for derivative status. For 

example, in the Calimlim case, because the victim was not a minor, 

her parents were not eligible to receive derivative status. ThereVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:48 Sep 24, 2007 Jkt 037759 PO 00000 Frm 00020 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\37695.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
17

fore, at the conclusion of the case they did return home to the Philippines. But in the meantime, again, the family members provided 

a tremendous amount of support to her and assisted her in providing ongoing cooperation with law enforcement in the prosecution 

of the case. 

Chairman DURBIN. I’d like to ask the panel, but start with Ms. 

Kaufka, how do you find these trafficking victims? 

Ms. KAUFKA. About half of our cases come to our organization 

through service providers and half through law enforcement. We, 

as well as the other service providers we work with, provide ongoing training, often in collaboration with the Justice Department 

and other law enforcement agencies, to provide outreach. We offer 

training on the definitions of trafficking versus smuggling, and we 

educate groups on some of the issues that my colleagues on the 

panel have discussed. 

For example, in Padma’s case, it was a women’s shelter that we 

previously trained that recognized this was a trafficking case, 

versus a domestic violence case and referred the client to us. 

Chairman DURBIN. I guess I’m a little stunned by the examples 

you’re giving in Illinois. It just shows how naive I was going into 

this hearing that this is happening right in the State that I represent. 

Ms. KAUFKA. Right. It’s happening in Chicago, in the suburbs, 

and in small towns. 

Chairman DURBIN. Yes. I assume that it’s happening in many 

other places across the country as well. 

Ms. KAUFKA. Correct. 

Chairman DURBIN. What is the scope of this problem in Illinois, 

can you say? 

Ms. KAUFKA. We at the National Immigrant Justice Center have 

represented over 70 international victims over the last 3 years. I 

don’t think anyone can actually answer the question of how many 

victims there are. 

Victims of trafficking are not a self-identifying population. No 

one is raising their hand and saying, ‘‘I’m a victim of slavery and 

trafficking,’’ which is why I think it’s very important for all of us 

that are here today to continue doing the work that we’re doing. 

We must enhance victim protections and prosecute traffickers, and 

provide good training and outreach on the issue. 

Chairman DURBIN. Ms. Becker, can you help me? I’m trying to 

figure out, if you’re on the prosecutorial side of this thing and you 

want the cooperation of the victims, you need the cooperation of the 

victims for anything to go forward, and yet the victims may not be 

eligible for some benefits unless you have an ongoing investigation 

or prosecution. So would there—would it make any sense to eliminate that requirement to provide some of these services and benefits? 

Ms. BECKER. Well, Senator, to clarify, the Justice Department’s 

role is to provide the supporting documentation, as I said, that the 

person—that the victim, No. 1, is a victim of a severe form of trafficking, and No. 2, is cooperative with reasonable requests by law 

enforcement during the course of the investigation. 

Even if the case is never prosecuted, that victim is still entitled 

to benefits and may apply for a T visa. A T visa is sought by the 

18

victim while continued presence is sought by law enforcement. Continued presence is one year in duration and a T visa is now 4 years 

in duration. Both are renewable. 

Chairman DURBIN. Let me ask about one other aspect of the 

TVPA, and perhaps Ms. Burkhalter or Ms. Vandenberg can speak 

to it. The reauthorization in 2003 included a civil cause of action 

for trafficking victims to sue the perpetrators in U.S. courts. 

Since that time, over 1,000 victims have received T visas, but 

only a handful have brought civil lawsuits. Could anyone on the 

panel comment about why there have been so few civil lawsuits? 

Ms. VANDENBERG. Senator Durbin, there is—there’s an effort 

now to try and increase the civil legal resources available to trafficking victims, but I think it is clear that the service providers 

don’t have adequate funding to provide the full panoply of legal 

services that the victims need. 

So while Katherine Kautha and her colleagues do an immense 

amount in assisting victims make it through the criminal process, 

holding their hands in some sense, there’s not enough funding and 

not enough manpower or womanpower to actually take these cases 

all the way through civil cases. So many of the service providers 

now turn to lawyers at law firms and there’s an effort nationwide 

to try and train pro bono attorneys to take these cases. 

But unfortunately that’s not a panacea, because it still requires 

quite a lot of the service provider’s time to supervise the outside 

attorneys and to make sure that they do the cases appropriately 

without retraumatizing the victims. 

Chairman DURBIN. It sounds like there might be a question as 

to the status of the plaintiff during the pending civil lawsuit, 

whether they’re going to be deported or face some question about 

whether they can remain in the United States. 

Ms. VANDENBERG. That’s absolutely the case. And in the trafficking victim cases that I have dealt with, defense attorneys have 

actually responded that our client has no standing because she has 

no immigration status. 

Chairman DURBIN. Is the law clear on that issue? 

Ms. VANDENBERG. I believe it is. I think that that’s simply a red 

herring, but one that they throw out quite frequently. 

On the issue, though, of uncertainty on immigration status, I believe that it is still the case, and I would be interested to hear from 

the Justice Department whether it is still the case, I don’t believe 

that the regulations have been issued yet to permit trafficking victims to adjust their status. So T visas only last for 3 years. 

So what happens to those victims after 3 years when they’d like 

to turn into permanent residents, but there aren’t regulations appropriate to permit them to do so? 

Chairman DURBIN. Ms. Becker, is that the case? 

Ms. BECKER. Senator Durbin, I’m not familiar with the status—

current status of the regulations. I think those may be under the 

jurisdiction of another Federal agency. 

Chairman DURBIN. If you would help us make that a question on 

record and make it part of our proceedings. 

Let me speak about the issue of unaccompanied children, the 

most vulnerable victims. Ms. Kaufka has proposed that whenever 

a child is discovered to be a trafficking victim, law enforcement 

19

should promptly contact HHS in order to supply benefits and assistance. She talked about one of her clients, Sonia, 15 years old, 

trafficked into a brothel in the U.S. from El Salvador. 

When Sonia was rescued from the brothel, instead of receiving 

Federal assistance she was put into deportation proceedings. Ms. 

Kaufka, how long did it take for Sonia to be taken out of deportation and be referred to your office? 

Ms. KAUFKA. The entire process took about six to 9 months. 

Chairman DURBIN. What hoops did a child victim have to jump 

through before receiving eligibility for benefits? 

Ms. KAUFKA. A number of hoops, actually, one even in identifying her as a victim of human trafficking while she was at a facility for unaccompanied minors and in deportation proceedings in addition to building trust with her to learn of her true circumstances. 

Second, we faced a hurdle in convincing the proper authorities 

that she was, indeed, a victim. When she was picked up by authorities, she did not explicitly say that things happened to her, although she was removed from a known brothel. In fact, the brothel 

owner was charged with harboring, and, I believe, other charges relating to prostitution. 

The respective authorities—I believe Department of Homeland 

Security—would not recognize her formally as a victim. We had to 

go through HHS, which in turn had to consult with the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security to issue her 

what’s called an eligibility letter to make her eligible for services, 

including foster care. This process did not adress her legal immigration status. It’s very complicated. She was finally able to access 

foster care and other services while we were working on her immigration status, specifically a T visa. 

Chairman DURBIN. So here you have a frightened 15-year-old 

who has been enslaved in a brothel, finally comes forward to try 

to find some justice, and runs smack dab into three different Federal agencies, if not more, that are looking at her from different 

perspectives: the Department of Justice, as a witness in a prosecution; Health and Human Services as a child; and Homeland Security as someone who’s here undocumented. 

Ms. KAUFKA. Correct. 

Chairman DURBIN. Do you have any recommendations on how 

we might have made life a little easier for Sonia? 

Ms. KAUFKA. I think it would have helped to have an advocate 

there for her right away. This should be done whenever law enforcement encounters minors who may be potential victims of trafficking. In this case, I used a—what I think is an obvious example 

of a known brothel, a known pimp, and where a child is removed 

from that situation. 

However, I also work with a number of other children who came 

into contact with law enforcement authorities who did not recognize the potential trafficking situation and who, I believe, should 

have known better. These authorities didn’t have the proper training to conduct a proper screening to distinguish the child as a victim of human trafficking versus the criminal activity that they 

child was subsequently charged with. 

I would recommend prouding an advocate or legal counsel there 

immediately in addition to a referral to the Department of Health 

20

and Human Services, which would be the appropriate agency to 

deal with children and make the proper referrals. 

Chairman DURBIN. So there’s no guardian-type person who steps 

into this situation currently under the law? 

Ms. KAUFKA. Under the law right now, if there is a person believed to be an unaccompanied minor, the Office of Refugee Resettlement would takes custody or guardianship of the child, while the 

child is often placed in removal proceedings or is maybe seeking 

other types of legal immigration relief. 

Chairman DURBIN. Let me move to this question of government 

contractors. Ms. Vandenberg, you raised that, I think, very effectively here. I couldn’t help think about when I was reading, particularly the incident involving Bosnia. I couldn’t help think about 

the current controversy going on in Japan, where Korean women 

are asking for an acknowledgement by the Japanese, that they 

were exploited during World War II for Japanese troops. It’s obviously a very painful chapter in the history of both countries. 

But when you see these women, now very advanced in age, talking about their exploitation, it really touched me when you started 

talking about American contractors, paid for with American tax 

dollars, who are now being found, or being accused, of exploiting, 

in the case of Bosnia, women under like circumstances. Did that 

parallel strike you? 

Ms. VANDENBERG. Well, ironically, the comfort women case is yet 

another case that was dismissed before the U.S. Federal courts 

when the comfort women tried to find a remedy in U.S. Federal 

court under the Alien Tort Statute. 

But the other parallel that you bring up is the victims. And I 

think it’s very important to focus on the victims and on their 

human rights, and on the perspective that they bring to this. And 

I raise that because I found that the investigations conducted in 

Bosnia and Herzegovina completely ignored the victims. 

The perpetrators, the men who bought women from the brothels, 

most of them buying them from a brothel owner named Debeli, 

bought their passports, sometimes bought them together with 

weapons from the brothel owners. Those men said that they had 

‘‘rescued’’ the women, that they had purchased them out of sexual 

slavery. No one bothered to actually interview the women. No one 

asked them whether they had simply traded one owner for another 

owner. 

And that is why it is so important—I’d like to echo the point that 

Ms. Kaufka just made about training. There is, I think ineffective 

training at this point among DoD investigators who are tasked 

with investigating these cases. They need to take more care to 

interview the victims and to discover the victims’ perspectives. 

One woman who was released by a contractor just before he was 

repatriated to the United States on weapons charges, not because 

he had purchased her but because he had purchased a weapon 

alongside her, he was sent home to the United States. 

He released her and gave her back her passport before—before 

he left. She wandered into a International Police Task Force station months later and said that she had lived with him like a prostitute and that she—that he had held her passport the entire time. 

21

So from her perspective, he was just another trafficker. And yet, 

I feel like the Department of Defense investigators were inclined to 

believe his story that he was a rescuer. 

Chairman DURBIN. So the firearm violation, he was being held 

responsible on a criminal basis, but not for any violation relative 

to this woman? 

Ms. VANDENBERG. Well, Senator Durbin, to say he was held responsible for a criminal violation would probably be an exaggeration. 

Chairman DURBIN. Overstating. 

Ms. VANDENBERG. Because there have been no prosecutions 

whatsoever. There have been no indictments. The Military 

Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act of 2000, already in effect for 7 

years, has been used twice, and not once for a trafficking case, not 

once. 

Chairman DURBIN. Ms. Becker, I’m going to ask you a question 

in a moment, but I want to recount what we’ve heard here from 

Ms. Vandenberg and others. 

In the 2005 reauthorization of the Trafficking Victims Protection 

Act, jurisdiction was expanded to allow U.S. prosecutions of U.S. 

Government employees or contractors who engage in human trafficking abroad. But as Ms. Vandenberg’s pointed out in her testimony, no one has been prosecuted. 

Now, this writer from the Chicago Tribune, Mr. Cam Simpson, 

wrote a series of articles in the Tribune about a trafficking network 

that stretched from Kathmandu in Nepal to U.S. military bases in 

Iraq. 

Others have written about a Defense Department contractor in 

Bosnia called DynCorp—I hope I pronounced that correctly—which 

employed eight people who bought women from brothels in 1999 

and 2000 and used them for sexual and domestic services, and 

there have been no prosecutions. 

Ms. Becker, you worked in the General Counsel’s Office at the 

Defense Department before joining the Justice Department. Can 

you tell us why the U.S. Government hasn’t done more to punish 

U.S. contractors in Iraq and other foreign countries who engage in 

human trafficking? 

Ms. BECKER. Yes, Senator. While I was working at Department 

of Defense in the General Counsel’s Office, I did not have responsibility for human trafficking, I had a different portfolio, so I cannot 

speak to the Department of Defense’s actions in that regard. 

I can say that we do have a number of investigations involving 

government contractors in foreign countries. As you know, there is 

a 5-year statute of limitations for general crimes, including this 

one. But we are—I can’t say anything beyond that, Senator, because I wouldn’t want to jeopardize any potential prosecution. 

Chairman DURBIN. I certainly don’t want to jeopardize any pending prosecution, because there haven’t been many. We hope that 

some will take place. 

I’ll go back to a point made by Ms. Burkhalter. This is, by and 

large, an economic issue. It is much more than that, of course. It’s 

a moral issue. But there’s a lot of money involved in this. And if 

we start making it a costly undertaking, perhaps we can change 

the economics of it. 

22

In her testimony, Ms. Vandenberg proposed that victims trafficked by the United States’ contractors or employees abroad be 

permitted to come to the U.S. to testify and receive victim benefits 

like the T visa. Under current law, they’re not allowed to do so. 

Ms. Becker, do you think that the TVPA should be revised to permit these victims to come to our country? 

Ms. BECKER. Thank you, Senator. That is a proposal that we recently received on Friday. I would—I would like the opportunity to 

give that request additional thought. 

Chairman DURBIN. Would you get back to us on that? I’d like to 

know the position of the Department on that. 

Another proposal by Ms. Vandenberg is to require the Justice 

Department, in its congressionally mandated annual report on U.S. 

Government anti-trafficking activities, to include an evaluation of 

Defense Department efforts. 

I agree that would be valuable, and I would hope that the public 

could use it to gauge how much progress our Department of Defense is making in implementing its zero tolerance policy on trafficking. 

Ms. Becker, do you have any thoughts, or would you like to wait 

and make sure you officially state the Department position on requiring an annual Department of Justice report to include a section 

on the Department of Defense’s anti-trafficking activities? 

Ms. BECKER. Yes, Senator, that is obviously something that we’d 

want to consult with the Department of Defense with. 

Chairman DURBIN. I hope you will. It is ironic that we are now 

policing our own departments of our government to see if they’re 

doing everything they’re supposed to do on anti-trafficking, but I 

think that point has been raised very effectively. 

Ms. Vandenberg, on that series that Mr. Simpson wrote, it involved, you said, Halliburton, or Kellogg, Brown & Root, one of the 

companies? 

Ms. VANDENBERG. That was the prime contractor. Yes, Senator. 

But the actual allegations that Mr. Simpson made had to do with 

subcontractors who were below at several tiers. 

Chairman DURBIN. And that is, I think, where it gets complicated legally. 

Ms. VANDENBERG. Well, it gets complicated, but not as a matter 

of criminal prosecution. It’s complicated in terms of sorting out the 

relationships and who was employing whom, but under MEJA, subcontractors in any tier are also covered. 

Chairman DURBIN. The acknowledgement by our military in Iraq 

that these contractors had to give back the passports of those working for them seems to be an indication they realized there’s a problem. 

Ms. VANDENBERG. I believe so. And yet, it’s troubling that the 

Department of Defense Inspector General’s report seemed limited, 

and the investigations seemed limited, to these 12 men and whether there was criminal responsibility for these 12 men, because in 

the course of their investigation they interviewed hundreds of third 

country nationals and didn’t find a basis for any criminal prosecution on the facts that they uncovered relating to all of these other 

third country nationals, even though they discovered widespread 

abuses, including seizing of passports. 

23

Chairman DURBIN. Another issue which was raised here and I 

think I’d like to speak to, is this whole question of human trafficking right here in the Nation’s Capital, or nearby, by foreign diplomats. 

This issue was discussed in an article entitled ‘‘The Slaves in 

Our Midst’’ by Colbert King in the Washington Post, National Public Radio has reported on a lawsuit recently filed here in Washington, alleging a Kuwaiti military attache ́ forced three women 

from India to serve as domestic employees and child care providers 

against their will. They worked more than 15 hours a day, earning 

less than 60 cents an hour. 

One of the women said she was struck in the head by the diplomat’s wife, once with a wooden box and another time with a 

package of frozen chicken. 

Regardless of the merits of the suit, it’s likely to be dismissed on 

diplomatic immunity grounds, as have other similar cases. According to the NPR story, there have been more than 40 instances of 

domestic servitude involving diplomats, but no convictions. 

One proposal to address this problem has been made by John 

Miller, who, I mentioned earlier, worked at the State Department 

in the anti-trafficking office. He’s proposed the State Department 

rescind the 2,000 personal servant visas it issues each year. He argues that foreign diplomats serving in the United States should 

hire Americans for their domestic work. 

Mr. King argued in his article that the State Department should 

stop recommending immunity for diplomats in lawsuits brought by 

domestic servants. He said the State Department should define domestic service as part of the professional and commercial activity 

exception to diplomatic immunity under the Vienna Convention on 

Diplomatic Relations. This might lead Federal judges to dismiss 

fewer lawsuits. 

Ms. Becker, Ms. Vandenberg, what are your thoughts on these 

proposals? 

Ms. BECKER. Senator, with respect to the—to the diplomatic immunity, that is a State Department issue. Certainly I can tell you 

with respect to diplomatic immunity—the Justice Department cannot prosecute somebody who has diplomatic immunity. 

That being said, the Justice Department has brought cases involving diplomats, where diplomatic immunity has not been an 

issue. For example, in the District of Massachusetts, we recently 

brought a case involving a foreign national from Saudi Arabia who 

had a domestic labor trafficking case there, and that matter was 

resolved through a guilty plea. 

Chairman DURBIN. What do you think, Ms. Vandenberg? 

Ms. VANDENBERG. As I recommended in my testimony—in my 

written testimony, I would say that there needs to be a GAO study 

on this issue, and I say that for two reasons. There is a core group 

of lawyers and civil attorneys who try to bring cases for victims of 

trafficking and find their efforts thwarted by the State Department, unfortunately. 

Those—those advocates have called the State Department and 

tried to get the State Department to respond, and unfortunately 

those advocates have also called—we have also called law enforcement and law enforcement does not always respond because they 

24

hear the word ‘‘diplomat’’ and go running for cover. So it’s—it’s an 

enormous problem. It is an area of tremendous impunity. 

I think it unlikely, based on the filing that the Department of 

State just made in the Gonzales case, the case that Colby King 

wrote about, the Department of Justice has recommended that that 

case, which is a worker exploitation and not a trafficking case, be 

dismissed on grounds of diplomatic immunity. 

I would ask that the Department of Justice be far more aggressive in trying to get waivers of diplomatic immunity and prosecute 

these cases because it is absolutely shameful that slavery is occurring in the United States and in Washington, DC in the suburbs, 

slavery that we wouldn’t tolerate if it were being done by American 

citizens. 

Chairman DURBIN. I’m going to pursue that GAO report that 

you’ve recommended. I also have to say that we have a jurisdictional issue between committees, and I’m going to ask Joe Biden 

of the Foreign Affairs Committee about the policy aspects, because 

whatever we do to diplomats here, we can expect to be done to us 

overseas, so we have to follow through and find out what impact 

that might have. 

Certainly I’m not suggesting any American diplomat is involved 

in trafficking, but if you restrict whom they can employ in an embassy, we should expect to run into the same restrictions in terms 

of our own employment standards abroad. 

Ms. VANDENBERG. And Senator Durbin, we lawyers who are 

working on behalf of victims trafficked by diplomats are very sensitive to that point of view, which has been raised by the Department of State. 

And we’re actually trying to work creatively at this point, both 

with the Department of Justice and with the Department of State, 

to try and find remedies that are perhaps unconventional or would 

provide some sort of justice for these victims without—without running flat into the issue of immunity. 

Chairman DURBIN. I’d like to ask the panel to consider another 

issue which came up in the hearing we had earlier on genocide. 

It’s, I guess, euphemistically known as the ‘‘safe haven’’ issue. We 

have a dual standard when it comes to the people we prosecute for 

wrongdoing, those who’ve committed crimes overseas. 

If a person has been guilty of torture, material support for terrorism, terrorism financing, the taking of hostages, and many other 

Federal crimes, we allow for the extraterritorial jurisdiction of the 

United States. In other words, that person does not have to be a 

citizen of the United States, nor does he have to have committed 

that crime here in the United States. The fact that he would set 

foot on American soil makes him subject to prosecution. 

We use the example of Chucky Taylor of Liberia, who decided, 

after being guilty of torture in his own country, to come here and 

use some of his ill-gotten gains to buy a nice house in Florida. Well, 

he’s now facing prosecution for it. 

We found that when it came to genocide, that those who were engaged in genocide in Sudan could travel with impunity to the 

United States. There was no extraterritorial jurisdiction. 

Now I’d like to ask all of the members of the panel who would 

like to comment whether they believe that the TVPA should be reVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:48 Sep 24, 2007 Jkt 037759 PO 00000 Frm 00028 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\37695.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
25

vised so that non-U.S. citizens who engage in human trafficking 

abroad can be prosecuted if they come to the United States. Should 

the United States’ law be changed to create extraterritorial jurisdiction in the area of human trafficking? 

Ms. VANDENBERG. I’d like to address that, briefly, by talking 

about one change in the law that we succeeded in making in 2005, 

which was essentially an extension of MEJA so that we could prosecute employees of other agencies. 

MEJA only covered, at that stage, Department of Defense and 

those with a nexus to the Department of Defense. We found that 

contractors from the Department of State were also accused of allegedly buying women from the brothels. So the TVPRA of 2005 

does expand that jurisdiction. 

The question of whether jurisdiction should be expanded to cover 

everyone, frankly, I haven’t considered it and I’d want more time 

to think about it, if we could get back to you on that. I think the 

community of non-governmental organizations would like to consider that as an option, certainly. 

Chairman DURBIN. All right. 

Any other comments? Ms. Burkhalter? 

Ms. BURKHALTER. IJM only works on victim relief and perpetrator accountability abroad. We don’t do domestic cases. But in my 

many, many, many years in Human Rights Watch and Physicians 

For Human Rights, I dealt with the issue of genocide a lot. 

I remember having—during the Rwanda genocide, serving papers, since I was not the lawyer in the case—wasn’t a lawyer at 

all, as a matter of fact—to one of the militia leaders at the height 

of the genocide, Jean Bosco Barayagwiza, who was later indicted 

by the tribunal, and serving him his papers on a class action lawsuit we did on behalf of a bunch of Tutsis in the United States who 

lost their entire families. 

But on the question of extraterritorial jurisdiction, on our kinds 

of cases we do a lot of American and European pedophile cases 

against local kids in the countries where we work. We’ve done some 

of these cases in Asia, and some in Latin America. 

The PROTECT Act, of course, has been great, and that’s a fairly 

new legal tool in the hands of human rights activists which allows 

Americans engaged in crimes abroad to be prosecuted back home. 

We just—you’re not talking about that, I know. But it is a useful 

thing. 

We just worked on a case this fall of Terry Smith, who is an 

American pedophile who was also violating young kids and offering 

13-year-old kids in Cambodia, which our undercover operators discovered, got our contacts in the Cambodian police to pick him up. 

They did a great job of it. But he later managed to get out of jail 

on alleged health grounds. 

Our investigators, working through Interpol, learned that he was 

wanted on charges of abusing children in the United States in the 

State of Oregon and he—when he decided to leave Cambodia after 

his short stint in jail, Federal marshalls, in cooperation with the 

Cambodian authorities, were there to pick him up. He’s now facing 

trial in the United States. 

Chairman DURBIN. But the case that I’m talking about—I hate 

to interrupt you. 

26

Ms. BURKHALTER. I’m sorry. 

Chairman DURBIN. But what I’m going after is this. Let’s assume 

we have a notorious trafficker from a foreign country who has 

never been alleged to have done anything in the United States. 

Ms. BURKHALTER. Right. 

Chairman DURBIN. No trafficking in the United States, no violation of law in the United States, but is well known to have been 

a trafficker, perhaps prosecuted for it, in a foreign country, who 

now, because of this economic crime, is very wealthy and decides 

he wants to live in the United States. 

Ms. BURKHALTER. Right. Well, I can’t speak for IJM, so I’ll speak 

personally. 

Chairman DURBIN. Can we——

Ms. BURKHALTER. I think there——

Chairman DURBIN. If I might finish. 

Ms. BURKHALTER. I think there ought to be universal jurisdiction 

for crimes against humanity, and I think trafficking and slavery 

are crimes against humanity. 

Chairman DURBIN. Well, I think that’s where I’m going, too. To 

think that the United States could somehow be a safe haven for 

that individual to live the rest of their natural lives in luxury because of their ill-gotten gains doesn’t seem consistent with the treaties we entered. 

Ms. BURKHALTER. Well, and you mentioned the—you mentioned 

the fact that torture is a crime for which there is universal jurisdiction. And in our experience, there has never been a slavery case 

or a trafficking case that does not involve constant violent abuse 

and torture of the victims. 

Chairman DURBIN. So there might be another angle. 

Ms. VANDENBERG. Senator Durbin, if I might just add something. 

At this point, the record of prosecutions, based on investigations 

conducted abroad—again, using the contractor example—is not 

good. 

And so I would reiterate, if you move in the general direction of 

universal jurisdiction, there needs to be some facility, some vehicle, 

to bring witnesses and victims to the United States so that they 

can testify. 

Ms. BURKHALTER. And there need to be resources to investigate 

those crimes abroad. 

Chairman DURBIN. Ms. Becker, would you like to comment on 

this? 

Ms. BECKER. Yes, just a couple of comments, Senator. First, you 

know, we currently have cases where we do have victims and witnesses abroad, and we have worked with OIA, International Affairs 

in the Criminal Division, in order to get MLATs and use other 

mechanisms such as an S visa in order to get the witnesses that 

we need to come to the United States to testify in particular cases. 

I also wanted to mention, in the case that you had described, 

Senator, there may be current options as well in order to ensure 

that a non-U.S. citizen who engaged in human trafficking abroad 

does not find the United States to be a safe haven. 

For example, if the country where that person is originally from 

has a law against human trafficking and we have an extradition 

27

treaty, we could, of course, extradite that individual to the foreign 

country. 

Chairman DURBIN. Let me ask you, Ms. Becker. Are you familiar 

with the GAO report of July, 2006 relating to our prosecution of 

U.S. trafficking overseas? 

Ms. BECKER. I am aware that the GAO issued a report. I am only 

vaguely familiar with the specifics of it. 

Chairman DURBIN. I’m going to ask you if you’ll ask the Department to respond to this question then, and I won’t ask you at this 

moment. This is the report, which I’m sure is easily available. 

But the report concluded, ‘‘More than 5 years after the passage 

of the landmark antitrafficking law, the U.S. Government has not 

developed a coordinated strategy to combat trafficking in persons 

abroad, as called for in a Presidential directive, or evaluated its 

programs to determine whether projects are achieving the desired 

outcomes.’’

I’d appreciate it very much if you could ask the Department if 

they would respond to this report, which was released a year ago. 

But I’d like to have an official response, if we could, to that as well. 

The TVPA requires the State Department to issue an annual report that ranks countries around the world as to their anti-trafficking activities. 

And I’m going to ask all the panelists, how effective has the annual Trafficking in Persons office report been in holding foreign 

countries accountable in the fight against human trafficking? Has 

the U.S. Government imposed sanctions on any countries for their 

failure to make adequate progress? If anybody knows. 

Ms. BURKHALTER. Well, the—what we have found in some of the 

countries where we work is that the threat of sanctions for countries that are on tier three has been extremely useful, particularly 

for countries that are—really desire U.S. foreign assistance. 

And when a block of U.S. foreign aid, non-humanitarian aid, is 

potentially at risk, combined with good, strong, solid private diplomacy with a good Ambassadorial presence and staffed there, it can 

be very useful. 

My colleague and boss, Sharon Cohen says, and not meaning to 

make light of it, that the best time to be a victim of trafficking is 

in the period leading up to June when the report is being compiled, 

because in some countries where, you know, you’re demanding—

particularly the statistics on prosecutions, local prosecutions—because you don’t get deterrence of the crime unless you get prosecutions—that literally, all of a sudden, will have—we work with local 

law enforcement. 

We aren’t local law enforcement, but we work with them, imperfect and badly trained and under-resourced as they sometimes are. 

There are police of good will everywhere. And all of a sudden our 

effort, will get a little boost when our local diplomats, those of good 

will who take this very seriously indeed in many embassies around 

the world, come around asking for information. 

I’m not going to speak about any specific countries. We’re operational, and I would not embarrass those officials and leaders of 

good will who make it possible to bring cases. But I would—I would 

speak to you privately and your staff privately about places where 

a bit more candor would be much appreciated. 

28

Chairman DURBIN. Well, since you feel a little uncomfortable in 

reading the names of the countries, I’ll just go ahead and read 

them. They are tier three countries in the June, 2006 Trafficking 

in Persons report from the Department of State. 

The countries are: Belize, Burma, Cuba, Iran, Laos, North Korea, 

Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, and 

Zimbabwe. And because I don’t want to put you in an indelicate position here, I don’t know if you know how many of these countries 

receive Generalized System of Preferences, GSP, trade benefits. 

Ms. BURKHALTER. I’ve actually got the list here, if you give me 

a second. Maybe others would like to respond. Let’s take a look at 

GSP. 

Chairman DURBIN. If anybody else would like to comment. 

Ms. VANDENBERG. I can’t answer that specific question, but while 

Ms. Burkhalter is looking I’d like to make two points about—about 

the TIP report every year. I would disagree slightly with Ms. 

Burkhalter that it’s a great time to be a victim around the time 

that the stats are due, because prosecutions don’t always operate 

in the best interests of victims. 

The victims who are forced to testify who don’t receive witness 

protection, who don’t receive any kind of benefits or protections 

from the State, when a State is fighting to gain prosecutions but 

at the expense of victims in order to stay off of tier three of the 

TIP report, then I think we have a real problem. 

And so there needs to be, I think, added emphasis on the services 

that are provided to victims in order to generate the kinds of prosecution statistics that countries like to brag about. 

The second issue is talking to nongovernmental organization 

leaders in countries like Bosnia. They find—and in Romania as 

well. They sometimes find that the lack of first tier status of their 

own country—their governments sometimes blame that on the nongovernmental organizations themselves. They see nongovernmental 

organizations as organizations that are airing the country’s dirty 

laundry and putting the country’s status at risk. 

So, there are two phenomena relating to nongovernment organizations that we’ve seen in the TIP report. One, is that NGO’s are 

blamed when countries get a bad tier rating. The second, is that 

nongovernmental organizations are sometimes not fully credited. 

Sometimes States actually get the credit for the work that NGO’s 

do rather than the nongovernmental organizations themselves getting credit for sometimes working in a hostile environment. 

Ms. BURKHALTER. That’s a good point. 

Chairman DURBIN. Ms. Burkhalter? 

Ms. BURKHALTER. She raises a good point, by the way, and I 

wouldn’t disagree with it. I would also say that when you’re working locally and you’re trying to get perpetrator accountability so as 

to deter this crime, you are—you know, you’re not working with the 

best police forces in the world. 

What we try to do at IJM is bring up standards and watch to 

protect both the victims and people who are collaterally affected, 

and it is kind of a building block thing. But I take both those 

points. I think they’re very useful. 

I’m just quickly checking the eligibility. I only see, of those you 

named, Zimbabwe and Venezuela. Frankly, in both cases I’d be sort 

29

of surprised if too much were coming in duty-free. I’d have to—I’d 

have to go back. This is either the latest we could get—it’s a February 2005 document, however. 

But the rest of the countries you named, if you don’t mind me 

saying so, sort of look like the official enemies list. None of us 

would be eager to see Burma get anything, one might add; ditto, 

Cuba, and some of the other places. 

I just think there’s been progress in this area, but this cannot 

look like the sort of friends and enemies of the United States club. 

It is important that there be an honest eye. 

I know that there’s something of a diplomatic tussle over this 

every year because it is—it’s difficult for other U.S. interests to 

hold friends accountable for egregious crimes. 

And I might add, the United States failing to clean its own house 

in this regard does not enhance our ability to be an upholder of 

these standards, but I do think we should do better. 

Chairman DURBIN. One last point I’d like to ask you. You mentioned the Millennium Challenge accounts. 

Ms. BURKHALTER. Yes. 

Chairman DURBIN. So do we take this into account, how countries are doing when it comes to trafficking enforcement, their own 

laws? 

Ms. BURKHALTER. You’d have to ask MCA administrators. I’ve 

not liaised with them yet, but I’m sure going to, because some of 

the countries where we work that are kind of threshold countries, 

that means they’re almost eligible, and this is a wonderful time 

diplomatically to really bring them along because if they—in an accountable way. 

We lose cases every week, we and the prosecutors working with 

us, just lose cases—more cases because of corruption than any 

other factor, much more so than—to my knowledge than, lack of 

training, and all of the sort of economic factors. 

Lose more cases, and not just trafficking cases, though the corruption issue is much greater on trafficking because there’s a lot 

of money involved. In a common rape case, for example, we see 

bribery sometimes. We’ll lose a case, when some local official has 

been paid off, or asked to be paid off by the—by the family. 

But the real issue here is corruption in the trafficking cases. And 

again, there’s tangible things to look at, keeping in mind Ms. 

Vandenberg’s caveat in that regard. 

Chairman DURBIN. Any points that anybody would like to raise 

before we close the hearing that you believe are still outstanding 

that we haven’t touched on? 

Ms. KAUFKA. I’d like to just followup on the earlier comments 

about expanding jurisdiction abroad. As a service provider, I would 

emphasize that if this is considered, we also should consider protections for victims here. 

At the National Immigrant Justice Center, for example, we see 

many women who have been trafficked abroad, for example, trafficked from Albania or Moldova into Italy or Greece. They flee because of the impunity that Ms. Vandenberg mentioned earlier, and 

because of the corruption within their own police force and governments. They are unable to return home based on threats to themselves, or to their family members, and they have no relief in the 

30

United States under the TVPA because the trafficking did not 

occur within the borders of the United States. 

So, I would consider either extending T visas to those individuals 

or expanding asylum law to include victims of trafficking as a particular social group. 

Chairman DURBIN. I want to thank the panel. I’m trying to reflect on this issue, which I’ve tried to study closely for this hearing. 

It’s clear that it’s a relatively new law that we’re dealing with here. 

It’s a huge problem. It’s a complex prosecution problem, trying to 

find a witness, trustworthy witness, that comes forward that can 

help you prosecute a case that could involve a court fight and a 

long period of time. 

I think, despite the statistic that Ms. Becker noted, that in 6 

years our prosecutions are up 600 percent, that I think we all agree 

that we can do better, and we need to do better. 

Some of the suggestions made by Ms. Kaufka and others about 

how to make these prosecutions more effective by being more sensitive to the victims and their families, I think, is a point well 

taken and it’s something that the law should recognize. 

But I return to a couple points here that still trouble me, the 

point made by Ms. Vandenberg about our government contractors 

and the fact that they are—they seem to be dealing with impunity 

in this field. I mean, that really reflects on us. 

If you’re right, Ms. Burkhalter, that you can’t find human trafficking abroad without government corruption, what does it say 

about us that we would have government contractors involved in 

some forms, directly or indirectly, of human trafficking and not 

prosecute those cases? 

Some other committee someplace else in the world could be holding a hearing today, saying, you know, it’s probably a case of corruption in America that’s led to this situation. I hope that’s not the 

case, but I think we have to find a way to make sure that our contractors, these companies that our tax dollars sustain, are held accountable and understand the economics of their decision, if not the 

criminality of their decision. 

And, finally, I think that when we’re dealing with these other 

countries around the world, we can do a lot better in being much 

more aggressive in trying to set standards when it comes to human 

trafficking, particularly in our bilateral relations with these countries so that they know we are extremely serious about this. 

I thank the panel. I thank all of you for being here today. I want 

to thank Mike Zubrensky on my staff for bringing this hearing together, and our staffers, Reema Dodin, Justin Steffen, and Joe 

DeMaria, to help prepare for this hearing. 

The record will be kept open for a week for those who want to 

submit written questions to the members of the panel, and for responses that we might have elicited by our questioning. 

I thank you all for being here today. The Subcommittee stands 

adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:30 p.m. the hearing was adjourned.] 

[Questions and answers and submissions for the record follow.]

31


37695.001
32


37695.002
33


37695.003
34


37695.004
35


37695.005
36


37695.006
37


37695.007
38


37695.008
39


37695.009
40


37695.010
41


37695.011
42


37695.012
43


37695.013
44


37695.014
45


37695.015
46


37695.016
47


37695.017
48


37695.018
49


37695.019
50


37695.020
51


37695.021
52


37695.022
53


37695.023
54


37695.024
55


37695.025
56


37695.026
57


37695.027
58


37695.028
59


37695.029
60


37695.030
61


37695.031
62


37695.032
63


37695.033
64


37695.034
65


37695.035
66


37695.036
67


37695.037
68


37695.038
69


37695.039
70


37695.040
71


37695.041
72


37695.042
73


37695.043
74


37695.044
75


37695.045
76


37695.046
77


37695.047
78


37695.048
79


37695.049
80


37695.050
81


37695.051
82


37695.052
83


37695.053
84

Æ


37695.054