U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

60–798 CC WASHINGTON : 1999

H.R. 1356, THE FREEDOM FROM SEXUAL

TRAFFICKING ACT OF 1999

MARKUP

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON

INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS AND HUMAN RIGHTS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

ON

AUGUST 4, 1999

Serial No. 106–62

Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations

(
(II)

COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York, Chairman

WILLIAM F. GOODLING, Pennsylvania

JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa

HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois

DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey

DAN BURTON, Indiana

ELTON GALLEGLY, California

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina

DANA ROHRABACHER, California

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California

PETER T. KING, New York

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South

Carolina

MATT SALMON, Arizona

AMO HOUGHTON, New York

TOM CAMPBELL, California

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

KEVIN BRADY, Texas

RICHARD BURR, North Carolina

PAUL E. GILLMOR, Ohio

GEORGE P. RADANOVICH, California

JOHN COOKSEY, Louisiana

THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado

SAM GEJDENSON, Connecticut

TOM LANTOS, California

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American

Samoa

MATTHEW G. MARTINEZ, California

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey

ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio

CYNTHIA A. MCKINNEY, Georgia

ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida

PAT DANNER, Missouri

EARL F. HILLIARD, Alabama

BRAD SHERMAN, California

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida

STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey

JIM DAVIS, Florida

EARL POMEROY, North Dakota

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York

BARBARA LEE, California

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York

JOSEPH M. HOEFFEL, Pennsylvania

RICHARD J. GARON, Chief of Staff

KATHLEEN BERTELSEN MOAZED, Democratic Chief of Staff

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS AND HUMAN RIGHTS

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman

WILLIAM F. GOODLING, Pennsylvania

HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina

PETER T. KING, New York

MATT SALMON, Arizona

THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado

CYNTHIA A. MCKINNEY, Georgia

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American

Samoa

EARL F. HILLIARD, Alabama

BRAD SHERMAN, California

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York

GROVER JOSEPH REES, Subcommittee Staff Director

GEORGE COLVIN, Pearson Fellow for Ranking Member

DOUGLAS C. ANDERSON, Counsel

NICOLLE A. SESTRIC, STAFF ASSOCIATE
(III)

C O N T E N T S

APPENDIX

Page

Prepared Statement

Hon. Christopher H. Smith, a U.S. Representatives in Congress from the

State of New Jersey, Chairman, Subcommittee on International Operations

and Human Rights ............................................................................................... 35

Bill and Amendment

H.R. 1356, The Freedom from Sexual Trafficking Act of 1999 ............................ 10

Amendment to H.R. 1356, offered by Hon. Christopher H. Smith ...................... 34
(1)

MARKUP OF H.R. 1356, THE FREEDOM FROM

SEXUAL TRAFFICKING ACT OF 1999

Wednesday, August 4, 1999

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL

OPERATIONS AND HUMAN RIGHTS, COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, Washington, D.C.

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:06 p.m., in room

2200, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H. Smith

(Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.

Mr. SMITH. The Subcommittee will come to order. Good afternoon. We meet to consider H.R. 1356, the Freedom from Sexual

Trafficking Act of 1999, pursuant to call, and the Ranking Member,

Ms. McKinney from Georgia, will join us momentarily. But I will

give a few opening remarks and then we will proceed with the

markup after Mr. Goodling and Ms. McKinney have made their

opening remarks. Each year up to a million innocent victims, of whom the overwhelming majority are women and children, are brought by force

and or fraud into the international commercial sex industry. Efforts

by the U.S. Government, international organizations, and others to

stop this brutal practice have thus far proved unsuccessful. Indeed,

all the evidence suggests that instances of forcible and or fraudulent sexual trafficking are far more numerous than just a few years

ago.

Only yesterday, the front page of the Wall Street Journal told

the story of thousands of women who have been abducted in Vietnam and sold in China.

The problem is not abstract; it shatters the lives of real women

and children. In Russia, for example, traffickers prey on orphanages. In a typical scenario a trafficker will pay an orphanage director approximately $12,000 to take a group of children on a ‘‘field

trip’’ to the local McDonald’s. The group of children will then leave

the orphanage with the trafficker and never be seen or heard from

again.

Part of the problem is that current laws and law enforcement

strategies in the United States and in other nations often punish

the victims more severely than they punish the perpetrators. When

a sex-for-hire establishment is raided, the women—and sometimes

children—in the brothel are typically deported if they are noncitizens of the country in which the establishment is located, without

reference to whether their participation was voluntary or involuntary, and without reference to whether they will face retribution or
2

other serious harm upon return. This not only inflicts further cruelty on the victims; it leaves nobody to testify against the real

criminals, and frightens other victims from coming forward.

H.R. 1356, the Freedom from Sexual Trafficking Act, would reverse this cruel and ineffective approach. It is designed to protect

and assist the victims of sexual trafficking while inflicting severe

and certain punishment on perpetrators. The central principle behind this legislation is that a person who knowingly operates an

enterprise that profits from sex acts involving persons who have

been brought across international boundaries for such purposes by

force or fraud should receive punishment commensurate with that

given to those who commit forcible rape. This would not only be a

just punishment but also a powerful deterrent.

H.R. 1356 would implement this principle across the board. First,

it would modify U.S. Criminal law to provide severe punishment up

to and including life imprisonment for persons convicted of operating such enterprises wholly or partly within the United States,

and of course that includes transporting and other aspects of bringing the women across the Federal lines.

It would also establish an office for the protection of victims of

trafficking within the State Department, which would report annually on foreign countries that fail to criminalize and appropriately

punish international sexual trafficking involving the use of force

and/or fraud and to make other serious and sustained efforts to

prevent it from operating within and across their borders. It would

then prohibit nonhumanitarian U.S. assistance to such foreign

countries unless this prohibition is waived by the President.

The bill also provides victim assistance and protection. This includes grants to shelters and rehabilitation programs for victims of

forcible and/or fraudulent sexual trafficking. It also includes a relief from deportation for victims who would face retribution or

other hardship if removed from the United States. It makes clear

that the trafficking victims are eligible for the Federal witness protection plan and provides them with a private right of action

against those who have profited by the harm that was done to

them.

Finally, the bill authorizes grants for training for law enforcement agencies in foreign countries in the investigation and prosecution of international sexual trafficking, as well as for assistance in

drafting and implementation of antitrafficking legislation.

I am aware that this bill has some critics. For example, the Administration objects to the establishment of a new office within the

State Department. But the Department already contains numerous

offices devoted to a myriad of other concerns such as the Office of

Multimedia Publishing Services, the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization, the Office of Marine Conservation, and

the Office of Press Relations. The millions of women and children

victimized by worldwide sexual trafficking deserve no less attention

than protocol and plankton.

I stand ready, however, to work with the Administration toward

a mutually agreeable solution so long as the Administration is committed to genuine negotiation and compromise.
3

Let me just make a couple of points and then I will yield to any

of my colleagues if they have any comments that they would like

to make.

I recently led a delegation to the OSCE assembly in St. Petersburg and during the course of that deliberation we were able to get

passed a very strong, strongly worded resolution calling on all of

the members of the OSCE to take effective action in their own

country and to work in a collaborative way with other Nations to

mitigate in the short term and completely end this heinous practice. I was amazed, in some of the conversations that I had in

bilaterals and individually, including with the Speaker of the

Duma, there was a sense of disbelief and ‘‘not here,’’ ‘‘it doesn’t

happen here,’’ or ‘‘that is just prostitutes, what are we worried

about them for? ’’ I think that shows a gross insensitivity to this

exploitation of women and I do believe that we can and must lead

by example. This legislation attempts to do that.

We did pass, like I said, that resolution. It passed unanimously.

It was a very spirited debate. One amendment was offered by the

Russians that actually strengthened it in the end. But there has

to be a prioritization given to this and there must be tools available

in order to make prosecutions effective and so that we put these

individuals behind bars, hopefully for the rest of their lives, when

they commit these terrible crimes.

I would like to yield to any of my colleagues if they have any

opening comments. We are awaiting Ms. McKinney, who will be

here shortly. Mr. Goodling? Mr. Ballenger?

Mr. GOODLING. I might offer an amendment dealing with punishment for the men involved. I think the amendment would be germane; it might not be humane. So I will not offer it.

Mr. SMITH. I take your drift. I do think that would be proportionate. I think the gentleman makes an excellent point, even with

the use of humor. We really are all about a very serious undertaking here but the sad part is the traffickers—the people who coerce and defraud and force these women into these despicable situations—very often go scot free. We are now lacking I believe not

only the right kind of law that makes prosecutions more likely, but

also a prosecution strategy on the part of our U.S. Attorneys and

others to go after these individuals who are exploiting these

women.

Yes, there is some work being done. All of it is positive. But

there must be much, much more. One of the ironies of the fall of

the Soviet Union and the breakup of the Soviet Union has been

that the explosion of poverty that has occurred has resulted in a

very fertile ground for organized crime—the syndicates, the Russian Mafia, the Ukrainian Mafia—to prey upon these women.

I recently received a cable from some folks in Russia talking

about what happened when some of our consular people met with

other consular people in St. Petersburg in follow-up to some of the

conversations we had there, and the responses from some of the

other nation’s representatives ranged from ‘‘they need to get more

information,’’ to ‘‘they have heard rumors of this,’’ to one who said

they raised it with the Russian police who said ‘‘there is none of

that going on here, our women are just more beautiful,’’ and just
4

laughed. That kind of dismissal of this issue is absolutely unacceptable and we need to lead, like I said, by example.

Mr. BALLENGER. I would just, you know, I have seen one story

on TV that kind of covered this a little bit. But I was reading the

story about your, I guess, Jersey City Police director. This Zalisko,

he knows where the women are and doing all of this. There is no

law being broken anywhere?

Mr. SMITH. There are laws, but there is a problem of too few resources being focused on it and the laws are relatively weak. We

have done some study on the maximum penalties that can be

meted out, and they are up to 10-years. But they are very seldom

given to those who commit these kinds of crimes. To a large extent

there is a problem with law enforcement not taking this as seriously as it should. That goes for this side of the Atlantic and especially for the other side of the Atlantic.

Mr. BALLENGER. He mentioned 3- to 5,000 women just in that

area of New Jersey. Kind of blows your mind. Like I said, what little bit I knew I saw on TV and that is it. But I commend you for

being involved. Somebody has got to care.

Mr. SMITH. I appreciate that, Mr. Ballenger. As we know with

U.S. Attorneys, when they decide what they are going to prosecute,

they certainly have prosecutorial discretion. If the penalty is too

low, they are more likely to skip going after a certain kind of crime

and will focus instead on something where there is a higher penalty if conviction is realized. That is the problem we face with our

current law. It is infirm.

I have looked at some of the comments from those who are not

necessarily enamored of what we are trying to do here. They make

that point that part of the legislation says that we are to track

what is going on in other countries, and the President has a national interest waiver so he doesn’t have to impose sanctions, but

nonhumanitarian sanctions can be imposed if certain criteria are

not met and they are minimal criteria.

It was suggested that somehow the U.S. would not live up to

those criteria if they were applied to us. If that be the case, shame

on us our law is not sufficiently strong, and has not prioritized this

issue. Maybe it is because this has been thrust upon us so quickly.

It is almost like when crack finally hit the streets. I remember in

the city of Trenton police officers telling me that overnight this

changed the whole crime scene, and yet we didn’t respond to it in

a substantive way for a couple of years. Slow learning curve. Hopefully, that will not be the case here.

We do have a quorum. I think we can proceed. We have sufficient

numbers to begin, unless there is objection. Out of respect for Ms.

McKinney, and she does want to be here, we will delay a little bit

longer. The Committee will stand in recess just for a couple of minutes.

[Recess.]

Mr. SMITH. The Chair will lay the bill before the Committee.

The Clerk will report the title of the bill.

[The bill H.R. 1356 appears in the appendix.]

The CLERK. H.R. 1356 to end international sexual trafficking,

and for other purposes.
5

Mr. SMITH. Without objection, the first reading of the bill will be

dispensed with. The Clerk will read the bill for amendment.

The CLERK. A bill to end international sexual trafficking, and for

other purposes. Be it enacted by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States of America and Congress assembled, section 1—.

Mr. SMITH. Without objection, the bill is considered as having

been read and is open for amendment at any point.

This bill was introduced, as I pointed out, on March 25th, it was

referred on May 4th to the Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights, and since I have already made my opening comments, I yield to my good friend Ms. McKinney from Georgia.

Ms. MCKINNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wish to express my

deep appreciation to you for your personal efforts on the issue of

sexual trafficking, including your recent visit to Russia to look into

the issue of trafficking there, a practice that involves tens of thousands of Russian women. I join you in believing that this is a grave

abuse that has not received enough attention and I wish to work

with you in changing that situation.

It is also obvious that many elements in this bill, from the

strengthened criminal penalties for sexual trafficking to the substantial authorization for domestic victim programs will improve

our work on this serious issue.

Both our Chairman and his staff deserve credit for this outcome.

I thus intend to support this bill, although I do have some reservations about the approach being used. One of these concerns relates

to the scope of the bill. As important as sexual trafficking is, it is

only one reason why people sell other people. People are also sold

into bonded sweatshop labor and into domestic servitude and this

is not just a labor issue. These are all slavery-like conditions often

involving sexual exploitation by the employer as well. We ought to

look for a way to deal with all of these conditions at once.

This is the approach taken in H.R. 1238, the International Trafficking and Women and Children Victim Protection Act, introduced

by Congresswoman Louise Slaughter, of which I am a cosponsor.

I do not want to ignore the victims of sexual trafficking, which is

one reason I will support Mr. Smith’s bill. But I am sure he does

not want to ignore these other victims of trafficking, which is why

I hope we can find a way to bring them in as well.

H.R. 1356 also repeats the procedure from our earlier legislation

on religious persecution of creating a separate office on an important but selected human rights issue. About 10-years from now

when we are in the process of creating the 15th separate human

rights office and the 15th separate report, I suspect even those who

got us started in this process with the best of intentions are going

to have second thoughts. That the office of trafficking wouldn’t be

located in the Department’s human rights bureau but isolated by

itself could make it even less effective. We ought to look for more

creative ways to increase our emphasis on issues without increasing bureaucracy.

The issue of sanctions also needs more thought. It may be that

trying to work cooperatively with other countries rather than beating them about the head and shoulders is the best way to make
6

progress now on this issue, and the withdrawal of assistance is not

a minor matter. Whatever we say sends a signal of general dissociation from the government of the country involved, which may do

more harm than good. And again a future world of many human

rights offices, each armed with a sanctions club, and with the

President doing a hundred waivers a year to keep ordinary diplomacy moving, is something we want to avoid. If that is the direction we are going, I think we need to rethink our course.

There are other concerns we should also consider. The authorizations in the bill are not necessarily all in the right amount or going

to the right places and we need to think more about whether a burdensome report separate from the human rights report is really

necessary.

As we work further on this bill, I hope we will be able to hear

from all of those with an interest in the matter. I regret we didn’t

have the opportunity to do a hearing in Subcommittee before our

markup, and I particularly hope that senior officials from the Administration who are also committed to improving human rights

observance will be given a chance to share their views with us in

the near future.

I do believe that the approaches by Louise Slaughter and our

chairman in these separate bills are not necessarily at war. I expect that we will all work together with each other and with the

Administration, with interested organizations to produce a final bill

that will be better than anything we could do separately, and I intend to be strongly involved in that effort.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Ms. McKinney. Does any other

Member have any opening comments? Mr. Salmon?

Mr. SALMON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know that this has

been something that you have been working on for a long time and

I really commend you and appreciate all of your hard work.

When we were over in Russia just recently, we met with several

NGO groups and nonprofit organizations that have been working

on this issue, and it is a travesty. I mean it is a multibillion dollar

industry here in this world. It amazes me the stories that we heard

about buses pulling up to orphanages and loading on children and

then go going and selling them for $24,000 apiece. And it just disgusts me that in our world today that these kinds of things could

go on.

There were allegations as well that in the government over

there, they just kind of let it go on with a wink and a nod. That

is wrong. And here we put out millions and millions of dollars in

aid to Russia. I think it is time we put some stipulations on some

of the money that we are sending over there. When their government turns a deaf ear to this kind of human suffering and misery,

I think we have a responsibility to be a little bit more scrutinizing

in how we dole out the money.

But I commend you for putting together this resolution. I think

it goes a long way, but I think the work will not be over here. We

have a lot of work to do to try to end this travesty. And I commend

the gentlewoman as well for her leadership on this issue. But it

looks like we are the only ones that are in the world that are going

to—at least as far as governments are concerned that are going to
7

make an issue of this and if we don’t do it, it is not going to get

done.

So I think that Congress has a big responsibility not only to be

vocal about this but to lead the charge and there is so much at

stake. So I commend the gentleman and the gentlewoman and I

pledge my support to fighting the battle side by side.

Thank you.

Mr. SMITH. I thank my good friend Mr. Salmon for his kind comments and especially for his work on this. And as we sat together,

along with Mr. Tancredo, in St. Petersburg and met with the

NGO’s, the frontline people, some of the victims who are day to day

trying to battle the syndicate, I was struck by the fact that not only

are they trying to save women at risk—and it is mostly women who

are exploited, although there are some young boys—they themselves are at risk. This is a lucrative, multimillion dollar, if not billion dollar, racket, and the NGO personnel are put at risk of possible death.

Mr. SALMON. If the gentleman would yield, and they are getting

virtually no protection from the Russian Government. None. They

have brought this issue to the attention of lawmakers in the Duma

and they have brought it to the Speaker’s attention and they are

getting no protection. They are in a very dangerous situation and

I think we have a responsibility. As we all know when we make

it very public, I think that our fight here can shed some light. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and by our actions maybe we can provide a little bit of protection for them because they are not getting

it from the Russian Government.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Tancredo.

Mr. TANCREDO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just recalling our experience in Russia, and specifically in St. Petersburg, and I certainly agree with all of the comments that have been made and the

incredible impact it had on all of us meeting with the NGO’s and

even that bilateral meeting we had with the Russians where we

brought this up, of course, and they tried to indicate that it really

was not as severe a problem as we know it to be, it is this severe.

It is second only to drug smuggling, second only to narcotics in

terms of the amount of money that organized crime is able to extort from the general public or to get from the public for this purpose. It is their second biggest product, which was incredible to me.

I was astounded by that.

We had not heard much about this in the past so the fact that

it could rise to that level was quite extraordinary. And the other

thing that deserves just a comment perhaps, Mr. Chairman, was

the incredible fortitude of some of the people who are involved with

this at the NGO’s. There was this lady whose name escapes me,

the doctor who gave up her practice, went and visited the old Soviet Union, became acquainted with this problem and ended up

coming back here. She was a doctor here in the United States,

came back here, sold her practice, gave up everything and has gone

back, now is living in St. Petersburg and is the head of the most

effective NGO dealing with this particular issue and she is a true

inspiration to us all. And it was a very extraordinary experience.

Mr. SMITH. I thank the gentleman. And MiraMed is doing an extraordinary job and they too are at great risk.
8

Any further comments? I do have one amendment. And I would

like to offer it and the chief of staff will report the amendment.

[The amendment appears in the appendix.]

The CLERK. Amendment to H.R. 1356 offered by Mr. Smith of

New Jersey. Page 11, line 18, strike Office of the—

Mr. SMITH. I ask unanimous consent to dispense with the reading of the amendment, and just very briefly—it will take 30-seconds to explain it.

We have already had a suggestion from the Administration and

from my good friend Ms. McKinney that they would prefer that the

office be housed in the Bureau of Democracy Human Rights and

Labor. I don’t think it weakens what we are trying to do. Perhaps

it will strengthen it.

So I would offer this in the spirit of compromise and I hope that

the membership will accept it.

Would anyone like to be heard?

Ms. MCKINNEY. I would just like to thank the Chairman for offering this amendment as a demonstration—as a down payment on

a continuation of our cooperative spirit with respect to this legislation and I look forward to us continuing to work together to perfect

it as it moves through the process.

Mr. SMITH. I thank you. And I say to my friend, one point that

you made about if the President had to issue 100 waivers. I would

submit that that would be an incredibly sad commentary on the

state of the world with regard to women being exploited by traffickers, if the evidence was so overwhelming and a national interest waiver, which is probably one of the weakest imaginable, had

to be invoked. But that would almost make our case.

We have to wage war on the traffickers, not manage the issue,

but wage war against this exploitation, or it will only get worse.

All those in favor of the amendment say aye.

Opposed say no.

The ayes have it, and the amendment is agreed to.

Any further comments before we go to passage? I would like to

recognize my good friend, the gentleman from Pennsylvania, for a

motion.

Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Chairman, I move the Subcommittee report

the bill, as amended, favorably to the Full Committee.

Mr. SMITH. Without objection, the motion is agreed to. The question is on the motion of the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

All those in favor, signify by saying aye.

Opposed, no.

The ayes have it and the motion is agreed to.

I want to thank the Members of the Subcommittee for coming

out and look forward to working with you at the next stage.

[Whereupon, at 2:32 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
(9)

A P P E N D I X

AUGUST 4, 1999
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38