Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/csce

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 1999

58-819CC

THE SEX TRADE:

TRAFFICKING OF WOMEN AND

CHILDREN IN EUROPE

AND THE UNITED STATES

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND

COOPERATION IN EUROPE

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

Printed for the use of the

Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe

JUNE 28, 1999

[CSCE 106-1-9]

 
(ii)

COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE

LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS

HOUSE

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey

Chairman

FRANK R. WOLF, Virginia

MATT SALMON, Arizona

MICHAEL P. FORBES, New York

JAMES C. GREENWOOD, Pennsylvania

STENY H. HOYER, Maryland

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland

LOUISE McINTOSH SLAUGHTER, New York

SENATE

BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL, Colorado

Co-Chairman

KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas

SPENCER ABRAHAM, Michigan

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas

TIM HUTCHINSON, Arkansas

FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, New Jersey

BOB GRAHAM, Florida

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut

EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS

HAROLD HONGJU KOH, Department of State

(Vacant), Department of Defense

PATRICK A. MULLOY, Department of Commerce

COMMISSION STAFF

DOROTHY DOUGLAS TAFT, Chief of Staff

MICHAEL R. HATHAWAY, Deputy Chief of Staff

AMBASSADOR WILLIAM H. COURTNEY, Senior Advisor

ELIZABETH M. CAMPBELL, Staff Assistant\Systems Administrator

MARIA V. COLL, Office Administrator

OREST DEYCHAKIWSKY, Staff Advisor

JOHN F. FINERTY, Staff Advisor

CHADWICK R. GORE, Communications Director, Digest Editor

ROBERT HAND, Staff Advisor

JANICE HELWIG, Staff Advisor

MARLENE KAUFMANN, Counsel

MICHAEL KOBY, Special Counsel

KAREN S. LORD, Counsel for Freedom of Religion

RONALD J. MCNAMARA, Staff Advisor

MICHAEL J. OCHS, Staff Advisor

ERIKA B. SCHLAGER, Counsel for International Law

MAUREEN T. WALSH, Counsel
(iii)

THE SEX TRADE:

TRAFFICKING OF WOMEN AND

CHILDREN IN EUROPE

AND THE UNITED STATES

JUNE 28, 1999

OPENING STATEMENTS

PAGE

Chairman Christopher H. Smith .................................................................... 1

WITNESSES

PAGE

Anita Botti, Deputy Director for International Womens Initiatives,

Presidents Interagency Council on Women ............................................. 4

Steven R. Galster, Executive Director, Global Survival Network .............. 13

Louise Shelley, Director, Center for the Study of Transnational

Crime and Corruption .............................................................................. 16

Laura J. Lederer, Director, The Protection Project ..................................... 20

Wendy Young, Washington Liaison and Staff Attorney, Womens

Commission for Refugee Women and Children ...................................... 24

APPENDICES

PAGE

Letter from Assistant Secretary of State Harold Hongju Koh to

Chairman Christopher H. Smith ............................................................. 37

Written Submission of Anita Botti ............................................................... 38

Written Submission of Steven R. Galster .................................................... 42

Written Submission of Laura J. Lederer .................................................... 54

Written Submission of Louise Shelley ........................................................ 37
THE SEX TRADE:

TRAFFICKING OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN

 IN EUROPE AND THE UNITED STATES

MONDAY, JUNE 28, 1999

COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE

WASHINGTON, DC

The Commission met at 2:00 p.m., in Room 2226, Rayburn House

Office Building, Washington, DC, the Hon. Christopher H. Smith,

Chairman, presiding.

Commission Members present: Hon. Christopher H. Smith, Chairman; and Hon. James C. Greenwood.

Witnesses present: Anita Botti, Deputy Director for International

Womens Initiatives, Presidents Interagency Council on Women;

Steven R. Galster, Executive Director, Global Survival Network;

Louise Shelley, Director, Center for the Study of Transnational Crime

and Corruption; Laura J. Lederer, Director, The Protection Project;

and Wendy Young, Washington Liaison and Staff Attorney, Womens

Commission for Refugee Women and Children.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH,

CHAIRMAN

Mr. SMITH. The Commission will come to order. Good afternoon.

The Commission today examines an escalating human rights problem in the OSCE region: the trafficking of women and children for

the purpose of sexual exploitation. Trafficking in human beings is a

form of modern-day slavery. When a woman or child is trafficked or

sexually exploited by force, fraud, or coercion for commercial gain,

she is denied the most basic human rights enumerated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and numerous international human

rights agreementsnamely, her rights to liberty and security of person, her right not to be held in slavery or servitude, and her right to

be free from cruel or inhumane treatment. In the worst cases, she is

denied her right to life.

Under the laws and practices in the United States and in European

countries, trafficking victims are denied an effective remedy against

those who have violated their rights. Ironically, it is the women who

are trafficked who end up being arrested in brothels raids, locked up,

and then deported as illegal immigrants, while their perpetrators

rarely suffer repercussions for their actions.

(1)
2

Although trafficking has been a problem for many years in Asian

countries, it was not until the end of communism in East-Central

Europe and the break up of the Soviet Union that a sex trade in the

OSCE region began to develop.

This appalling trade has grown exponentially over the ensuing decade. Trafficking is induced by poverty, lack of economic opportunities for women, the low status of women in many cultures, and the

rapid growth of sophisticated and ruthless international organized

crime syndicates. Trafficking rings exploit vulnerable women and

children; and amidst the devastated economies of Eastern Europe

and the newly independent states where women are unable to find

jobs, traffickers have no shortage of potential victims.

In Russia, for example, recent statistics indicate that some 6.5 million women are unemployed, and 2.5 million children are spending

their days on the streets rather than in schools. Suffering from extreme poverty and the lack of economic opportunities, these individuals are easy prey for sophisticated traffickers, most of whom are linked

to national and international crime networks which, deceivingly, promise women good jobs, new homes, and opportunities to travel abroad.

As traffickers know very well, other populations of particularly

vulnerable women can be found in conflict and post-conflict settings.

According to news reports, criminal gangs began infiltrating refugee

camps as they were created for the fleeing Kosovars. Repeating a

pattern seen during the Bosnian conflict, these criminals will persuade young refugee womenmany of whom have become separated

from their familiesto leave the camps for promises of new homes

and higher paying jobs. Some reports indicate that traffickers have

abducted women who were unwilling to leave the camps. Police in

Italy have already rescued one woman who was smuggled to Italy

from a camp in Albania and forced to work as a prostitute. In another

case, a 16-year-old refugee girl was killed in a botched kidnapping

attempt in Albania.

Having succumbed to the traffickers ploys, women are taken abroad,

their passports and visas are confiscated by the traffickers, and they

are forced into the commercial sex industry. Women who resist the

demands of their traffickers are beaten, raped, or kept in confinement until they agree to comply with the traffickers demands.

In some cases, the womens lives are threatened, or the traffickers

threaten to harm the families that they have left behind.

In 1991, every State that participates in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe agreed, and I quote, to seek to eliminate all forms of violence against women and all forms of traffic in

women and exploitation of prostitution of women including by ensuring . . . appropriate measures.

Despite this political commitment to address the trafficking problem, the State Department estimates that in 1997 alone, 100,000

women were trafficked from the former Soviet Unionone hundred

thousand! The clandestine and criminal nature of the trafficking

makes any statistics on the incidents of trafficking inherently suspect, and thus the actual number is probably much higher.

There is no question, however, that the U.S. is one of the primary

destination points for trafficked women from the former Soviet Union.

Not all countries in the OSCE region yet have sufficient legislative or
3

enforcement mechanisms to identify, apprehend, and punish traffickers. Moreover, most countries, including our own, lack adequate protections for the rights of victims.

Inexcusably, it seems that some governments in the OSCE region

have abdicated their responsibility to address the trafficking crisis;

and the only effective initiatives are being advanced by courageous,

non-governmental organizations and private sector activists. Nongovernmental organization (NGO) activists throughout the OSCE are

literally putting their own lives on the line in their work to directly

and theyre directly against organized crimewarn potential trafficking victims of the harm they face if they become involved. These

people are willing to suffer the potential abuse of themselves, and

theyre doing it; but they need more support from their governments.

Other NGOs are providing services to women and children who

have been trafficked but managed to escape from their captors. Tomorrow, an NGO based in Seattle, MiraMed, will launch the first

ever anti-trafficking Internet conference in the former Soviet Union.

I understand that 40 moderators from about that many regions of the

CIS will participate. MiraMed is also working to create an exchange

program that will allow Russian NGO leaders to receive training from

experienced Ukrainian NGOs, who have been battling the trafficking

problem.

While I heartily applaud the efforts of NGOs who have taken on

this issue, the time has come for the governments of the United States

and others to do more to stop trafficking.

I want to point out that earlier in this Congress I introduced legislationthe Freedom from Sexual Trafficking Act of 1999, H.R.1356

which would severely punish persons in the United States convicted

of sexual trafficking, including the recruitment, harboring, transporting, purchasing, and selling of the trafficking victim. We will treat

the traffickers exactly as we do those who commit rape. I think the

time has come to put a line in the sand and say, You cannot continue

doing business as usual. You will go to jail. In some cases, you will go

jail for the rest of your life.

Non-humanitarian U.S. assistance would also be withheld from foreign countries which do not meet the minimum standards for the

elimination of sexual trafficking; and of critical importance, we will

finally treat the victimsthose women who have been exploited by

the traffickersfor that which they are: they are victims. We will

provide some safe haven for them, but we will also provide humanitarian assistance through the Department of Health and Human Services to help these women through counseling and appropriate medical treatment as a result of their exploitation.

Let me say finally that next week when we head to St. Petersburg

a delegation of 17 members of the House and Senate to the OSCE

Parliamentary AssemblyI will be advancing a resolution that will

seek to put on record all the member States who will be participating.

I will try to come up with a more coordinated strategy to mitigate

and, I hope, to end this savage and cruel issue of sexual exploitation

by way of trafficking.

The hope is that this resolution will pass and will becomefor our

own country and for the other countriesa wake up call. We have sat

idly byin some cases some of the countries have sat idly byand

have been either source countries or transiting countries, but its time
4

to say were going to declare war on those who commit these offenses

against women. So that will be next week at the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly in St. Petersburg.

Id like to ask JimI saw you come in, my good friend and colleague, member of the Commission, Jim Greenwood from Pennsylvaniaif he has any opening statement.

Mr. GREENWOOD. I dont have an opening statement, Mr. Chairman, but I do commend you very much for holding this hearing, and

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Greenwood.

Id like to introduce our first panel. We have two panels today. Were

very pleased to have Anita Botti, the Deputy Director of International

Womens Initiatives, and Chair of the Interagency Task Force on Trafficking in Women and Girls for the Presidents Interagency Council

on Women.

As Chair, Ms. Botti coordinates a high level interagency working

group on trafficking, develops U.S. policies and activities regarding

trafficking, and has twice represented the United States in OSCE

fora on the subject of trafficking. Previously, Ms. Botti worked in the

State Departments Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration.

Ms. Botti, thank you and please proceed as you wish.

TESTIMONY OF ANITA BOTTI, DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR

INTERNATIONAL WOMENS INITIATIVES,

PRESIDENTS INTERAGENCY COUNCIL ON WOMEN

Ms. BOTTI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for this opportunity to testify this afternoon on trafficking in women and children in

Europe and the United States and the U.S. Governments strategy to

combat trafficking in Europe and around the world.

It has been a pleasure to work on this issue with the Commission

on Security and Cooperation in Europe and your staff over the past

several months.

Of all the human rights abuses to which the international community has turned its attention, the trafficking of human beings, predominantly women and children, is clearly one of the most egregious

violations of our time.

As stated, the problem of trafficking is not new. It has been endemic in South and South East Asia for decades. Now the countries of

the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe are experiencing a regional crisis in trafficking. There has been a dramatic increase in the

trafficking of women and children from the former Soviet Union and

Eastern Europe in recent years because of the large number of unemployed women and the proliferation of organized crime organizations

lured to the business by high profits, weak laws, and penalties for

traffickers.

The former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe make up what is probably the fastest growing region for trafficking source countries. Approximately, as of today, 175,000 women and children are trafficked

from this region to Europe, North America, Asia, and the Middle East.

Most are trafficked to Western Europe, particularly Germany, Italy,

and the Netherlands. The President, Secretary of State, and the Attorney General have shown tremendous commitment to combating

trafficking, and the Department of State, Department of Justice, and
5

other relevant agencies have made progress over the past year to

advance the administrations anti-trafficking strategies of prevention,

protection, and prosecution.

The United States Government response to this issue is led by the

Presidents Interagency Council on Women. The Council is a task force

of high level USG representatives charged with implementing the

platform for action adopted at the 1995 U.N. Fourth World Congress

on Women in Beijing. The Secretary of State is the chair of the Council, and the First Lady is the honorary chair.

The problem of trafficking in human beings involves recruitment,

transport, harboring, transfer, sale, or receipt of persons within national or across international borders, through the use of fraud, coercion, force, or kidnapping, for the purposes of placing persons in situations of slavery-like conditions, forced labor, or services. Examples

include forced prostitution, domestic servitude, bonded sweatshop

labor, or other debt bondage.

Although this hearing focuses on trafficking into the sex industry,

it is clear that it is merely one component of the world of trafficking of

women and children. United States policy is not limited to addressing trafficking in the context of the sex trade alone. Placing women

and children into slavery-like conditions in any context is an intolerable human rights violation and an evil that will not be ignored.

We see cases where traffickers lure girls from villages and force

some of the girls to work in domestic servitude or carpet weaving,

while others, considered more attractive, are pulled off and sold to

brothels. Thus, in the fight against trafficking, there are practical

reasons why the United States does not limit its efforts to one form of

trafficking over the other.

It is important that we talk about our estimates to date. Over one

million women and children are trafficked around the world each year.

Over 50,000 of these women and children are trafficked into the U.S.

annually, primarily from Latin America, the former Soviet Union,

and South East Asia. Russia, Ukraine, Poland and the Czech Republic are major countries of origin in Central and Eastern Europe.

Roughly 4,000 of this 50,000 are comprised from the former Soviet

Union and Eastern Europe. These are conservative estimates but ones

that we have been comfortable in sharing with you.

It is worth noting that of this 50,000, approximately half of these

are coerced or bonded sweatshop labor and domestic servitude.

Men are also trafficked, particularly into forced labor, but we emphasize trafficking in women and children because they are basically

the targets of the criminal activity.

Today I want to focus on the important role to be played by OSCE

in the fight against trafficking. Eradicating trafficking will only be

possible if countries of origin, transit, and destination are committed

to working together cooperatively to find economic alternatives for

women, legal remedies, and reintegration and protection programs

for victims of trafficking. As a result, OSCE is an excellent forum in

which to address the trafficking issue. Members include origin, transit, and destination countries.
6

OSCE participating States have adopted a commitment, as stated

by the Chair, in 1991 in the Moscow Document to seek to eliminate

all forms of violence against women and exploitation of prostitution

of women, including by ensuring adequate legal prohibitions against

such acts and other appropriate measures.

OSCE fora provide opportunities to raise concerns about the failure of States to honor this commitment and focus attention on how

we can work together toward achievement of our goals to eliminate

this scourge. I am pleased to have participated in two of the human

dimension workshops which addressed this issue, one in Warsaw and

another, most recently, in Vienna with members of your staff. The

Permanent Council meetings also provide opportunities to raise concerns about the failure of States to honor this commitment and focus

attention on how we can work together toward achievement of our

goals to eliminate this scourge.

Achievement of progress on eliminating trafficking requires cooperation among States. The OSCE is an organization founded on the

principles of cooperation. This concept is not abstract. From my participation in meetings I can attest to the high quality of debate in the

OSCE fora. More importantly, I can attest to the willingness of States

to work together to tackle this problem.

As you know, what makes the OSCE so effective are not merely the

commitments States have made to uphold high human rights standards, but the effective mechanisms OSCE has created to review the

implementation of these standards.

Also impressive is the operational and practical nature of OSCE.

With missions in 20 OSCE participating States, the OSCE takes its

message to the field all across the OSCE region.

OSCE institutions are also vehicles of action. The Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, ODIHR, creates programs to

assist States to implement these commitments.

As you can see, I believe the OSCE offers an excellent venue to

tackle the problem of trafficking. Can it do more? The answer to this

is yes, and we are working to ensure that it does.

First, the United States has seconded an expert to the Office of

Democratic Institutions and Human Rights to examine the problem

of trafficking in the OSCE region, with a view to recommending programs to assist States in addressing this matter. This study and the

program recommendations it makes will focus on providing better

protection for victimsa much neglected facet of the trafficking problem as was stated. Improving protection will enable States to do a

better job in preventing victims from repeated human rights violations and making victims more willing to cooperate in the prosecution of traffickers. We strongly support greater ODIHR attention to

creating programs to combat trafficking.

Second, we will continue to hold participating States to their commitments and speak frankly in OSCE fora when they do not.

Third, we are exploring ways to enhance OSCE commitments to

address trafficking. We are looking for the study described above to

instruct us on this endeavor.

Fourth, we will use OSCE fora to strategize about how OSCE participating States can effectively cooperate to combat trafficking. I came

away from the recent Vienna meeting impressed with the potential
7

OSCE offers to bring all the players together. The State Department

is committed to working with you and your staff to tap that potential

in the fullest possible way.

As was stated, there are now fears and some indication that organized criminal elements are trying to take advantage of refugee women

and children displaced by the conflict in Kosovo. Refugees from this

region and from conflict situations around the world are always vulnerable to being trafficked. One concrete action that the OSCE can

take is to ensure that the trafficking of women and children is addressed as part of our peacekeeping process in Kosovo. Women and

children in post-conflict situations, those displaced from their homes

and particularly in refugee camps, are extremely vulnerable to trafficking.

We are grateful for your leadership on this issue. We have high

regard for Commission staff, with whom we have had the pleasure of

working in recent months, and we look forward to future collaboration. As Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has said, Our goal,

ultimately, is to mobilize people everywhere so that trafficking in

human beings is met by a stop sign visible around the equator and

from pole to pole.

Thank you, sir, for this opportunity.

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Botti, thank you for your excellent statement. I

want to thank you for being here this afternoon and elaborating on

some of the things that are happening, on what are some of the hopes

and aspirations we all have for ending this barbaric practice.

Let me ask you a couple of questions. On October 30th at the Warsaw meeting, you made a very strong and, I think, a very fine Statement; but part of it included a notation that the President had issued

a directive last springthat would be about a year agocharging the

U.S. Attorney General to review existing U.S. criminal laws and their

current use to determine if they are adequate to prevent and deter

trafficking in women and to recommend any appropriate legal changes

to ensure that it is criminalized. Has that review been completed? Is

it close to completion? Can you give us an insight into that?

Ms. BOTTI. My understanding, Mr. Chairman, is that it is very close

to being completed, and I believe the Justice Department will be submitting that shortly.

Mr. SMITH. Very good. In your testimony today you mentioned that

we currently have multilateral and bilateral initiatives underway with

the European Union, the U.N., Italy, the Baltics, Ukraine and Finland. I wonder if you might elaborate a bit on what countries are

conspicuously absent. If Im reading this correctly, Russia is not listed.

I wonder if you might tell us where Russia stands, since it is the country of origin of so many of the women who are exploited.

Ms. BOTTI. Yes, I would like to address that. I think that, as you

mentioned, MiraMed is working within Russia. Certainly in our informal discussions with Russian officials, Particularly around the area

of violence against women and domestic violence, they have expressed

an interest in working on this.

Interestingly enough, sir, I think that the OSCE will offer a unique

fora to engage Russia on this issue. I do believe that because of the

membership aspect of OSCE, Russia could sit at the table with source,

transit, and destination countries and talk about not only what they

are doing, or will do, to combat this, but to allow them to understand
8

that they are not alone in this endeavor. We continue to work with

them at every opportunity, and certainly I think that as we prosecute

cases in the United States, we can raise that with the Russian Government as well.

Mr. SMITH. I appreciate it. We will be trying to impress our colleagues from the Duma next week with our resolution as to how seriously we take it. They will probably argueand perhaps rightly so

that just as in the drug trade . . . . Its hard to make a comparison,

since we are a nation that exploits or uses drugs. Other countries are

sending their drugs to the United States; and here we have a situation where theyre going to say, Well, why dont you do more to close

up your borders to the cartels and the Mafiathe Russian Mafia

that exploits women this way? So obviously we need to work together

on this. But we will try to impress upon our colleagues in the Duma

how important and serious we consider this to be. I hope this resolution, which is currently co-sponsored by the requisite number to get

it up and consider it, will pass and the debate will bring some light

onto the subject.

Ms. BOTTI. Thank you.

Mr. SMITH. With regards to the Ukraine, could you tell us what

that looks like?

Ms. BOTTI. Yes. Actually, we have been very successful in working

collaboratively with them on a number of areas. On the prevention

area we have carried out, in collaboration with the EU, a public awareness campaign. In addition, through our United States AID program

we are working with various NGOs throughout Ukraine to set up

economic . . . to set up centers that deal with economic issues, deal

with medical and counseling issues. There are not as many as we

would like to see, and we certainly want more in the future, because

I think the numbers can . . . we need this increased.

The other area is in the Gore-Kuchma working group, we have been

successful in working collectively on the prosecution issues. I think

that on protection we look forward to working with them on developingand again this is an area that I think OSCE can help usworking collectively with source, transit, and destination countries to see

how to reintegrate these people. Not all of them, obviously, are going

to be staying in the countries that they have been trafficked to. So its

important, and I think the country is very interested in this, to work

with us on how we can collectively work on setting up programs to

successfully reintegrate them.

Most recentlyas a matter of fact on SaturdayI was able to address a group of Ukrainian-Americans. We did indeed engage their

support to help us in this endeavor, and the Embassy of Ukraine suggested that another possibility to focus the attention formally will be

to have the U.S. and Ukraine host a conference in the Ukraine on

this. So we look forward to OSCE supporting that.

Mr. SMITH. That sounds like a very useful idea that could help push

the cause forward.

Let me ask you a question regarding the media. We all knowand

especially now with our anti-drug efforts that are being made through

public information announcements and even the anti-smoking effortswhat place do you think utilization of the media plays, especially radio? We know there are many girls who are seduced into going to a higher paying job and take an opportunity to get themselves
9

out of the doldrums, only to find themselves enslaved. They may not

read the paper every day; that might be the wrong way of trying to

reach them, especially in their very early years. But they may listen

to radio. Is there any effort to get some air time with public information announcementswhether it be in Moscow or Kiev or anywhere

elseto try to warn these women that if it looks too good to be true,

it is?

Ms. BOTTI. It is. Yes. Thank you. Youre absolutely right. I can say

that through our own initiatives, our public diplomacy initiatives,

weve been able to get the word out across the world, and particularly

in the former Soviet Union, through media of all sorts. But to your

question, one of the ways that I think has been most effective is to

utilize the NGOs, the non-governmental organizations, I think that

in allowing them to carry the message, whether it be La Strada, or a

local group, of MiraMeds you know on the ground, talking with these

people. This I think is the most effective way of doing this.

We have to, I think, ensure that people coming back are willing to

participate in this because I do believe that unless victims themselves

are able to speak about this, theyre not going to listen to me or to

you; theyll just think that were making this up. I do think the most

effective way is to utilize people on the ground who either themselves

are working with victims or are victims themselves. And were trying, as we develop programs, to ensure that happens.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Ms. Botti. Mr. Greenwood.

Mr. GREENWOOD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In your testimony,

Ms. Botti, youve made reference in numbers that over one million

women and children are trafficked around the world each year and

over 50,000 of these women and children are trafficked into the U.S.A.

annually, primarily from Latin America, the former Soviet Union and

South East Asia. And I think you saidyou do say in the same paragraphthese are conservative estimates. Could you help me understand how these numbers are derived? Its always difficult to quantify something thats illegal and that youre trying to stop because an

obvious question arises: if you know that there are 50,000 people coming in, how come you cant stop it? So how and by whom are these

numbers generated?

Ms. BOTTI. Yes sir. First of all, theyre derived very carefully. And

by whom? By our intelligence community, both domestically and internationally. I think that it is safe to say that when we started this

endeavor about a year and a half ago, sir, we did not have estimates

ourselves. We had estimates from NGOs working on this issue. What

I think is of concernand as someone who is a statistician Im always, as you, concernedwhere are you getting the numbers? So we

sat together through the task force with the intelligence community

to establish first what our scope was, because I think we had to decide that. And as you can see as I described the definition, it does

transcend sexual exploitation.

So once we arrived at the scope, I think the intelligence community

was able to at least give uscarefully looking at this from traffic patterns, working with our international colleagues in intelligencethey

were able to give us these estimates.

The reason I suggested theyre conservative is that we wanted, because of the seriousness of this phenomena, we wanted to make sure

that we werent being, that we were being sufficiently accurate and
10

we werent being over dramatic. I think that these are safe estimates,

and I usually use them, but Im quite confident that they are under

reporting.

Mr. GREENWOOD. You made reference to the intelligence community. Can you be more specific? Is it the Central Intelligence Agency

that derives these figures?

Ms. BOTTI. Its a subcommittee that works together on pulling this

together, yes sir. The FBI, the CIA.

Mr. GREENWOOD. Okay, so its interagency?

Ms. BOTTI. Yes. Yes.

Mr. GREENWOOD. And its an established task force that periodically meets to do this.

Mr. Smith outlined his very positive actions hell be taking next

month overseas. I wont be able to attend that event. Im wondering if

you could be specific at all in terms of congressional action that you

recommended. I note that the Chairman has a bill. Mrs. Slaughter

has a bill. Are you in a position to recommend very specific congressional action that you think we could take here in Washington that

would make a difference?

Ms. BOTTI. Today Im not. We, as you know, are reviewing the legislation, and I think we will be happy to come back to you formally

from the department.

Mr. GREENWOOD. Okay. Well, would you consider this a formal request that you formally do respond in that fashion?

Ms. BOTTI. Yes sir.

Mr. GREENWOOD. Because we really do need to know that thats

where we have the greatest leverage, obviously.

Finally, theres referenceI want to ask some questions about the

mail-order-bride business, and to what extent you believe that, in

terms of the United States specifically, that is a problem. And if you

have any thoughts about what ought to be done about it.

Ms. BOTTI. This area was actually looked at very carefully in the

beginning of our work, and there are pros and cons around this issue.

I do believe that if they fall within the construct of our definition,

regardless of whether they are or are not a mail-order-bride, they

may be considered trafficked. I think its important here to realize

that this does go on and has gone on but has not in our review raised

to the level of the magnitude that were seeing for trafficking. You

know, it may indeed be going on but mail-order-brides have continued to be an endeavor, and when we looked at it as far as trafficking

it was not meeting the level.

That is not to say that there isnt

Sorry?

Mr. GREENWOOD. You dont think its the biggest source

Ms. BOTTI. No sir. And Im suggesting that if it you know, its not

to say that if theres a mail-order-bride, he or she, well its the bride,

may be trafficked. But when we looked at this, we did not find that

this represented a significant amount of trafficking for us to include

it.

Mr. GREENWOOD. Well, for these 50,000 women and children who,

according to your testimony, are brought into the United States, can

you talk a little bit about what you know about how they arrive, to
11

the extent that they are illegally brought across the border? Is that

the predominance of it, or do they come in through Customs and Immigration using legitimate student visas or whatnot to come through?

Ms. BOTTI. My understanding is that the majority do come in illegally. That is not to say, and certainly we know of cases that have

come in legally and then have been picked up into trafficked rings,

into rings of trafficking. This has happened both here in this country,

I believe, and certainly as we see them presenting themselves overseas.

Mr. GREENWOOD. So it

Ms. BOTTI. But the predominance

Mr. GREENWOOD. To interrupt, and I apologize for doing that, but I

know there are other witnesses and the Chairman would probably

like me to move along here. This is new to me so Im just trying to

understand it. What were talking about, I assume, is women conveyed in trucks or however across the border, believing that they are

smuggling themselves in with the help of someone to the United States

for some purpose and then find that, in fact, when they get here they

are indentured in some way or trafficked.

What is your assumption about what the women and children think

is happening to them?

Ms. BOTTI. Okay. Okay. Thank you. And I would like to qualify

that most often theyre notthey themselves are not seen as being

smuggled. I think most of these women and children, or at least in

the cases of women coming in, believe theyre coming in to fulfill career opportunities, that they think theyre coming in for bona fide

jobs.

We see this as slightly different. Well, not slightly but as being

different than someone who pays someone to smuggle them into the

country knowingly.

Mr. GREENWOOD. And I wouldnt feel any less compassionate

Ms. BOTTI. No, I understand. But I do believe that the predominance of cases that come into this country and around the world are

cases of women who see themselves, you know, fulfilling a job opening for dancers, waitresses, nannies, teachers, and find themselves

once theyre in

Mr. GREENWOOD. So they may get in a vehicle, they may cross the

border, or they may walk across the border in a group or whatnot,

and theyre not international constitutional scholars, so they dont

know what the laws are with regard to immigration. They come across

and the next thing they know they find themselves exploited. Is that

what youre saying?

Ms. BOTTI. That certainly may be one of the ways they come in.

There are other ways where travel agents and career employment

agencies have recruited them, and so they think that they are coming

in quite legitimately. This includes people who are clearly, in some

cases, quite educated. So because of the high unemployment, they

are looking to find jobs.

Mr. GREENWOOD. Well it sounds to me, and Ill close with this, that

probably the most direct thing that the United States Congress could

do would be in line with everything else that we do to try to protect

the movement of illegal immigrants across the border, because that

would prevent people from coming into this country to be exploited

illegally as well as for a variety of other purposes.
12

Certainly, anything we can do to understand the problem and check

the credentials and be aware of and close the pores in our border is

certainly going to help these women and children who are being exploited once they come here.

Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Greenwood. Let me ask another question related to the one at handand I do have some questions Id like to submit for the record. There is, I think, a Catch-22

situation where a young girl might fit the profile of an applying student. Because she wants to be a student and needs a visa, she finds

herself under heightened scrutiny. Have our people been adding additional burdens to those cases? And what has been the outcome? We

know, or at least we understand, that theres some additional scrutiny being given to them. Are such people being kept out of the country simply because theyre in the suspect class and therefore might be

exploited? Does it actually work to their benefit because now they are

kept from a hellish experience?

Ms. BOTTI. Not to my knowledge. I know it was raised with me on

Saturday that there was an issue in Ukraine as far as review of visas,

and we will be talking with our consular section on that, sir, but I

dont believe that people are being discriminated or disadvantaged in

this.

Interestingly enough, I dont think that the people are coming into

the embassy. I think their visas and their ability to come into this

country, or other countriesthe vehicle and the methods for entry

are being procured through other means. Fraudulent means.

Mr. SMITH. I thank you. And if you could, please get back to us

because you know we are looking at the language. I know youre not

prepared to speak to it today, and I certainly understand that; but as

we go to mark up, we want maximum input, give and take on the

legislation, to get to the best possible product to end this egregious

practice. So I do thank you and request that you please get back to us

on that issue as well.

Ms. BOTTI. Thank you. Thank you very much for the opportunity.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. Before I ask our second panel of witnesses

to proceed to the witness table, Id like to read excerpts from a letter

(and put the entire letter into the record) from Harold Koh, the Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. Here are

some salient points in his letter.

I am delighted that my friend and colleague, Ms. Anita Botti, will

brief you today on her most recent trip to OSCE offices in Europe.

And then he talks about how his bureau has been working diligently

on this issue, together with the Council, State Department, and so on

and so forth.

He is a Member of the Commission and a very able Member; we

look forward to the additional information he will provide as well.

Ms. BOTTI. Thank you.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you.

Id like to ask our second panel if they would proceed to the witness

table. Well begin with Steven Galster, Executive Director of Global

Survival Network, a D.C.-based human rights group, which he founded

in 1994. Working with Global Survival Network and several other

non-governmental organizations before it, Mr. Galster has led international investigations related to illegal trade in wildlife, people and
13

arms. Between 1994 and 1996, Mr. Galster led an undercover investigation into the trafficking of women and girls from countries of the

former Soviet Union to Asia, Europe and North America.

Dr. Louise Shelley is a professor in the Department of Justice, Law

and Society and the School of International Service at American University, and is Founder and Director of the Center for the Study of

Transnational Crime and Corruption. Dr. Shelley is the author of

Policing Soviet Society and co-editor of two journals, one covering

post-Soviet democratization and the other addressing trends in organized crime. Since 1995, Dr. Shelley has conducted a program in coordination with specialists in Russia and, more recently, Ukraine on

the problem of organized crime. In this capacity, she has also cochaired a round table in the Russian parliament on trafficking in

women and children.

Next we will hear from Laura Lederer, who is Research Director

and Project Manager of an extensive research project underway in

the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard Universitys John

F. Kennedy School of Government. The Protection Project, as it is

known, aims to gather and disseminate information regarding laws

that protect women and children from commercial sexual exploitation. Ms. Lederer is an accomplished researcher and writer on many

human rights issues, including trafficking, free speech, and equality

issues.

And finallylast but not leastWendy Young serves as the Washington Liaison and Staff Attorney for the Womens Commission for

Refugee Women and Children, which is a program of the International Rescue Committee. Previously, Ms. Young served as the Senior Immigration Policy Analyst for the U.S. Catholic Conference and

at the National Council of La Raza and as an Immigration Policy

Fellow.

Please begin, Mr. Galster.

TESTIMONY OF STEVEN R. GALSTER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

OF GLOBAL SURVIVAL NETWORK

Mr. GALSTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for inviting me here today to speak about the trafficking in women and children. The organization that I direct, Global Survival Network, or GSN, has conducted in-depth field research on this issue since 1995. Much of our

research has focused on the former Soviet Union and Europe, and

more recently parts of Asia and the United States.

Our most recent investigation into human trafficking on Saipan,

U.S. territory, was profiled on ABC and in The Washington Post last

month. GSN initially reviewed the trafficking of women and girls for

forced prostitution in its own special category that required its own

special attention and even policy response. However, our investigations revealed that the victims of sexual trafficking, sweatshop labor,

domestic servitude, and other forms of forced labor are all victims of

the same kind of labor and human rights abuses. The mechanisms of

trafficking and the forms of abuse are quite similar.

We even discovered some networks that traffic women for sexual

slavery while trafficking men for other forms of forced labor, using

the same channels and methods.
14

In 1995, GSN launched an investigation into sexual trafficking, focusing on the former Soviet Union, or NIS, which lasted 2 years and

took us to a number of countries, including China, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, Macao, Canada, and the United States, as well as

other countries. We established a dummy company that purportedly

specialized in importing foreign women and entertainers to the United

States. This was necessary because we found early on that there was

no way we were going to learn about the realities of trafficking unless

we could get close to the traffickers. And this in fact allowed us

gained entree to the operations of international trafficking networks

based in Russia and beyond.

I led this investigation but before summarizing what I saw, let me

clarify that the definition we use for trafficking is the same definition

that you heard from Ms. Botti, including the use of deception, coercion, debt bondage, or some combination.

This relates to my first observation from the investigations. We found

four types of women and girls involved in the sex trade. Many were

victims of sexual slavery; some were not. The first type included those

who had been completely duped and/or coerced into being sex workers.

Thats a clear-cut case of trafficking. The second type included those

who were told half truths by the recruiters about their employment.

For example, they may have been told they would have to dance and

strip for clients but not that they would be expected to perform extra

services or that the sums of money they were promised were completely

fictitious or that they would not be able to hold onto their passport and

that they would be confined during their stay in Germany, the United

Stateswherever they were going. These women were also trafficked.

The third type are those who are adequately informed of the type of

work theyd be performing, werent excited about that, knowingly relinquished control to their traffickers and still experienced the same

kind of abuse. They were also trafficked.

Finally, the fourth type are those women who were adequately informed of the type of work they would be doing, in fact had control

over their own movements and their earnings and were not controlled

by a trafficker or pimp. Under our definition of trafficking thats not a

trafficked woman.

Trafficking networks range and vary in size. A trafficking network

can range from a two-person show to a large operation. I saw apartment-based operations in Moscow and Vladivostok, Russia, where one

or two people would recruit women and send them abroad to a place

where they had a business associate who ran a nightclub or a brothel.

I also saw larger groups that operated out of travel agencies that

were much more sophisticated.

Some of the main features of the way all trafficking networks we

saw operate include the following. First, contracts or verbal agreements are established with the trafficked woman or girl. These include sums of money promised, warnings of financial and other penalties that will be incurred if she fails to follow the rules of her boss.

The sums of money promised are often fictitious. The warnings about

penalties are not.

Secondly, many trafficked women enter the country of destination,

including the United States, with legal documents secured by the trafficker in duplicitous ways.
15

 Third, recruitment fees are always demanded. Since most of the

women and girls do not have the kind of money demanded of them,

theyre given the opportunity to work off their debt. This is the first

and biggest problem they fall into.

Fourth, the traffickers take away their passports upon reaching

their destination and they hold onto it while theyre there.

Fifth, most traffickers also keep control over the womans or girls

earnings, paying her whatever and whenever they want.

Sixth, peonage is often exercised gradually. The fact that the women

and girls had been duped and/or coerced into performing services they

did not want to perform, or work longer hours under bad conditions

for little to no money, does not occur to them for several weeks or

more, by which time they feel stuck, tired, and afraid to fight it.

Another observation I made was that the trafficked victims fear of

authorities is widespread, especially women from the former Soviet

Union. Theres a couple of reasons for this. First, having lived under

formerly autocratic and now often corruption-laced governments, they

fear the police as much as they fear the trafficker and/or pimp. They

dont trust either, but they still feel they have to hide behind a trafficker for fear, ironically, of being turned in by him or her. I should

add that the fifth type of woman we ran into in the sex trade were

pimps and traffickersthere were plenty of them.

Secondly, the victims realize that if they reveal the nature of their

work, they could be deported for working illegally as an alien and

arrested for being a prostitute. Deportation, while seemingly an option for escape, would actually lead to retribution by the trafficking

network; even worse, by going to the police, the woman can put her

life in danger. There have been cases, as you stated, where the women

have been threatened, beaten and even killed by traffickers.

As far as recommendations are concerned, I believe the U.S. Government is now moving in the right direction to combat trafficking on

U.S. soil and abroad. This is an enormous problem that cannot be

tackled overnight. Still, I think more can be done and faster.

Specifically, I think the following six components have to be emphasized.

First, public awareness. Traffickers prey on ignorance. They prey

on those who are cut off from the realities beyond their neighborhood, much less their own national borders. Effective public awareness efforts should be channeled through grassroots organizations

and via mass media outlets that reach far and wide. USIA and USAID

grants can and are now being made available for this kind of work. I

would like to see more of the public design work and money for these

programs being controlled a little more by local organizations.

Second, increased economic opportunities for women at risk. Traffickers also prey on poverty. Some of the women and girls may know

that traveling abroad with an unknown company or working as a

stripper or even sex worker can be dangerous, but theyre desperate

for money and willing to take the risks. U.S. foreign aid to NIS countries should emphasize economic opportunities for women. U.S. grants

and loans should have a stipulation that overseas implementors have

an equal voice in how programs are designed and how the money is

spent. Thats not only fair, its actually more effective, I think.
16

Third, emphasize civil rights laws and human rights treaties in

anti-trafficking enforcement activities. Sex workers are people and

are just as entitled to civil and human rights protection as the next

person. In many States in the OSCE women in general, as you stated,

especially sex workers, are deprived of these rights and treated as

second class citizens. When theyre mistreated, cheated, beaten, raped

or even killed, the attitude is oftenwell, what did she expect, getting into a business like this.

Theres at least six such treaties the U.S. and other OSCE States

support that are relevant. Ive put those in my testimony.

Fourth, apply these civil and human rights laws and treaties to

immigration laws too. Traffickers benefit from most immigration laws.

Authorities are obligated in most countries to arrest and deport alien

women, girls, men, and boys found to be working illegally, even if it

may appear they are working under force or duress. The trafficker,

as youve stated yourself, often escapes justice largely because the

witness has been sent home. A more humane, and I believe effective,

response to trafficking would provide a victim with a stay of deportation for at least the period during which the investigation and potential trial against the trafficker takes place. In the case of sex trafficking, during her stay the woman should be provided with shelter, food,

and counseling, and be allowed to apply for asylum if she can demonstrate that she risks facing physical danger by returning home.

Fifth, recognize forced prostitution as a form of forced labor instead

of treating it in a separate category. Regardless of a nations laws on

prostitution, a woman or girl who is lured into a forced prostitution

situation is enticed, trapped, and abused the same way a woman,

girl, man, or boy is trafficked to work as a domestic servant or sweatshop worker. They are all deceived about their pay, they are all kept

under tight control with no practical recourse for help because theyre

illegal, and theyre all robbed of their human rights.

Finally, train governmental personnel in the realities of and appropriate responses to trafficking. These personnel should include

police, immigration, domestic violence hotline operators, and embassy

personnel.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ill be happy to answer any questions

you may have.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Galster, for that excellent

testimony and for the great work you do. Dr. Louise Shelley.

TESTIMONY OF LOUISE SHELLEY, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR

THE STUDY OF TRANSNATIONAL CRIME AND CORRUPTION

Dr. SHELLEY. Thank you very much for the invitation of the chairman to speak here. Our Centers for the Study of Transnational Crime

and Corruption that exist in Russia began with the impetus of my

Russian colleagues who worked in the field, are criminologists, who

were concerned about the exploitation of women and the problem of

trafficking. And as specialists in crime problems and people who work

with the law enforcement community, one of the prime motivating

reasons that these centers were started was to try and address this

problem. And I can talk more about what we have done to do that.

Human trafficking, as weve discussed, is clearly a growing problem, but one thing that we have not brought enough attention to is

that it is serving as a fuel for strengthening organized crime networks throughout the region. Trafficking helps perpetuate system-
17

atic government corruption; it helps fund the expansion of other organized crime activities as traffickers are often also engaged in trafficking in arms and drugs. The quick and continuous profits made

from trafficking also permit the organized crime organizations to expand into other areas of illicit activity.

Were not just dealing with the problem of trafficking in women,

but also of children who are trafficked out of orphanages for the purposes of adoption and also for purposes of prostitution. As Mr. Galster

mentioned, while some of the trafficking is carried out by small groups

of individuals, in many cases it is carried out by organized crime groups

which have extensive foreign links. The ability to threaten the women

under their control and to threaten retaliation against family members at home because of the long reach of the criminal organizations

makes the women particularly vulnerable.

In Belgium and the Netherlands, where many of the women are

trafficked, Dutch research reveals that one third of the women there

are originally from Ukraine. Parliamentary inquiries were held in

the mid-1990s because of the extreme level of the violence applied

against these womena phenomenon that had not been observed before.

Authorities in many of the recipient countries of Western Europe

and in the United States have made little headway against this phenomena.

The number of women in the U.S. is significantly below those found

in Western Europe or in Turkey. Israel has tried to expel some of the

trafficked women brought to Israel on falsified documents; Korean

authorities broke one ring in Pusan of women trafficked from the Far

East.

One French telecommunications executive informed me that he had

seen an advertisement on the miniteltheir substitute for the Web

offering individuals the chance to do anything with Romanian children. He sent a message to the advertisers that they were cooperating with French law enforcement. This was not the case, but the

advertisement disappeared from the system.

Law enforcement, except in a few distinct cities in Europe, is not

particularly motivated to address the problem of trafficking in women.

Those that do try to address this problem have faced insurmountable

difficulties. Many of the women refused to cooperate with the authorities because there were little or no protections, and they faced

deportation and threats against their families if they cooperate with

foreign law enforcement.

Second, often the law enforcement authorities do not know the

womens country of origin because the organized crime groups have

deprived the women of their passports.

And, third, western law enforcement that forwards inquiries concerning trafficking organizations usually gets no response through

Interpol because the central office of Interpol in the former NIS States

has almost no links to the communities from which the women are

trafficked. Therefore, western police officials often give up trying because there is no way they can complete an investigation.

The failure of NIS law enforcers to address the problem is a result

of many factors. According to survey research conducted recently in

Russia by MiraMed, many citizens mistrust law enforcement person-
18

nel, believing law enforcers are highly corrupt. Many NGO personnel

worry that their lives and the lives of the victims they are trying to

protect will be endangered if they turn to the police for help.

What were dealing with is a transnational phenomenon. While Mr.

Smith had mentioned earlier about Russia being a source country for

traffickers, it is also a recipient country as many Ukrainian women

are trafficked from Ukraine into Russia and vice versa. I was just last

week in Georgia and learned that Russian and Ukrainian women are

trafficked through Georgia to Turkey and the Mediterranean. So while

the links among the States have declined since the collapse of the

Soviet Union, the organized criminals still manage to function effectively together. And in the Russian Far East you see links with Korean and Japanese organized crime groups that are facilitating the

trafficking of women. The Irkutsk Center had a meeting about a year

and a half ago where we brought Korean prosecutors there, and they

came at their own expense and discussed this issue of trafficking and

their effort and desire to do more in this region to combat the problem.

One of the major problems with all of the NIS law enforcement is

that, facing so many problems of organized crime, they tend not to

prioritize the prevention and prosecution of human trafficking from

their regions. In fact, they tend to view women who are trafficked as

deserving of their fate or motivated by financial necessity and therefore do not investigate or prosecute crimes involving sexual trafficking and prostitution.

The inability of law enforcement personnel to act against the phenomenon is undermined by their lack of knowledge and training in

combating organized crime. Many law enforcers from the NIS are

ignorant of the fact that trafficking in women and children is a part of

organized crime activity and needs to be treated as such, and that

under the laws that are being adopted in their countries, if they are

complicit with these rings they will then be liable to prosecution as a

member of an organized crime group. They are not aware of this.

Those interested within the NIS in addressing the problem in the

former Soviet Union are often helpless because of its international

dimensions. One of my colleagues was meeting a very interested law

enforcer in the Urals who said that he was not capable because he

had no telephone, no fax, no access to Internet to follow up on the

advertisements that were appearing in his local newspapers from

Houston, Texas, and others advertising for women in his region. And

thats why law enforcement links that would help these individuals

forward their inquiries to American law enforcers who could follow

through on this are very important.

And when we had these hearings with the Russian Dumaand

there was a lot of concern among Duma members on this issuepart

of the problem was that the impoverishment of law enforcement did

not permit them to follow through on much of the information that

they received.

So I would summarize the main features of the trafficking problem

as the following; one, the heavy involvement of organized crime, and

this has been mentioned before, but I would also reiterate that there

is a level of coercion not previously used against women that are being used by organized crime groups from the former Soviet Union.
19

And this had been done, particularly in Western Europe, to maintain

or achieve a foothold in the lucrative prostitution markets that have

been controlled by other organized crime groups previously.

Secondly, what I would call the lack of capacity and motivation.

Law enforcement in the region has not been trained in combating

trafficking in women and children. Much of the recruitment of trafficked women is going on in regions where law enforcement has no

possibility of following up on the international groups which are trying to recruit women.

Third, complicity and corruption in law enforcement, passport services, and consular divisions. The corruption of law enforcement, passport services and consular divisions, which facilitates the trade in

women, is not confined to the NIS or Eastern Europe but exists in

other countries as well. Investigators at the U.S. State Department

found that a foreign national working in the visa division of our embassy in Prague was issuing visas for Czech traffickers to bring women

to the United States.

Our country is not alone, as accusations have been made of corruption in the consular divisions of Western European countries.

Corruption within NIS law enforcement contributes in numerous

ways to passport services which issue phony passports to facilitate

trafficking. Two, payoffs made at the borders to border guards to look

the other way. Third, payoffs are made to local police to tolerate brothels in their communities or to tolerate individuals recruiting women

for prostitution.

Our Siberian Center recently did research on a specialized labor

camp in Russia for former government officials and law enforcement

personnel on the mechanisms of corruption. This research revealed

that 90 percent of surveyed law enforcement officials passed bribes

up the command chain; therefore the higher levels of law enforcement are profiting from the payments made at the local level, and

therefore its in their interest to take payments to tolerate such behavior. And, fourth, the infiltration of Interpol and its information

channels to local law enforcement means that efforts to attack the

international links of the crime groups may be undermined by corruption in law enforcement.

Fourth, the absence of law enforcement links. Because Im talking

at a meeting dealing with OSCE, its important to understand there

needs to be not just links between American law enforcement and

law enforcement in Eastern Europe and the NIS, but that Europeans

also need to be very much part of this equation, as well as Asians that

are recipients of these traffickers. Law enforcers in the NIS do not

know whom to turn to abroad, and the same is true of Western and

Asian law enforcement.

And fifth is the point that Congressman Smith has made, is that in

the absence of victim protectionWestern countries do not have adequate systems of protection for victims of traffickers. Therefore,

women who are trafficked are afraid to contact Western law enforcement authorities and are assured no protection when they are returned home.
20

What can be done? First, encourage links among law enforcement

from the United States, Western and Eastern Europe, NIS States

and Asia. This can be done through network meetings. ILEA, the law

enforcement training academy, can be used to facilitate such meetings.

Two, enhance training to ensure that law enforcers know how to

investigate trafficking in women and understand the links between

organized crime and trafficking in women.

Three, support development assistance to provide women financial

alternatives, such as a Gameen bank, because many of the women

are educated and could profit if there were financial alternatives.

Fourth, support educational and media programsthis has been

mentioned earlier.

Five, continue U.S. investigations of fraud in the visa and passport

branches of overseas embassies. Encourage organized crime strike

forces to focus on these issues.

Six, develop legislation to promote protection of trafficking victims

and protection for cooperative witnesses in trafficking cases. While

this is being done in the U.S., it also needs to be done in other OSCE

member countries.

And, seven, encourage cooperation between telecommunications

companies and law enforcement investigations in the trafficking area,

particularly in American, European, Eastern European, and NIS area.

Cooperation between law enforcement and telecommunications firms

has begun in the U.S. to combat trafficking and child pornography.

International undercover investigations have been carried out against

child pornography. More needs to be done to promote international

cooperation and cooperation within Europe between telecommunications companies and law enforcement. This is increasingly important

as the traffickers are successfully soliciting customers through the

Web and other telecommunications systems.

And I think, to conclude, one also needs to think and understand

more about the mechanisms of market and what needs to be done in

member States of the OSCE to clamp down on the market for these

trafficked women and children, because this is also very much an

important part of the equation. Thank you very much.

Mr. SMITH. Dr. Shelley, thank you very much for your very extensive testimony. You do provide us with some very serious recommendations to consider. I think they will be very helpful as we go over the

record and try to figure out where we go from here, based on what

were already doing. So thank you very much for that.

I would like to ask Ms. Lederer if she would begin.

TESTIMONY OF LAURA J. LEDERER, DIRECTOR,

THE PROTECTION PROJECT

Ms. LEDERER. Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission, its a

pleasure to be here. Im Laura Lederer, Director of The Protection

Project at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

Ive been working for over 20 years on issues of commercial sexual

exploitation of women and children, and Im happy to be able to share

some of our preliminary findings today with the Commission.

The purpose of the Protection Project is to build a comprehensive

database of laws and related materials on the commercial sexual exploitation of women and children. Were documenting the laws on
21

child prostitution and child pornography, prostitution and surrounding activities, including pimping, pandering, procuring, maintaining

a brothel, corruption of a minor, forced prostitution, trafficking, slave

trade laws, kidnapping laws, and rape laws in all 220 countries and

territories around the world.

Were also documenting the age of majority, age of consent to sexual

relations, legal age for marriage, and other ages relevant to commercial sexual exploitation of women and children.

And, finally, were examining the range of penalties, defenses to

the charges, sentencing patterns, extraterritoriality and extradition

treaties and agreements, and law enforcement capability, victim assistance programs where they exist, and other related matters. Collection of the data is taking place through a series of questionnaires,

and the preliminary data base will be complete by the end of this

year.

Trafficking is a global human rights problem of which the majority

of victims are women and children. Let me illustrate what trafficking

is by telling you Lydias story. Lydias story is an amalgamation of

several true stories of women and girls who have been trafficked in

Eastern Europe in the recent years.

Lydia was 16 and hanging around with friends on streets inand

you can fill in the name of the country hereUkraine, Russia, Romania, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, when they were approached by

an older, beautifully dressed woman who befriended them and told

them that they were so nice looking she could get them a part time

job in modeling.

She took them to dinner, bought them some small gifts, and when

the dinner was over she invited them to her home for a drink. Taking

the drink is the last thing Lydia remembers. The woman drugged

her, handed her and her friends over to another agent who drove

them, unconscious, across the borderand here you can fill in another set of countriesGermany, the Netherlands, Italy, some Middle

Eastern countries, even as far as Japan, Canada, the U.S.

When Lydia awoke she was alone in a strange room in a foreign

country. Her friends were gone. A while later a man came into the

room and told her she now belonged to him. I own you, he said. You

are my property, you will work for me until I say stop. Dont try to

leave. You have no papers, you have no passport, you dont speak the

language in this country. He told her if she tried to escape, his men

would come after her and beat her and bring her back. He told her

that her family back home was in danger. He told her that she owed

his agency $35,000, which she would work off in a brothel by sexually

servicing men, sometimes 10 to 20 men a day.

Stunned, angry, rebellious, Lydia refused. The man then hit her.

He beat her. He raped her. He sent friends in to gang rape her. She

was left in the room alone, without food and water, for 3 days. Frightened and broken, she succumbed. For the next 6 months she was held

in virtual confinement and forced to prostitute herself. She received

no money. She had no hope of escape.

She was rescued when the brothel was raided by the local police.

They arrested the young women and charged them with working without a visa. They arrested the brothel manager and charged him with

procuration, but he was later released. They didnt attempt to arrest

the brothel owners or to identify the traffickers. The girls were inter-
22

viewed, and those who were not citizens of the country were charged

as illegal aliens and transferred to a womens prison where they

awaited deportation.

A medical examiner found that Lydia had several sexually transmitted diseases. In addition, she was addicted to a potent cough syrup,

she was physically weak, and she was spiritually broken. There was

no one to speak for Lydia. She feared the future because she knew

her keepers; they had the networks, the power, the resources to track

her down, kidnap her, bring her back again. They could hurt her family and had an interest in doing so because, unlike drugs where the

product can be sold only once, when you commodify a human being

she can be sold over and over again. The risk is low, the potential

profits are high, and girls like Lydia are a real target.

Theres no one who seemed to care about Lydias life. The authorities dont have the interest in tracking down the organizations of individuals in this trafficking chain: from the woman who drugged Lydia,

to the agent who brought her across the border, to the agent who

broke her will, to the brothel managers and the brothel owners. In

addition, as Dr. Shelley said, there are corrupt law enforcement officials involved because the process of getting Lydia across the borders

and keeping the brothels running involves payoff to local visa officials and police in the country of origin, border patrols for both countries, and local police in the destination country. Lydia is without

protection; the traffickers have bought theirs.

Now multiply Lydias story by hundreds of thousands, and a picture of the scope of the problem emerges. UNICEF is estimating that

one million children are forced into prostitution in South East Asia

alone, another one million worldwidethese are just children. An

estimated 250,000 women and children from Russia, the newly independent States and Eastern Europe, are trafficked into Western Europe, the Middle East, Japan, Canada and the United States each

year. An estimated 20,000 children from Central American countries

and this is a new figure from the working group on contemporary

forms of slaveryare being trafficked for the purposes of commercial

sexual exploitation up through Central America and into the Pleasure Islands and the United States.

According to the Department of State, as Ms. Botti said, over 50,000

women are trafficked into the United States per year. And then there

are the countless thousands of women and children in Africa, South

America and Asia, where we have very little information about the

scope of the problem today.

Of the 155 cases of forced prostitution that were brought to the

court in the Netherlands in one year, only four resulted in convictions. Thousands more were never brought to the courts. Accounts of

the arrests police have made in North America show that the women

are being sold for as much as $16,000 each to brothel owners. When

rescued, women are telling stories of debt bondage and sexual slavery in which they were forced to work off a $20,000, $30,000 or $40,000

debt to traffickers.

These numbers and the accompanying accounts illustrate that trafficking of women and children for purposes of prostitution has become a contemporary form of slavery. The numbers may soon be on

par with the African slave trade of the 1700s.
23

Why should we document the laws? We have to document the laws

of individual countries because trafficking is international, but all

the laws addressing the problem are national. There are virtually no

international laws with enforcement capability. While the United

Nations Conventions, such as the Convention on the Rights of the

Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women play an important role in setting international norms, they have no enforcement capability by themselves.

Countries must draft and pass penal code statutes that specifically

address each of these commercial sexual exploitation issues if they

wish law enforcement personnel to have the tools to arrest, charge,

and prosecute traffickers.

The Three Ps: prevention, prosecution and protection. The best legislation would cover what we call the Three-Ps, and I think Ms. Botti

mentioned this, too. Prevention of trafficking, prosecution of traffickers, and protectionthat is social services and other programs for

the trafficking victims.

We have found that more than 154 countries currently have legislation that at least minimally target the prosecution of traffickers by

prohibiting the procuration of women and children for the purposes

of prostitution or forced labor. Most of these laws were drafted between 1912 and 1960 to address earlier waves of trafficking. However, these laws are poorly, if ever, enforced. In fact, we found that

the prostitution laws are enforced, but the procuration laws are ignored. Theyre rarely invoked. So that the women and children end

up in jail and the traffickers go free.

To date, few countries have developed programs to prevent trafficking by educating women and children about how to avoid being

trafficked. Educating men and boys not to sexually exploit women

and children, educating government officials about how to prevent

trafficking and provide economic opportunities that will make women

and children less vulnerable to the lies and promises of traffickers.

In addition, few countries have the kinds of laws that protect victims of trafficking or the services that will help them recover and get

on with their lives. As a result, women who have been forced into

prostitution often end up in jail and awaiting deportation, and go

back to their homeland sick, drug-addicted, unemployed, and unemployable, filled with shame and fear.

In conclusion, trafficking often originates in countries with poverty, few opportunities for women, and few laws to prosecute the traffickers. Theyre trafficked to countries where prostitution is legal or

tolerated and where there are few protections for them. Based on our

preliminary findings, we expect that trafficking will continue to increase in the absence of specific enforceable laws aimed at prevention, prosecution, and protection.

As someone whos worked in this field for 20 years, I am excited to

see the Commissions leadership on this important issue. Im thrilled

that sexual trafficking is finally being recognized as a major human

rights priority. Its time to move beyond conferences and expressions

of shock to a coordinated effort to criminalize the conduct of interlocking rings of businessmen, modern mafias, and corrupt government officials. We are the people who can help girls like Lydia to
24

draw attention to their plight, to help nations strengthen their laws,

and, ultimately, to find ways to prevent and protect young women

and children from commercial sexual exploitation.

I can tell you that from where I sit, many countries are looking for

leadership from the United States. U.S. leadership is important, not

only because of our human rights role, but also because it serves the

American national interest. One of the hallmarks of the 21st century

will be the emancipation of women worldwide, and the issue of commercial sexual exploitation of women and children is one that is perhaps lastbut definitely not leastto be examined and addressed by

our society.

Your effort, Mr. Chairman and Commissioners, will put America

on the right side of history as women gain power and dignity. Thank

you very much.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Ms. Lederer, for your excellent testimony,

for the great work youve done on this issue for the last two decades,

and for your help in helping to draft legislation that would, as you

put it . . . . The United States really does need to take the lead, and we

need to lead by example. And certainly that means tangible legislation. As you pointed out, its important to make expressions at places

like the upcoming OSCE Parliamentary Assembly; but I think its far

more important that we have a product that will give law enforcement the tools and prosecution strategy to go after rapists who are

exploiting women around the globe. Thats what we are seeking to do

with our legislation. I want to thank you publicly for your great help

on that.

Ms. Young.

TESTIMONY OF WENDY YOUNG, WASHINGTON LIAISON AND

STAFF ATTORNEY, WOMENS COMMISSION FOR REFUGEE

WOMEN AND CHILDREN

Ms. YOUNG. Good afternoon. On behalf of the Womens Commission for Refugee Women and Children, I would like to thank you Chairman Smith and the other members of the Commission for the opportunity to appear before you.

The Womens Commission was formed under the auspices of the

International Rescue Committee in 1999 to act as an expert resource

on the protection and assistance needs of refugee women and children. Together, women and children represent approximately 80 percent of the worlds refugees. Specifically with regard to Kosovo, we

have been advocating for over a year for increased international attention to the tremendous human rights violations inflicted on ethnic

Albanians and the resulting internal displacement and refugee outflow to neighboring countries.

The topic of todays hearing, The Sex Trade: Trafficking of Women

and Children in Europe and the U.S., is, unfortunately, an increasingly prevalent phenomenon around the world that carries tragic results for its victims. I would particularly like to highlight the impact

that trafficking has on displaced women and children, who are especially vulnerable to being caught up in this modern day slave trade. I

will also share with you our observations on trafficking of Kosovar

Albanian women, although I must caution that these observations
25

are preliminary and anecdotal, as we continue to try to ascertain the

depth and nature of the many human rights abuses inflicted on that

population.

In general terms, refugee crises are fertile ground for trafficking in

women and children. Whether in Kosovo or other troubled regions

around the world, refugee women and children face many of the same

difficulties. They typically have lost their traditional support systems.

Single heads of household, widows, and unaccompanied children, and

adolescents generally represent a significant portion of any refugee

population. Refugee women and children are often left facing dire

levels of poverty because they have lost the support of their principal

breadwinner and/or because their families have lost their property

and businesses. Moreover, women and girls are at risk of sexual violence, including rape, during the conflicts that they fled, during their

flight from those conflicts, and while residing in refugee camps or

other settings.

In many cultures, one of the unfortunate consequences of surviving rape is being ostracized from the community, leaving a woman or

girl struggling to find a means to survive on her own.

The situation of ethnic Albanian women and children forced from

their homes is no exception. Almost 900,000 refugees fled Kosovo into

neighboring countries to escape the ethnic cleansing campaign of the

Serbian authorities. The majority were women and children, with

significant numbers of war widows and unaccompanied children mixed

in. The exact numbers are difficult to ascertain as registration of the

refugees was slow off the ground and poorly coordinated. In addition,

many of the refugees are living with host families and are difficult for

relief workers to reach. Moreover, as you know, in recent days some

30,000 refugees per day are spontaneously returning to Kosovo to reestablish their lives in the wake of the NATO military intervention.

In many cases, the male members of a family return first, thus

leaving women alone in the camps and even more vulnerable to abuse.

Despite the lack of data, disturbing reports of abuses against women

and children are emerging, including stories of women and girls caught

up in the trafficking network that was already thriving in the region,

particularly in Albania. For example, there have been reports that

existing trafficking rings in Vlore, Albania, have smuggled as many

as ten boatloads of 40 or more Kosovars each night into Italy. The

price paid for the perilous journey is approximately $750 per person,

totaling up to $50,000 each night in profits per smuggler. Among these

numbers are an unknown number of young women who are recruited

or abducted by the smugglers and forced into prostitution. Sometimes

the women are lured by false promises of jobs as nannies or restaurant workers or educations abroad.

A Womens Commission consultant, currently on a one-month mission in Albania, has reported that women between the ages of 17 and

25, particularly those that have not been registered by the U.N. High

Commissioner for Refugees and who lack the support of family members, are most at risk of recruitment.

This human trafficking has long existed. It is orchestrated by members of the Albanian mafia, and traditionally it has targeted Albanian women and girls. It employs as many as 2,000 residents in Vlore
26

alone. Unfortunately, the network has quickly adapted to the refugee

presence in Albania and found a new and particularly vulnerable population on which to prey.

So how do we combat the ability of traffickers to exploit refugee

communities which already suffer from extreme hardship and trauma?

The Womens Commission would like to offer the following recommendations.

First, aggressively undertake registration of refugees at the onset

of a refugee crisis. Registration is critical to effective identification of

at-risk populations within refugee camp settings, including single

heads of household, war widows, children, adolescents and the elderly. Timely identification of these populations is essential to establishing programs to prevent trafficking and other abuses before they

start.

Second, make the security of refugee camps a top priority. In most

refugee settings, there is an appalling lack of UNHCR protection officers and other trained security personnel assigned to protect refugees from abuse and exploitation, including trafficking. For example,

in Macedonia at the end of April 1999, there were only eight protection officers assigned to monitor three major border crossings and

many smaller sites as well as nine major refugee camps.

Third, develop programs to specifically address the protection and

assistance needs of refugee women and children. Perhaps the most

effective way to deter trafficking in refugee settings is to provide options to women and children so that they do not have to resort to

alternative sources of income and are less vulnerable to being lured

by the false promises of traffickers.

These programs should include micro-enterprise development and

skills training with an emphasis on literacy and education. Too often,

the specific needs of refugee adolescents are neglected. Education and

skills training programs should actively address their needs. In addition, programming to prevent sexual violence must also be provided.

Fourth, involve local non-governmental organizations in service

delivery. The United Nations and other international organizations

must continue to support and build up Kosovar and local organizations that are working with the refugee population. These organizations are often best positioned to recognize and address the needs of

women and children.

Fifth, provide third country resettlement opportunities and access

to the U.S. asylum system for refugee victims of trafficking. The United

States must follow the model of Denmark, Canada, Australia, and

others and formally implement a responsive women-at-risk resettlement program. In addition, the United States must address the protection needs of trafficking victims smuggled into the United States.

Too often, the needs of the victims are neglected and worse; if picked

up by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the women and

children are imprisoned in immigration detention centers or local

prisons pending the outcome of their asylum proceedings. There have

been cases in which the victims are actually imprisoned for longer

than the smugglers who brought them to the United States.

Sixth, take active and direct steps to prevent trafficking in refugee

camps. This includes monitoring and assessing the extent of trafficking as well as reaching out to refugee women and girls to educate

them about the dangers of trafficking. We understand that the Inter-
27

national Organization for Migration, the U.N. High Commissioner

for Refugees, the Council of Europe, and others are beginning this

process in Kosovo.

Last, address trafficking directed at Kosovar refugees in the context of trafficking in Albania generally. While it is essential to prevent the spread of trafficking to refugees hosted by Albania, it is also

important not to neglect the needs of the host community.

These recommendations will require the support of the United

States, other donor governments, and the international community,

including the OSCE. But the world community cannot turn its back

on the suffering of the Kosovar refugees or other refugee communities. It also cannot stand idly by while they suffer further degradation of their rights.

Id like to again express my appreciation for the chance to appear

on this panel, and I would be happy to address any questions you

might have.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you again, Ms. Young, for your expert testimony.

I would like to yield to Mr. Greenwood for any questions he might

have.

Mr. GREENWOOD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate that. This

has been some of the most heartbreaking testimony heard in an awful long time, and I appreciate the witnesses. When you hear testimony like this, you want to solve all of the problems all at once; and

seeing by your testimony how vast the problem is, its a daunting

challenge which tends to make me, as I said earlier, think first about

our own backyard in the United States to make sure that were doing

everything that we can here.

A couple of questions. One of them is what about the intersection of

U.S. law enforcement and this problem? Are there things that we

could be doing with our law enforcement personnel? I know how difficult it is. In my own little county of Bucks County, Pennsylvania,

my wife and I tried to get all of the police departments to be up to

speed on how to deal with domestic violence. And that was a ten-year

daunting project right in our own backyard. But to try to get, for starters, law enforcement personnel to take the correct series of steps when

they encounter both victims and victimizers so that we protect the

victims and try to track down the victimizersare there specific recommendations any of you would have in that regard?

Mr. GALSTER. Sure.

Mr. SMITH. Step right up.

Mr. GALSTER. I think theres lots of things that could be done. Ill

just say two that come to mind as the most important. First is training. I was out at a conferencein April, I think. The FBI and Department of Justice in California put together a three-day conference on

Russian organized crime and organized crime in America from the

former Soviet Union, and they had one section we did training on

with regard to sexual slavery. And I think that was very useful for

everybody there and there has to be more of that done.

Secondly, one of the things that came up though in that conference

was the fact that they need to be enabled legally to negotiate in good

faith with potential victims of trafficking. Most officers from L.A.,

New Yorkall had stories about coming into contact with girls or
28

women from Moldova or Hungary or Ukraine or Russia, but they

couldnt promise them a stay of deportation in exchange for providing

information to be a witness. And I think that would be a

Mr. GREENWOOD. And they couldnt because why? Why couldnt

they do that?

Mr. GALSTER. Well, in most cases if they found that they were there

illegally, either because they had a fraudulent visa maybe, showing

that they were going to be a student or a nanny, or they had overstayed their visa, they had to report it to Immigration. So the policeman doesnt always have control over that process, and they may, in

fact, get in line for deportation at that point.

Mr. GREENWOOD. And Mr. Smith is indicating that in his legislation there is protection for removal for certain victims of trafficking

and that might be an approach to solve that problem.

Mr. GALSTER. I think thats a very good thing, and I think it should

be expanded to all victims of traffickingsexual trafficking or other

types.

Mr. GREENWOOD. And I assume that also relates to what Ms. Young

said about providing third country resettlement opportunities. Is that

correct? So that were not faced with the problems of either returning

to a dangerous situation in their country of origin or allowing them to

remain here as illegal aliens, but find a third way, a safer way. Is

that

Ms. YOUNG. Yes, my reference to resettlement was particularly actually resettlement into the United States. Women-at-risk programs

are designed to protect women who cannot return to their homelands

because of human rights violations, either in the host country or the

homeland.

Mr. GREENWOOD. Oh I see, then I misunderstood your testimony.

Ms. YOUNG. Yes. The women cannot remain in their current host

country because, for example, theyve been targeted by traffickers

and are no longer safe there. So the resettlement program in the U.S.

offers them a third alternative and a place that they can reside permanently.

Mr. SMITH. Anyone else wish to comment?

Dr. SHELLEY. I think that this problem exists on all levels of law

enforcement, from failure to acknowledge and deal with the problem.

Many local law enforcement officials do not even realize that when

theyre dealing with a trafficking victim that theyre dealing with an

international criminal organization. So that there needs to be more

education, more awareness, more training on the local level because

otherwise they just leave this case and just dont pursue all the links

that follow. And then theres no way of getting at the criminal organizations.

Secondly, on the federal level, I was in Los Angeles and spoke with

the organized crime strike force that works against Russian organized crime. The head of it in Los Angeles was very interested in

doing more in this area. But this has not been a priority of American

law enforcement either, just like it hasnt been a priority in the NIS.

And most of them dont realize that the women have been trafficked;

they think that theyre doing it of their own volition. And because

these cases have been so hard to break, because youre not getting

cooperation from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, its

not a case that one can get prosecutions in, that you can have success
29

in these cases and therefore law enforcement tends to go after those

cases where theyre more assured of success. And so thats something

that needs to be done; there needs to be different evaluation of performance criteria and there needs to be more done, more cooperation

so that local and federal law enforcement can have successes and are

willing to devote the resources for this. So its a multifaceted problem.

And, thirdly, we have this ILEA training center that is operating in

Budapest, but weve been doing very little to combat trafficking there.

Weve not been running training courses on it, as far as Im aware of.

One of my colleagues from the Center recently went to visit ILEA

while he was on a trip to Budapest and talked to them. There is more

that we can do to develop training material. Were doing lots of work

on training and investigating in organized crime, but were not incorporating modules on dealing with trafficking within these programs.

So there needs to be something done in all areas, and we need to be

thinking about promoting cooperation meetings.

Some of this trafficking is going from the Far East through Asia

and also into the United States, but theres not been much cooperation among NIS, Asian and American law enforcement, and we need

to be thinking about regional strategies that way. The Koreans are

very interested in this, but we havent been able to get much support

on our side for that.

So there are whole ways that need to be done, going from the local

level to the federal level to the regional level to our international

program. And we just need to put more emphasis on this, and its not

just necessarily resources; we need to emphasize that this is a part of

American policy and interest in this area.

Dr. SHELLEY. Well I think we need to be much more careful in our

embassies of who were having involved in these visa sections, and I

think that thats something as were dealing and making this an OSCE

issue, that we need to be much more careful also in emphasizing that

other member States need to be more careful in their visa sections.

Because I have heard of so many cases of how these visa situation has

exploited, or particularly as Steve was talking about, through travel

agencies that obtain group visas and traffic women through travel

agencies.

I think theres also much more that INS can do in the investigative

area. Theyve not done that many INS investigations in the trafficking area. Those that have done themIve worked with one person

who has broken a ring that we had here in Adams Morgan of trafficking from Asia, but I havent seen training material developed for law

enforcement on how that experience could be replicated, what people

should look for.

Theres a lot more that needs to be done on the INS side.

Mr. GREENWOOD. Anyone else want to comment?

Mr. GALSTER. Just to say two things. First, I think a lot of information can be provided to potential victims through embassies. In fact,

one of the things our organization did was to work with the State

Department to create a brochure for several embassies in the East

European region, and then to encourage applicants to come and apply for the visa themselves so they can get this information. At least

to equip them with this kind of awareness of what they may be getting into.
30

And, secondly, just a word of caution. Remember that stricter immigration laws, however well intended they are, usually feed into the

hands of traffickers because you may have a woman who at first is

intending to go to Germany from the Ukraine or the United States by

herself or with a friend, to get job, and because the immigration laws

that are set up to prevent victims like that falling into a trap, she

ends up having to go to a trafficker who can get them through because law enforcement efforts, however good they are, are not always

going to get all the traffickers in the first sort of swipe of your net. So

just be aware of that. And, in fact, thats been a trend weve seen

throughout the world. Stricter immigration laws benefiting traffickers.

Ms. YOUNG. Id also like to go back to this point on detention of the

victims of traffickers. And I would use as an example a population

that I know Chairman Smith was a passionate spokesperson for, which

was the Golden Venture Chinese a few years ago, who actually ended

up in prisonsincluding in Pennsylvaniaacross the country for close

to 4 years before they were ultimately released. And some of the smugglers who brought the Golden Venture Chinese were imprisoned for

less than a year.

Detention is a very punitive environment, and it has two practical

side effects. One is that it deters victims from coming forward if they

know theyre going to end up in prison themselves. The second is the

humanitarian concerns, just that the conditions of detention are atrocious. Victims need to be looked at on a case-by-case basis and provided whatever relief they can be under our immigration laws, including asylum, if appropriate.

And Id also like to emphasize that there is a program available

within our immigration laws for the temporary protection of witnesses

who are testifying against smugglers. Its the S Visa program. But

its my understanding that that is not fully implemented by the INS,

and it is very difficult to get one of those visas. But, at least, it provides a stay of deportation temporarily while the witness is here.

Ms. LEDERER. Just on the front end, the very front end. Its often

the local police in the United States who make the arrests in the brothels. And if they dont ask the right questions, theyll miss where the

women are coming from, how they got to where they are and in the

United States, of course, prostitution and pimping and pandering,

and maintaining a brothel laws are all State generated, not federally

generated, and the federal law, the trafficking and transportation

law, youd need to ask those questions to get it bumped up to the right

place.

Mr. GREENWOOD. And thats a vast problem because you have virtually an infinite number of local law enforcement agencies of various sizes and levels of sophistication, so Im thinking that perhaps a

federal pilot program that interacted with key law enforcement communities, particularly in border communities and so forth or areas of

importation on the coasts and so forth, might be a good way to get at

this.

I want to thank you all for your testimony and thank the Chairman

for his indulgence with my schedule and

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Greenwood.
31

Let me ask some final questions. In Turkey, mothers protest every

SaturdaySaturdays Mothers, theyre calledfor their missing children. Even in Russia theres an organization of mothers who frequently

protest mistreatment of their sons or daughters in the military. In

Central and South America, there are always mothers groups that

have formed to protest the loss or disappearance of their loved ones

husbands or children. We often hear about the families back home,

that theyre under some threat. What does the average family do in

Russia, Ukraine, or any other country where a child is now missing,

to protest the missing child? And is there any kind of coordinated

effort underway or contemplated or perhaps in existence to try to

bring attention to these missing children? Certainly governments

would wake up, I think, perhaps more than they currently have if

there were an organization of mothers saying, We want our daughters back. Does such a thing exist? Do you want to start?

Dr. SHELLEY. There are many NGOs consisting of women in the

former Soviet Union who are active on this trafficking issue, but Im

not aware of any of missing mothers. In fact, one of the things our

centers are awaiting is a USIA grant thats waiting congressional

approval, and one of the things were going to be doing under this

research is going after some of these missing children data, because

there hasnt been much research linking up this missing children with

the trafficking problem. Our researchers say the link is there, but

people just say, Oh, theyve disappeared and nobody knows whats

happened to them. And so there isnt an awareness of that the way

there should be.

Mr. SMITH. But I understand that sometimes money, small as it is,

makes its way back home. And Laura, you gave that composite about

Lydia. What might her family thinkher brothers, her fatherabout

their missing daughter or sister? What? Did they hop on planes? I

know theyre very often impoverished, but did they look to try to recover her? Does law enforcement show any interest whatsoever that

she might have been caught up in this network?

Ms. LEDERER. Im afraid I cant be of too much more help. I do agree

with Dr. Shelley that I think that there are NGOs that are working

on this in the various countries. And I know a number of them spoke

at the working group on contemporary forms of slavery meeting, and

were aware of and were documenting children. But I dont know of

particular, you know, family organizations or anything in the way of

law enforcement looking for missing persons who might have been

trafficked.

Dr. SHELLEY. When you ask about this money coming back, I mean

some of this trafficking, as Steve was mentioning, is women who voluntarily go abroad. And in some of those arrangements, you know,

there is some money returning. Some of these missing children are

not trafficked, you know theyre just missing. And often people do go

to law enforcement but law enforcement doesnt know where to turn.

You know, has the person gone to Korea? From the Urals? Has the

person gone to Dubai? They know some of them have been trafficked

to the Middle East. They dont even know where to start this inquiry.

So its not as if some of them are totally unwillingthough some of

them arebut a total absence of any knowledge of where to go. How

to follow this up.
32

Ms. LEDERER. Part of the Lydia story was from a MiraMed story of

a small town in the Ukraine where a group of girls disappeared and

the parents didnt know where they were. And then another group of

girls were driven across the border and disappeared and nobody knew

where they are, and people were just saying, we just dont know what

happened. They just disappeared. Thats as far as it went.

Mr. SMITH. In terms of the threat, when a young girl whos being

exploited like this is threatenedthat her family back home will be

hurtis that threat often acted upon? Or is it a threat made just to

her and not to the family?

Ms. LEDERER. We only have anecdotal information, I think, at this

point about that. And I mean there are these horror stories that those

of us who are working in this area hear but nothing documented and

nothing I think methodically documented at this point.

Mr. SMITH. Yes?

Mr. GALSTER. I met women who were trafficked and some whose

sisters or mothers even found out because they called them and told

them. But both they and their family members understood that the

police were no match for the organized crime group that they were

dealing withhowever small or big. So their first line of business

was to pay off their debt and, you know, without doing that they would

put themselves and their family in danger.

Now a lot of the police in some of these countries are corrupt or

underpaid. A lot of times theyre not though. Ive dealt with Russian

police and Ukrainian police who really wanted to do the right thing

but, you know, sometimes they wouldnt even have enough gas in

their car to go halfway across town. They didnt have the capacity to

look into this. Everybody knows that.

Mr. SMITH. Are there instances where the threats have been carried out though?

Mr. GALSTER. Sure.

Mr. SMITH. To our knowledge?

Mr. GALSTER. Sure.

Mr. SMITH. Where families back home have been

Mr. GALSTER. Families back home threatened, yes. And thats not

just something unique to the area of the former Soviet Union.

Mr. SMITH. Right. No, I know. But in terms ofI mean, for the

threat to have

Mr. GALSTER. credibility?

Mr. SMITH. potency and credibility. It needs to be acted upon. Do

they do it?

Mr. GALSTER. Perception in the former Soviet Unions based on a

lot of reality, you know; rasbork or revenge against somebody who

did you wrong is carried out with strong force very quickly. See the

daily newspapers.

Ms. LEDERER. I can say that all it takes is one. There is the story of

one town where a young girl escaped, and they got her. Her head was

found rolling in the gutter. That one is enough for a whole town.

Mr. SMITH. Right.

Dr. SHELLEY. I mean one of the most notable cases that has been

investigated was of a woman, she was controlled by traffickers but

she went abroad to do this to Macao. There was a high level Hong

Kong barrister who wanted to marry her. They went back to

Vladivostok to buy her out of prostitution and both of them were killed
33

in Vladivistok. And this case was investigated because of the high

status of the individual involved. But this case people know about,

that not only did they murder the woman, but they murdered the

lover as well.

Mr. SMITH. One component of the legislation, H.R.1356, provides

that a woman who would face a significant possibility of retribution

or other hardship if removed from the United States would be provided protection. In your view, is that basically the way you would

want it phrased? Do you think this is something that has to be done

and done now? INS and the federal government always had administrative elasticity. They can do certain things, but I have found in 19

years as a Member of Congress that when it comes to immigration

law, we are very often exclusive, not inclusive.

And since I became Chairman of the Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rightsand we do have authorization

power over the refugee issuesI hired the former General Counsel of

the INS, and I can tell you as someone who knows the inside of the

building that my worse suspicions are true. And that is bipartisan.

Previous administrations as well as this one have indicated that exclusivity exists. It seems that if we dont spell out in real detail what

we meanthat we want these people protectedit wont happen. Ms.

Young?

Ms. YOUNG. Yes. We would definitely support that provision, as

long as its not to the exclusion of equal access to other forms of relief,

such as the asylum system which carries with it certain benefits, as

you know.

I would agree with your statement, too, that we tend to view these

things with exclusivity as opposed to the opposite. One provision that

is existing in law that you might want to look at as a model is the

special immigrant juvenile visa program thats available to kids that

have been found to be abused, abandoned, or neglected. Its a stopgap

program, if you will, for kids that are not eligible for asylum or other

forms of relief.

But, having said that, even in that context the INS has taken a

fairly restrictive view towards that program and there are probably

kids who have been deemed ineligible who could have benefited.

Mr. SMITH. Let me ask a question of Ms. Lederer. In terms of the

story you told of how in the NetherlandsI think it was one hundred

and forty-four odd cases that were prosecutedthere were only four

convictions. Was it a lack of the tools, the proper legal basis to obtain

a conviction? Was it because of witnesses who were fearful of retribution? A combination of both?

Ms. LEDERER. Its probably a combination of both. That statistic,

its 155 cases that were brought to the courts and 4 were successful

convictions. It was from the IOM study of one year of cases in the

Netherlands. I will say that weve found numerous weaknesses in the

statutes already, and Ill just give one example.

Theres a double witness law requirement in many of the statutes,

the procuration statute, which requires that in addition to the woman

whos been procured or trafficked, another witness has to be available to testify. And that is, as police will tell you, virtually impossible.

Its hard enough to get the trafficked woman, much less somebody

else in addition to do that. And that stems from the old, you know,

shes not a credible witness because shes a prostitute kind of thing.
34

But thats something that could be done pretty much immediately in

many laws to tighten up the statutes and would also encourage women

to prosecute. Because police tell, you know, that prosecution of a procurer or trafficker is almost impossible unless you have guns or drugs

or something else that you can add on to the charge.

Mr. SMITH. Let me ask Ms. Young: is the sex trade with the Kosovar

women primarily a problem facing the Italian authorities, and what

are they doing? And Ms. Lederer or anyone else might want to touch

on that as well.

Ms. YOUNG. I actually would defer to my colleagues on that question. Im not that

Mr. GALSTER. The question is about Italian authorities?

Mr. SMITH. Italian authorities. Where are the Kosovar women (the

number of which we dont know)? We haveand Ms. Young made

mention of thisa strong belief that some have, unfortunately, been

put into this service.

Mr. GALSTER. Yes, thats been going on for a while. Its happening

more now and Italys definitely the No. 1 destination.

Mr. SMITH. Right. Now what? Is there a deficiency there with the

Italian authorities? Are they prosecuting? Well, Im asking you to get

it on the record.

Mr. GALSTER. Well I think, you know, its a huge problem for any

country, and theyre right across the waters there. Its nasty trafficking. Youve got Albanian groups that are boating across the waters

there, trafficking in other things as well. Its a lot for Italian authorities, any country to deal with, because you know its a peninsula there,

so I think its very difficult; and, I think, as hard as theyre trying,

they lack the capacity to deal with this problem.

Dr. SHELLEY. I would also say that theres very significant involvement of Italian organized crime in this trafficking, especially the crime

groups located in Bari. And because of the close links between the

organized crime groups and Italian law enforcement, this has made a

serious problem in dealing with this or combating this problem.

And, apart from this, I was talking recently at Hurlburt Air Force

Base where we are doing training of military analysts from Eastern

Europe and the former Soviet Union, and the chief of military analysis from Albania was talking about the problems of corruption in the

consular divisions of Italy that are facilitating this trafficking. And

Ive heard that from Italians as well.

Its not just an Albanian problem, there are problems on the other

side linked to the endemic organized crime.

Mr. SMITH. Where is a refugee most at risk? Several weeks ago,

several of us were in Stenkovich in Macedonia, which is surrounded

by barbed wire. Obviously, if recruiting takes place, its only upon

exiting there. But is it when the refugee is immediately making his

or her way into a relatively safe country? Is it when theyre going

back? Like right now with the massive re-infusion of people to Kosovo, is that where the luring of potential sex industry people, particularly women, takes place? When are they most at risk?

Ms. YOUNG. I would say actually rather than looking at it in terms

of a time period at which theyre most vulnerable, I would look at it

more as when are they alone, and without the support of family members. And really that can happen at any time. During the conflict. In

the refugee camps. Or even upon return. As I mentioned, a lot of the
35

returnees right now are men and sons, husbands and sons who are

going back to assess whats left back in Kosovo, and theyre leaving

the women and girls behind. So I would look at it more that way.

Mr. SMITH. Let me ask one final question and ask if you have any

final, concluding comments to make.

Part of what we have in our bill is an attempt to deal very seriously

with the international pimps and put them on the equivalency of being rapists, with a maximum of life imprisonment for their actions.

Im not sure how many of youI know, Laura, youve looked at it and

perhaps all of youhave taken a look at the legislation and might

offer suggestions as to whether or not the sanctions are sufficient to

the crime. Of course, there will be much more discussion on this as

we go through subcommittee and full committee on it, but it seems to

me that we really need to throw the book at them and stop penalizing

the victims. Protect the victims, provide health and other kinds of

protections, including potential refugee asylum assistance rather than

deportation, but to really declare war on those who commit these

crimes. And is this sufficient? Laura, did you want to touch on that?

Ms. LEDERER. Well, I think, what is it 25 years?

Mr. SMITH. Its life for some, 15 for others, based on age.

Ms. LEDERER. Right. Right now I mean, were just in the very preliminary stages of looking at the range of penalties, and were drawing up a chart that will give some comparative data on it. But right

now the law says they are, the range of penalties is much lower than

that, and so the risk is very low also for these traffickers. And the

range is anywhere from 3 months to a year and then in some countries maybe 5 to 10 years, and only with aggravated circumstances,

you know, do you add on years. And very rarely are those sentences,

are the judges applying the sentence at the high end of the range

right now.

So I think that would be something that could be very helpful in

reducing trafficking. The more risk there is, the less people want to

be involved.

Mr. SMITH. And then to move quickly to a successful prosecution of

these people, and thats a matter of prosecution strategy. One, we

need the tools; second, we need a mind set that goes after them, and

I think thats something where Congress, working with the Executive Branch, needs to be very proactive. And I can assure you, using

the Commission and our subcommittee, we will do everything we can

to promote this or something like this, a hybrid of it, to make sure

that we end up with a product and a tool to put these people behind

bars for the rest of their life.

Anything further you would like to add before we close up? Yes?

Mr. GALSTER. First of all, Id like to thank you for your energy and

your statement and your basic feeling about the need for the governments to now get on board with this issue. With regard to your statement earlier aboutis it H.R.1356?

Mr. SMITH. Yes.

Mr. GALSTER. And the specific part in there about stays of deportation and now this part about prosecution. I think youre hitting the

nail right on the head. I think, while youre doing it, it would be great

to widen the head of the nail because, as I said in my Statement,

theres many forms of trafficking and Ill be the first to admit when I

got into this issue in the beginning, I was very focused on the sexual
36

trafficking and thought this was the most horrendous thing in the

world. And it is horrendous. And its hard to believe that victims of

other forms of trafficking could be, you know, having the same kinds

of psychological or physical abuse inflicted on themwhether theyre

women, men or boys.

And I have discovered, through investigations, that it really is happening. So I think it would be the right thing to do to broaden the

scope of this, and I also think it would be practical and smart. Ill give

you two quick examples.

With regard to Kosovo, weve had reports come in about Albanian

traffickers bringing women over to Italy along with some boys and

other girls, some for sexual slavery, others to work in restaurants

and that may not seem like a terrible thing except they had to pay off

their debts. God knows whats happening to them, working in the

basements or the back parts of the buildings. Theyre kids. These are

the same networks. These people are potential sources of information

that could help defeat organized crime in these States, and in the

United States, and I think as long as youre putting this energy into

this, broaden the scope and it will be hugely welcomed by the human

rights community and youll get a lot of support.

Thank you.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Galster. Ms. Shelley?

Dr. SHELLEY. I just wanted to add that I think its very important

to have these public-private partnerships, not just NGO and government and law enforcement. But, as I was mentioning, the increasing

advertisement of services in the telecommunications. Advertisements

and soliciting women for these activities on the Web, offering children, and there needs to be much more thinking in this area because

as were planning and as all of us have said, this phenomenon is not

going away, its growing. And weve got to think of the ways that its

going to grow and develop in the future, and what we need to do is to

plan a strategy thats proactive.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you.

Mr. GALSTER. Can I add one thing? I just forgot. And just because I

havent read recently H.R.1356, just remember that theres a difference betweensometimesa difference between a pimp and a trafficker, and we have to remember our definition of coercion or force, in

which case the person whos controlling the woman would, of course,

meet the standards that youve depicted in which case they should be

prosecuted. Thanks.

Mr. SMITH. Well, in the bill we clearly delineate exactly what a

trafficker is. The definition is explained.

Mr. GALSTER. Right.

Mr. SMITH. I want to thank you for your excellent work, all four of

our distinguished witnesses. Thank you for doing so much on behalf

of the women and men who are exploited. We will continue to be in

touch with you to get your insights and your counsel. Again, I want to

thank you deeply.

This hearing is adjourned.

(Whereupon, the hearing was adjourned at 4:09 p.m.)
37

APPENDICES

LETTER FROM ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE

HAROLD HONGJU KOH TO

CHAIRMAN CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH
38

TESTIMONY OF ANITA BOTTI,

DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR INTERNATIONAL

WOMENS INITIATIVES, PRESIDENTS

INTERAGENCY COUNCIL ON WOMEN

JUNE 28, 1999

Chairman Smith, thank you for the opportunity to testify this afternoon on trafficking in women and children and the U.S.

Governments strategy to combat trafficking in Europe and around

the world. It has been a pleasure to work on this issue with the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe and staff over the

past several months.

Of all the human rights abuses to which the international community has turned its attention, the trafficking of human beings, predominantly women and children, is clearly one of the most egregious

violations of our time.

The problem of trafficking is not new. It has been endemic in South

and Southeast Asia for decades. Now, the countries of the former Soviet Union (FSU) and Eastern Europe are experiencing a regional

crisis in trafficking. There has been a dramatic increase in the trafficking of women and children from the FSU and Eastern Europe in

recent years because of the large number of unemployed women and

the proliferation of organized crime organizations lured to the business by high profits, weak laws and penalties for traffickers.

The former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe make up what is probably the fastest growing region for trafficking source countries. Approximately 175,000 women and children are trafficked from this region to Europe, North America, Asia, and the Middle East. Most are

trafficked to Western Europe, particularly Germany, Italy, and the

Netherlands.

The President, Secretary of State, and Attorney General have shown

tremendous commitment to combating trafficking and the Department of State, Department of Justice and other relevant agencies have

made significant progress over the past year to advance the

Administrations anti-trafficking strategy of prevention, protection,

and prosecution.

The United States Government response to this issue is led by the

Presidents Interagency Council on Women. The Council is a task force

of high-level USG representatives charged with implementing the

Platform for Action, adopted at the 1995 U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. The Secretary of State is the Chair of the

Council and the First Lady is the Honorary Chair. The President has

directed the Council to lead the development and coordination of U.S.

domestic and international policy on trafficking in women and children, as part of the USGs broader commitment to eliminate violence

against women around the world.

Within the Department of State, we have mobilized each regional

bureau and the bureaus of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor,

International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, Consular Affairs, Diplomatic Security, and Population, Refugees and Migration. Throughout the federal government, the Council has coordinated the efforts

of the Departments of Labor, Justice, Health and Human Services,

the U.S. Information Agency and the U.S. Agency for International

Development.
39

Trafficking in human beings, predominantly women and children,

is a form of modern-day slavery. At its core, the international trade in

women and children is about abduction, coercion, violence and exploitation in the most reprehensible ways.

The problem of trafficking in human beings involves the recruitment, transport, harboring, transfer, sale or receipt of persons within

national or across international borders through fraud, coercion, force

or kidnapping, for purposes of placing persons in situations of slavery-like conditions, forced labor or services. Examples include forced

prostitution, domestic servitude, bonded sweatshop labor or other debt

bondage.

Although this hearing focuses on trafficking into the sex industry,

it is clear that this is merely one component of the world of trafficking

of women and children. U.S. Government policy is not limited to addressing trafficking in the context of the sex trade. Placing women

and children into slavery-like conditions in any context is an intolerable human rights violation and an evil that cannot be ignored.

We see cases where traffickers lure girls from a village and force

some of the girls to work in domestic servitude or carpet-weaving,

while others, considered more attractive, are culled out and sold to

brothels. Thus, in the fight against trafficking, there are practical

reasons why the U.S. Government does not limit its efforts to one

form of trafficking over another.

International organized criminal networks lure women by posting

advertisements or recruiting for jobs overseas for modeling, dancing,

waitressing and other kinds of activities involving prospects for travel

and cultural experiences. Once the women arrive, however, they are

forced into involuntary servitude or other forms of slavery-like conditions.

Over one million women and children are trafficked around the

world each year. Over 50,000 of these women and children are trafficked into the U.S. annually, primarily from Latin America, the former

Soviet Union and South East Asia. Russia, Ukraine, Poland and the

Czech Republic are major countries of origin in Central and Eastern

Europe. Roughly 4,000 are from the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. These are conservative estimates. It is worth noting that

of these 50,000, approximately half are trafficked into coerced or

bonded sweatshop labor and domestic servitude.

Men are also trafficked, particularly into forced labor, but we emphasize trafficking in women and children because they are the predominant targets of the criminals for trafficking.

Today I want to focus on the important role to be played by OSCE

in the fight against trafficking. Eradicating trafficking will only be

possible if countries of origin, transit and destination are committed

to working together cooperatively to find economic alternatives for

women, legal remedies, and reintegration and protection programs

for victims of trafficking. As a result, OSCE is an excellent forum in

which to address the trafficking issue. Membership includes origin,

transit, and destination countries.

OSCE participating States have adopted a commitment as set out

in the 1991 Moscow Document to seek to eliminate all forms of violence against women and exploitation of prostitution of women including by ensuring adequate legal prohibitions against such acts and

other appropriate measures.
40

OSCE fora, including the Permanent Council meetings, provide opportunities to raise concerns about the failure of States to honor this

commitment and focus attention on how we can work together toward achievement of our goals to eliminate this scourge. I am pleased

to have participated in two OSCE supplementary human dimension

meetings which addressed this issue, in Warsaw in November 1998,

and more recently in Vienna this month with members of your staff.

Achievement of progress on eliminating trafficking requires cooperation among states. The OSCE is an organization founded on the

principle of cooperation. This concept is not abstract. From my participation in meetings, I can attest to the high quality of debate in

OSCE fora. More importantly I can attest to the willingness of States

to work together to tackle this problem.

As you know, what makes the OSCE so effective are not merely the

commitments States have made to uphold high human rights standards but the effective mechanisms OSCE has created to review implementation of those standards.

Also impressive is the operational and practical nature of the OSCE.

With Missions in 20 OSCE-participating States, the OSCE takes its

message to the field all across the OSCE region.

OSCE institutions are also vehicles of action. The Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) creates programs to

assist States implement commitments.

I believe the OSCE offers an excellent venue to tackle the problem

of trafficking. Can it do more? The answer is yes, and we are working

to ensure that it does.

First, the USG has seconded an expert to the Office of Democratic

Institutions and Human Rights to examine the problem of trafficking

in the OSCE region with a view to recommending programs to assist

States in addressing this matter. This study and the program recommendations it makes will focus on providing better protection for victimsa much neglected facet of the trafficking problem. Improving

protection will enable States to do a better job in preventing victims

from living repeated human rights violations and in making victims

more willing to cooperate in the prosecution of traffickers. We strongly

support greater ODIHR attention to creating programs to combat trafficking.

Second, we will continue to hold participating States to their commitments to combat trafficking, and to speak frankly in OSCE fora

when they do not.

Third, we are exploring ways to enhance OSCE commitments to

address trafficking. We are looking to the study described above to

instruct us in this endeavor.

Fourth, we will use OSCE fora to strategize about how OSCE participating States can effectively cooperate to combat trafficking. I came

away from the recent Vienna meeting impressed by the potential the

OSCE offers to bring all the players together. The State Department

is committed to working with you and your staff to tap that potential

in the fullest possible way.

Currently, we have multilateral and bilateral initiatives underway

with the European Union, the United Nations, Italy, the Baltics,

Ukraine, and Finland to combat trafficking.

 We are developing and implementing a comprehensive and integrated strategy with the government of Ukraine to combat trafficking.
41

 The United States and Italy have launched an initiative focusing

on the protection of victims, cooperation with NGOs, training for law

enforcement, and strengthening cooperation of our criminal justice

systems.

 Recently, the United States and Finland agreed to collaborate on

an initiative to assist in the prevention of trafficking and violence

against women in the Baltic countries.

There are now fears and some indications that organized criminal

elements are trying to take advantage of refugee women and children displaced by the conflict in Kosovo. One concrete action that the

OSCE can take is to ensure that the trafficking of women and children is addressed as part of the peace process in Kosovo. Women and

children in post-conflict situationsthose displaced from their homes

and particularly in refugee campsare extremely vulnerable to trafficking.

We are grateful for your leadership on this issue. We have high

regard for Commission staff, with whom we have had the pleasure of

working in recent months. We look forward to future collaboration.

As Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has said, Our goal, ultimately, is to mobilize people everywhere so that trafficking in human

beings is met by a stop sign visible around the equator and from pole

to pole.
42

TESTIMONY BY STEVEN R. GALSTER,

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, GLOBAL SURVIVAL NETWORK

JUNE 28, 1999

Thank you, Chairman, and other members of the Commission, for

inviting me here today to speak briefly about the trafficking of women

and girls for sexual exploitation in OSCE states. I have been asked by

your commission to share my perspectives on this issue, as well as my

views on how the United States Government can best assist in the

fight to eliminate the trafficking of women and children in the OSCE

region.

The organization that I direct, Global Survival Network (GSN), has

conducted in depth field research into this issue and has led advocacy

and education campaigns to combat human trafficking since 1995.

Much of our research has focused on the former Soviet Union and

Europe, and more recently, parts of Asia and the United States. Our

most recent investigation into human trafficking on Saipan, a US

territory, was profiled on ABC televisions 20/20 several weeks ago.

Our investigations have been profiled on CNN, ABC, New York Times,

last months Washington Post, last weeks Washington Times, and

many overseas media outlets. GSN has also interacted intensively

with the US government at the policy level on this issue. Our staff

have conducted numerous presentations for Department of State personnel, US law enforcement, and USIA delegations.

First a word about GSNs approach to this issue and our research

methodology. GSN is an environmental/ human rights, investigative

research organization, with offices in Washington, D.C. and

Vladivostok, Russia, and projects in the United States, Russia and

Asia. GSN focuses on trans-national criminal threats to civil societies; helping to expose these threats with credible research; and then

working with local NGOs and governmental agencies to foster effective, trans-national reform measures.

GSN has a human trafficking program which focuses on the international trade in people for forced labor, including sweatshop labor,

forced prostitution, and domestic servitude. We initially viewed the

trafficking of women and girls for forced prostitution in its own special category that required its own special attention. However, our

own investigations into human trafficking operations revealed that

the victims of sexual trafficking, sweatshop labor, domestic servitude,

and other forms of forced labor, are all victims of the same kinds of

labor and human rights abuses.

The mechanisms of trafficking and the forms of abuse are quite

similar. We even discovered some trafficking networks that trafficked

women for sexual slavery, while trafficking men for other forms of

forced labor, using the same channels and methods. I am not saying

that being sold into sexual slavery is the same thing as being sold

into a sweatshop. I am saying that the victims in both cases are slaves;

the traffickers are, in both cases, violating existing labor and human

rights laws and treaties; and the traffickers are in both cases inflicting deplorable psychological and physical abuse.

In mid 1994, I came across a human trafficking group in the Russian Far East while investigating the trafficking of endangered wildlife between Russia and Asia. After confirming that local police were

not interested in pursuing the matter, and that local NGOs were too
43

afraid to, GSN decided to launch an investigation, which lasted 2 years

and took us to numerous countries, including China, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, Macau, Canada, and the United States. Our focus

was on the trafficking of women and girls from the former Soviet

Union (CIS) for forced prostitution. We established a New York-based

dummy company that purportedly specialized in importing foreign

women as escorts and entertainers to the United States. Under the

guise of this company, GSN successfully gained entree to the operations of a number of international trafficking networks based in Russia and beyond. Many of our interviews with traffickers were recorded

with hidden cameras. We utilized the film from our camera work to

create a documentary film and report which provide unique insight

into the trafficking underwold in action. The report, Crime and Servitude, I am submitting for the record.

I will summarize what I saw during our investigation and what we

concluded in our report, as it relates today to your focus on trafficking.

First, however, let me clarify that the definition we use for trafficking,again based on what we have seen in our research  includes the use of deception, coercion (including the use or threat of

force or abuse of authority) or debt bondage, or all of the above. Often

the word trafficking is used to describe a situation when an independent, albeit poor woman pays someone to help get her from one

country to another where she can find work as a sex worker, while

controlling her own movements and earnings. That is not trafficking,

in our view; that is facilitated migration. This relates to my first

observation:

1. We found 4 types of women and girls involved in the sex

trade, many were victims of sexual slavery, some were not:

First type. Those who had been completely duped and coerced into

being sex workers. These women/girls expected to perform some other

line of work. Many of them came from rural areas, and I noticed many

from Ukraine;

Second type. Those who were told half-truths by their recruiters

about their employment. For example, they may have been told they

would have to dance and strip for clients, but not that they would be

expected to perform extra services (like having some form of sex with

the client), and/or that the sums of money they were promised were

completely fictitious. In most cases, these women experienced little

to no freedom of movement outside of work because they had been

put in debt bondage circumstances and were not allowed to keep their

own passport.

Third type. Those who were adequately informed of the type of

work they would be performing, did not want to do it, saw no viable

economic alternative, and therefore knowingly relinquished control

to their trafficker who exploited their economic and legal situation

for financial gain, while maintaining the women in debt bondage situations as described above; and finally,

Fourth type. There were those women who were adequately informed of the type of work they would be performing, were not uncomfortable performing it, and were in control of their finances and

had relatively good freedom of movement. Under the definition of
44

trafficking that I cited above, this type of woman would not have been

trafficked, unless, one could easily argue, she was under the age of

18.

2. Recruitment Practices were nearly uniform for women in

the first 3 categories:

 Those who were completely duped and/or coerced had responded

to public ads or word of mouth offers to work abroad as waitresses, au pairs, entertainers, and the like. Behind the newspaper ads, or word of mouth offers, is usually a small to medium

size company, which is often not legally registered, run by as

few as 2 people who, through their local and international contacts, arrange visas and transport from the country of origin to

the country of destination.  Those who were adequately informed of the work they would

perform (while uncomfortable with being a sex worker, but seeing no viable economic alternative), often found the work opportunity through a friend who was also going abroad to be a sex

worker, or had already been abroad in this capacity.

3. Modus Operandi of Trafficking Networks:

Trafficking networks vary in size and nature. A trafficking network can range from a 4 person show to a large operation. I saw apartment-based operations in Moscow and Vladivostok, where one or two

people would recruit women and send them abroad to a place where

they had a business associate who ran a night club/brothel. I saw

larger groups that operated out of Russia-based travel agencies that

had travel agency partners abroad involved in the scheme. I also saw

a marriage agency, financially backed by a Mafia bank in Moscow,

that was, in addition to facilitating marriages, trying to traffic women

to Canada and import women from Thailand. The variations go on.

Main features of the way all of these trafficking networks operate

include the following:  Up front financial arrangements between trafficking associates:

verbal or written contracts are struck between a trafficker in

the country of origin and the trafficking associate in the country

of destination which stipulate a lump sum payment from one

party to the other for the sale or rental of the woman/girl based

on the amount of time she is used for sexual purposes. For example, a Russian trafficker I met was being paid by her Australian associate $2,000/woman for every week the trafficked woman

stayed in Australia.  Preference toward total control over the sending and receiving

operations. Many trafficker prefer to keep their operations tightly

controlled within their own group, allowing them to control both

ends of the trafficking route. For example, a small Turkish trafficking group I met, based in Berlin, traveled to Latvia, where

they recruit and transport women back to Berlin, setting them

up in inexpensive apartments for sexual visitations. By the way,

one of the women they recruited told me she had been promised

a job as a dancer, not as a sex worker.
45

 Contracts or Verbal Agreements are established with the trafficked woman/girl: traffickers create verbal or written contracts

with the woman/girl being trafficked, including sums of money

promised, and warnings of financial and other penalties that

will be incurred if she fails to follow the rules of her boss. The

sums of money promised are usually fictitious. The warning about

penalties are not. For example,  Many trafficked woman enter the country of destination with

legal documents, secured in duplicitous ways. Through their international contacts, the traffickers secure paper work to get a

legitimate visa for the woman/girl to enter the country of destination. The paper work will be a letter of invitation to work,

study, or tour in the given country of destination. The paper

work will come from a legally registered company, like a travel

agency, restaurant, club, etc. This means, for instance, that the

small group of Turkish men mentioned above, might control or

be connected to a travel agency or restaurant in Berlin which is

legally registered and can write a legal letter of invitation, which

is used to get her a tourist or work visa to come to Germany. I

met women in the New York area who had paid $5,000 for a

student visa, secured from a midwestern university, and $1,000

for their plane ticket to the U.S., where they were told they would

get some kind of job. After their first 2 weeks, in which they sat

in a crowded apartment, they were told that they would be striptease dancers.

 Recruitment Fees are always demanded: Traffickers promise the

woman/girl a job, but she must pay him for this opportunity to

work abroad. Since most of the women/girls do not have the kind

of money demanded of them, they are given the opportunity to

work off their debt. Alternatively, the woman/girl can borrow

the money up front at usurious interest rates, either from the

trafficker or a money lender.

 -Girls can have their passports forged. For example, one trafficking network told me how they forge underaged females passports to show they are adults, simply by paying someone in

Russias Foreign Ministry $800. In another case, I met a Russian woman trafficked to Germany who was carrying a Polish

passport, secured through a criminal structure linked to the traffickers. Polish citizens can travel to Germany for short periods

of time without a visa.

 Once having transported the woman to her destination of work,

the traffickers take away her passport and keep it;  The traffickers also keep control over her earnings, paying her

whatever and whenever they want;
46

 Peonage is often exercised gradually. In almost all cases we reviewed in our investigation, which numbered more than 50

women (only a few were girls), control over their freedom of

movement and control over their own money and bodies was

taken by traffickers and pimps gradually. The fact that the

women and girls had been duped and/or coerced into performing services they did not want to perform, or work longer hours

under bad conditions for little to no money, did not occur to them

for several weeks or more, by which time they are stuck and too

tired and afraid to fight their boss(es). They become fixated on

the need to repay their debt and make some profit for themselvesand often their families back home.

4. Trafficked Victims Fear of Authoritieseven NGOsis

Widespread, especially among CIS-based Women:

For 3 main reasons, all the women and girls we met who had been

trafficked from the CIS feared taking their case to local police because:

a. having lived under formerly autocratic and now corruption-laced

governments, the victims of trafficking feared the police as much

as they feared their trafficker and/or pimp. They did not trust

either, but they still felt they had to hide behind their trafficker

for fear, ironically, of being turned in by him or her;

b. the notion of non-governmental organization (NGO) was alien

to the victims, and suspected of being linked to the government.

Therefore, few women from the CIS region would seek health or

counseling assistance from local groups. This is changing in some

countries where local NGOs have improved their outreach capabilities;

c. the victims realized that if they revealed the nature of their work,

they could be deported for working illegally as an alien, and as a

prostitute. Deportation, while seemingly an option for escape,

would actually lead to retribution by the trafficking network,

which would at the very least call in the sizeable debt incurred

by the victim who agreed to the contract mentioned earlier. Even

worse, by going to the police, the woman puts her life in danger.

There have been cases where these women have been threatened, beaten, and even killed by traffickers.

RECOMMENDATIONS

I believe the US government is now moving in the right direction to

combat trafficking on US soil and abroad. This is an enormous problem that cannot be tackled overnight. Still, I think more can be done

faster, so long as enough resources are made available, resources are

used more effectively, and law enforcement authorities are enabled

to negotiate with victims in good faith, in order to successfully investigate and prosecute traffickers.

Specifically, US policy on this issue should emphasize the following

components:

1. INCREASE PUBLIC AWARENESS

Equipping women and girls at risk with information about the nature and dangers of trafficking is a vital part of combating trafficking. Traffickers prey on those who are cut off from the realities beyond their own neighborhood, much less their national borders.
47

Effective public awareness efforts should be channeled through grassroots organizations and via mass media outlets that reach far and

wide. USIA and USAID grants can, and are now, being made available for this kind of work. I would like to see more of the public awareness design work, and money for these programs, being controlled by

local organizations.

2. INCREASE ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN AT

RISK

Traffickers also prey on economically desperate women and girls.

Some of the women and girls may know that traveling abroad with

an unknown company, or working as a stripper or even sex worker, is

dangerous. But they are desperate for the money and willing to take

risks. US foreign aid to CIS countries should emphasize economic

opportunities for women. US government grants and loans should

also focus on developing local capacity to shelter, counsel, and train

victims and potential victims of trafficking. Again, these grants and

loans should have a stipulation that overseas implementors have an

equal voice in how programs are designed and how the money is spent.

3. EMPHASIZE NATIONAL CIVIL RIGHTS LAWS AND INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS TREATIES IN ANTI-TRAFFICKING

ENFORCEMENT ACTIVITIES.

Women and girls forced into prostitution  or who feel stuck in

itare just as entitled to civil and human rights protection as the

next person. In many states in the OSCE, women in generalespecially women who are willing or even unwilling sex workers are

deprived of these rights and treated as second class citizens. When

they are mistreated, cheated, beaten, raped, or even killed, the attitude is often well what did she expect getting into a business like

this?

It is worth recalling the existence of several international, antislavery instruments, which should be taken into account before OSCE

states create new laws or agencies to fight slavery:

 Slavery Convention of 1926

 1956 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the

Slave Trade and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery;

 International Labour Organization Conventions on Forced

Labour (No. 29), Abolition of Forced Labour (No. 105), On Freedom of Association (No. 87), and Protection of Wages (No. 95);  United Nations Convention on the Protection of the Rights of

All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families  United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of

Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)

 Universal Declaration of Human Rights; and more.

4. APPLY THESE CIVIL AND HUMAN RIGHTS LAWS/TREATIES

TO IMMIGRATION LAWS TOO

Traffickers benefit from most OSCE states existing immigration

laws. In most countries, authorities are obligated to arrest and deport alien women, girls, men and boys found to be working illegally,

even if it may appear they are working under force or duress. The

trafficker often escapes justice, largely because the witness has been
48

sent home. With more unwitting victims widely available, the trafficker knows that he/she can continue his/her profitable and relatively

risk free business.

A more humane, and I believe effective, response to trafficking would

provide a victim with a stay of deportation for at least the period

during which the investigation and potential trial against the trafficker takes place. In the case of sex trafficking, during her stay, the

woman should be provided shelter, food and counselling, and be allowed to apply for asylum if she can demonstrate that she risks facing physical danger by returning home. Women who have been victimized in the most brutal ways should not be further endangered

and humiliated by a strict, undiscerning immigration law. Also, dont

forget that these women are potential sources of information that aid

law enforcement actions against organized crime groups. But they

must be guaranteed protection. This point cannot be overemphasized

when talking about potential witnesses who are under the control of

large or small organized crime groups from the former Soviet Union.

5. OSCE GOVERNMENTAL POLICIES SHOULD RECOGNIZE

FORCED PROSTITUTION AS A FORM OF FORCED LABOR,

INSTEAD OF TREATING IT IN A SEPARATE CATEGORY.

 Regardless of a nations laws on prostitution, a woman or girl who

is lured into a forced prostitution situation is enticed, trapped and

abused the same way a woman, girl, man or boy is trafficked to work

as a domestic servant, or sweatshop worker. They are all deceived

about their pay, they are all kept under tight control with no practical legal recourse for help, and they are all robbed of their human

rights as a person and a worker legal or illegal. Furthermore, each

of these types of victims are subject to similar psychological and physical abuses, and they are often trafficked through similar channels,

sometimes by the same networks.

6. TRAIN GOVERNMENTAL PERSONNEL IN THE REALITIES OF,

AND APPROPRIATE RESPONSES TO, TRAFFICKING.

These personnel should include: police, immigration, domestic violence hot line operators, and embassy personnel. The current administration has reached out to the local and international human rights

and womens right communities on this issue, and as a result we have

seen a sincere, effective exchange of information that has benefitted

everyone. My organization, for instance, has provided training to US

embassy personnel, California police, Albanian officials and NGOs,

and others. Other groups have done the same. This kind of exchange

should continue and expand across the United States and other OSCE

countries.

I will be happy to answer any questions you have about the above

testimony, as well as questions about how U.S. policy on this issue

can be improved.
49

 WRITTEN STATEMENT OF DR. LOUISE SHELLEY,

 DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF TRANSNATIONAL

CRIME AND CORRUPTION

JUNE 28, 1999

TRAFFICKING IN WOMEN: DEFINING THE PROBLEM

The illegal movement or trafficking of human beings-particularly

women and children-across national borders for the purposes of prostitution, pornography, domestic servitude, and sweatshop labor is a

growing global phenomenon. One of the areas of the world where trafficking is growing fastest is the former Soviet Union. High levels of

poverty and unemployment in Eastern Europe and the NIS afflict

women and the children they support and make them vulnerable to

criminal schemes enticing them to work abroad. Human trafficking,

particularly in the former Soviet Union, is clearly a growing problem

and serving as the fuel for strengthening organized crime networks

throughout the region. Yet it is also a problem, particularly in the

poorest countries of Eastern Europe and in particular, the Balkans.

More affluent Eastern European countries are not immune from this

problem. An American investigation helped disrupt a group of traffickers from the Czech Republic to the United States.

Some studies suggest that Slavic women may have overtaken all

other ethnic groups in terms of their numbers trafficked to the developed countries of the North America, Europe, and Asia.

Trafficking helps perpetuate systemic government corruption. It

helps fund the expansion of other organized crime activities as traffickers are often also engaged in trafficking arms and drugs. The quick

and continuous profits made from trafficking also permit the criminal organizations to expand into other areas of illicit activity.

The women trafficked from the NIS and Eastern Europe are often

educated. Their situation contrasts sharply with that of women in

developing countries who often have very little education. Much of

the problem is tied to the collapse of the economy in the region and

the absence of alternatives for women in societies that once guaranteed jobs, child care and health benefits.

Contributing to the problem is the widespread phenomenon of organized crime in the states of the former Soviet Union and Eastern

Europe. Children are also trafficked out of orphanages for the purposes of adoption, organized crime intercedes to illegally deprive parents of their parental rights and to extract payments from adoption

agencies. While some of the trafficking of women is carried out by

small groups of individuals, in many cases, it is carried out by organized crime groups which have extensive foreign linkages. Their ability to threaten the women under their control and to threaten retaliation against family members at home because of the long reach of

the criminal organizations makes the women particularly vulnerable.

In Belgium and the Netherlands where many of the women are trafficked (Dutch research reveals that one-third of the female prostitutes there originate from Ukraine), parliamentary inquiries were

held in the mid-1990s because of the extreme level of violence applied

against these women.
50

Authorities in many of the recipient countries of Western Europe

and in the United States have made little headway against this phenomenon. The number of women in the U.S. is significantly below

those found in Western Europe or in Turkey. Israeli authorities have

tried to expel some of the trafficked women brought to Israel on falsified documents. Korean authorities broke one ring in Pusan.

One French telecommunications executive informed me that he had

seen an advertisement on the minitel (the system used widely in

France instead of the web) offering individuals the chance to do anything with Romanian children. He sent a message to the advertisers

that they were cooperating with French law enforcement. This was

not the case but the advertisement disappeared from the system.

Law enforcement, except in a few distinct cities in Europe, is not

particularly motivated to address the problem of trafficking in women.

Those that do try to address this problem have faced insurmountable

difficulties. Many of the women refuse to cooperate with the authorities because there are little or no protections and they face deportation and threats against their families if they cooperate with foreign

law enforcement. Second, often the law enforcement authorities do

not know the womens country of origin because the organized crime

groups have deprived the women of their passports. Thirds, western

law enforcement that forwards inquiries concerning trafficking investigations usually gets no response through Interpol because the

central office of Interpol in the former NIS states has almost no links

to the communities from which the women are trafficked. Therefore,

western police officials often give up trying because there is no way

they can complete an investigation.

The failure of NIS law enforcers to address the problem is a result

of many factors. According to survey research recently conducted in

Russia by MiraMed, many citizens mistrust law enforcement personnel believing law enforcers are highly corrupt. The organizations involved in publicizing the problem of trafficking or helping to protect

and rehabilitate victims of trafficking crimes are distrustful of the

local police and fearful about sharing information with them. Because

they are aware that many local level police are on the payroll of organized crime groups within their communities. Many NGO personnel

worry that their lives and the lives of the victims they are trying to

protect will be endangered if they turn to the police for help.

The trafficking phenomenon crosses the boundaries of the former

Soviet Union and into Eastern Europe. While links among the law

enforcers in these regions have broken down, the criminals maintain

the ties they developed during the Soviet period. Russian and Ukrainian women are trafficked through Georgia to Turkey and Mediterranean countries. Ukrainian women are trafficked in large numbers

to Russia. While strong legislation to address trafficking has been

adopted in all of these countries, the problem of implementing this

law is a major problem.

Russian women are trafficked from the Far East to Japan, Korea,

China and other destinations in Asia.

Local Russian/NIS law enforcement agencies and prosecutors tend

not to prioritize the prevention and prosecution of human trafficking

from their regions. In fact, they tend to view women who are trafficked as deserving of their fate or motivated by financial necessity

and tend not to be interested in investigating or prosecuting crimes

involving sexual trafficking and prostitution.
51

The inability of law enforcement personnel to act against the phenomenon is undermined by their lack of knowledge and training in

combating organized crime. Because human trafficking crimes are a

relatively new phenomenon in Russia and the NIS, law enforcement

officials and prosecutors are inadequately trained to prevent trafficking or to investigate and prosecute traffickers. Law enforcers from

the NIS are still largely being educated with a curriculum from the

Soviet period, in which organized crime is not even addressed. Many

law enforcers are therefore not aware that organized trafficking of

women and children exists and is a major profit-making activity for

organized crime groups in their countries. Moreover, they do not realize that the large profits from trafficking are used to fund other

forms of organized crime activities, and that many of the traffickers

simultaneously traffick in arms and drugs.

Those interested in addressing the problem in the former Soviet

Union are often helpless because of its international dimensions. Without the knowledge of whom to communicate with abroad and the financial resources to facilitate the communication, even the best intentioned law enforcers cannot pursue investigations. Duma hearings

in Russia in 1997 revealed that Interpol was receiving numerous inquiries form foreign law enforcement about women trafficked from

the former USSR but was not capable of acting on the inquiries received. There were no mechanisms to transfer or obtain information

from the regions where the women were trafficked. Western law enforcers were, therefore, frustrated in the efforts to break trafficking

rings because they obtained no assistance from the Russian side.

The apathy and lack of capacity on the part of law enforcement and

fear on the part of NGOs and QGOs (Quasi-Governmental Organizations) permits a chasm between these groups to persist. It is imperative that these two sets of actors overcome fears, biases, and

misperceptions and come together to assist one another in the investigations and prosecutions of trafficking crimes and in the protection

and rehabilitation of trafficked victims. By facilitating international

connections. It should be possible to increase successful prosecutions

without jeopardizing the lives of trafficked women.

 THE MAIN FEATURES OF THE TRAFFICKING PROBLEM ARE:

1) Heavy Involvement of Organized Crime. Trafficking in

women is organized by both larger and smaller organized crime groups.

Groups from the NIS states often work with their colleagues in Eastern Europe to traffic women to Europe. Groups in the Russian Far

East work with Japanese and Korean organized crime to transport

women to Far East countries. Few countries have managed to break

any of these organized crime rings despite violence and even killing

of women.

Organized crime groups are using a level of coercion not previously

used against women. This has been done to gain a foothold in the

lucrative prostitution markets of Western Europe. The international

crime links of the crime groups allows them to intimidate the women

abroad and to threaten their families at home if they fail to cooperate.

 Czech authorities have investigated a case of a woman tortured

before death because she refused to cooperate with the traffickers. A

major Macao- Hong Kong-Russian investigation was conducted after
52

a Russian prostitute trafficked to Macao was killed in Vladivostok

along with her wealthy Hong Kong barrister boy friend who had come

to Vladivostok to buy her out of prostitution.

2) Lack of Capacity and Motivation. Law enforcement in the

region has not had training in combating trafficking in women and

children. Much of the recruitment of trafficked women is going on in

regions where law enforcement has no possibility of following up on

the international groups which are trying to recruit women through

advertisements. The absence of money to send faxes, make telephone

calls or maintain computers frustrates any efforts to promote investigations even when the law enforcement will is there.

3) Complicity and Corruption in Law Enforcement, Passport Services and Consular Divisions. The corruption of law enforcement, passport services and consular divisions which facilitates

the trade in women is not confined to the NIS or Eastern Europe but

exists in other countries as well. Investigators at the U.S. State Department found that a foreign national working in the visa division of

our embassy in Prague was issuing visas for Czech traffickers to bring

women to the United States. Our country is not alone as accusation

have been made of corruption in the consular divisions of Western

European countries which have facilitated the trafficking of women.

Corruption within NIS law enforcement, border guards and passport services contributes to trafficking of women in the following ways:

A. Passport services issue phony passports to facilitate trafficking.

A few years ago an organized crime group operating our of Georgia was broken. It trafficked Russian and Ukrainian women

through Georgia to Turkey on purchased Georgian passports.

The benefits of the Georgian passports was that there is a visa

free arrangement between Georgia and Turkey thus allowing

women to be trafficked to Turkey easily.

B. Pay offs made at the borders to border guards to look the other

way

C. Pay offs are made to local police to tolerate brothels in their

communities or to tolerate individuals recruiting women for prostitution. Research done in a specialized labor camp in Russia for

former governmental officials and law enforcement personnel

revealed that there is organized corruption. Therefore, 90% of

surveyed law enforcement officials revealed that they passed

bribes up the command chain. Therefore, the higher levels of

law enforcement are profiting from the payments made at the

local level.

D. Infiltration of Interpol and its information channels to local law

enforcement means that efforts to attack the international links

of the crime groups may be undermined by corruption in NIS

law enforcement.

4) Absence of Law Enforcement Links. Organized Crime and

Trafficking is functioning with facility across borders of NIS, to Eastern and Western Europe, Asia and U.S. but limited law enforcement

links exist among these regions which would facilitate tracking of

trafficking rings and promote joint investigations. Law enforcers in

the NIS do not know to whom to turn to abroad and the same is true

of western and Asian law enforcers.
53

5) Absence of Victim Protection. Western countries do not have

adequate systems of protection for victims of traffickers. . Therefore,

women who are trafficked are afraid to contact western law enforcement authorities and are assured no protection when they are returned home. American law enforcers who have located trafficked

women in the course of their investigations have no mechanisms to

help them within our country. This complicates their ability to get

these women to testify in trafficking cases.

WHAT CAN BE DONE

1. Encourage links among law enforcement from the United States,

Western and Eastern Europe, NIS States and Asia. This can be

done through network meetings. ILEA, the law enforcement

training academy in Budapest, can be used to facilitate meetings.

2. Enhance training to ensure that law enforcers know how to

investigate trafficking in women and understand the links between organized crime and trafficking in women

3. Support development assistance to provide women financial

alternativesGameen bank for women in the NIS and Eastern

Europe would be very useful because women are educated and

man would not be vulnerable to seductive advertisements if

the had financial alternatives

4. Support educational and media programs that instruct women

that organized crime controls much of this activity and they

are selling themselves into debt bondage often accompanied by

violence

5. Continue U.S. investigations of fraud in the visa and passport

branches of overseas embassies. Encourage organized crime

strike forces to focus on these issues.

6. Develop legislation to promote protection of trafficking victims

and protection for cooperative witnesses in trafficking cases.

Women who are trafficked to the United States are often twice

victimized. First, by those who are trafficked. Secondly, they

may face personal retaliation or retaliation against their families if they cooperate with American law enforcement authorities.

7. Encourage cooperation between telecommunications companies

and law enforcement investigations in the trafficking area particularly in the American-European-Eastern European-NIS

area. Cooperation between law enforcement and telecommunications firms has begun in the U.S. to combat trafficking and

child pornography. International undercover investigations

have been carried out against child pornography. More needs

to be done to promote international cooperation and cooperation within Europe between telecommunications companies and

law enforcement. This is increasingly important as the traffickers are successfully soliciting customers through the web

and other telecommunications systems.
54

WRITTEN SUBMISSION OF DR. LAURA J. LEDERER,

DIRECTOR, THE PROTECTION PROJECT

JUNE 28, 1999

INTRODUCTION

I am happy to be here to share with you the preliminary findings of

The Protection Project at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard

University. The purpose of the project is to build a comprehensive

database of laws and related materials on the commercial sexual exploitation of women and children.

Trafficking is a global human rights problem, of which the majority

of victims are women and children. The Protection Project seeks to

create solutions to this problem by gathering information necessary

to determine what current resources exist for combating trafficking,

and what future actions should be taken. This testimony includes

information on the definition and scope of the problem of trafficking.

Some preliminary findings of our study are included to quantify the

nature of the problem. In conclusion, the testimony includes recommendations for future actions, based on our preliminary findings.

WHAT IS TRAFFICKING?

History. The kidnapping, recruitment, and transporting of women

and children dates back thousands of years, but the conceptualization

of the activity as trafficking first surfaced around the turn of the

century. In 1902, the International Agreement for the Suppression of

the White Slave Traffic was drafted, urging governments to prohibit

procuration of women and girls for immoral purposes abroad. It was

ratified by 12 countries in 1904. In the United States, this led to the

1910 Mann Act, which forbids transporting a person across state or

international lines for prostitution or other immoral purposes.1

 Three

decades later, the United Nations responded to the continuing trade

in women and children by passing the 1949 Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others2

. Forty-nine nations ratified the Convention.

Definition. In recent years, the term trafficking has taken on a

new meaning. First, some NGOs urged that a distinction be made

between women who consented to prostitution and women who were

forced into it. In addition, a movement arose to add other forms of

forced labor such as domestic servitude, debt bondage and other slavery-like labor practices. Thus, the term trafficking was both narrowed and broadened: among women, only those who were forced into

prostitution were considered trafficked, but adults and children transported across borders for other forms of forced, exploitative labor also

became included in the new definition of trafficking.3

__________

1

 Barry, Kathleen. The Prostitution of Sexuality. New York: New York University

Press, 1995, p. 115. Citing International Agreement for the Suppression of the White

Slave Traffic, May 18, 1904. Her Majestys Stationary Office, 1905. 2

 Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation

of the Prostitution of Others (2 Dec. 1949) A/RES/317 (IV) 3

 At present, there is no unanimous agreement among NGOs about the definition

of trafficking. The term is fairly loosely applied by NGOs to delineate movements

some say for purposes of prostitution, others say for any kind of forced labor.
55

Most intergovernmental agencies and NGOs use the term trafficking to describe all acts involved in the movement of women and

children, usually from one country to another, but sometimes within

a country as well,4

 involving the recruitment, transportation, harboring, transfer, or sale, for the purposes of placing people in any type of

forced labor, including, but not limited to forced prostitution, sexual

services, domestic servitude, sweatshop labor, debt bondage, or other

forms of slavery-like practices. The term forced usually means coercion, drugging, kidnapping, violence, threats, intimidation, or other

situation where there is lack of consent.5

The Three Ps: Prevention, Prosecution, and Protection. The best

legislation would cover what we call the three Psprevention of

trafficking, prosecution of traffickers, and protection (social services

and other programs) for trafficking victims.

We have found that more than 154 countries currently have legislation that at least minimally targets the prosecution of traffickers

by prohibiting the procuration of women and children for the purposes of prostitution or forced labor. Most of these laws were drafted

between 1912 and 1960 to address procuration of women and children for the purposes of prostitution or some other form of unlawful

sexual purposes. However, these laws are often poorly, if ever, enforced.

To date, few countries have developed programs to prevent trafficking by educating women and children about how to avoid being

trafficked, educating men and boys not to sexually exploit women

and children, educating government officials about how to prevent

trafficking, or providing economic opportunities that will make women

and children less vulnerable to the lies and promises of traffickers.

In addition, few countries have the kinds of laws that protect victims of trafficking, or services that will help them recover and get on

with their lives. As a result, women who have been forced into prostitution often end up in jail awaiting deportation, and go back to their

homeland sick, drug-addicted, unemployed and sometimes unemployable, and filled with shame and fear. The story of Lydia, a young

woman from the Ukraine, illustrates the problem:

LYDIAS STORY

Lydia was 19 when she saw an ad in a Ukrainian newspaper calling for dancers. She answered the ad, and had an interview in what

looked like a legitimate employment agency. She was told to get a

passport and apply for an entertainers visa. She was promised the

equivalent of $25,000 per year, an enormous sum by current Ukrainian standards. After she signed a year-long contract, she was shipped,

with six other young females, to Haifa, Israel where she thought she

was to perform. But when she got there, she was driven to a brothel

where her boss burned her passport before her eyes. I now own you,

__________

4

 Some agencies include trafficking within national borders in the definition of

trafficking; for instance the Department of State suggests that if women are moved

from a rural town in Thailand to a major city for the purposes of forced prostitution,

this would be a form of trafficking. 5

 For children, trafficking is per se coercion. Most agencies agree that minors cannot give consent to be used in domestic servitude, sweatshops, prostitution, or sexual

exploitation. For adults, coercion is defined as involving force, misrepresentation,

fraud, or other means.
56

he said. You are my property and you will work until you earn your

way out. Dont try to leave. You have no papers and you dont speak

Hebrew. You will be arrested and deported. Then we will get you and

bring you back. Stunned and angry, Lydia refused. She was beaten

and raped until several days later she finally succumbed. She was

rescued two years after when the brothel was raided by Israeli police. But instead of being freed, she was charged as an illegal alien

and now sits in a womens prison in Israel, waiting to be deported.

Scope of the Problem. Multiply Lydias story by hundreds of thousands and a picture of the scope of the problem emerges.

 UNICEF estimates that 1 million children are forced into prostitution in Southeast Asia alone, and another 1 million worldwide.

 An estimated 10,000 women per year are trafficked from Russia

into Israel for purposes of prostitution.

 250,000 women and children from Russia, the newly independent states and Eastern Europe are trafficked into Western

Europe, the Middle East, and the United States6

 An estimated 20,000 children from Central American countries

such as Guatemala and El Salvador are being trafficked for purposes of commercial sexual exploitation.

 Over 50,000 women are trafficked into the United States per

year.

 And countless thousands of women and children in Africa, and

Central and South America, where we have little information

on the scope of the problem.

Of the 155 cases of forced prostitution brought to the courts in the

Netherlands one year, only 4 resulted in convictions. Accounts of the

arrests police have made in North America show that women are being sold for as much as $16,000 each to brothel owners. When rescued, women tell stories of debt bondage and sexual slavery in which

they were forced to work off a $35,000 debt to a trafficker by servicing twenty to thirty men a day. These numbers and the accompanying accounts illustrate that trafficking is a form of contemporary slavery on par with the African slave trade of the 1700s.

THE PROTECTION PROJECT

For the last four years The Protection Project has been documenting the laws in every country addressing commercial sexual exploitation of women and children. We use this phrase to include:

 Child prostitution, child pornography, and other forms of commercial sexual exploitation of children;

__________

6

 A quote from a report by the MiraMed Institute published this year gives a glimpse

into the problem of trafficking of women and girls from this area of the world. A

woman from the Commonwealth of Independent States responded on a questionnaire, One day last year a well dressed businesswoman came to Uglich in a Mercedes

Benz. She told high school girls she met that she would take them to McDonalds in

Yaroslavl. They left with her in her car and we never saw them again.. And when the

same lady came back this spring, she took more girls and they also disappeared. Our

girls are too vulnerable.
57

 Trafficking, forced prostitution, and other forms of sexual slavery; and

 Prostitution and surrounding activities, including soliciting,

pimping, pandering, procuring, maintaining a brothel, corruption of a minor, and other related laws.

The project is also documenting:

 Age of majority;

 Legal age of marriage;  Legal age for consent to sexual relations; and

 Other ages relevant to commercial sexual exploitation of women

and children.

Finally, we are examining:

 Range of penalties for these offenses;

 Defenses to the charges; and

 Programs and social services for trafficking victims and more.

Why Document the Laws?. We must document the laws of individual countries because the trafficking is international in scope but

all the laws addressing the problem are national. There are virtually

no international laws with enforcement capability. While the United

Nations Conventions such as the Convention on the Rights of the

Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women play an important role in setting international norms, they have no enforcement capability by themselves.

Countries must draft and pass penal code statutes that specifically

address each of these commercial sexual exploitation issues if they

wish law enforcement to have the tools to arrest, charge, and prosecute traffickers.

Methodology. Our work is based on a series of detailed questionnaires. The first two questionnaires went out in 1997 and 1998 to the

Ministries of Justice of all 220 countries and territories. In 1997, we

sent a five-page questionnaire on prostitution and sexual trafficking

to 227 countries and territories. The survey contained 28 questions;

five of the questions dealt with trafficking. Countries were asked if

they had specific trafficking legislation and each country was asked

to provide penal code citations and, when possible, to include a copy

of the statutes that address trafficking. Statutes were requested in

the original language and in English. In January 1999, we re-contacted each country to ask for an update and to verify information.

Response Rate. The data-gathering phase for these questionnaires

is almost complete. To date we have almost 190 responses, giving us

a return rate of 85 percent. We are in dialogue with the outstanding

countries in an effort to obtain the remaining 30 or so questionnaires,

as we would like to have as close to a 100% return rate as possible.

A third questionnaire has been drafted to deal with related human

rights issues such as labor, immigration, health, and education. In

addition, we will also use this questionnaire to gather methodologically sound data on:
58

 The scope of the problem;

 Statistics;

 Particularly significant cases coming to the courts; and

 Other information that, working with our advisors, we deem important.

We have offered each country that participates in the survey access to the database and a copy of all final reports we produce. This

has provided some incentive for countries to work with us to submit,

translate, and clarify their laws. It has also provided us an opportunity to begin a dialogue about the scope of the problem in each country, and official governmental and other responses to the problem.

In most cases, the information we use comes from survey responses,

letters, and documents from Ministries of Justice, embassies, and law

enforcement agencies. When necessary, we have obtained information through telephone conversations with country representatives.

In a few cases, we asked the Library of Congress Law Project to help

us translate and interpret statutes. In all cases, the sources are cited

in the database.

Whenever possible, we cite the law itself. When the law was sent in

another language, or was translated informally, we have sought a

legal scholar fluent in the original language to translate the statutes

for us and to certify that, to the best of their knowledge, the translation is accurate. In some cases, however hard we tried, the statutes

were not available. In these cases, we recorded the country response

to the survey, and noted with an asterisk in the alphabetical tabulation that the statute was not made available, so that we were unable

to confirm the accuracy of the governments response.

Goals of the Project. As stated above, the purpose of the project is

to build a comprehensive database of laws and related materials on

trafficking. When all the questionnaire responses are in, we will undertake a comparative legal analysis, to study the strengths and weaknesses of various forms of legislation. We will identify loopholes in

laws and examine the laws for their effectiveness, ability to interact

with the laws of other countries, enforcement capability, deterrent

value, and harmonization of definitions, suspect activities, and penalties with the laws of other countries.

For the time being, we are tabulating the preliminary findings.

These results provide us, for the first time, with a global view of the

legislative patterns and trends. They also give us a base of information from which to operate as we work to strengthen and improve

existing laws in countries.

PRELIMINARY FINDINGS ON TRAFFICKING LEGISLATION

We have the trafficking laws for one hundred ninety-one (191) countries and territories, giving us a preliminary response rate of 84.1

percent. Of these, 176 countries report having some kind of legislation that can be used to prosecute trafficking. Only 15 countries report no such laws. For the most part, in those countries with laws

that can be used against trafficking, the statutes take three forms:

procuration statutes, procuration with coercion statutes, and trafficking statutes. The following is a discussion of these three types of

legislation.
59

TYPES OF LEGISLATION

Procuration Statutes. The term procure means to obtain or acquire, and in legal terms for the purposes of trafficking legislation, it

means the act or offence of procuring women for lewd purposes.

Even though the statutes do not use the term trafficking, many countries report these laws as trafficking provisions because they cover

cases of obtaining and moving human beings from one place to another for purposes of commercial sexual exploitation.

Unlike the prostitution laws, these laws target the procurer. Some

cover all forms of procuration. Some cover procuration with movement across borders, some cover procuration within and across borders. The remainder are narrower and cover procuration only when

coercive means are used.

Most of these statutes were drafted around 1949 or 1950, after the

United Nations passed the 1949 Convention for the Suppression of

the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of

Others. Examples of these two types of procuring statutes follow.

 An example of procuration without movement (from Macau):

Criminal Code of Macau

Article 163

163. One who, as a way of life, or for profit, fosters, favors, or facilitates the exercise of prostitution or the practice of sexual acts by another person, exploiting their situation of abandon or need, shall be punished by

imprisonment of one to five years.

An example of procuration with movementintra (within borders)

and inter (across borders) from Queensland, Australia:

OffencesCriminal Code

Procuring ProstitutionSection 229G

229G. (1) A person who:

(a) procures another person to engage in prostitution,

either in Queensland or elsewhere; or

(b) procures another person

(i) to leave Queensland for the purpose of engaging in

prostitution elsewhere; or

(ii) to come to Queensland for the purpose of engaging

in prostitution; or

(iii) to leave the other persons usual place of residence

in Queensland for the purpose of engaging in prostitution

either in Queensland or elsewhere;

commits a crime.

Maximum penaltyimprisonment for 7 years
60

Procuration with Coercion Statutes. A procuration with coercion

statute is narrower than a procuration statute, because it requires

other elements in addition to procuring. Threats, drugs, intimidation, assault, physical force, duress are common elements cited in

coercion statutes.

The language in a typical coercion statute, this one from Guyana,

reads:

Penal Code of Guyana

158. Everyone who

(a) by any threat or intimidation procures or attempts

to procure any female to have any unlawful carnal connection, either within or without Guyana; or;

(b) by false pretence, false representations, or other

fraudulent means, procures any female, not being a common prostitute or of known immoral character, to have any

unlawful carnal connection, either within or without

Guyana; or

(c) applies, administers to, or cause to be taken by female, any drug, matter, or thing, with intent to stupefy or

overpower so as thereby to enable have unlawful carnal

connection with her, shall be guilty of a misdemeanour offence and is liable to imprisonment for two years

Trafficking Statutes. There is some confusion about what constitutes a trafficking statute, and even about the definition of trafficking. A number of countries reported having trafficking legislation that

was limited to child sex tourism (New Zealand, Sweden, Australia).

Other countries report having trafficking legislation if they use the

term trafficking in the statute. For most countries, trafficking is

limited to trafficking for the purposes of prostitution. A few have an

expanded definition of trafficking that includes debt bondage, domestic

servitude or other slavery-like practices, and forced labor in sweatshops. The following are some examples of three types of trafficking

statutesfirst, a sexual trafficking law from Brazil; second, a law

that mentions both sexual and other forms of trafficking (from Cambodia); and third, a law that addresses all kinds of trafficking.

Sexual trafficking statute from Brazil:

Trafficking in Women

Article 231. Promoting or facilitating the entry into the

national territory of women who come for purposes of prostitution, or the exit from the national territory of women to

do so abroad:

Penaltyimprisonment of 3 (three) to 8 (eight) years.

If there is use of violence, serious threat, or fraud, the

penalty is imprisonment of 5 (five) to 12 (twelve) years, in

addition to any penalty imposed for the violence.
61

Sexual and other forms of trafficking statute from Cambodia:

Kidnapping of human persons for trafficking/sale

or for prostitution

Any person who lures a human person, even male or female, minor or adult of whichever nationality by way of

enticing or by any other means, promising to offer any

money or jewelry, (when) there is no consent, by way or

forcing, threatening or using of hypnotic drugs, in order to

kidnap him/her for trafficking/sale for prostitution, shall

be subjected to imprisonment for ten (10) to fifteen (15)

years of imprisonment.

In this statute, there is an enhanced penalty if the person trafficked is a child:

[trafficking/sale for prostitution] shall be punishable by

imprisonment of fifteen (15) to twenty (20) years, if such

victim is a minor person of less than 15 years old.

All kinds of trafficking statute from Malaysia:

Criminal code of Malaysia

Traffic in female persons.

Any person who buys, sells, traffics in, or procures or

brings into or takes out of Malaysia for the purpose of such

traffic and whether or not for the purpose of present or

subsequent prostitution, any female person, shall be guilty

of an offence and shall on conviction be liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years or to a fine not

exceeding ten thousand ringgit or to both such imprisonment and fine.

PROVISIONS FOR SOCIAL SERVICES

TO WOMEN AND CHILDREN VICTIMIZED

BY TRAFFICKING AND PROSTITUTION

Several countries have taken the initiative to mandate social services for those who have been victimized by trafficking and prostitution. In addition to prosecuting the traffickers and preventing further trafficking, governments need to find means to help the women

and children who have already been trafficked. Help can come in various forms from mental and physical health services, to safe houses, to

economic assistance. Four countries, in particular, have developed

legislation at the national level to provide this type of social service.

ThailandThe Measures in Prevention and Suppression of Trafficking in Women and Children Act B.E. 2540 (1997). Under this

act, an official, appointed by the Minister of the Interior, is charged

with giving appropriate assistance to victimized women and children, such as food, shelter and repatriation. The act allows the Minister to issue regulations regarding the assistance to be provided by the
62

official. In addition to providing assistance, the official may also arrange for the victimized woman or child to go to a primary shelter

as defined in Thailands law on the prevention and suppression of

prostitution.

BruneiChapter 120Women and Girls Protection. This act

vests the authority to implement its provision in a Commission, referring to the Director of Welfare, Youth and Sports and  other

persons as may be declared by the Minister. The act covers trafficking of women and girls and prostitution.

Places of Safety. Section 13 is a provision for maintaining places of

safety. It allows the Minister to provide land upon which to build a

place of safety for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of the

act. The place of safety must be declared such in the Gazette. Section 14 and 15 give the Commissioner broad powers to detain

women and girls in a place of safety, as established under Section 13.

Section 16 gives the Commissioner authority to prescribe rules to

which women and girls detained in a place of safety are subject. Any

woman who leaves any place in which she is detained, unless she

does so in accordance with the rules prescribed by the Commission, is

subject to arrest. However, the Commissioner may order a woman or

girl to be removed to another place of safety under Section 17.

Detention of Girls. The Commissioner may, with reasonable cause,

temporarily detain any girl under the age of 21 who is suspected of

being trained or used for immoral purposes or lives in or frequents

any brothel or is habitually in the company of prostitutes or brothel

keepers or procuresses or persons directly interested in the business

carried on in brothels or by prostitutes. If he finds that the girl is

indeed engaging in one of these activities, he may detain the girl until further order or until she turns 21 or marries, whichever happens

first. Alternatively, the Commissioner may release the girl after arrangements for her welfare have been made, according to his determination.

Detention of Women or Girls. The Commissioner may order the

detention of any woman or girl in a place of safety whose detention is

requested in writing by her lawful guardian; whom the Commissioner

considers to need protection and whose lawful guardian cannot be

found; whom the Commissioner believes to have been ill-treated and

to need protection; or whom the Commissioner considers to be in moral

danger.

NetherlandsDetection. Since August 1988, women filing criminal charges of trafficking are eligible for a temporary staying permit

in the Netherlands for the duration of the criminal procedures. Witnesses who are not victims themselves can obtain a stay of deportation for as long as their presence is needed for the proceedings. Specific articles under the Netherlands alien laws state that in case of

even a small indication or suspicion that a woman may be the victim

of trafficking, she should be given the opportunity to decide, without

pressure, whether she wishes to press charges. Deportation proceedings will be suspended while the woman is making her decision. The

reason for this allowance is because many women do not press charges,

as they are afraid of being immediately sent home. Without charges

and witnesses, it is almost impossible to prosecute the perpetrators.
63

On 1st February 1994, an amendment of the law on trafficking went

into effect. In this new law, the term trafficking in women was replaced by trafficking in persons, making trafficking in men for prostitution punishable. The maximum sentence was raised to six years.

Penalties under this new law can rise to a maximum of 10 years when

two or more persons commit the crime together, when minors are

involved and when serious physical injury occurs as a consequence.

Victim Support and Services. The Dutch state policy on trafficking is the framework within which support and services for victims of

trafficking are made available. Whether, how long and which kind of

help can be offered depends on whether the person in need is recognized as a victim (or a possible victim) of trafficking, as well as on the

status of the criminal procedure against the suspects. Only on these

grounds can a woman obtain the temporary staying permit making it

possible for social services institutions to extend their services to her.

Under these stipulations, victims of other forms of trafficking other

than for the purpose of prostitution (e.g. for domestic labor or commercial marriages) cannot claim any victim rights and services in the

framework of Dutch anti-trafficking legislation. The aliens laws are

applied in these cases, as for any other foreigners in the Netherlands.

Support and services for women victims of trafficking in persons

who are allowed to stay in the Netherlands for criminal procedures

are coordinated by the Foundation against Trafficking in Women

(STV). Since 1987, STV has developed and maintained a system of

referrals to the state and/or local governmental social services institutions, and if needed to private institutions, for shelter, financial,

legal and psycho-social support.

International Cooperation. Trafficking in women covers various

fields of concern, including labor, policy concerning aliens, health,

etc. The Dutch government recognizes that an effective strategy to

combat trafficking requires a systematic and integrated approach, in

which all the relevant ministries are involved.

Their first common action was the preparation of a European Code

of Conduct for the prevention and combat of trafficking in women in

the European Union. This EU Code of Conduct will allow for the formation of common policies in this field and will make it possible to

undertake practical measures Europe-wide to combat trafficking in

women. The Netherlands Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports has

also organized a series of conferences on trafficking in women to initiate an international network and will keep trafficking issues on the

political agenda.

United States. The United States currently has three bills pending at the federal level that would provide social services to victims of

sexual trafficking.

H.R. 1356, The Freedom from Sexual Trafficking

Act of 1999. Representatives Christopher Smith (R-NJ) and Marcy

Kaptur (D-OH) have proposed H.R. 1356 which would establish an

Office for the Protection of Victims of Trafficking within the Office of

the Secretary of State. A Director, appointed by the President and

approved by the Senate, would be responsible for carrying out the

purposes of the legislation and establishing facilities for the receipt

and dissemination of information about the trafficking of women. H.R.

1356 allocates $20 million per fiscal year for years 2000 and 2001 to

be divided equally between domestic and international programs and
64

services for victim assistance and anti-trafficking activities. The funds

for domestic programs to assist victims would be appropriated to the

Secretary of Health and Human Services. The funds for international

programs would be appropriated to the Secretary of State. H.R. 1356

does not delineate the specifics of these programs, other than to specify

that assistance should be administered through nongovernmental

organizations whenever possible. As an additional protection, the bill

also offers permanent resident status to victims.

S. 600 and H.R. 1238, The International Trafficking of Women and

Children Victims Protection Act of 1999. Senator Paul Wellstone (DMN) and Representative Louise Slaughter (D-NY) have proposed S.

600 in the Senate and H.R. 1238 in the House of Representatives.

This legislation would create an Interagency Task Force to Monitor

and Combat Trafficking within the Office of the Secretary of State.

The task force would be co-chaired by the Assistant Secretary for

Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Affairs and the Senior Coordinator on International Womens Issues for the Presidents Interagency

Council on Women. The task force may include up to 12 members

appointed by the Secretary of State, representing relevant offices in

the Department of Justice, USAID and State Department, and up to

5 staff members from the offices of the co-chairs. The Act appropriates $20 million per fiscal year for the years 2000 and 2001 from the

Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement to be spent on domestic assistance to victims, including

mental and physical health services and shelter. The Act would authorize the President, through USAID, to provide similar assistance

to victims abroad with an equal amount of funding. Like H.R. 1356,

this Act does not delineate how these services would be provided other

than to specify that assistance should be administered through nongovernmental organizations whenever possible.

H.R. 357, Violence Against Women Act of 1999. H.R. 357 is an

omnibus package designed to reauthorize and enhance the programs

initiated by the Violence Against Women Act of 1994. Similar legislation has been proposed in the Senate. Title VI of H.R. 357 (Preventing Violence Against Women in Traditionally Underserved Communities) addresses the needs of battered immigrant women in Subtitle

C. Sections 630 through 637 would amend portions of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1255) to give broader protections

to these women. Sections 632, 635 and 636 would improve access to

VAWA immigration protection by creating exceptions for battered

immigrant women who have entered the United States on fiancé visas and are seeking changes in status of VAWA cancellation of removal proceedings. Section 637 would allow for discretionary waivers, in determining whether an alien is of good moral character, for

an alien who has been convicted of prostitution if that alien was forced

into prostitution by an abuser, and for an alien who has been convicted of committing a crime under duress from the person who battered the alien or subjected her to extreme cruelty.

Section 640 would require that training be given to Immigration

and Naturalization Service officers, immigration judges, and civil and

criminal justice court system personnel. Section 641 would amend

the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1255) to create protections for victims of specific kinds of violencerape, torture, incest,

battery of extreme cruelty, sexual assault, female genital mutilation,
65

forced prostitution, trafficking, being held hostage, or any other violent crimeby allowing victims to apply for a cancellation of deportation. Under H.R. 357, victims would have to show that they are of

good moral character and that deportation would cause extreme hardship to themselves or their children. Additionally, the following criteria would have to be met: the perpetrator must have been arrested,

the victim must have filed a complaint, the prosecutor must have

filed a charge against the perpetrator, and either a Federal or State

enforcement agency or a Federal or State court must have found that

one of a specified number of crimes has been committed (as listed in a

section of the Immigration and Nationality Act). The victim would

also be required to submit a certification from a person responsible

for bringing the enforcement action that the victim is willing to cooperate and has done so.

RANGE OF PENALTIES

Countries around the world vary widely in their approach to penalties for the crimes of trafficking, procuration and procuration with

coercion. Some laws aggregate these crimes together in the same violation, with one penalty for any of the three crimes. Some provide

detailed circumstances under which the penalty may be increased.

Others do not specify the penalty at all. Following are just a few examples, taken from the OSCE countries, of then range of penalties in

statutes criminalizing trafficking of women and children.

Anti-trafficking laws delineate a broad range of possible penalties.

In Croatia, the penalty for trafficking for slave trade ranges from 1 to

10 years. Lichtensteins Traffic in Human Beings Law (Article 217)

punishes traffickers with a range of penalties between 6 months and

5 years. Some countries provide for confiscation of property and/or a

fine in addition to jail time. The Greek Trafficking in Prostitution

Law (Article 351) penalizes the trafficker with imprisonment for not

less than one year, not more than 3 years, with a fine in addition.

Most of the laws have an enhanced penalty for aggravated circumstances such as violence or abuse of authority, or when the victim is a

minor. For example, the Ukraine increases the base penalty of 3 to 8

years to 5 to 10 years if a person on whom the victim depends perpetrates the crime. This statute also increases the penalty if an organized gang or group commits the crime. In the Ukraine, the penalty

increases to 8 to 15 years and a mandatory confiscation of property if

an organized group is responsible.

Procuration and procuration with coercion laws specify a range of

penalties, most of which do not recognize the severity of the offense.

Albania punishes procuration with up to 5 years imprisonment, or up

to 5 years with confiscation of property. If there is an element of coercion, the penalty increases to 5 to 10 years imprisonment. France

also punishes procuration with 5 years imprisonment and a fine of $1

million francs. Coercion increases the penalty to 10 years and $10

million francs. But in Austria, the penalty for procuration is only up

to 3 years in prison. There is no Austrian law to provide a greater

penalty for procuration with coercion. Estonias penalty is even lesser

penalty is from 3 to 7 years imprisonment. Russia, in comparison,

does not punish procuration unless there is an element of coercion,

and then the penalty is up to 4 years in prison and a fine.7
66

CONCLUSION

Trafficking often originates in countries with poverty, few opportunities for women, and few laws to prosecute traffickers. Women and

children are trafficked to countries where prostitution is legal or tolerated, and where there are few protections for children or women

who have been trafficked. Based on our preliminary findings, we expect that trafficking will continue to increase in the absence of specific, enforceable laws aimed at prevention, prosecution, and protection.

RECOMMENDATIONS

To effectively address the problem of trafficking, several approaches

must be undertaken simultaneously. We are preparing a set of recommendations, based on our findings. We would be happy to work

with the Commission and with individual members of the Commission as you search for solutions to address the problem of trafficking

of women and children.

__________

7

 The fine is calculated by multiplying the wages of a person for anywhere between

2 and 5 months, by a value between 200 and 500.
67

TESTIMONY OF WENDY YOUNG,

WASHINGTON LIAISON AND STAFF ATTORNEY, WOMENS

COMMISSION FOR REFUGEE WOMEN AND CHILDREN

JUNE 28, 1999

Good afternoon. My name is Wendy Young. I am the Washington

Liaison and Staff Attorney for the Womens Commission for Refugee

Women and Children. On behalf of the Womens Commission, I would

like to thank the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe

for the opportunity to appear before you.

The Womens Commission was formed under the auspices of the

International Rescue Committee in 1989 to act as an expert resource

on the protection and assistance needs of refugee women and children, who together represent approximately 80 percent of the worlds

refugees. With specific regard to the Kosovo crisis, we have been advocating for over a year for increased international attention to the

tremendous human rights violations inflicted on ethnic Albanians and

the resulting internal displacement and refugee outflow to neighboring countries. Most recently, this has included dispatching three emergency missions to Albania and Macedonia to assess the needs of

Kosovar refugees, advocate for greater protection and assistance to

women and children, and network with local and international nongovernmental organizations providing relief.

The topic of todays hearing, The Sex Trade: Trafficking of Women

and Children in Europe and the United States, is unfortunately an

increasingly prevalent phenomenon around the world that carries

tragic results for its victims. Through my testimony, I would particularly like to highlight the impact that trafficking has on displaced

women and children, who are especially vulnerable to being caught

up in this modern day slave trade. I will also share with you our observations on trafficking of Kosovar Albanian women, although I must

caution that these observations are preliminary and anecdotal in nature as we and others continue to try to ascertain the depth and nature of the many human rights abuses inflicted on that population.

In general terms, refugee crises are fertile ground for trafficking in

women and children. Whether in Kosovo, Rwanda, Burma, Colombia, Afghanistan, or other troubled regions around the world, refugee

women and children face many of the same difficulties. They typically have lost their traditional support systems. Husbands, fathers,

and sons are killed in war or civil conflict or the family has been fragmented in flight. Single heads of household, widows, and unaccompanied children and adolescents generally represent a significant portion of any refugee population. Refugee women and children are often

left facing dire levels of poverty, because they have lost the support of

their principal breadwinner and/or because their families have lost

their property and businesses. Moreover, women and girls are at risk

of sexual violenceincluding rapeduring conflict in their homelands,

during flight, and while residing in refugee camps or other host country settings. In many cultures, one of the unfortunate consequences

of surviving rape is being ostracized from the community, leaving a

woman or girl struggling to find a means to survive on her own.

The situation of ethnic Albanian women and children forced from

their homes is no exception to these general observations. Approximately 860,000 refugees fled Kosovo into neighboring countries to
68

escape the ethnic cleansing campaign of the Serbian authorities. The

majority were women and children, with significant numbers of war

widows and unaccompanied children mixed in. Obviously, the exact

numbers are difficult to ascertain, as the effort to register the refugees as they arrived in host countries was slow off the ground and

poorly coordinated. In addition, many of the refugees are living with

host families and are difficult for relief workers to reach. Moreover,

in recent days, some 30,000 refugees per day are spontaneously returning to Kosovo to reestablish their lives in the wake of the NATO

military intervention. In many cases, the male members of a family

return first, thus leaving women alone in the camps and even more

vulnerable to abuse.

Despite the lack of concrete data, disturbing reports regarding the

situation of women and children are emerging, including stories of

women and girls caught up in the trafficking network that was already thriving in the region, especially in Albania. For example, as

you are probably aware, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and others have reported that existing trafficking rings in Vlore, Albania have smuggled as many as 10 boatloads of 40 or more Kosovars each night into Italy. The price paid for

the perilous journey is approximately $750 per person, totaling up to

$50,000 each night in profits per smuggler.

Among their numbers are an unknown number of young women

who are recruited or abducted by the smugglers and forced into prostitution. Sometimes the women are lured by false promises of jobs as

nannies or restaurant workers or educations abroad. A Womens Commission consultant currently on a one-month mission in Albania has

reported that women between the ages of 17 and 25, particularly those

that have not been registered by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and who lack the support of family members, are most

at risk of recruitment.

This human trafficking has long existed, is orchestrated by members of the Albanian mafia, and traditionally has targeted Albanian

women and girls. It employs as many as 2,000 residents in Vlore alone.

Unfortunately, the network has quickly adapted to the refugee presence in Albania and found a new and particularly vulnerable population on which to prey.

How do we combat the ability of traffickers to exploit refugee communities, which already suffer from extreme hardship and trauma?

Much of the answer lies in increasing protection and assistance to

refugee women and children generally in addition to targeting trafficking directly. The Womens Commission would like to offer the following recommendations:

 Aggressively undertake registration of refugees at the onset of a refugee crisis. Relief efforts aimed at the Kosovar

refugees have been hampered from the start by the lack of a

coordinated registration process. Elsewhere, registration has

proven critical to effective identification of at-risk populations

within refugee camp settings, including single heads of household, war widows, children, adolescents, and the elderly. Timely

identification of these populations is essential to establishing

programs to prevent trafficking and other abuses before they

start.
69

 Make the security of refugee camps a top priority. In most

refugee settings, there is an appalling lack of UNHCR protection officers and other trained security personnel assigned to

protect refugees from abuse and exploitation, including trafficking. For example, in Macedonia at the end of April 1999, there

were only eight protection officers assigned to monitor three

major border crossings and many smaller sites, as well as nine

refugee camps. At the time, Macedonia hosted approximately a

quarter of a million refugees. Protection efforts must be reinforced with experienced, able personnel monitoring the borders,

the camps, and host communities.

 Develop programs to specifically address the protection

and assistance needs of refugee women and children. Perhaps the most effective way to deter trafficking in refugee settings is to provide options to women and children so that they do

not have to resort to alternative sources of income and are less

vulnerable to being lured by the false promises of traffickers.

These programs should include micro enterprise development,

skills training with an emphasis on literacy, and education. Too

often, the specific needs of refugee adolescents are neglected;

education and skills training programs should actively address

their needs. The Bosnian Womens Initiative and the Rwandan

Womens Initiative, funded by the United States, offer useful

models for such programming. Programming to prevent sexual

violence must also be provided.  Involve local nongovernmental organizations in service

delivery. The United Nations and international organizations

must continue to support and build up Kosovar and local organizations that are working with the refugee population. These

organizations are often best-positioned to recognize and address

the needs of women and children. In addition, several Albanian

organizations have been working for years on awareness raising among Albanian women about the dangers of trafficking;

these efforts should be enhanced rather than duplicated by the

international community. Support of such groups also helps lay

the groundwork for the rebuilding of civil society in the region.

 Provide third country resettlement opportunities and access to the U.S. asylum system for refugee victims of trafficking. The United States must follow the model of Denmark,

Canada, Australia and others and formally implement a responsive Women at Risk resettlement program. The U.S. resettlement system currently addresses the specific needs of women

for whom return to their homeland or integration into a host

country are impossible on an ad hoc basis. In addition, the United

States must address the protection needs of trafficking victims

smuggled into the United States. Too often, the needs of the

victims are neglected, and worse, they are imprisoned in immigration detention centers or local prisons pending the outcome

of their asylum proceedings. There have been cases in which the

victims are actually imprisoned for longer than the smugglers

who brought them to the United States. In adjudicating asylum

claims brought by women and children, the Immigration and

Naturalization Service (INS) and the Executive Office for Immigration Review must also fully implement the INS Gender Guidelines and Childrens Guidelines.
70

 Take active and direct steps to prevent trafficking in refugee camps. This includes monitoring and assessing the extent

of trafficking as well as reaching out to refugee women and girls

to educate them about the dangers of trafficking. It is our understanding that the UN High Commission for Human Rights,

the International Organization for Migration, and the Council

of Europe are cooperating in a project that is targeting Kosovar

refugees to help prevent the trafficking of women and children

in Albania. UNHCR has also begun to assess the extent of the

trafficking problem in key refugee camps. It is hoped that reports on these projects will be released in the coming weeks.

The OSCE could also play a critically useful role in monitoring

trafficking and assessing the underlying factors that cause

women to become targets of traffickers.

 Address trafficking directed at Kosovar refugees in the

context of trafficking in Albania generally. Lack of opportunities for Albanian women has led to extensive trafficking generally. While it is essential to prevent the spread of this insidious practice to refugees hosted by Albania, it is also important

not to neglect the needs of the host community.

Many of these recommendations will require the support of the

United States and other donor governments. Implementation will also

need the support of international organizations, including the UN

High Commissioner for Refugees, the UN Human Rights Commission, other UN agencies, and the OSCE. Such assistance is imperative. The world community cannot turn its back on the suffering of

the Kosovar refugees or other refugee communities. It also cannot

stand idly by while further degradation is inflicted on them.

I would like to again express my appreciation for the chance to

appear on this panel. I would be happy to address any questions you

may have. Thank you.
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