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28–104PDF 2006

MODERN DAY SLAVERY: SPOTLIGHT ON

THE 2006 ‘‘TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS REPORT,’’

FORCED LABOR, AND SEX TRAFFICKING

AT THE WORLD CUP

BRIEFING AND HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HUMAN 

RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JUNE 14, 2006

Serial No. 109–188

Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/international—relations 

(II)

COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 

HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois, Chairman 

JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, 

Vice Chairman 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

PETER T. KING, New York 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado 

RON PAUL, Texas 

DARRELL ISSA, California 

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia 

MARK GREEN, Wisconsin 

JERRY WELLER, Illinois 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

THADDEUS G. MCCOTTER, Michigan 

KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

MICHAEL MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

TOM LANTOS, California 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

BARBARA LEE, California 

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York 

EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon 

SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

ADAM B. SCHIFF, California 

DIANE E. WATSON, California 

ADAM SMITH, Washington 

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota 

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky 

DENNIS A. CARDOZA, California 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

THOMAS E. MOONEY, SR., Staff Director/General Counsel 

ROBERT R. KING, Democratic Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL

OPERATIONS

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman 

THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado 

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

MARK GREEN, Wisconsin 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, 

Vice Chairman 

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

BARBARA LEE, California 

DIANE E. WATSON, California 

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota 

EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon 

MARY M. NOONAN, Subcommittee Staff Director 

GREG SIMPKINS, Subcommittee Professional Staff Member 

NOELLE LUSANE, Democratic Professional Staff Member 

SHERI A. RICKERT, Subcommittee Professional Staff Member and Counsel 

LINDSEY M. PLUMLEY, Staff Associate 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

BRIEFING BY 

Ms. Julia Ormond, Goodwill Ambassador for the Abolition of Slavery and 

Human Trafficking, UN Office on Drugs and Crime ........................................ 8

WITNESSES 

The Honorable John Miller, Director, Office to Combat Trafficking in Persons, 

U.S. Department of State .................................................................................... 24

Ms. Sharon Cohn, Vice President of Interventions, International Justice Mission ........................................................................................................................ 38

Ms. Masha Gnezdilova, Russian Trafficking Victim ............................................. 43

Ms. Irina Veselykh, Russian Trafficking Victim ................................................... 46

Mr. Charles Kernaghan, Director, National Labor Committee ........................... 52

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

The Honorable Christopher H. Smith, a Representative in Congress from 

the State of New Jersey, and Chairman, Subcommittee on Africa, Global 

Human Rights and International Operations: Prepared statement ................ 5

Ms. Julia Ormond: Prepared statement ................................................................ 11

The Honorable John Miller: Prepared statement ................................................. 27

Ms. Sharon Cohn: Prepared statement .................................................................. 41

Ms. Masha Gnezdilova: Prepared statement ......................................................... 45

Ms. Irina Veselykh,: Prepared statement .............................................................. 50

Mr. Charles Kernaghan: Prepared statement ....................................................... 56

APPENDIX 

Material Submitted for the Hearing Record .......................................................... 65

(1)

MODERN DAY SLAVERY: SPOTLIGHT ON THE 

2006 ‘‘TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS REPORT,’’ 

FORCED LABOR, AND SEX TRAFFICKING AT 

THE WORLD CUP 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 14, 2006

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS

AND INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS,

COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, 

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 11:05 a.m. in room 

2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H. Smith 

(Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. SMITH. Good morning, everyone. Today’s proceeding will 

begin as a briefing and will proceed to an actual hearing. This is 

due to our protocol that dictates that when we have a representative from the United Nations, it be technically called a briefing. We 

have done this in the past; it has worked extremely well. 

And I do want to thank Ambassador Ormond for being here, and 

the United Nations for playing this constructive role, as they are 

doing so well, on the issue of human trafficking. 

The Subcommittee will hear expert testimony today concerning 

the scourge of human trafficking—modern-day slavery. As I know 

many people know by now, the United States Government estimates that between 600,000 to 800,000 women, children, and men 

are brought and sold across international borders each year and exploited through forced labor or commercial sex exploitation. Potentially millions more are trafficked internally within the borders of 

countries. 

Eighty percent of the victims are women and girls. An estimated 

14,500 to 17,500 foreign citizens are trafficked into the United 

States each and every year. And now we know that many American girls and young women—many of whom start out as runaways—are bought, sold, abused, and raped throughout the United 

States. 

To combat the exploitation of American girls, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2005 not only requires the Attorney General 

to conduct prevalent studies of sex trafficking and unlawful commercial sex acts in the U.S., but the new law requires both the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Attorney General to 

prepare reports on best practices to reduce demand. For the first 

time the new law also authorizes $20 million for HHS (Health and 

Human Services) grants programs for U.S. victims, $10 million for 

2

long-term residential treatment facilities, and provides $50 million 

for a new grants program for state and local law enforcement. 

In the past we have focused primarily on international trafficking. Since the enactment of this law, we are realizing we have 

our own internal trafficking problem that must be ended. 

Today’s hearing will focus on the findings of the State Department’s sixth annual Trafficking in Persons Report, with a focus on 

progress made and on the significant challenges ahead. 

The Committee is indeed privileged to have, as our special guest, 

Julia Ormond in her capacity as the UN Goodwill Ambassador for 

the Abolition of Slavery and Human Trafficking. Ms. Ormond has 

travelled to Ghana, India, Cambodia and Thailand to raise awareness about the horrors of human trafficking. 

Ms. Ormond has been a leader on a number of humanitarian 

issues, including AIDS and refugee issues. She is the founding 

Chair of FilmAid International, and is well known for her film 

roles in numerous movies, including Legends of the Fall, Sabrina, 

First Knight, which is my favorite, Barber of Siberia, Iron-Jawed 

Angels, and many, many others. 

Ms. Ormond is also the Executive Producer of a 1996 Emmy 

Award-winning documentary called A Calling of the Ghosts, a story 

about two women in Bosnia caught in war, where rape was as 

much an everyday weapon as bullets and bombs. We are extremely 

honored and privileged to have her here with us today. 

This is also the second of a two-part series of hearings on sex 

trafficking in connection with the World Cup Soccer Championship. 

Ladies and gentlemen of the Committee, the traffickers who use 

and abuse human beings as commodities to be bought and sold 

must be tracked down, their nefarious operations crushed, and the 

individuals who commit these heinous crimes sent to jail for a long, 

long time. 

All profits derived from selling women and children into slavery 

must be seized and put to good use, like providing some semblance 

of restitution to the victims, or for the construction of shelters. 

The TIP Report itself, as most of us know by now, is mandated 

by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, which was signed 

in October 2000. In 2003 we sponsored the expansion of that act, 

and as I indicated earlier, on January 10, President Bush signed 

into law still another bill that expands significantly the Trafficking 

Victims Protection Act of 2000. 

These pieces of legislation have created a comprehensive framework for combatting trafficking in persons abroad, the trafficking 

of foreign nationals in the United States, and the domestic trafficking of our own citizens. As a result, the U.S. has become a leader in addressing this human rights violation, while simultaneously 

encouraging other governments to do the same. 

Since taking office, the Bush Administration has devoted more 

than $40 million to combat trafficking in more than 149 countries. 

The new law authorizes an additional $361 million over 2 years to 

expand those efforts. Across the globe, governments are taking action to prevent trafficking, to prosecute the exploiters, and to give 

hope and restoration to those victimized by trafficking. With 4,700 

convictions worldwide this year alone, the heinous crime of trafVerDate Mar 21 2002 14:37 Aug 30, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\AGI\061406\28104.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
3

ficking is, at long last, being punished, but still more needs to be 

done. In the last 2 years alone, convictions have topped 7,700. 

Because a significant portion of U.S. foreign assistance is now 

contingent on whether a nation is making basic minimum standards specifically described by the three TPVAs to prevent trafficking, protect victims, and prosecute traffickers, 41 countries in 

the last year alone have passed tough new laws to end this modern-day slavery. Shelters have been set up for victims, NGOs and 

faith communities have reached out to help heal survivors of trafficking. 

I want to applaud Ambassador John Miller for keeping trafficking in the forefront of our human rights agenda, and for the 

progress that we are making. I also welcome the emphasis on 

forced labor in this year’s report. Forced labor in which people are 

enslaved and exploited for purposes of labor, often within their own 

countries, is infrequently mentioned, but affects anywhere from 4–

27 million people worldwide. 

In places such as Saudi Arabia, Syria, Brazil, Jordan, Kuwait, 

and Taiwan, all ranked as either Tier 3 or on the Tier 2 Watch List 

in this year’s report, foreign migrant workers or these countries’ 

own citizens are trapped and held in slave-like working conditions. 

Not only must the victims be freed and properly compensated, 

their employers must be held responsible, and forced labor punished for the heinous crime that it is. 

While the TIP Report is good—the best yet, I would submit—I 

am nevertheless disappointed that the State Department has failed 

to place India on Tier 3 with other governments which are not 

making significant anti-trafficking efforts. Millions of men, women, 

and children, predominantly from India’s Dalit caste, are in debt 

bondage and face involuntary servitude in brick kilns, rice mills, 

and zari embroidery factories. India’s placement on Tier 2 Watch 

List for the third consecutive year, despite its failure to create a 

national law enforcement response to the crime of trafficking, and 

its blatant unwillingness to address the massive problems of bonded labor and trafficking-related corruption, reeks of political considerations within the Department of State, overriding the facts about 

human trafficking. 

The Watch List was created by my legislation to send a clear 

warning and enable egregious offenders to make specific reforms. 

It is not a place to hide our friends who fail to make real improvements. 

It is also deeply troubling that some countries not only turn a 

blind eye to trafficking, but actually embrace inhumane policies 

that facilitate or encourage the very crime they profess to abhor. 

Athletes and fans are gathering in Germany for one of the premier worldwide sporting events of our day, the 2006 FIFA World 

Cup, which opened last Friday—and many of us have already 

watched a number of those games on ESPN over the weekend. 

Over the course of 1 month, national soccer teams will be competing. And as we know, it is a scatter-sited competition spread 

over 12 venues throughout Germany. 

Millions of fans will join in the festivities. For most soccer fans 

like myself, this quadrennial event is a showcase of world-class 

athleticism and teamwork. But looming in its shadow is the very 

4

real threat that the World Cup matches have become a catalyst 

and a magnet for sex trafficking into Germany. Those who work 

with victims report that trafficking for the so-called ‘‘sex industry’’ 

often heightens during major sports events. In Germany, the problem is exacerbated by the legalization of prostitution. 

Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, Secretary of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Migrants and Travellers, in a June 8 interview, 

observed that in Germany, many women are forced into prostitution. ‘‘This is a fundamental human rights violation,’’ he said. 

‘‘Women have become market commodities, which can be bought. 

And they cost less than a ticket for a football match.’’

For the last year, the German Government has prepared for the 

World Cup, coordinating security efforts with all neighboring countries, and attending to a myriad of details associated with such 

international events. Traffickers have also worked overtime to exploit this opportunity to improve their illicit revenues through the 

expected rise in demand in the so-called sex industry. 

Sadly, this is not idle speculation. AFP reported over the weekend that police in Latvia arrested a man suspected of selling at 

least six women to German brothels. Latvian and German police 

collaborated in a month-long investigation in which a suspect allegedly paid his friends 100 euros for each woman found. He, in turn, 

was paid 400 euros per woman by the German brothel. 

We will hear testimony today from two women who have travelled from Russia to tell us about their horrific experiences being 

trafficked in Germany. Ms. Masha Gnezdilova and Ms. Irina 

Veselykh were deceived by offers of non-existent jobs in Germany, 

had their passports seized, were raped, and forced to work as prostitutes controlled by the Russian mafia. 

I would just point out, parenthetically, that during the February 

meeting of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly—and I serve as 

head of delegation—I raised this issue with our German counterparts, and raised it in the plenary session, and was met with an 

enormous amount of derision by some of the members of Parliament who thought that we should not be raising these kinds of 

issues. 

I would point out that of the approximately 400,000 prostitutes 

in Germany, it is estimated that 75 percent of those who are 

abused in these houses of prostitution are foreigners, and many of 

those same women are raped and cruelly mistreated. And if they 

could, they would leave. Add to that the approximately 40,000—

that is one estimate—who are expected to have been brought in by 

force, fraud, or coercion—trafficked to be part of the houses of prostitution’s offerings. 

The State Department gave Germany a Tier 1 rating again this 

year, and frankly, I think they missed the mark. I have raised that 

with Ambassador Miller on a number of occasions, and maybe he 

will speak to that during his testimony. 

One other area that this Committee and I, personally, have spent 

a lot of time on is UN peacekeepers’ complicity in trafficking and 

the abuse of young girls, especially in the Democratic Republic of 

the Congo. 

We heard from Jayhall Lute, who came down from the United 

Nations, and we know that others within the UN system are trying 

5

extremely hard to excise this blight. She said that the blue helmets 

have become black and blue, and she is determined to rid all forms 

of trafficking and exploitation from the United Nations, as are 

many others within the UN system. And whether it be military deployments under the NATO, U.S., or any other banner, trafficking 

in that context needs to be stopped. 

In conclusion, I want to applaud President Bush. In 2002 he 

issued an Executive Order that calls for zero tolerance within the 

United States military with regards to trafficking. And the Uniform Court of Military Justice recently has been reformed to include prostitution as an actionable offense, and hopefully that will 

lead to fewer women being mistreated by U.S. servicemen, or by 

any other nation, because we do need to lead by example. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, A REPRESENTA- TIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY AND CHAIRMAN, SUB- COMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS

Good morning. The Subcommittee will today hear expert testimony concerning the 

scourge of human trafficking—modern day slavery. 

The U.S. Government estimates that 600,000 to 800,000 women, children and 

men are bought and sold across international borders each year and exploited 

through forced labor or commercial sex exploitation, and potentially millions more 

are trafficked internally within the borders of countries. Eighty percent of the victims are women and girls. An estimated 14,500 to 17,500 foreign citizens are trafficked into the United States each year. 

And now we know well that many American girls and young women—many of 

whom start out as ‘‘runaways’’—are bought, sold, abused, and raped throughout the 

United States. 

(To combat the exploitation of Americans, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act 

of 2005 not only requires the Attorney General to conduct prevalence studies of sex 

trafficking and unlawful commercial sex acts in the U.S. but the new law requires 

both the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Attorney General to prepare reports on best practices to reduce demand. For the first time, the new law 

also authorizes $20 million for a Health and Human Services grants program for 

U.S. victims, $10 million for long-term residential treatment facilities and provides 

$50 million for a new grants program for state and local law enforcement.) 

Today’s hearing will focus on the findings in the State Department’s sixth annual 

Trafficking in Persons Report, with a focus on progress made and on the significant 

challenges ahead. 

The Committee is privileged to have as our special guest Julia Ormond in her capacity as the UN Goodwill Ambassador for the Abolition of Slavery and Human 

Trafficking. 

Ms. Ormond has traveled to Ghana, India, Cambodia, and Thailand to raise 

awareness about the horrors of human trafficking. Ms. Ormond has been a leader 

on a number of humanitarian issues including AIDS and refugee issues. She is the 

founding Chair of Film Aid International and is well known for her film roles in 

numerous movies including ‘‘Legends of the Fall,’’ ‘‘Sabrina,’’ ‘‘First Knight,’’ ‘‘Barber 

of Siberia’’ and many others. Ms. Ormond is also the Executive Producer of the 1996 

Emmy award-winning documentary ‘‘Calling of the Ghosts,’’ a story about two 

women in Bosnia, caught in war where rape was as much an everyday weapon as 

bullets and bombs. We are extremely honored and privileged to have her with us 

today. 

This is also the second of a two-part series of hearings on sex trafficking in connection with the World Cup soccer championship. (http://www.house.gov/internationallrelations/afhear.htm) 

The traffickers who use and abuse human beings as commodities to be bought and 

sold must be tracked down, their nefarious operations crushed and the individuals 

who commit these heinous crimes sent to jail for a long, long time. All profits derived from selling women and children into slavery must be seized and put to good 

use like providing some semblance of restitution to the victims or for the construction of shelters. 

The TIP report itself is mandated by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 

2000 (TVPA), which I sponsored and which was signed into law in October 2000. 

6

In 2003, I sponsored a reauthorization and expansion of that Act which also became 

law, and, on January 10, 2006, President Bush signed into law my third anti-trafficking bill—the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2005. 

These pieces of legislation have created a comprehensive framework for combating 

trafficking in persons abroad, the trafficking of foreign nationals into the United 

States, and the domestic trafficking of our own citizens. As a result, the United 

States has become a leader in addressing this human rights violation and encouraging other governments to do the same. Since taking office, the Bush Administration has devoted more than $400 million 

to combat trafficking in more than 149 countries. The new law authorizes an additional $361 over two years to expand these efforts. Across the globe, governments 

are taking action to prevent trafficking, to prosecute the exploiters, and to give hope 

and restoration to those victimized by trafficking. With 4,700 convictions worldwide 

this year alone, the heinous crime of trafficking is at long last being punished. In 

the last two years alone, convictions have topped 7,700. Because a significant portion of U.S. foreign assistance is now contingent on whether a nation is meeting 

basic minimum standards specifically prescribed in the three TPVAs to prevent trafficking, protect victims and prosecute traffickers, 41 countries in the last year alone 

have passed tough new laws to end this modern day slavery. Shelters have been 

set up for victims. NGOs and faith communities have reached out to help heal survivors of trafficking. 

I applaud Ambassador John Miller for keeping trafficking in the forefront of our 

human rights agenda and for the progress we are making. I also welcome the emphasis on forced labor in this year’s report. Forced labor, in which people are 

enslaved and exploited for purposes of labor often within their own countries, is infrequently mentioned but affects anywhere from 4 to 27 million people worldwide. 

In places such as Saudi Arabia, Syria, Brazil, Jordan, Kuwait, and Taiwan—all 

ranked as Tier 3 or on the Tier 2 Watch List in this year’s Report—foreign migrant 

workers or these countries’ own citizens are trapped and held in slave-like working 

conditions. Not only must the victims be freed and properly compensated; their employers must be held responsible and forced labor punished as the heinous crime 

it is. 

While the TIP report is good—the best yet I would submit—I am nevertheless disappointed that the State Department has again failed to place India on Tier 3 with 

other government who are not making significant anti-trafficking efforts. Millions 

of men, women, and children, predominantly from India’s Dalit caste, are in debt 

bondage and face involuntary servitude in brick kilns, rice mills, and zari embroidery factories. India’s placement on the Tier 2 Watch List for the third consecutive 

year, despite its failure to create a national law enforcement response to the crime 

of trafficking, and its blatant unwillingness to address the massive problems of 

bonded labor and trafficking-related corruption, reeks of political considerations 

within the State Department overriding the facts about human trafficking. The 

Watch List was created by my legislation to send a clear warning and enable egregious offenders to make specific reforms. It’s not a place to hide our friends who 

fail to make real improvements. 

It is also deeply troubling that while some countries not only turn a blind eye to 

trafficking others embrace inhumane policies that actually facilitate or encourage 

the very crime they profess to abhor. 

Athletes and fans are gathering in Germany for one of the premiere, world-wide 

sporting events of our day, the 2006 FIFA World Cup, which opened last Friday. 

Over the course of one month at 12 venues throughout Germany, national soccer 

teams will be competing. Millions of fans will join in the festivities. For most soccer 

fans like myself, this quadrennial event is the showcase of world class athleticism 

and teamwork. But, looming in its shadow is the very real threat that the World 

Cup matches have become a catalyst and magnet for sex trafficking into Germany. 

Those that work with victims report that trafficking for the so-called sex industry 

often heightens during major sports events. In Germany, the problem is exacerbated 

by the legalization of prostitution. 

Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, secretary of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for 

Migrants and Travelers, in a June 8th interview, observed that in Germany, many 

women are forced into prostitution. ‘‘This is a fundamental human rights violation,’’ 

he said. ‘‘Women have become market commodities, which can be bought. And they 

cost less than a ticket for a football match.’’

For the last year, the German Government has prepared for the World Cup, coordinating security efforts with all neighboring countries, and attending to the myriad of details associated with such major international events. Traffickers have also 

worked overtime to exploit this opportunity to improve their illicit revenues through 

the expected rise in demand in the so-called ‘‘sex industry.’’

7

Sadly, this is not idle speculation. AFP reported over the weekend that police in 

Latvia arrested a man suspected of selling at least six women to German brothels. 

Latvian and German police collaborated in a month-long investigation in which the 

suspect allegedly paid his friends 100 euros for each woman found. He, in turn, was 

paid 400 euros per woman by the German brothel. 

We will hear testimony today from two women who have traveled from Russia to 

tell us about their horrific experiences being trafficked to Germany. Ms. Masha 

Gnezdilova and Ms. Irina Veselykh were deceived by offers of non-existent jobs in 

Germany, their passports seized, beaten, raped, and forced to work as prostitutes, 

controlled by the Russian mafia. 

During the February meeting in Vienna, as Head of the U.S. Delegation and as 

Special Representative on Human Trafficking for the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, I vigorously raised concerns about the trafficking prevention efforts for the 

World Cup. I was joined by other European parliamentarians who were sobered by 

the expectation that, especially since the matches are being held in Germany which 

legalized pimping and prostitution in 2001, the World Cup fans would be legally free 

to rape women in brothels or even in mobile units designed specifically for this form 

of exploitation. Of the approximately 400,000 prostitutes in Germany, it is estimated that 75 percent of those who are abused in these houses of prostitution are 

foreigners, many from Central and Eastern Europe. 

The Trafficking Victims Protection Act requires the State Department to analyze 

and report annually on the efforts of governments to combat trafficking in persons 

around the world. Germany received a Tier 1 rating again this year—meaning that 

the Government is meeting minimum standards to combat trafficking. Frankly, the 

German Government has done some good work to identify and protect victims of 

trafficking and to prosecute their exploiters. And yet, these efforts are at odds with 

its laws on legalized prostitution, and in some cases the facilitation of prostitution 

by local governments, which provides direct and indirect sanction for sex trafficking. 

Legalized prostitution is not a policy that the German Government has to embrace. I am aware that the German Government is supporting public awareness efforts regarding trafficking for forced prostitution in the context of the World Cup. 

This is a somewhat absurd effort given that the legalized prostitution infrastructure 

is gearing up to expand its capacity during the World Cup and there is every reason 

to believe that the ‘‘new recruits’’ will be trafficked women and girls. I see this as 

flagrant state complicity in promoting sex trafficking. I believe Germany can do 

much more to prevent the sexual exploitation of women and children by attacking 

the demand that fuels this problem. 

It is time for Chancellor Merkel to take a stand and speak out against the exploitation of women and children in the name of sport. I would encourage her government to turn the tables—beginning now with the World Cup—by committing to reverse Germany’s laws on prostitution. 

In this regard, on June 9th I introduced House Resolution 860, calling on the Government of Germany to take immediate action to combat sex trafficking in connection with the 2006 FIFA World Cup. I ask that my Colleagues expeditiously support 

and move this bill forward to the House floor. As the world’s attention is turned 

to soccer, those committed to ending the tragedy of trafficking of women and girls 

for sexual exploitation will be watching how Germany protects the most vulnerable. 

Finally, let me say a few words about the prevention of trafficking by armed 

forces. In response to evils such as the sexual exploitation of young women and girls 

by UN peacekeepers in the Congo—some as young as 11 or 12, and in exchange for 

a banana or a dollar—the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 

2005 includes provisions requiring the US government to press international organizations to do more in this area. Section 104(e)(1) requires the annual trafficking report to include information on measures taken by the UN, NATO, OSCE, and other 

similar bodies to prevent trafficking, and I am pleased to see the inclusion of such 

information in this year’s report. Section 104(e)(2) requires a report by the Secretary 

of State at least 15 days prior to voting for a new or reauthorized peacekeeping mission which describes measures taken by the international organization to prevent 

trafficking and analyzes their effectiveness. I have not seen any such reports by the 

Department to date, and would ask for a clarification of where we are on this. 

In conclusion, I look forward to hearing the testimony of all of our distinguished 

witnesses who have a vast amount of experience with these and other international 

trafficking issues.

Mr. SMITH. I would like to now turn to my friend and colleague, 

Tom Tancredo, for any opening comments he might have. 

Mr. TANCREDO. I have no opening statement. 

8

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. Again, I have already briefly introduced 

Ambassador Julia Ormond, but just let me say how delighted this 

Committee is to have her as our witness today to provide insights 

from her trips, and tell us about the work the United Nations, and 

she personally, are doing on behalf of the victims of human trafficking. 

Ambassador Ormond, the floor is yours. 

STATEMENT OF MS. JULIA ORMOND, GOODWILL AMBASSADOR 

FOR THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY AND HUMAN TRAFFICKING, UN OFFICE ON DRUGS AND CRIME 

Ambassador ORMOND. Mr. Chairman, distinguished Members of 

the Committee and staff, good morning. 

On behalf of the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime and 

its Executive Director, Antonia Maria Costa, who unfortunately 

could not join me here today, I thank you very warmly for convening this hearing. 

As the UN’s Goodwill Ambassador to combat human trafficking 

and slavery, I recently, as you said, had the opportunity to visit 

Ghana, India, Cambodia, and Thailand. I am deeply grateful to all 

parties for the opportunity to testify this morning about my insights and observations during those travels. 

I am going to give an abbreviated version of the written testimony, I just wanted to say that. 

Honorable Members of Congress, we applaud your outstanding 

efforts to combat modern-day slavery, your passage of the landmark Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Law, and subsequent legislation, and are grateful to the United States Government for providing, in 2005 alone, over $25 million in voluntary 

contributions for UNODC’s work, of which over $2 million were allocated for our anti-human trafficking efforts. 

I have learned that in the realm of trafficking, the solutions lie 

in finding culturally appropriate answers that reflect not only a 

country’s present circumstance, but specifically embrace that culture’s history, and often our intertwined histories. 

On my recent trip to India, I learned about the different range 

of debt bondage and how it keys into trafficking and modern-day 

slavery. That bondage in India exists in different levels, and, as opposed to debt, it is illegal. Culturally, however, even in its severest 

form, the practice often is not regarded as slavery. 

Thankfully, India is now enjoying enormous economic expansion, 

overcoming the aftermath, for instance, of British Colonial policy, 

which has hugely contributed to India’s current challenges and relationship to trafficking and modern-day slavery. 

The 2000 UN Convention Against Transnational Organized 

Crime contains the anti-trafficking protocol which lays out a holistic strategy referred to as the three Ps: Prevention, protection, and 

prosecution. And to this list, I would like to add my own fourth P, 

prioritization. 

Of course, I am on a learning curve as the UNODC Goodwill Ambassador. However, in a short amount of time, one crucial reality 

has become clear to me: Governments, and only governments, are 

uniquely situated to reverse the course of trafficking. 

9

Thousands of extraordinary NGOs (nongovernmental organizations), are providing incredibly effective rehabilitation for the victims. And while they can be supportive, they cannot attack the 

problems at source in the same way the governments can, especially the United States. 

We know that trafficking involves millions of people and produces billions of dollars, rivaling the drug trade. We also know that 

criminals are shifting from the trafficking of weapons and drugs 

into the trafficking of people, especially children, because it is easy 

to get away with. And unless we prioritize, the traffickers will profit. 

While we commit to the eradication of global poverty, the lack of 

economic opportunity and lack of free education worldwide remain 

key contributory factors. For example, in recent years Thailand has 

made great strides to offer and sustain girls’ education, which 

greatly has reduced the number of Thai girls falling victim to trafficking. However, the hill tribes in Thailand remain especially vulnerable due to an inability to speak Thai, which hugely impacts the 

educational options. 

Today we shall hear testimony from Marsha and Irina, two Russian women, who themselves were victims of trafficking. I commend them for their courage, and I thank them for being here 

today. They stand with many women globally who believe that they 

are departing for better opportunities and promises of decent salaries as household help, waitresses, or teachers, and instead they 

end up forced into prostitution. 

Part of my role is to talk to these victims, when they are willing, 

about their experiences. In Cambodia and Thailand, I spoke with 

many such women, children, and men—the vast majority of whom 

had specifically been trafficked into forced prostitution. 

The conversations are always painful, and I am still learning. I 

believe, though, that it is important to appreciate the level of abuse 

that virtually always goes hand-in-hand with being trafficked. 

The reality is that not everyone survives this ordeal. These people are often functionally invisible. They lack either birth records 

through lack of birth registration, or citizenship, or they lack legal 

status in a country. Not surprisingly, invisible people are incredibly 

disposable. Victims and survivors and NGOs ask that I carry their 

message to others that may be in a position to effect change. 

I have met with many girls and women from many shelters, 

some girls so young it was just hard to comprehend their fate. Girls 

as young as 5, 7, and 12 who had been victims of rape, then sold 

into prostitution. 

There is a specific phenomena in this era of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Clients seeking HIV-negative assurances will pay large 

sums to buy very young girls, who are promised to be virginal. 

Over the period of the week, these girls are raped repeatedly by 

their client. The girls then are returned to the brothel, only to be 

taken to clinics where they are sewn up and sold again. This cycle 

can be repeated as many as eight or nine times before the girl enters a life of forced prostitution. 

Other girls talked of being chained by their relatives in order to 

force them to enter marriage or prostitution. Some NGOs in one 

Asian country reported that it is common for girls to be electroVerDate Mar 21 2002 14:37 Aug 30, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\AGI\061406\28104.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
10

cuted, drugged, beaten with or without instruments. One girl lost 

a finger for supposedly not satisfying a client. 

It is common to be stripped naked and caged with snakes and 

insects, such as scorpions and millipedes, placed not just in the 

cage with them, but into their mouths and private parts as punishment. These girls often die from the stings and bites. 

I believe it is worth reminding ourselves that this is what is 

termed as force and coercion in the protocol against trafficking in 

persons. And it is worth our absorbing that reality for the individuals concerned. 

Sexual abuse is often present in many different types of trafficking. One of the last girls I met with in India had been trafficked 

into domestic service. She is 12. She is the victim of rape by five 

different men. She is 7 months pregnant. 

Trafficking is not just women and girls, there are many male victims, too. In Thailand, I spoke with a boy who had been trafficked 

into the fishing industry. He escaped by spending 2 days floating 

at sea on a barrel before luckily being rescued. 

In India, I met with boys who were trafficked into the carpet 

loom industry, one particular boy who had been enslaved for 10 

years, since he was 5 years old. He showed me scars from beatings 

with implements from when he had tried to escape. He told of having a cut finger placed in boiling water in place of proper medical 

treatment. 

In Ghana, I recently visited Yeji and worked with the local nongovernmental organization called APPLE, which investigates the 

child slavery around Lake Volta and the fishing villages. Children, 

some as young as 4 years old, are made to dive in dangerous and 

extremely cold water to untangle nets. They are beaten with oars 

when they surface for breath, and then they are forced to dive 

again. One recalled intense memories of his nose bleeding because 

he was forced to dive deeper and deeper. Another described how he 

would calm the fish by placing his fingers in their eye sockets and 

pressing, and how you had to avoid getting your fingers trapped in 

the gills of the fish, or the fish could overpower you and may drown 

you. When I asked him how big the fish were, his arms spread 

wide. I think we need to imagine that life. 

Someone said to me that if people aren’t finding evidence of trafficking, then they are not looking. It is everywhere, and it affects 

us all. But this is not yet another global problem that cannot be 

solved. I don’t want anyone to leave believing that there are no solutions. There are fantastic models out there, and they are working. Business communities and NGOs are stepping up to take responsibility. 

The Cocoa Protocol, put together by Free the Slaves, demonstrates the cocoa industry’s commitment to bringing slave-free 

labor practices to the Ivory Coast and Ghana. Microsoft’s initiative 

of worldwide training for police on computer-facilitated crimes 

against children is another excellent initiative. 

Close to 1,000 children have been released from Lake Volta. In 

Cambodia, an NGO called Hagar provides such a fabulously comprehensive approach—showing that rehabilitated victims can take 

on skills training and work in profitable businesses, from design to 

catering to soy product manufacturing—to such a successful degree 

11

1 ‘‘Trafficking in persons’’ shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or 

receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, 

of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving 

or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or 

services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs; Article 3, 

paragraph (a) of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially 

Women and Children, which supplements the United Nations Convention against Transnational 

Organized Crime. 

that they now sell some of their products in Niemann Marcus. 

Hagar also helped an 11-year-old girl stand before a judge and 

send her trafficker to prison for 17 years. 

Nothing is more moving to me than the resilience and spiritual 

strength shown by victims. Those girls who suffered mercilessly 

have been helped to re-find their voices and joyfully sing about 

walking into the light. The terrifyingly young girls whose virginity 

was repeatedly stripped from them have found the dignity and 

grace to sing of the flowering that is our passage to womanhood. 

We, as men and women, must do everything in our power to support the shelters’ work, and make it the safety net for victims, not 

rely on the victims to deliver the solution of piece-meal prosecution. 

The media has played a phenomenal role in bringing this issue 

to the public’s attention. So often issues don’t get traction because 

politicians feel that the public hasn’t shown that it cares enough. 

But the media has ensured that the public knows about this issue, 

and the public definitely cares. 

We must appreciate that while modern-day slavery and trafficking is a global issue, it is also in our back yard. We must make 

trafficking a priority, we must focus on solutions, and we must allocate the resources needed to achieve the vision allowed by the antitrafficking protocol. Together we can all achieve these goals, strategically and financially. And to that end I look forward to working 

with you all. 

Thank you, and I would be glad to answer any questions. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Ormond follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MS. JULIA ORMOND, GOODWILL AMBASSADOR FOR THE

ABOLITION OF SLAVERY AND HUMAN TRAFFICKING, UN OFFICE ON DRUGS AND CRIME

Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the Committee and staff—good morning. 

On behalf of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (‘‘UNODC’’) and its Executive Director, Antonio Maria Costa, who unfortunately could not join me here 

today, I thank you warmly for convening this hearing. 

As the UN’s Goodwill Ambassador to combat human trafficking and slavery, I recently had the opportunity to visit Ghana, India, Cambodia and Thailand. I am 

deeply grateful to all parties for the opportunity to testify this morning about my 

insights and observations during those travels. 

Honorable members of Congress, we applaud your outstanding efforts to combat 

modern day slavery, your passage of the landmark Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Law, and subsequent legislation, and are grateful to the United 

States government for providing in 2005 alone over $25 million in voluntary contributions for UNODC’s work, of which over $2 million were allocated for our antihuman trafficking efforts. 

In the words of Hermann Melville: ‘‘We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives 

are connected by a thousand invisible threads and along these sympathetic fibers 

our actions run as causes and return to us as results.’’

So I have learnt that in the realm of trafficking,1 the solutions lie in finding culturally appropriate answers that reflect not only a country’s present circumstance 

but specifically embrace that culture’s history. And often, our intertwined histories. 

12

On my recent trip to India, I learned about the different range of debt bondage 

and how it keys into trafficking and modern-day slavery. 

Debt bondage in India exists in different levels, and as opposed to debt, it is illegal. Culturally, however, even in its severest form, the practice often is not regarded 

as slavery. 

But within this broken system, momentum is building to regard debt bondage for 

its true nature—as slavery—in an effort to liberate those slaves. I visited quarries 

where entire villages had been enslaved for generations. Under a brutal heat, men 

and women clothed in beautiful saris bust up rock to make sand. I spoke with a 

wizened and elderly man who remembered his grandfather being enslaved. They 

never knew they were slaves though, until educated by a local non-governmental organization called Sankal, which helped liberate one villager, who in turn worked to 

liberate the next, who together worked to liberate another. 

Once reaching a certain tipping point, the entire village was prepared to walk out, 

despite threats of violence, the burning of their village and the loss of a village girl. 

They now quarry their own land and have influenced many others in debt bondage. 

Their liberation continues; I met with villagers who were either thinking of or who 

had successfully run for local election, and who have participated in a movement 

that has now freed more than 10,000 slaves. To witness their backbreaking work, 

to hear their stories, it is difficult to comprehend their being unaware of their own 

plight. 

I had flown to New Delhi from a conference in Bangkok, but as a British citizen, 

my journey to India really had began much earlier. On 2nd February 1835 Lord Macaulay addressed the British Parliament:

I have traveled across the great length and breadth of India and I have not 

seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this 

country, such high moral values, people of such caliber, that I do not think we 

would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and Therefore, I propose that 

we replace her old & ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians 

think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, 

they will lose their self esteem, their native self culture and they will become 

what we want them, a truly dominated nation.

This was the genesis of British policy that has hugely contributed to India’s current challenges and relationship to modern-day slavery. Thankfully, India now enjoys enormous expansion, and even those liberated only recently from slavery have 

developed an unbroken self-esteem. 

I know how lucky I am to have been born into a different generation. To have 

been born when and where I was—in a country where no one is shooting at me, 

I face no unnecessary risk of dying of HIV/AIDS, nor do I lack access to clean water. 

But merely through a twist do I hear about—rather than experience—the horrors 

of trafficking and slavery, because I know in my heart that ‘‘there but for the grace 

of God go I.’’ I know that the victims are victims of circumstance. All of us must 

change that circumstance, and change it we can. 

The path has been created with the 2000 UN Convention against Transnational 

Organized Crime, which contains the Anti-Trafficking Protocol. Otherwise known as 

the Palermo Protocol, this document lays out a holistic strategy, referred to as the 

‘‘Three Ps’’: Prevention, Protection and Prosecution. By implementing this approach, 

we can change the circumstance. 

To tackle prevention, among other areas, we must educate through skills training 

for adults, so that they are not vulnerable to being trafficked, trafficking their own 

children, or becoming traffickers themselves. 

In prosecution, Governments must deal seriously with corruption. They must understand that the international community condemns corruption, which deters investment in their country, thus providing a breeding ground to trafficking and slavery. The rule of law is meaningless without enforcement. And enforcement is meaningless without a strong and just judicial system. 

Trafficking is one of the most fantastically difficult problems that we face today. 

But traffickers cannot create demand; were there no demand whatsoever, criminals 

would be unlikely to generate it, because criminal businesses tend to be opportunistic and not developmental. The Anti-Trafficking Protocol presents our opportunity 

to unite internationally against this criminal element, which threatens our global 

security. It provides a consensus definition of trafficking that becomes the springboard to change. 

As the UNODC Goodwill Ambassador, I face a steep learning curve. However, in 

a short amount of time I have been horrified by the extent of the problem—the searing depth of pain experienced by the victims, and the extraordinary level of profit 

13

to the traffickers. And so I have been given permission to add my own ‘‘P’’ to the 

‘‘Three Ps’’ of prevention, protection and prosecution: Prioritize. [Prioritization?] 

If we are to reverse course on the rise of trafficking, one crucial reality has become clear to me—governments, and only governments, are uniquely situated to implement the systemic changes necessary. 

Thousands of extraordinary NGOs and CSOs are providing incredibly effective rehabilitation for the victims. Yet while they can be supportive, they cannot attack 

the root problems in the same way as Governments. Governments and member 

states need to rise to the challenge of making this issue a priority and work together—without shaming and blaming—to create a structure recognizing the extremity of this issue. 

Your presence here today reflects not only the highly commendable lead assumed 

by the United States. It is, I trust, a reflection of this country’s commitment and 

stamina moving forward. Despite the difficulties even in defining the nature of trafficking, the U.S. government already has shown particular tenacity. Moreover, your 

bipartisan collaboration has yielded exemplary results. It is an honor to speak before you, and I urge the Congress to continue to recognize and embrace this Nation’s 

global influence on other member states, not least of all by it’s own internal example. 

It is clear that before prevention, protection, prosecution and prioritization can be 

effective, we must form a clear picture of the nature of this beast. And as we gathered further research, this grim picture becomes more clear. 

Despite the excellent work demonstrated in the recent U.N. Global Report on 

Trafficking in persons and the (second?) recently released TIP report, we all know 

that we don’t yet have accurate statistics on trafficking and slavery because of its 

inherently covert nature. 

We do know, however, that it’s millions of people and it’s billions of dollars and 

that it is rivaling the drug trade. We do know that criminals are in fact shifting 

from the trafficking of weapons and drugs into the trafficking of people—especially 

children—because until we prioritize, the traffickers will profit. 

Tass, the Russian News service, reported in 2002 that increasingly organized 

crime is moving away from guns, drugs and tobacco to children, especially pornography. This is due to its very low cost, ease to produce, and huge consumer demand. 

It is extremely profitable with very low risk. 

One of the things that research reveals is why people are vulnerable to being trafficked in the first place. Lack of economic opportunity and lack of free education 

worldwide are key contributory factors. 

In recent years, Thailand has made great strides to offer and sustain girls’ education. This effort greatly has reduced the numbers of Thai girls falling victim to 

trafficking. However, the hill tribes in Thailand remain especially vulnerable. Due 

to an inability to speak Thai, educational options are limited, creating a strong 

drop-out rate and vulnerability to being trafficked. Combined with the immense cultural pressure for young girls to support their families, these hill tribe girls have 

become more and more present in the shelters. 

The vast majority of trafficked victims are those seeking to better their lives, or 

the lives of their parents and children. Many families are duped into believing that 

their children are being taken to receive an education. By definition, all trafficked 

victims then are coerced, forced, or in more brutal circumstances, kidnapped and 

transported into slavery where they are horrifically exploited, or possibly killed. 

For many years, they can be trapped in these circumstances. Commonly, they are 

convinced that if they try to escape, local police will punish them, deport them, 

throw them into jail or worse. 

Frequently, traffickers convince victims that they are working to pay off debts accrued by their transportation, room, and board. In reality, however, this is an illegal 

debt that they can never pay off because, if they are lucky, they are provided only 

a meager subsistence. 

Trafficked victims of all types often are held by psychological threats to their families or to themselves and are subjected to all manner of abuses. I heard the firsthand story of a domestic help who was physically, emotionally, spiritually, and sexually abused on a daily basis. After one particularly brutal beating, she was given 

a spade and told to dig her own grave. When she said that the police would find 

her body, her captor told her that he would use a special liquid to dissolve her bones 

so that no one could tell she’d existed. It’s not what you expect when you dream 

of coming to California. 

Another woman in America told me of how her captor gave her no food, so she 

had to try to grow food surreptitiously in order to survive. For years her subsistence 

consisted of one pot noodle each day. She slept on the cement floor of her captor’s 

garage, unable to reach out to anyone due to a lack of community support and her 

14

inability to speak English. Repeatedly, her trafficker threatened to kill her and her 

family back home, should she try to escape or turn her in. 

The vast majority of victims take time—often months—to open up. This makes 

identification more difficult, but not impossible. One Romanian victim I heard took 

three months to open up having been arrested in Italy working the streets, a euphemism that when she first heard it she thought meant she was going to be a street 

cleaner. Her first so-called client was a police officer. Often she would service police 

officers; she knew because they expected it for free, flashing their badge instead of 

payment. 

We can better support victims by educating police on how to identify trafficking 

victims, by being knowledgeable about victims’ rights, by engaging the support and 

resources of NGOs working on the issue, and by briefing law enforcement officials 

on how to deal with rape victims. It is especially important that officials recognize 

battered wives syndrome and Stockholm Syndrome, since victims often are in these 

states when and if they are discovered. 

It is not acceptable that law enforcement in any country is understaffed, underequipped and under-funded to fight trafficking. However, we need the education of 

all participants in the chain—whether an impoverished fisherman in Ghana, who 

is as much at risk of becoming a trafficker as a local child is of being trafficked. 

It’s educating government, judicial systems, local police, border control, and Goodwill Ambassadors. 

A large part of current spending goes to protection, which currently is provided 

by the excellent rehabilitative care of NGOs and some CSOs. 

Today we shall hear the testimony of Marsha Gnezdilova and Irina Veselykh, two 

Russian women, who themselves were victims of trafficking. I commend them for 

their courage and thank them for being here today. They stand with many women 

globally who believe that they are departing for better opportunities and promises 

of decent salaries as household help, waitresses, or teachers. Instead, they end up 

forced into prostitution. 

Part of my role is to talk to victims, when they are willing, about their experiences. In Cambodia and Thailand, I spoke with many such women, children and 

men—the vast majority of whom had specifically been trafficked into forced prostitution. The conversations always are painful, and I am still learning. I believe though, 

that it’s important to appreciate the level of abuse that virtually always goes handin-hand with being trafficked. 

I have experienced the moving testimony of brave victims transcending their trauma in the hope of assisting others. I also have heard from ashamed and repentant 

traffickers, who openly acknowledge their wrong-doing, and parents who have either 

fallen foul of false promise or have faced the horrific moral dilemma of knowingly 

selling one child into a life of servitude in order to save other children. 

Victims and survivors and NGOs ask that I carry their message to others that 

may be in a position to effect change. For me, this first-hand testimony has become 

a primal motivating factor. 

Ironically one of the issues the UNODC itself has discovered is that they need 

to give specific training to female police officers who struggle to comprehend that 

it is possible to force someone to prostitute themselves. Some have a hard time relating to this, believing that they sooner would kill themselves. Not only the female 

police struggle with this misconception. In some instances, a disregard for prostitutes and their well-being reportedly has impaired political resolve. 

Of course, the reality is that not everyone survives this ordeal. These people often 

are functionally invisible—they lack either birth records or citizenship, or they lack 

legal status in a country. Not surprisingly, invisible people are incredibly disposable. 

I have heard reports of women jumping from windows to end their plight. I have 

heard reports of women either shot or beaten to death for trying to escape. Often, 

this occurs in front of others, in order to secure their obedience. 

I met with many girls and women from many shelters. Some girls so young it was 

hard to comprehend their fate. Girls as young as 5, 7 and 12 who had been victims 

of rape then sold into prostitution. 

There is a specific phenomenon in this era of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Clients 

seeking HIV-negative assurances will pay large sums to buy very young girls, who 

are promised to be virginal. Over the period of a week, these girls are raped repeatedly by their client, who are satisfied only by seeing blood. The girls then are 

retuned to the brothel, only to be taken to clinics where they are sewn up and sold 

again, as many as eight or nine more times before entering a life of forced prostitution. 

Other girls talked of being chained by their relatives in order to force them to 

enter marriage or prostitution. At an NGO called Hagar, one particular victim, 

whom I shall call Bopha, told me that at eleven years old, she was beaten so badly 

15

that she now struggles with a colostomy bag. Her potential to have her own children 

viciously beaten from her, traffickers forced sand down her throat in an effort to 

strangle her, and then they left her to bleed to death. 

Some NGOs in one Asian country reported that it’s common for girls to be electrocuted, drugged, beaten with or without instruments; one girl lost a finger for supposedly not satisfying a client. It’s common to be stripped naked and caged with 

snakes and insects such as scorpions and millipedes—placed not just in the cage 

with them but into their mouths and private parts as punishment. These girls often 

die from the stings and bites. 

I believe it is worth reminding ourselves that this is what is termed as ‘‘force and 

coercion’’ in the Protocol Against Trafficking in Persons, and why victims often find 

it difficult to return home. I believe it is worth our absorbing that reality for the 

individuals concerned. 

Trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery and has many faces, but follows very 

strong patterns with almost identical outcomes. This is the face of forced prostitution in today’s world but in fact forced prostitution accounts for less than half of 

all trafficking worldwide. 

Sexual abuse is often present in many different types of trafficking. One of the 

last girls I met with in India had been trafficked into domestic service. She is 

twelve. She is the victim of rape by five different men. She is seven months pregnant. 

Trafficking is not just women and girls, there are many male victims too. 

Imagine being three years old and being taken from your family in Pakistan and 

trafficked to the Middle East to be used in the elitist sport of camel racing as a jockey. Imagine being starved to keep your weight down, brutalized so you will work 

for nothing, and sexually abused by your captors. Imagine knowing that as you grow 

older and bigger, you increasingly become disposable. Imagine that life. 

In Thailand, I spoke with a boy who had been trafficked into the fishing industry. 

He escaped by spending two days floating at sea on a barrel before luckily being 

rescued. In India, I met with boys who were trafficked into the carpet loom industry. 

One particular boy had been enslaved for ten years, since he was five years old. He 

showed me scars from beatings with implements from when he had tried to escape. 

He told of having a cut finger placed in boiling water in place of proper medical 

treatment. 

Someone said to me that if people aren’t finding evidence of trafficking, then 

they’re not looking. It is everywhere, and it affects us all. 

In Ghana they were not particularly looking for trafficking but found it when a 

number of bodies washed up on the shores of Lake Volta. 

I recently traveled to Yeji, Ghana and worked with a local NGO called Apple, 

which investigates the child slavery around Lake Volta and the fishing villages. 

Children; some as young as four years old are made to dive in dangerous and extremely cold water to untangle nets. They are beaten with oars when they surface 

for breath, and then they are forced to dive again. One recalled intense memories 

of his nose bleeding because he was forced to dive deeper and deeper. Another described how he would calm the fish by placing his fingers in their eye sockets and 

press, and how to avoid getting your fingers trapped in the gills or the fish could 

overpower you and may drown you. When I asked him how big the fish were, his 

arms spread wide. 

These children are not allowed to go to school, to hospital if ill or to return to 

their families. Some are forced to dive at night, and many of the children drown. 

I was told that in years past, live but sick children would be thrown into the water 

with weights attached to their bodies—treated as bait. Imagine that life. 

Imagine checking into the Ramada Inn in Florida, only to discover that right next 

door is a slave camp for male agricultural workers, held by armed guards. 

In the developed world, we are simply better placed to be able to make the eradication of trafficking and modern-day slavery a priority. With the UN protocols in 

place on anti-trafficking, that chiefly means making it a financial priority. 

While every government confronts the reality of limited resources, I think it is 

worth remembering that the billions of dollars that traffickers make on their victims 

are billions of dollars that should be going into the world’s economy to make countries thrive rather than into the traffickers’ pockets. These victims are a silenced 

work-force who, given the right amount of care and rehabilitation to set themselves 

on the path to sustained freedom, become productive members of society, taxpaying 

members of society at that. 

We have a responsibility not out economic sense or out of noble obligation, but 

because the West has either contributed in a present cultural dynamic or is currently creating demand. We are very much part of the problem. 

16

We need to acknowledge the effects of trade agreements on the developing world 

that broadens the divide between rich developed countries and the developing poor. 

We need to think about free people every time we think of free trade. We need to 

support the MDGs with a greater percentage of our GDP and seriously commit to 

the eradication of poverty. 

Clearly we are vulnerable to this dark side of globalization and it’s impact on 

transatlantic crime. Today more than ever we need a unified coordinated global response that asks governments to work together and make this a priority. Traffickers 

show a total disregard for human life, and that makes us all vulnerable to the assistance and information that can be given by traffickers to terrorists. 

Traffickers cannot create demand, and criminal businesses tend to be opportunistic rather than developmental. Poverty and corruption frequently go hand in hand; 

trafficking and modern-day slavery thrive in corrupt environments. Trafficking cannot exist without a degree of participation from the government, the police, and the 

judicial system. This is the ugly face, the dark side of globalization. 

It takes a tenacity and readiness to embrace and support governments around the 

world that demonstrate a determination to eradicate corruption and achieve transparency that perhaps could be buoyed up by an appreciation of our shared histories. 

And while the onus is on us to be supportive as they struggle to reach a higher goal, 

so we have to hold ourselves to the highest possible standards. The UN has struggled with its own issues with peacekeeping troops who have gotten involved in trafficking. I commend the zero tolerance policy advocated by the UN. But, while the 

problem has been recognized and a strong strategy has been developed to combat 

it, we have to be more vigorous in implementation and heed Prince Zeid AI-Hussein’s recent report showing that this policy is not yet effective enough. 

The UN like most member states is working to achieve its mandate. 

I believe one of the finest documents in existence is the UN declaration on human 

rights and modern day slavery is one of the most egregious violations of that document; that we all agree on. Trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery; a violation 

that globalization has ripped open and flung to every corner of our planet. This is 

not a new phenomenon—it is the surviving and thriving mutation of one of the oldest issues in the world, one we have never conquered; but humanity has now surely 

reached the point where we are far better placed to do so. 

It has been a momentous step forward to see the UNODC and global community 

classify trafficking as a crime, however, it is important to remember that trafficking 

means the abuse over and over and over again of its victims. It means that a multitude of crimes are committed to reach the end result. 

Such offenses include but are not limited to trafficking in human beings; forgery; 

involuntary servitude; forced or compulsory labor; debt bondage; forced marriage; 

forced abortion; forced pregnancy; torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment; 

rape; sexual assault; bodily injury; murder; kidnapping; unlawful confinement; labor 

exploitation; withholding of identity papers; and corruption. Yet the resources committed to resolve trafficking and prosecute the criminals are nowhere near those devoted to homicide. We have to make this a priority. 

But this is not yet another global problem that cannot be solved. I don’t want anyone to leave believing that there are no solutions. There are fantastic models out 

there, and they are working. 

We should all come together and devote all of our energies, values and opinions 

to finding concrete ways to fight this. Trafficking is a human rights issue, from child 

soldiers asked to fight, kill and die for someone else’s cause, to camel jockeys 

strapped to camels in blistering desert heat, to young fishermen boys forced to dive 

in the dark and drown, to the crushed domestic worker, to the child raped and 

filmed to be abused again and again and again in internet porn. 

Business communities are stepping up to take responsibility. The Cocoa Protocol 

put together by Free the Slaves demonstrates the cocoa industry’s commitment to 

bringing slave-free labor practices to the Ivory Coast and Ghana. Microsoft’s initiative of worldwide training for police on computer facilitated crimes against children 

is another excellent initiative. They deserve our thanks, our respect and our attention. 

I would like to take this opportunity to thank and commend all of the NGOs and 

shelters that have helped me and whose work is an example to us all of how it 

should be. 

The International Organization for Migration, in collaboration with Apple and 

other local NGOs have implemented programs that are now close to releasing 1,000 

of those trafficked children around Lake Volta, bringing alternative sustainable freedom to them and their families. 

In Cambodia, the NGO called Hagar provides such a fabulously comprehensive 

approach showing that rehabilitated victims can take on skills training and work 

17

in profitable businesses, from design to catering to soy product manufacturing, to 

such a successful degree that they now sell some of their products in Neiman 

Marcus. 

They helped now eleven-year old and barren Bopha stand before a judge, and with 

a hoarse but clear voice, she spoke out to send her trafficker to prison for seventeen 

years. 

Girls at another shelter reminded me of the words of Pablo Neruda: ‘‘You can cut 

all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming.’’

Nothing is more moving to me than the resilience and spiritual strength shown 

by victims. Those girls who suffered mercilessly who have been helped to re-find 

their voices and joyfully sing about walking into the light. The terrifyingly young 

girls whose virginity was repeatedly stripped from them have found the dignity and 

grace to sing of the flowering that is our passage to womanhood. 

We as men and women must do everything in our power to support the shelters 

work and make it the safety-net for victims not rely on the victims to deliver the 

solution of piece-meal prosecution. 

The media has played a phenomenal role in bringing this issue to the public’s attention. So often issues don’t get traction because politicians feel that the public 

hasn’t shown that it cares enough. But the media has ensured that the public knows 

about this issue, and the public definitely cares. 

We must appreciate that while modern-day slavery and trafficking is a global 

issue, it is also in our backyard. 

We must make trafficking a priority. 

We must focus on solutions. 

We must allocate the resources needed to achieve the vision allowed by the antitrafficking protocol. 

Together, we can achieve these goals—strategically and financially. To that end, 

I look forward to working with you all. 

Thank you, and I would be glad to answer any questions.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Ambassador, for that very eloquent statement and for the written submission which, without objection, will be made a part of the record, which went into even 

more detail. And I frankly wish you had taken the time to do it 

all, because it is filled with riveting cases, individual examples, 

some of which you began to cite orally. So thank you so much for 

your leadership. 

I do have a couple of questions. I know that you visited Cambodia. Cambodia is one of those countries that the Trafficking in 

Persons Report has moved off the Tier 3 egregious violator list, to 

Tier 2 Watch List. And the point is made in the report that during 

the last year, the Cambodian Government stepped up efforts to arrest, prosecute, and convict traffickers; that the Cambodian Government made clear progress in its anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts. However, it provided only limited assistance to victims, and they made modest efforts to promote awareness on the 

prevention side. 

I was wondering if you might share some additional insights that 

you had with regards to Cambodia. It would appear, after being 

tone deaf in previous years, the Cambodian authorities are finally 

getting it. And I think your visit probably helped spur them along. 

Ambassador ORMOND. Thank you. I would definitely say that the 

sense from Cambodia was that they had definitely made progress. 

There was movement. But from the NGOs, the feeling was that it 

really needed to step up, that it needed to continue on that path. 

My own experience with Cambodia was, I think, a reflection of 

40 years of civil war, and a particularly violent form of trafficking. 

Our particular focus was asked from the NGOs for the children, 

and to specifically do something about the children and the rape 

incidences that I talked about. 

18

So yes, they have moved forward, but they need to do a great 

deal more. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. Let me just raise another country that has a 

serious problem as a source country, and that is Russia. We have 

with us today Dr. Juliette Engel, who is the founder of MiraMed 

and has done an enormous amount of work in rescuing young girls 

in Russia, and has helped us with our witnesses today. She, herself, testified at our hearing just a few months ago. 

One of the things that your Goodwill Ambassador position can do 

is help wake up member states of the United Nations that they 

have a problem. Our Embassies are trying to do it, and every time 

we meet with other parliamentarians, we raise the issue. 

I will never forget in 1999, I was at a parliamentary assembly 

of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and I 

offered a resolution on human trafficking, and was met with such 

utter disbelief by the Russian delegation, the Ukrainians and others. One year later at a parliamentary assembly, a similar venue 

in terms of debate on issues, they joined in and were on board, having accepted the problem in the short time of a year. 

One of the things that Dr. Engel has done so well is to bring witnesses forward, not only to help them obviously get their lives back 

together and to rescue them, but also to help us really know the 

human face of a trafficked woman. 

I remember in 1999 my wife, Marie, members of our staff and 

I met for about 3 hours with women who had been trafficked. As 

they told their stories, there wasn’t a dry eye among any of us. And 

that became the mobilizing, it became a priority, your other P, for 

me and for others as we met with those trafficked women. 

And I am wondering how you might be able to bring that message to the diplomats in New York. They deal with a lot of issues. 

Iran is on the docket, there are so many issues. But this issue is 

tearing the heart out of women, especially women, each and every 

day—creating new victims every day. As we all know, after the sale 

of drugs, trafficking in women is either second or third in terms of 

money maker for organized crime. 

Maybe you might want to speak to that, whether or not, at the 

UN itself, you are able to reach out to diplomats. And secondly, if 

you do make a trip to Russia, I would hope you would visit 

MiraMed and see the good work of the Angel Coalition in Moscow 

and throughout Russia. 

Ambassador ORMOND. I would be happy to explore anything with 

the UN in terms of approaching diplomats. We actually did start 

with a trip to Russia prior to the ceremony that made me the Goodwill Ambassador. 

I believe that in my experience, every member state has its own 

level of denial or understanding of how their own specific culture 

makes certain people vulnerable to trafficking. 

I have a particular soft spot for Russia because I have worked 

there many times. And I feel a great deal can be done in terms of 

public service announcements and educating people. 

But I know that one of the times that I worked there, a survey 

was being done in the 1990s that asked Russian children what they 

wanted to be when they grew up. And 60 percent of 14-year-old 

boys said they wanted to be hard-currency taxi drivers, and 60 perVerDate Mar 21 2002 14:37 Aug 30, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\AGI\061406\28104.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
19

cent of 14-year-old girls said that they wanted to become high-currency prostitutes. And they think that it is a real reflection of the 

economic instability that Russia faced, in terms of how people were 

desperate for an out. 

But I think what has happened is that has changed over time 

to people wanting valid work, and being duped into being trafficked. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. I would hope, and you probably are already 

doing this, that you and your office will avail themselves of the 

good reporting that is done by the U.S. missions abroad. Because 

part of the data collection that goes into the TIP Report, all of 

which obviously does not end up on the pages of the report itself, 

might be very useful, and that kind of collaboration could expand. 

Because I know that you put out your own report just a few 

months ago, which I think was a very, very good effort, as well. 

You made the point that functionally invisible people are disposable. Boy, that is a very powerful phrase. You also point out that 

the lack of language skills often prevents victims from escaping 

their abuse. Would you spend a moment or 2 speaking about the 

educational issues, since we know that microcredit lending is helpful as they are a little older, but it would seem to me that the earlier we start with education, the better. 

Ambassador ORMOND. In particular with the hill tribes, one of 

the things that I encountered was that there are some 30 different 

languages within the hill tribes. So you need more than 30 teachers to go to the hill tribes and teach. 

And for the Thai Government, they have a huge drop-out rate. 

When they take somebody from the hill tribes and they educate 

them in Thai, that person has incredible pressure on them to then 

drop out of teaching and go and take other work, say, in Bangkok. 

But what I also did discover is that within the shelters, the 

young girls who have gone through the experience of being rescued 

and being rehabilitated are very keen to become advocates, and to 

go on to take on the role, relate very much to the women who are 

working in the centers. And I believe it would be possible for education to take the girls who were the victims of trafficking, educate 

them in Thai, and have them become teachers and advocates who 

have a much greater sense of their need to be that, who could teach 

the hill tribes, for instance, Thai. 

What I find from the trips is that if you can look at it from a 

culturally appropriate perspective, maybe you can help them not 

dishonor their culture, but maintain their culture, but still find a 

solution. 

If I may, in India, one of the things that keys into India’s problems is the dowry system, and mothers or fathers who fall into debt 

because they have to produce a dowry for their daughters. And I 

think rather than trying to change that cultural system, it is for 

us to find a way to provide a different loan system. 

Mr. SMITH. You mentioned in your testimony that many victims 

suffer from the battered wife syndrome. Could you elaborate on 

that a bit? And if you also could share stories about your trip to 

Ghana with the Subcommittee. 

Ambassador ORMOND. Absolutely. Battered wife syndrome and 

the Stockholm syndrome, these are syndromes where somebody 

20

who had been a victim, who has been traumatized, are so traumatized that they don’t easily acknowledge, or sometimes don’t recognize, the level of trauma that they have been under. They have a 

different relationship to abuse. They don’t always behave in a way 

that we might expect a victim to behave. 

I think we can maybe all relate to it in terms of the playground 

bully. You may have had the experience where you fulfill the playground bully’s desires, rather than constantly fight them. 

I think women who have been put in these situations, they sometimes take months to actually acknowledge, either to the police or 

to shelters, that they have even been a trafficking victim, because 

it disables their ability to recognize it. 

I have also talked to victims in California who, for instance, have 

gone to testify, but haven’t spoken out in defense of their case, because they are not ready yet as a victim. 

So what the NGOs are dealing with is allowing people to have 

a safe space within the shelter to get over those things emotionally. 

For a lot of the children, the first step that they take is to just 

learn how to play again. And what is regarded as a first sign that 

somebody is recovering is for them to smile. 

Mr. SMITH. Let me just conclude before yielding to my colleague, Tom Tancredo. The $2 million that you did mention, what kind of 

programs does your organization actually engage in, besides the 

good work that you do? 

Ambassador ORMOND. They are involved in shelters. There are 

different offices of the UN that cover trafficking. The United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime is the custodian of the protocol, but 

it intersects with many different offices with refugees, with 

UNICEF, to name but a couple. 

They are also working on education. There was one particular 

program that I was very enthusiastic about that I discovered in 

Asia, which is somebody who is working on computer-based training, developing a program that could be extremely effective in 

teaching not just police, but border patrol, banks, all sorts of different people, from Customs to all these other people who intersect, 

potentially, with traffickers, and who could intervene. And that is 

something that the UNODC is very keen on in terms of the educational aspects. 

The UNODC also focuses on public service announcements and 

doing public radio service announcements to educate people on trafficking, educate the public and take a preventative step. Those are 

just a couple of examples. 

Mr. SMITH. I do have one additional question. Is there more, especially given your leadership on FilmAid, that you believe Hollywood might be able to bring to this issue? I mean, Lifetime, for example, did an excellent miniseries a few months back, that they 

have run several times since, that really nailed it when it came to 

what actually happens during the trafficking of women. It was very 

well done. And I am wondering if there are some suggestions you 

might have. 

It seems to me that public service announcements and using that 

medium is a way, whether through radio or television, to get the 

message out, as well as through print ads. But is there some recommendations you might have? 

21

Ambassador ORMOND. Definitely. There is a certain clout that I 

think people in Hollywood have in terms of getting media attention 

and getting public attention. 

But I also think that Hollywood can take a role, in terms of if 

we can rally people to speak to people’s own culture. For instance, 

in India, I would love to try and have people in Hollywood approach Baliwood and say, ‘‘Can we work together with you to do 

something similar, with Baliwood?’’ Or find the culturally appropriate people who can encourage something internal. 

I think that helps take the sting out of it being a message coming 

in from the outside. And I think that is very important in terms 

of the solution to having a future and being sustainable. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. Mr. Tancredo. 

Mr. TANCREDO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Almost as an aside, 

I was just thinking as the Chairman was talking about the various 

trips he has taken, and the one on which I was able to accompany 

him. We were in Russia, and I remember an incredibly stirring discussion about the degree to which local orphanages were being 

used by the traffickers, and by the people who ran the orphanages. 

I mean, they were simply like marketplaces, and a bus would pull 

up, and a number of children would be sold and taken on the bus 

and taken away. 

I wonder, again almost as an aside, just to the question that the 

Chairman was asking about Russia in particular, has that particular aspect of this phenomena ebbed, or is it still a major problem? 

Ambassador ORMOND. It was something that did come up in my 

trip to Russia, but I think it was more from the perspective of they 

were struggling how to regulate adoption from outside, and deal 

with trafficking, which I think keyed into keeping children in orphanages. 

It is not something that I know a great deal about, but I would 

be really happy to go back to the UNODC and follow up with a better response. 

Mr. TANCREDO. It is particularly diabolical. The situation was so 

horrible. I mean, these people were—it was a marketplace, that is 

all I can say. You know, the people who ran the orphanages were 

selling their charges, selling these children. And literally buses 

would pull up, children would be put on the buses and taken away, 

never to be seen again. It was just incredible. 

I really only have one question about your testimony. In terms 

of the NGOs that you mentioned and the success stories that we 

were certainly happy to hear about, I wondered if you could tell us, 

is there a template that you see there? Is there an NGO, or are 

there NGOs using a particular process to deal with this issue that 

we should highlight? Should there be, in this report for instance, 

a listing of the most successful processes, the most successful interventions, and the NGOs that are responsible for them? So that perhaps we could emulate them, and/or at least highlight them. 

Ambassador ORMOND. Definitely. Hagar is one, or a particular 

NGO that I mentioned that I think has a fantastic program. There 

are many other NGOs, in particular in Thailand and in Cambodia, 

that I visited, that are doing fantastic work. 

22

I am pulling everything together. People who are taking a holistic approach, I think, are having the most impact on providing sustainability for either victims or their families, or even in Ghana, 

the NGO that I worked with was doing fabulous work with traffickers. 

I think there are cases that I have seen, especially in areas of 

extreme poverty, where a certain amount of empathy that is afforded the traffickers, and giving them an out, giving the traffickers themselves skills training, so that they have an alternative, 

as well. 

I encountered families who, frankly, the moral dilemma they face 

is kind of a Sophie’s choice. They have four children. One way out 

for them is either to traffic one of their children, to sell one of their 

children, or to traffic a child into their family to work for them. 

They are the kind of moral dilemmas that I guess we don’t necessarily face ourselves here. 

But having an enormous amount of patience in terms of dealing 

with the situation, revisiting villages again and again and again, 

seems to me something that makes it more sustainable. 

Absolutely, in any report we need to acknowledge the solutions 

that are working. I think that is crucial in terms of them expanding, expanding those solutions and finding out, what is the solution, what does it distill down to? What does it come down to in 

terms of the key contributory factors that make it sustainable? 

Mr. TANCREDO. Yes. I think that would be a really important 

thing for us to think about, Mr. Chairman, in terms of encouragement. 

It is not to suggest that there are not a lot of people in the NGO 

business who are not—I mean, they are certainly doing it for the 

right reason, I don’t doubt that. But I think it has just been my 

experience also working with some, that they are floundering themselves, looking for ways to deal with it. 

And perhaps something that we could compile would give them 

that ability. And it would also give people who want to contribute 

some sort of, you know, a list, if you will, of the ones that do a better job, and I think should be rewarded by it. 

Ambassador ORMOND. Absolutely. The NGOs that I have met 

with are crying out for more direct communication with government in particular. And whether that be their own government or 

governments in other countries. 

I think globalization is clearly one of the, this is the dark side 

of globalization. And I think we have to look at it in terms of everybody working together, different governments working with NGOs 

in different countries, and working together to maybe bring pressure on their own local government, national government. 

Mr. TANCREDO. And just as a very last point, as we talk about 

the movement of children, especially orphans, we have to remember, even in our own history, there were times when things happened for reasons of economics and a variety of other things, that 

perhaps make us more sensitive to this whole thing. 

But there was such a thing in the late 1800s as an orphan train 

that used to go across the United States. It used to start out in 

New York and move across the West. My wife’s grandmother was 

a person on an orphan train that left New York and was actually 

23

eventually picked off the train by a farmer in Montana. People 

would line up, you know. They would stop at various places, kids 

would get off. Farmers would come up and say, ‘‘That one, and that 

one, and that one,’’ take them away, and off the train would go. My 

wife’s grandmother ended up in Montana in that process. I mean, 

it is kind of just an interesting historical background, I guess, for 

us to think about. 

Ambassador ORMOND. I do think that there was a phenomena 

that I encountered particularly in Cambodia. And this is anecdotal, 

it is not something that I have any concrete evidence of. But there 

is a belief that there is a certain amount of adoption of HIV/AIDS 

orphans going on, and then that child is brought up in the belief 

that it is a sibling or part of the family. And then, at a certain 

point when they are sold, they realize that maybe they weren’t. 

And the NGOs are sort of discovering well, maybe that wasn’t that 

person’s child at all, or they go back and talk to the families and 

find that it was maybe a different circumstance. 

Mr. TANCREDO. Well, anyway, thank you very much for your 

work, Ms. Ormond. 

Ambassador ORMOND. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Ambassador Watson. No, okay. 

A final question. In 1984, I travelled with Jim Grant, the great 

leader of UNICEF, who is probably the father of the child survival 

revolution to El Salvador, and saw firsthand how important it was 

that faith-based organizations—in this case it was the Catholic 

Church—how important they were in making it possible to get the 

immunizations, and to just disseminate the message very quickly, 

and to get the immunization out to upwards of 200,000 kids. It was 

incredible. 

Eleanor Nagy, some other members of our staff, my wife, and I 

were recently in Uganda, and saw the great work that churches 

were doing on the AIDS issue. Everywhere I and many of my colleagues go, I try to meet with religiously-based organizations. 

And I have been amazed at the network that exists out there 

that can be utilized to get a prevention message out from the pulpit, or from the mosque, or from the synagogue. And also to provide 

shelters. 

Eleanor and I were recently in Peru and saw these young Peruvian girls in Lima who were learning computer skills, sewing skills, 

a vast array of skills under the auspices of nuns who were running 

that shelter. And we have asked the TIP office to provide some 

funding for it, and I hope they will. 

So I was just wondering, as Ambassador for Trafficking, if you 

look to meet with religious leaders when you do travel, so as to 

bring them further into the prioritization. I am going to start using 

four Ps now, for we don’t make it a priority. 

Ambassador ORMOND. For myself, yes, I would be happy to meet 

with anybody in society. And absolutely, religious leaders. In terms 

of dealing with this issue, I think they can have a great deal of influence. Yes. 

Mr. SMITH. It has been my experience that they have compassion 

and they have concern for the vulnerable and the weakest. But 

they also have an infrastructure that is second to none. And they 

always have an audience virtually every week, regardless of the deVerDate Mar 21 2002 14:37 Aug 30, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\AGI\061406\28104.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
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nomination. So it seems to me that that is one way of reaching 

massive amounts of people. 

I think they need to be made aware that they have a role to play. 

So I just respectfully submit that this is something that all of us 

should be doing more of. 

Ambassador ORMOND. Yes. I mean, I think not only in terms of 

the infrastructure in terms of shelters, but also their outreach to 

the business community, and to civil society could be used well. 

Mr. SMITH. Sure. Anything else you would like to add? 

Ambassador ORMOND. I would only add that it would be great if 

we could work with the United States Government, if the UN could 

work with the United States Government to put pressure on other 

countries to sign and ratify the Trafficking Protocol, which is the 

first step to their finding and working on internal legislation. 

Mr. SMITH. Excellent point. Thank you, Ambassador Ormond, for 

your testimony and your leadership; for bringing a message that is 

so often overlooked and neglected—especially by governments. You 

are doing an enormous, an extraordinary job. And I know that all 

of us on both sides of the aisle deeply appreciate your leadership, 

and look forward to working with you going forward. 

Ambassador ORMOND. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you so much. This now moves from being a 

briefing to a hearing. 

[Whereupon, the briefing was adjourned and the Subcommittee 

proceeded to other business.] 

Mr. SMITH. The hearing will come to order. And I would like to 

invite to the witness table Ambassador John Miller, who is Director 

of the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, and Senior Advisor to Secretary of State 

Condoleezza Rice on Human Trafficking. 

From 1985 to 1993, Ambassador Miller served in the United 

States House of Representatives from the State of Washington. 

Prior to this, he was active in the State and municipal governments, serving as Assistant Attorney General for the State of 

Washington. 

It is a privilege to have you back, Mr. Ambassador. The floor is 

yours. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JOHN MILLER, DIRECTOR, 

OFFICE TO COMBAT TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Ambassador MILLER. Well, Mr. Chairman, it is good to be here 

with you, Congressman Tancredo, and Congresswoman Watson, 

who we have been at many meetings together. 

Mr. Chairman, you asked me to come testify about this report. 

Of course, this report is here because years ago, when people were 

only dimly aware of the scourge of modern-day slavery, you took 

the lead in sponsoring the Anti-Trafficking Victim Protections legislation. And you have continued to lead the way. And we thank 

you for that. 

I have a copy of my written statement for the record, and if there 

is no objection—and I will try to talk a little more informally. 

This is the sixth annual report. It recognizes that the challenge 

of modern-day slavery exists in every country of the world, includVerDate Mar 21 2002 14:37 Aug 30, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00028 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\AGI\061406\28104.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
25

ing the United States of America. We all have what we call a 

human trafficking problem. 

The goal of the report, I think this was the goal that you and 

Congress intended, the goal is to spotlight modern-day slavery. The 

work that is being done, the tricks of the slave masters, and to encourage action to throw the traffickers in jail and help the victims. 

Now, there are many ways this can be done, and it is not just 

from evaluating countries. As you know, in our report we have victims’ stories. And this report is dedicated—her picture is on the 

next-to-last page—to a woman from Indonesia, Nour Miyati. 

Nour Miyati, of course, represents millions who have been held 

in slavery. She came from Indonesia seeking a better life in the 

Near East, to work as a domestic, to send money back to her family. I met her at a cafe in Riyadh. She had fallen prey to owners 

who not only worked her 15–18 hours a day and gave her no pay 

and no time off, but abused her, beat her. But she was a valuable 

‘‘commodity.’’ And so when they saw she was sick, they took her to 

the hospital for ‘‘repairs.’’ And at that time it was discovered she 

had gangrene. In this picture you can see several of her toes and 

fingers have been amputated. 

The case came to light because of that hospital visit. And 

through a lawyer supplied by the Indonesian Embassy, she has 

been fighting that case. An initial court case sentenced her, not the 

perpetrator, sentenced her to 79 lashes. That, I am pleased to report after a visit to Saudi Arabia, that has been reversed. But Nour 

Miyati stands for so many other victims in this world. 

In addition in this report, as you will see on page 34, we highlight best practices of countries, because we are trying to give positive examples. We give examples from Senegal to Iraq to Romania. 

And I think, Congressman Tancredo, you hit on this when you said 

NGOs need to know what is working. 

This is an initial effort to highlight some efforts. We are going 

to try to do more on our Web site, which NGOs around the world 

look at, to say, ‘‘Here, this is working here, this is working there.’’

And then we have a Trafficking in Persons Hero section. Last 

year—Ambassador Ormond has just mentioned Hagar in Cambodia—last year one of our heroes was the head of Hagar. We have 

eight or nine heroes this year. Of course, there are thousands of heroes, but we mention a few. 

Now, getting on to the evaluations of countries. We do rank 149 

countries that have on the order of 100 victims or more. There are 

a few countries that still aren’t in here. Generally that is because 

we couldn’t get enough information. I believe there is a trafficking 

problem in every country in the world, but there are still a few 

countries of which we haven’t gotten enough information. And 

there are some countries where there was not an effective government to be rated. 

The sources we use are Embassies, NGOs, daring activists, foreign governments, our own visits, the news media. The standards 

we apply are the standards that you all have set out in the law. 

Sometimes we are criticized by foreign governments, sometimes we 

are even criticized by those that look at the report, the standards 

get criticized. Well, maybe they are too subjective or whatever. 

26

I think they are pretty good standards that you have laid out. 

And we try to apply those standards. And they are pretty darn detailed. 

As I said, the goal is not to punish; it is to bring about action. 

This year we placed a new emphasis—or more emphasis, I should 

say—on forced labor, along with sex trafficking. 

You will see sections on bonded labor. I was personally out in 

India meeting with victims of bonded labor just a couple of months 

ago. It is a widespread practice in certain parts of the world, where 

generations are held at the same rice mill and brick kiln, as you 

mentioned. 

We do have more emphasis on this. Some countries’ governments 

got lower ratings this year because of inattention to forced labor. 

One thing I would like to highlight, there is a misconception in 

parts of the world on the issue of commercial sex, not just under 

our law, but under the UN protocol. Any child under the age of 18 

that is being used for a commercial sex act is considered a victim 

of trafficking. And this is something we really have to keep in 

mind. 

Now, if you compare this year’s report and last year’s, you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, in your introductory remarks, looking 

around the world that there has been the start of progress. Almost 

a 50 percent increase in convictions of traffickers worldwide, up to 

4,700. Many more shelters for victims set up. As you said, 41 countries passing anti-trafficking in persons laws. And not surprisingly, 

reflecting that, there has been a slight increase overall in the ratings. 

And you will see that a significant number of the countries that 

were on Tier 3 last year moved up to Tier 2 Watch List, and a significant number that were on Tier 2 Watch List moved up to Tier 

2. 

However, there were also numbers of countries moving down, 

from Tier 2 to Tier 2 Watch List, and Tier 2 to Tier 3. I think this 

Congress very wisely in the revision, I believe it was in 2003, said, 

in effect, we don’t want the status quo here; we want to see appreciable progress, increasing efforts. And that is what we have asked 

for countries. 

There are some examples of individual countries doing well. I 

mean, Ecuador, that was Tier 3, a First Lady jumped into this effort, and suddenly there is more investigations underway and a 

new law. United Arab Emirates, that got a lot of criticism last 

year, and deservedly so, but since being put in Tier 3 have freed 

almost 7,000 child camel jockeys, and, working with UNICEF, have 

sheltered them and helped get them back to their original countries. That doesn’t mean the problem is solved, but it does mean 

there has been some progress. 

Jamaica, Greece, some other examples of countries that have 

moved up. 

However—there is always a however, right—you still find questions about the efforts of many major countries. We still have our 

friend and ally, Saudi Arabia, on Tier 3. And if you look at Tier 

2 Watch List—which could be interpreted as a watch list, a warning list, a worry list—there are several countries that you mentioned that have been there before, are still there. Mexico, Russia, 

27

India, China. And some new countries on that list, Tier 2 Watch 

List, such as Malaysia and Brazil. So that shows the challenge that 

we face. 

Nonetheless, in part because of the news media around the world 

that has increased its coverage, in part because of the attention 

that the Congress of the United States and our President, whenever he speaks, gives to this issue, I think we are seeing a growing 

momentum. I think we see more and more people becoming part 

of a 21st century abolitionist movement. 

I have made enough general comments. Why don’t I yield to your 

specific questions? 

[The prepared statement of Ambassador Miller follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JOHN MILLER, DIRECTOR, OFFICE TO

COMBAT TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Thank you Mr. Chairman, Last week, we released the State Department’s 2006 

Trafficking in Persons Report. As mandated by Congress, this, the sixth annual such 

compendium, recognizes trafficking in persons for what it is, modern-day slavery. 

The Report also demonstrates that every country in the world, including the United 

States of America, has a human trafficking problem. 

Trafficking in persons relies on coercion and exploitation. It thrives on converting 

hope to fear. It is maintained through violence. And it is highly profitable. 

The State Department and our embassies’ goal is to spotlight the scourge of 

human trafficking and work with governments to jail traffickers, protect victims and 

ultimately eliminate this problem. These efforts aim also to expose the tricks of the 

slave masters, which are the same as they were back in the 19th century, namely, 

deception, fraud, kidnapping, and control through confinement, beating, rape, and, 

in some cases, murder. 

This year’s Report ranks 149 countries found to be a source, destination, or transit 

country for on the order of 100 victims, the threshold for inclusion in the report. 

Nine additional nations are listed as special cases. Generally, countries not listed 

in the Report are either those about which we have insufficient knowledge of human 

trafficking—oftentimes countries where there are fewer than 100 documented trafficking cases—or those where there has not been an effective government to rank 

during the reporting period. 

Woven throughout the introduction of this year’s Report are the stories of victims 

of trafficking. In fact, this year’s edition is dedicated to one such victim, Nour 

Miyati, a young Indonesian woman who went to the Near East as a domestic servant hoping to find money for her family. 

I met with Nour Miyati in Riyadh. Nour Miyati, as you will see from the picture 

in the back of the Report, has missing fingers, missing toes; a victim of abuse, servitude, and torture. She is a reminder that although the Report describes governments and categories, it is in the end about individual human beings who have suffered the terrible indignities of this evil trade. 

Our sources are diverse: law enforcement, U.S. Embassies, NGOs worldwide, daring activists, foreign governments, and our own visits. Everything enters the mix. 

Extensive analysis and review goes into the assessment of each country and its assignment into Tier 1, 2, 2 Watch List, or 3. 

Country ratings are based strictly on governments’ actions to combat trafficking 

in persons, as defined by U.S. law. The standards are set forth in the Trafficking 

Victim’s Protection Act, as amended, and are applied equally to every country. We 

examine each country individually. 

The goal of this report is not to punish, but to stimulate government action to 

end modern-day slavery. 

This year, we decided to place special emphasis on trafficking for labor exploitation, particularly involuntary servitude of foreign laborers. Forced labor may involve foreign workers who end up in conditions of involuntary servitude, or domestic 

servants, or victims trafficked within their own country. 

Sex trafficking is still the largest category of transnational slavery, we believe. It 

is intrinsically linked to prostitution and U.S. policy states that prostitution contributes to the phenomenon of trafficking in persons. That is why, to combat sex slavery, we are urging a greater focus on demand-educating and dissuading the socalled ‘‘customers.’’

28

I want to highlight that under U.S. federal law and international law, If a child 

is under the age of 18 and is being used for a commercial sex act, the child is considered a victim of trafficking; and a crime victim, regardless of the child’s consent, 

and an individual who exploits a prostituted child should be punished. Anyone who 

facilitates that act of exploitation is a trafficker. Yet many countries around the 

world simply do very little about children who are victims of trafficking. 

Comparing this year’s report with that of last year, we have hard evidence that 

Tier 2 Watch list and Tier 3 are effective designations. Thanks to intensified engagement by the Department of State and increased political commitment from the 

governments themselves, anti-slavery efforts improved in many countries. 

Of the 14 countries placed on Tier 3 this time last year, eight have moved up: 

five moved up within three months (when the President made a final determination 

of ranking last September) and another three, Cambodia, Ecuador, and Kuwait, 

moved up on this year’s report. 

The Tier 2 Watch list countries showed similar improvement: of the 27 countries 

placed on Tier 2W in 2005, 16 moved up to Tier 2 while three fell to Tier 3 (Belize, 

Uzbekistan, and Zimbabwe). 

Ecuador is a good example. This past year, its government enacted new measures 

to identify trafficking situations, arrest and prosecute traffickers, assist victims, and 

raise public awareness. Ecuador has jumped from Tier 3 to Tier 2 in the 2006 TIP 

Report. 

United Arab Emirates and Jamaica, with very different slave problems, both took 

exemplary action to move off Tier 3. 

In the United Arab Emirates, hundreds of camel jockey boys—former slaves—

have been repatriated, returned to their home countries (especially to Bangladesh 

and Pakistan). UAE opened a shelter devoted to rescued victims of human trafficking and robots are riding camels instead of children. 

Jamaica increased efforts to investigate trafficking crimes, undertook raids and 

arrests, and temporarily suspended work permits for foreign ‘‘exotic dancers,’’ some 

of whom were victims of human trafficking. 

Greece is an excellent example of improvement over time. In 2003: Tier 3 and in 

2005: Tier Two. Greece moved up to Tier 2 by demonstrating significant dedication 

to protecting victims in cooperation with NGOs. Greece improved cooperation with 

domestic NGOs with the completion of a Memorandum of Cooperation allowing 

Greek authorities to work more directly with NGOs, and after several years of negotiation, Greece signed an agreement with Albania for the repatriation of Albanian 

victims. So often, greater effort is a low cost or no cost initiative. And the good news 

is positive, increased efforts on the part of many countries. 

The bad news is lack of effort by some of the world’s largest countries. On every 

continent, countries are failing to live up to their obligation to protect the weak, and 

bring criminals to justice. 

In every case, as for all Tier 3 and Tier 2 Watch list countries, the U.S. will outline a mini-action plan through which to spur commitment, together, on behalf of 

modern-day slaves. 

Notice that several Tier 2Watch list designees are there largely as a result of 

labor trafficking, including Brazil, Israel, the Gulf States, Taiwan, and India. 

Shining through this global tragedy are rays of hope. In addition to the tremendous efforts of heroic individuals and private organizations, governments around the 

globe are awakening to the issue and taking action to end this form of modern-day 

slavery. 

Worldwide, the number of trafficking-related convictions has increased to more 

than 4,750 in 2005—a 63 percent increase in just two years. 

An additional 41 countries passed anti-trafficking legislation last year—strengthening the world’s legal tools with which to hold traffickers accountable. 

The movement to end modern slavery, therefore, continues to gain momentum, 

thanks to the President’s leadership and Congress’s commitment. This hearing and 

the work of this panel represent vital components of the 21st century abolitionist 

movement and the effort to protect the hundreds of thousands of silent victims of 

the international crime of modern-day slavery. 

Thank you.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Ambassador Miller. Let me 

begin. Immediately, the day before Chancellor Merkel visited the 

White House and President Bush, I convened a hearing that focused on the issue of trafficking in Germany as it relates especially 

to the World Cup, which was then several weeks away. 

29

At the time we had asked the State Department to provide a witness or two, and regrettably, they chose not to. But I think at least 

the message was heard at Foggy Bottom that there is a great deal 

of concern on Capitol Hill about, and I know you share it—you 

raised it when the TIP Report was released, and I certainly applaud you for that—the specter of women from Slavic countries and 

from Russia being trafficked into Germany for prostitution purposes—forced prostitution. 

Our hearing and all that preceded it was an appeal to the German Government, to realize that when you turn women into commodities by legalizing prostitution, women get hurt. They are exploited. 

The studies clearly indicate, as you know, Mr. Ambassador, that 

women who are in prostitution by huge numbers want to get out 

but feel there is no way out. Seventy-five percent and more would 

like to leave. Upwards of 80 percent-plus are raped. And many of 

the women who end up in prostitution have some dysfunction along 

their life line that led to their finding themselves in that terrible 

situation, whether it be an incest or a rape earlier in their lives, 

often as a young girl. So there is an acting out that is extremely 

unhealthy, that then is exploited. 

So those who sing the praises of the Happy Hooker, I think, have 

not looked into the misery of women who find themselves in prostitution. And the line of demarcation, I would respectfully submit, 

between prostitution that seemingly is voluntary, and those who 

are the result of force, fraud, and coercion—trafficking—is often 

very thin and almost obscure in many cases. And you might want 

to speak to that. 

My question is, knowing that all of this is about to happen, and 

I know the German Government took some remedial efforts to try 

to prevent it, has the United States beefed up our efforts to chronicle and report on what is happening during the World Cup? Are 

there any U.S. assets deployed, FBI or any others in this regard, 

knowing that this huge influx is likely to be occurring as we speak? 

Ambassador MILLER. Well, our office has had extensive communication with our Embassy in Bahn on this issue. We are asking 

for information, we expect to be getting information. 

I have personally met with the German Ambassador here on this 

issue, to express the concern. And in a way, we were seconding a 

concern that had already been raised throughout Europe. 

As you know, Mr. Chairman, there was a meeting of the European Parliament in which delegates from 15 or 20 countries raised 

the concern that, with the World Cup and with the expectation 

that thousands of women might be coming for commercial sex, 

there would be many trafficking victims. 

And so I think the German Government has not only heard from 

us, they have heard from the Government of Sweden, they have 

heard from many other governments on this issue. 

They have stated, the Government of Germany has stated, that 

they have added additional hotlines. They have increased police 

training, they have increased the number of police. They have 

stepped up information activities, et cetera. 

But what will happen at this point, I don’t know. 

30

Mr. SMITH. Let me ask you, Mr. Ambassador, I noticed in the 

TIP Report a positive movement. There were 28 countries that 

moved in the right direction, and 23 countries that moved in the 

negative direction. 

Do you know what accounts for that? Are there specific countries 

that you might want to speak to, for instance, the Czech Republic? 

We also know that there is a problem associated with the North 

Koreans. 

So could you perhaps elaborate on what you think is happening 

here? 

I also want to commend you for having initiated coverage on 

some new countries, some eight countries that heretofore had not 

been covered by the TIP Report. And three of them have found 

their way on the Watch List, so certainly it is necessary that they 

be covered by this report. 

Ambassador MILLER. First of all, I want to associate myself with 

the remarks you made as a prelude to your previous question, on 

the link between prostitution and sex trafficking. I do think the 

evidence is overwhelming. 

Now, on your last question, I think this 28 countries up, 23 countries down, overall, is probably, as near as we can tell, an accurate 

reflection of the progress in the world. There is movement in the 

right direction because of the indicators you and I discussed. 

But as I said, the law says make appreciable progress, increasing 

efforts. And for example, you mentioned the Czech Republic. The 

Czech Republic has done some good things. They have done some 

good things to combat sex trafficking, they have done some good 

things on victim protection and prosecution. 

They dipped from Tier 1 to Tier 2 for a couple of reasons. First 

of all, the sentences that they were giving to traffickers, the majority of the sentences were suspended or probationary sentences. And 

as you know in your law, you asked for punishment that deters. 

The second reason, and maybe even more important, we did give 

more attention to forced labor in this report. This followed on the 

provision that you and your colleagues put in the last reauthorization. 

In the Czech Republic, while we found numerous prosecutions for 

sex trafficking, we did not find that for labor trafficking. And not 

only our information, but international organization reporting, 

showed increased labor trafficking. 

In addition, there were several factories in the Czech Republic 

operating with North Korean labor. And while the Czech Republic 

did investigate, there were no interviews, private interviews, that 

we could tell, with the workers. It appeared that the money went 

to an agency of the North Korean Government. It appeared that 

the workers did not have freedom. And while I don’t doubt that 

their conditions are better than in North Korea, in our minds there 

was a great concern that this was still slavery. 

So for those reasons, despite many good things the Czech Republic did, they dipped from 1 to 2. But we are working with the Czech 

Republic. We expect the Czech Republic to move in some of these 

areas, and we hope they will be back in Tier 1 next year. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Ambassador, one of the things we did in the 2003 

act, was to put an emphasis on not only convictions, but jail senVerDate Mar 21 2002 14:37 Aug 30, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00034 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\AGI\061406\28104.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
31

tences. Because the belief was that countries could create a ruse 

of prosecutorial activity, when really nothing was happening, other 

than some indictments. 

And I am wondering if you have seen in the reporting that more 

traffickers are actually going to prison, and going to prison with 

sentences that are commensurate with the crime. 

When we originally did the 2000 act, as you know so well, we put 

up to life imprisonment for this grave act of trafficking, because we 

believe this is the equivalent of rape, and therefore should be treated as such. And the fact of the matter is that prosecutors, U.S. Attorneys, including my own in New Jersey, Christopher Christi, has 

been able to secure a number of significant convictions and long 

prison sentences as a direct result of that. He has made it a priority, again using that fourth P. Hopefully other U.S. Attorneys 

have done so, as well. 

But in other countries, are you finding that people are doing real 

time? 

Ambassador MILLER. I think, speaking broadly, sentences are 

getting tougher. More people are going to jail. Okay, we have seen 

that in the United States the last 4 or 5 years. The Coretto brothers up in New York just went to jail for 50 years apiece. 

And I think that is true in the world. I would say sentences 

around the world, it is a generalization, are lighter than here. 

There are certainly many countries, even in the so-called developed 

areas—referring to Europe—where the sentences, as I mentioned, 

too many of the sentences are probationary or conditional. 

So I think we have to keep pushing on this. People have to realize that what we are talking here, this word ‘‘trafficking,’’ it is almost antiseptic. It is a euphemism. I mean, it stands not only for 

modern-day slavery; it stands for a combination of kidnapping, it 

often stands for a combination of kidnapping, beatings, imprisonment, and often rape. 

Well, all of those crimes individually, in a lot of countries, would 

bring really tough sentences. So we have an education task ahead 

of us. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Ambassador, one of the issues we have pressed 

for years is that internal trafficking and trafficking across national 

borders is really a distinction without a difference. And it reminds 

me of the difference between an IDP (internally displaced person) 

and a refugee. If they are sitting in a camp, if they are displaced, 

going across a state line doesn’t matter much to their plight. 

I note that this year’s report does include some extensive coverage and reporting on internal trafficking. And I am wondering 

what role that played in the assignment of the tier rankings, and 

whether or not India might rise to a Tier 3 country because of their 

internal trafficking for both sex practices and exploitation, as well 

as labor. 

Ambassador MILLER. No question that internal trafficking is a 

major factor in India, and has to be considered as you read our narrative on India, where there is a lot of emphasis on that. 

India has done some positive things in the sex trafficking area. 

They weren’t very good about supplying information about arrests 

and convictions this year, but anecdotally we know there is some 

evidence there. And they are considering changes in their law that 

32

are positive. Of course, they have a tremendously vibrant NGO 

community. 

But when you talk about internal trafficking, and you talked 

about bonded labor, it is almost all internal. I visited with the 

bonded laborers in South India that had survived and been freed, 

people that had been working several generations to pay off a debt 

that Grandfather incurred maybe 50 years ago. 

And I would have to say that while India has a good law on the 

subject—they even provide compensation for survivors—it is very 

hard, I could not find any evidence of a trafficker or so-called 

owner being punished for holding victims in these conditions in 

India. And I would say, to put it charitably, there is a divided view 

in India on this issue. 

I found NGOs, even some state governments, the National 

Human Rights Commission, the ILO, all of these groups are saying 

this is a huge problem; it could affect 10–40 million people. It is 

largely tied to the caste system. The Federal Government feels it 

is a very small problem, at least the officials in the Ministry of 

Labor. 

We are hoping, working with the Government of India, that we 

will get more attention and more focus on this area during the 

coming year. 

Mr. SMITH. Just a couple of final questions, then I have about a 

dozen I would like to submit for the record and ask you to respond. 

Charles Kernaghan, in his testimony—and I would just note that 

the last time that we had him as a witness was when he brought 

forth some very powerful testimony on what was happening in 

Central America in the Kathy Lee Gifford situation, and that is the 

first time I had met him, so we are glad to have him back. But he 

makes the point that upwards of 10,000 foreign laborers have been 

trafficked to garment factories in Jordan’s free-trade zone. And I 

am wondering, since Jordan is a Tier 2 country, shouldn’t that 

have at least triggered them to becoming a Tier 3, or at least a 

Watch List country? 

Ambassador MILLER. Well, this report that Mr. Kernaghan and 

the National Labor Council did was a stunning report. When it arrived in our office, I called him. We had a meeting. It arrived after 

all the ratings had been gone through this whole process. We held 

up the printing to include a reference to this report. 

So I cannot say Jordan’s rating is affected by the report. However, the Jordanian Government should be well aware of the impact the report has had. 

I have personally talked with the DCM of the Jordanian Embassy. I have personally e-mailed our Ambassador in Jordan on 

this. My office is trying to set up a meeting with Jordan’s Ambassador here. We take this very seriously, very seriously. Because the 

report, the reason it was so interesting to me, this report does not 

just allege poor working conditions—that can be a concern, obviously, to all—but our office is concerned about slavery. That is the 

mandate you gave us. 

And the report, in its charges about removal of passports, confinement of workers, keeping them from leaving facilities, beatings, 

et cetera, illegal recruitment fees, these are all indicators not just 

of poor working conditions, which they undoubtedly are; these are 

33

indicators that add up to meeting the trafficking in persons definition in our law. 

So we will be pursuing this issue with the Government of Jordan. And I have to say the initial response from the Government 

of Jordan has been an open and positive one. But we will see. 

There are some specific cases we are pursuing, and maybe Mr. 

Kernaghan will get into those cases in his testimony. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. Let me just ask on military deployments 

finally. As you know, the United Nations has, under Prince Zayeed, 

come up with a very good list of actionable items that they hopefully will implement. NATO has done likewise. The United States 

Government is doing the same with our armed forces. 

How would you rate those efforts? I would just note parenthetically that when we were doing the Trafficking Victims Protection 

Act of 2005, we wanted to create a special office within the Department of Defense, with the rank of an assistant secretary, to work 

on this issue, and got an enormous amount of push-back, so much 

so that it is not in the bill, as anyone who would read it, would 

know. 

We have gotten a commitment that combatant commanders will 

have somebody on their staff that deals with the trafficking issue, 

and we are waiting hopefully that that will materialize. 

But what has been your office’s, what would be your sense as to 

how well they are cooperating on the trafficking issue, and obviously on the prostitution issue? And also, the 2005 act tasked 

USAID and the DoD to create an action plan for vulnerable populations so that when a tsunami hits, or a conflict of a stricken area, 

there will be a protocol as to how we should act, aid workers should 

act, so that trafficking and the exploitation of vulnerable people, 

sex trade, or labor is mitigated. 

Is that part of the law being implemented? Are they working 

with you on that? 

Ambassador MILLER. Okay. Let me answer in reverse order and 

start with the question I cannot answer. Always good to admit you 

can’t answer a question. I will get back to you on your last question 

on the status of that plan. 

But your other questions I do want to answer. I think you even 

started out on the international organizations. Because in this law, 

in the law you just passed, not only was it asked for additional emphasis on forced labor, you asked us for the first time to evaluate 

international organizations, which we did. It is in the back of the 

report, I forget the page. 

And so there is an evaluation of the UN peacekeepers, OSCE, 

and NATO. NATO and the OSCE I will skip over, because I think 

they are doing reasonably well. 

The UN peacekeepers is another situation. I think you are all familiar that over the past year, there has been what is called by 

some, ‘‘a sex for food scandal.’’ Numerous allegations of trafficking 

and child rape by UN peacekeepers. And the UN, to its credit, sent 

an investigator out, Prince Zayeed of Jordan. And of course, he 

came back with a report, I think a very fair, well done report. 

The punchline was, and I am paraphrasing here, Mr. SecretaryGeneral, the United Nations commendably has a zero tolerance on 

34

trafficking policy. Unfortunately, there is zero compliance with zero 

tolerance. 

Now, since then the wheels are spinning there. Ambassador 

Bolton has attempted to highlight the issue. He held a hearing on 

this at the Security Council. 

I would have to say that while there has been increased attention and an increased number of speeches, I don’t know that on the 

ground the discipline and training is yet taking place. The United 

Nations is dealing with 103 troop-contributing countries, and the 

United Nations has a bureaucracy that, as far as I can tell, makes 

our bureaucracy look streamlined, which I never thought I would 

say that as a Member of Congress. And so hopefully there will be 

some progress. We have got to keep pushing, we really have to 

keep pushing. 

Now, on to the Department of Defense. I think the Department 

of Defense—of course, we can all go into the past. We can all say, 

‘‘Oh, this wasn’t done years ago or months ago, or the military, of 

all countries in the world, including the United States, has been related to trafficking, and may still be related to trafficking and sexual exploitation.’’

However, from my perspective as Ambassador-at-Large on Slavery and chairing a senior policy operating group, I think the U.S. 

Department of Defense has taken some very significant actions. 

And I would say that they are probably the leading military in the 

world. Maybe Sweden is up there with them. But they are, if not 

the leading, one of the leading militaries in the world when it 

comes to combatting trafficking. 

You mentioned the change in the military code of justice. First 

they had a zero tolerance on trafficking policy, then they changed. 

Because we talked with them, we said, ‘‘How can the soldier tell 

whether, at a commercial sexual establishment, the person is a victim or not?’’ So then they changed that. You cannot patronize. 

Then they instituted training for all troops. This training has 

gone into effect for most of the troops, as far as we can tell. Obviously, we want to see that every one of America’s military gets 

training in that. 

Then, beyond that, there was a serious story in the Chicago Tribune, as you are familiar with, last fall, or maybe it was last December, I can’t remember, talking about trafficking from Nepal into 

Iraq. The story was about Nepalese who were deceived in Nepal, 

thought they were going to get jobs in five-star hotels in Jordan, 

got sent off to Jordan, then were sent into Iraq. They were killed 

in Iraq on the way to what was supposed to be their job. 

Well, the Defense Department did a thorough investigation. And 

to their credit, in April the Commandant General Casey put out a 

memorandum that sets out some very good guidelines for contractors, starting with that they must see that the workers have control of their own passports. And holding the American contractors 

responsible, even though there are subcontractors down the line. In 

addition, they have a regulation in the works that is very technical, 

but I understand will enable them to really hold contractors more 

responsible. 

35

So I would say they are taking steps in the right direction. Everybody—my office, Defense, every government in the world—can 

take more steps. 

Mr. SMITH. Before I get to Mr. Tancredo, your office and Ambassador Ormond’s, do you work together? Is there a collaboration? 

And I think her statement that ‘‘fundamentally invisible people are 

disposable people’’ is a phrase we all need to repeat over and over 

again. If they are out of sight, they could be exploited in a heinous 

way. 

But do you work with her office? 

Ambassador MILLER. We have. In fact, I don’t know if she is still 

here—there you are—in her first weeks in office, she was kind 

enough to come down and pay me a visit. And we discussed the 

issue, and we look forward to cooperating with her and her efforts. 

We want to cooperate with everybody. And I am just delighted 

that the Ambassador is taking the lead for UNODC on this. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Tancredo. 

Mr. TANCREDO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In the report under 

India, I notice that there is nothing mentioned about the Dalits 

and the effect of that particular phenomena inside India on the 

caste system—or at least if it is in there, I just missed it—and how 

that affects especially the trafficking in internal laborers. 

Is it something that you think needs to be highlighted? And I 

mean, I certainly do. Do you think it is something that we can have 

any effect on, I suppose? There has been an awful lot done lately, 

an awful lot said about the Dalits and their plight being brought 

to the attention of the world. I just had hoped that perhaps it 

would have found a place in here. And again, I just read it quickly 

and perhaps missed it. 

Ambassador MILLER. Yes. Well, if it is not mentioned, and I can’t 

remember—and it is a long report, so you may be right. But if it 

is not mentioned, it certainly should be. 

I think if you talk with Indian observers, Indian NGOs, you will 

consistently be told that yes, a majority of the bonded labor victims, the overwhelming majority are of the lowest castes, including 

Dalits. They are certainly not of the upper castes. So there is obviously some link there. 

I am not enough of an expert on the caste system in India to 

comment in more detail. But when you have slavery, attitudes are 

involved. It may be attitudes relating to caste or social standing. 

It may be attitudes toward foreigners. That is in a lot of countries 

involved. It may be attitudes toward gender. That is involved in a 

lot of countries. I mean, there are so many of these factors that 

come into play. 

So we will look more at that issue in the coming year, Congressman, that you have raised. 

Mr. TANCREDO. I would appreciate it. I know that there are laws 

that have been passed by the Indian Government to try to address 

it, but like many laws of this nature, they are not enforced. And 

that is why if we talk about it in the report, it may bring pressure 

on them to do exactly that. That is why I bring it up. 

Ambassador MILLER. I think if you all get a chance to visit India 

to raise this issue, I think the Indian Government—we get a variety of reactions from governments around the world to our report; 

36

some are positive, some are mildly negative, some express disappointment. I think it is fair to say the Indian Government did 

not receive this report with glee. And I think we want to be constructive, we want to engage. India is our friend. They are an ally, 

they are a large democracy, they have a rising middle class, rising 

technology, great NGO community, all these things. And we really 

do want to work with them on the modern-day slavery issue. 

Mr. TANCREDO. Well, the complexity of the situation is enormous. 

We had, at my request and because the Chairman was gracious 

enough to acquiesce, we had a hearing not too long ago on this specific subject, on the Dalits and their plight. 

And you just can’t believe, you just can’t imagine how difficult 

it is to try to address it, because there is such a combination of factors, not just cultural, but of course religious, historical, economic. 

And you feel oftentimes quite impotent to try and address any one 

of those, let alone all the rest of them, to try to make it. 

But in a report of this nature, it does seem to me that some mention of that situation is necessary. 

And the last question I have of you, and it is probably one we 

should address to the next panel, too, but I do not know if I will 

be able to be here for that. When you talked about the efforts in 

Germany of which you were aware to try and deal with what they 

knew was going to be a sort of an onslaught of sex trafficking as 

a result of the World Cup, and the things that you mentioned focused entirely on what I would say is the supply side of the equation, but nothing on the demand side of the equation. 

And this is, of course, a problem over and over again, is that we 

have a tendency to, for a variety of reasons, it may be easier to actually identify the prostitute, the trafficker and that. But if we go 

after, if some governments will go after the demand side, do something about the people who are purchasing the services in some 

way. 

And in our last hearing we talked about this, too. And I asked 

the NGOs if they had any plans, if they were going to go on the 

streets, for instance. If they were going to take pictures of the guys 

who were coming in to purchase the services, and publish them. 

Something like that, do something to try and reduce the demand 

side. 

Ambassador MILLER. Well, I absolutely agree with you. The 

President’s Task Force on Trafficking, chaired by the Secretary of 

State, has made demand a top issue. It is not just a supply issue, 

it is a demand issue. 

There is a market out there that is driving this. And it is important to keep that in mind. Your recent legislation attempted to address this in the United States by giving the Attorney General authority to give grants to encourage prosecutions on the demand 

side, education on the demand side. 

You take a country like Germany. Germany has—and this has 

been the basis of their ratings in the report—Germany has programs on prosecution protection victims dealing with trafficking 

victims once they are found, or whatever, that meet, to a large extent, the minimum standards. 

The issue in a country like Germany is yes, but if you are furthering a sex trade that serves as a magnet for trafficking victims 

37

from around the world, you run the risk of being in the position 

of reducing trafficking on the one hand, and raising trafficking on 

the other. 

I think the Congress, in your recent legislation, you attempted to 

take note of this. You added a criteria for our report, Congressman, 

that specifically mentions demand. However, as our State Department’s Law Department noted, that provision does not go into effect until 2008. It was not in effect in this report. 

Mr. TANCREDO. Thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador. Thank 

you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Tancredo. Ambassador Miller, again, 

we will give you a number of questions, for the sake of time, on 

specific countries. 

Ambassador MILLER. Sure. 

Mr. SMITH. If you can get back to us as soon as possible, that 

would be great. 

Ambassador MILLER. Absolutely. And I owe you an answer on 

one question that I couldn’t answer. 

And thank you again for taking the time to hold this hearing. 

You have some outstanding witnesses coming up from Russia, from 

all over. And so I look forward to listening to them. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Ambassador thank you so much. We now will 

turn to our next panel. And we will provide, for the record, more 

extensive resumes. But in the interest of time, I will introduce our 

witnesses very briefly. 

We will first begin with Ms. Sharon Cohn, who serves as Vice 

President of Interventions for the International Justice Mission. 

Until October 2001, Ms. Cohn was an associate with Arnold and 

Porter in Washington, DC. Previously Ms. Cohn served as a judicial clerk for the Honorable Richard Williams, Eastern District of 

Virginia. 

We will then hear from Ms. Masha Gnezdilova, who was born 

into an upper-class Russian household, studied law, and worked as 

an attorney and special inspector for 5 years. 

Ms. Gnezdilova was the victim of a trafficking in early 1997, 

when she was coerced into entering Germany with false promises 

of legitimate employment. There she was met by pimps and other 

traffickers who forced her into prostitution. She escaped back to 

Russia 2 months later, and has since been working with the Angel 

Coalition. 

We will then hear from Ms. Irina Veselykh, who was educated 

as a construction engineer and worked as a supervising financial 

manager charged with final approval of large construction budgets. 

She later worked as a senior accountant at a hospital. 

She was victimized by traffickers when she searched for legitimate work abroad. She was met in Germany by pimps and others 

who attempted to force her into prostitution, and was later brought 

to the Netherlands. She spent time in Dutch prisons for failing to 

pay a fine relating to using a fake passport forced upon her by her 

traffickers, and eventually escaped back to Russia with the help of 

the Angel Coalition. 

And finally, we will hear from Mr. Charles Kernaghan, who has 

served since 1990 as Director of the National Labor Committee. 

Under Mr. Kernaghan’s leadership, the National Labor Committee 

38

has played a legal role in bringing the issue of sweatshop abuses 

and child labor before the American people and placing it on the 

national agenda. 

Additionally, under Mr. Kernaghan, the National Labor Committee has held public campaigns on trafficking in persons and 

other human rights issues. And it is nice to have him back. He last 

testified on child labor several years ago before our Committee. 

If you all could come to the witness table. And Ms. Cohn, if you 

could begin. 

STATEMENT OF MS. SHARON COHN, VICE PRESIDENT OF 

INTERVENTIONS, INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE MISSION 

Ms. COHN. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, Mr. 

Tancredo, Members of the Committee. My name is Sharon Cohn, 

and I serve as the Vice President for Interventions for International Justice Mission (IJM). 

IJM is an international human rights agency that mobilizes legal 

professionals to do work with local governments, to conduct investigations, and to intervene on behalf of victims of abuse. Specifically, IJM has offices in Latin America, Asia, and Africa that work 

with local authorities to rescue victims and bring perpetrators to 

justice in cases of rape, trafficking, force labor slavery, illegal detention, torture, police violence, and other cases of abuse. 

I would like to confine my remarks today to this issue of forced 

labor. But before I do so, I would like to take a moment to thank 

this Committee for calling this hearing on trafficking. I know that 

there are many other things that compete for this time, but in calling this hearing you do honor to the victims of trafficking. And in 

addition, I think you improve the circumstances and environment 

whereby less women and children and men will be victimized. 

This hearing also helps to ensure the ever-increasing excellence 

of the Trafficking in Persons Report. It just is true, and it is my 

experience that there are little girls and women all over the world 

whose rescue from serial rape we owe in large part to the excellence of the Trafficking in Persons Report and to the vigilance of 

this Committee, in particular, Mr. Chairman, to your great work 

on this issue. 

Therefore, as I note with great appreciation this year’s increased 

emphasis on the issue of forced labor slavery, I have equal confidence that the TIP Report will serve as a catalyst for the release 

of forced labor slaves and justice for their perpetrators. 

There should be no question as to the prevalence of modern-day 

forced labor slavery. I think this has been addressed well. Estimates of forced labor slaves range from 4 million to 27 million, 

some estimates are even higher. In any event, the U.S. State Department’s country reports, itself, note that over 100 countries have 

reports of forced labor or compulsory labor. 

Given its prevalence, there is this temptation, however, to minimize the harshness of its reality. There is a temptation to assert 

that slaves are forced to work only because they owe some money 

to their slave masters. I would just like to take a minute to address 

that. 

39

First, there are virtually no contracts in the world that can require specific performance. It is illegal to require someone to perform in order to pay a debt. 

Second, the loan itself is almost always a ruse. It is a sham. It 

is a simple device, like the debt that is incurred by trafficking victims into sexual slavery, and it is done just to lure the potential 

victims into the trap of forced labor. 

The victims are charged interest at extremely high, usurious 

rates, and are forced to buy their necessities from their master at 

inflated prices, which ensure that they can never repay the loan. 

We have been with slaves as they are being rescued, and when 

they said, ‘‘We owe a debt to our masters,’’ have asked them, ‘‘Have 

you ever met anybody ever, any of you, that has ever been able to 

repay the debt that they owe?’’ And they look around to each other, 

and talk among their friends, and no one has ever met anyone who 

has repaid these debts. The debts are simply a sham used to confine the slaves to their place. 

Third, and most importantly, however, the whole system of 

forced labor requires force and intimidation to bind the slaves to 

their master. Without this, the slave market simply can’t coexist 

side by side with a global free market. It requires force and intimidation. And we see this in virtually every case we have worked on. 

IJM staff members have met thousands of slaves face to face. 

But what the slaves all have in common is abuse or threats of 

abuse, and a desperate desire to be free. 

I have interviewed female slaves who have described the gruesome ritualistic rape that they have suffered at the hands of the 

thugs of the master. And I have seen government authorities rescue men who have been severely beaten and held hostage, simply 

because the master was so outraged that other slaves had managed 

to escape. 

IJM staff members have assisted in the rescue of a man who has 

been held a slave from 1947 to 1998 without having received a single penny for his labor. And I have heard first-hand a former slave 

recount how he ran away from his master’s facility after his wife 

committed suicide because of the horrible conditions under which 

they toiled. 

The runaway slave was recaptured by his master 2 years later, 

taken back to the facility, and beaten ruthlessly. And when he 

begged for mercy saying he would find a way to repay the money 

that he owed, the owner suggested that in fact the repayment of 

the debt was not what he was interested in, but what he was interested in was the manpower. 

Our own staff members have been attacked by mobs of hundreds 

of people organized by local slave owners as we assisted the police 

in providing slaves with the option of leaving their place of confinement to freedom. These stories are not unique. They typify the everyday experiences of millions of individuals around the world, and 

the everyday experience of people today in slavery. 

Slavery today does bear many similarities to slavery in America’s 

past. For example, now, as then, individuals are essentially required to work for little or no money, and are not free to leave. The 

one significant difference is that slavery today is illegal. Whereas 

abolition movements in the past needed to abolish laws that supVerDate Mar 21 2002 14:37 Aug 30, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00043 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\AGI\061406\28104.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
40

ported, for example, the African slave trade or Apartheid, today 

slavery is simply illegal. Countries around the world have enacted 

laws that clearly identify forced labor slavery as a crime. 

Countries have also entered into bilateral agreements and ratified international protocols prohibiting slave labor. Therefore, a 

massive overhaul of legislation as an expression of the public will 

is not needed. The public has already expressed itself in the form 

of laws. 

What is needed instead is for us to simply recognize that millions 

of slaves exist, to identify the slaves, and to hold governments accountable to release them, and to prosecute the perpetrators. 

Today’s abolition movement cannot be accused of misguided cultural imperialism. Governments have the laws that provide them 

with the authority to abolish slavery. 

Increased attention on slavery will have a grassroots effect. 

When slave sectors in local market economies are identified and 

called to account, local free market businesses will also join the call 

for local government enforcement of the law, because a free market 

economy and a slave market economy cannot forever coexist side 

by side, sharing the same market. 

Cynics will tell you that we cannot end slavery, that it is simply 

inevitable. And pessimists will read the TIP Report and be overwhelmed by the amount of injustice in the world. 

Of this, however, I am confident. Neither the cynics nor the pessimists will have the last word. Slavery will end, trafficking will 

end, child prostitution will end. We are just beginning the modernday abolition effort. 

One final note I would make. The TIP Report actually accurately 

describes, in our view, many problems throughout the world, but 

it also rightly highlights some successes. We would like to note just 

one as illustrative of what can be done. On December 26, 2004, a 

massive tsunami wiped out the southern and eastern coastline of 

Sri Lanka. Tens of thousands of people were killed. Additionally, 

tens of thousands of people were displaced, including orphaned 

children. 

Despite the massive devastation to Sri Lanka, the TIP Report 

states:

‘‘Officials remained vigilant toward the potential of increased 

child trafficking in the wake of the December 2004 tsunami, 

and there was no significant increase in reports of trafficking 

following the tsunami.’’

This was our experience in Sri Lanka, as well. IJM spent weeks 

in Sri Lanka in early 2005 examining government and community 

post-tsunami emergency child protection efforts. In the face of the 

devastation experienced by the people of Sri Lanka, we found that 

the government’s child protection response was both credible and 

effective. 

And if a country in the midst of perhaps its worst natural disaster in modern history can take effective action to prevent trafficking, what could be achieved if we treat trafficking in persons, 

including forced labor, as the global manmade disaster that it is? 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Cohn follows:]

41

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MS. SHARON COHN, VICE PRESIDENT OF INTERVENTIONS, 

INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE MISSION

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: My name is Sharon Cohn, and I 

serve as Vice President of Interventions for International Justice Mission (IJM). 

IJM is an international human rights agency that mobilizes legal professionals to 

work with local governments to conduct investigations and to mobilize interventions 

on behalf of victims of abuse. IJM has offices in Africa, Latin America and Asia and 

through these offices has pursued justice for victims and accountability for perpetrators of rape, trafficking, illegal land seizures, illegal detention, forced-labor slavery, 

torture, child sexual exploitation, and police violence. 

On behalf of IJM, I would like to express my thanks to you, other Committee 

members and your staff for making possible this important hearing on the annual 

‘‘Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report.’’

In light of the TIP Report’s highlighting of forced-labor slavery this year, I would 

like to address issues of forced labor in my testimony. IJM staff members have testified previously before the House of Representatives on other issues of trafficking, 

such as commercial sexual exploitation. 

Many people believe that forced-labor slavery has been banished from modern society or exists only as a relic and only in the most isolated corners of the world. 

Such belief is mistaken. Free the Slaves has stated that there are 27 million slaves 

in the world. The United States Department of State TIP Report states that:

[a] wide range of estimates exists on the scope, and magnitude of modern-day 

slavery, both internal and transnational. The International Labor Organization 

(ILO)—the United Nations (UN) agency charged with addressing labor standards, employment, and social protection issues—estimates there are 12.3 million 

people in forced labor, bonded labor, forced child labor, and sexual servitude at 

any given time; other estimates range from 4 million to 27 million.

The United States Department of State considers this issue to be so important 

that every year it examines forced and compulsory labor practices in countries 

throughout the world in its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices; in the 

2005 report, released on March 8, 2006, the United States Department of State suggested that there were reports of forced or compulsory labor in more than 100 countries. 

Even when some people reluctantly admit that forced-labor slavery in fact exists, 

they try to minimize the harshness of its reality, asserting that slaves are forced 

to work only because they owe money to their masters. May I respond? First, requiring specific performance for the repayment of a loan is usually illegal. But second, 

the loan itself is almost always a sham, a simple device to lure potential victims 

into the trap of forced labor, keeping the victims there by charging them extremely 

high, usurious rates and forcing them to buy necessities from their master at inflated prices, thereby ensuring that the loan can never be repaid. Third, and most 

importantly, the whole system of forced labor can only coexist side-by-side with the 

global free market economy when intimidation or force is used to bind the slaves 

to their master. 

IJM staff members have met thousands of slaves, face to face. What all these 

slaves have in common is abuse or threats of abuse and a desperate desire to be 

free. Their stories are shocking. 

I have debriefed female slaves who described gruesome ritualistic rape by their 

master’s thugs. 

I have witnessed government authorities rescue men who had been severely beaten and held hostage (locked in a shed) by their relatives’ master because their relatives had escaped from the master’s facility. 

IJM staff members assisted in the rescue of a man who had been held as a slave 

from 1947 to 1998 without having been paid a single penny for his work. 

I have heard, first-hand, a former slave recount how he ran away from his master’s facility after his wife committed suicide because of the horrible conditions 

under which they toiled. The runaway slave was recaptured by his master two years 

later, taken back to the facility and beaten ruthlessly. When he begged for mercy, 

saying he would repay any debts owed, the owner suggested that he was not interested in repayment of the debt but simply in ‘‘the manpower.’’

Our own staff members have been attacked by a mob of hundreds of people organized by local slave-owners as we assisted the police in providing slaves with the 

option of leaving the place of their confinement for freedom. 

These stories are not unique. They typify the everyday experiences of millions of 

individuals around the world. 

42

What are we to do about slavery? Slavery in the past, in the United States and 

the rest of the world, shares many common characteristics with slavery in the world 

today. For example, now as then, individuals are essentially required to work for 

little or nothing and are not free to leave. However, there is one significant difference, a difference that should inspire us all. In past abolition movements, great 

social upheaval was necessary in order to abolish laws that supported, for example, 

the African slave trade and apartheid. Slavery as practiced in the United States and 

elsewhere in the past was legal. This means that, for example, African slaves 

brought to our shores had no recourse, and there were few legal tools to bring to 

bear against American slave owners. 

In contrast, slavery today is illegal. Countries around the world have enacted laws 

clearly identifying forced-labor slavery as a crime. Countries have also entered bilateral agreements prohibiting slave labor. Furthermore, the Slavery Convention, 

which entered into force in 1927, binds the nations of the world to preventing and 

bringing about the abolition of slavery in all its forms. Subsequent conventions—

including the Protection of Wages Convention and the Supplementary Convention 

on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar 

to Slavery—have developed and refined international law even further. The fact 

that the Supplementary Convention has been ratified by 106 states, including the 

United States, illustrates the international consensus in support of the prohibition. 

A massive overhaul of legislation as an expression of public will is not needed. 

The public has already expressed itself in the form of laws. What is needed is for 

us all to simply recognize that millions of slaves exist, to identify the slaves and 

to hold governments accountable to release them and to prosecute the perpetrators. 

Today’s abolition movement cannot be accused of misguided cultural imperialism. 

What is simply being asked is for governments to enforce their own laws and bilateral agreements. International and national awareness and action will have a 

grassroots effect. When slave sectors in local market economies are identified and 

called to account, local free-market businesses will also join the call for local government enforcement of the law, because a free-market economy and a slave-market 

economy cannot forever exist side-by-side, sharing the same market. 

Bringing to light the facts of the daily lives of forced-labor slaves can help generate the same national and international consensus that stigmatized and undermined apartheid. America’s history of more than 200 years of slavery and the exploitation of millions of Africans should inform our government’s and citizens’ passion for the issue and generate a desire to partner with other nations to eliminate 

this global scourge. Already, many powerful people in other countries have named 

modern-day slavery for what it is. For example, one former South Asian Supreme 

Court justice describes the life of forced-laborslaves as follows: ‘‘Bonded labourers 

are non-beings, exiles of civilization, living a life worse than that of animals, for the 

animals are at least free to roam about as they like... This system... is totally incompatible with the new egalitarian socioeconomic order which we have promised to 

build...’’ It is time for us, the citizens of the United States, to recognize that modernday slavery is real and that we have a responsibility as members of a global market 

and community to help end it. We at IJM are encouraged by the statement in the 

TIP Report that ‘‘[o]ver the next year, the Department of State, as directed by Congress, intends to continue focusing more attention on forced-laborand bonded labor, 

while maintaining our campaign against sex trafficking.’’ We look forward to seeing 

progress made. 

Do not be discouraged. Cynics will tell you that we cannot end slavery, that it 

is as ancient as the stars and that it will end only at the very end of time. Pessimists will read the TIP Report and be overwhelmed by the amount of injustice 

in the world. Neither the cynics nor the pessimists will have the last word. Slavery 

will end. Child prostitution will end. Trafficking in persons will end. We are just 

beginning the modern-day abolition effort. Countries, including our own, have only 

recognized trafficking as a major problem in the past two decades. The TIP Report 

itself has only been published in recent years. And yet there is already so much for 

which we can be thankful. 

Notably, while the TIP Report seems in our opinion to accurately describe many 

problems throughout the world, it also accurately highlights some successes. I would 

like to end with one such example. On December 26, 2004, a massive tsunami wiped 

out the southern and eastern coastline of Sri Lanka. Tens of thousands of people 

were killed. Additionally, tens of thousands were displaced; many of the displaced 

are orphaned children. Despite massive devastation to Sri Lanka, the TIP Report 

states that ‘‘[o]fficials remained vigilant toward the potential of increased child trafficking in the wake of the December 2004 tsunami, and there was no significant increase in reports of trafficking following the tsunami.’’ IJM heartily agrees. IJM 

spent weeks in Sri Lanka in early 2005 examining government and community postVerDate Mar 21 2002 14:37 Aug 30, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00046 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 F:\WORK\AGI\061406\28104.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
43

tsunami emergency child protection efforts. In the face of the devastation experienced by the people of Sri Lanka, we found that the government’s child protection 

response was both credible and effective. We congratulate the government of Sri 

Lanka on its vigilance and the TIP Report for accurately describing such vigilance. 

If a country in the midst of perhaps its worst natural disaster in modern history 

can take effective action to prevent trafficking, what could we all achieve if we 

treated trafficking in persons as the global man-made disaster that it is.

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Cohn, thank you very, very much for your testimony. 

Ms. Gnezdilova. 

STATEMENT OF MS. MASHA GNEZDILOVA, RUSSIAN 

TRAFFICKING VICTIM 

Ms. GNEZDILOVA. First of all, I would like to thank Congressman 

Christopher Smith personally, and the House International Relations Committee, for inviting me at this important event and an 

opportunity to tell the world the truth about the real situation in 

Germany with trafficking. 

My name is Masha, and I am 33 years old. So by education I am 

a lawyer in the sphere of social services. I worked as an inspector 

in the social protection department, and also as an inspector, HR 

inspector, in a medical college. 

In 1996 I visited my relatives in St. Petersburg. On the way 

back, standing in line to get my tickets back, I met a middle-aged 

woman who seemed very nice. So in our conversation, she mentioned between the lines that she had friends in Germany who 

were looking for a young Russian woman who can help them 

around the house. She also mentioned that it will be a good opportunity for me to see the country and learn the language. 

So by that time, I had never been overseas, and this offer looked 

for me very interesting. So the lady took my documents and said 

that it would be really easy to arrange everything. And at the beginning of 1997, I left for Germany by bus. 

In Hamburg I was met by a young Russian woman, and her 

name was Janna. This woman helped me at the railway station, 

took me home, and took my passport with an excuse that she has 

to show that to the people where I am supposed to work. 

The next day she met another three young Russian ladies, whom 

she took home as well, and took their passports as well. The next 

day she informed me that the job that I looked for is not there, but 

she promised that I can stay, and then she can help me to find another job. 

Janna took us to a club under the name ‘‘Six-Forty,’’ where prostitutes worked. She told us that we shouldn’t resist, and that we 

have to work as prostitutes. And actually there is not any sense to 

resist or complain, because it will be even worse for us, or even be 

very dangerous. 

She threatened us that there is no need, as well, to run away. 

Because she explained that she had good people, there were people 

in the police that will immediately return runaways, and then they 

will be severely beaten up. 

I decided in this situation that it will be dangerous actually to 

resist, and I pretended that I agree with that, and even simulated 

complete compliance, and pretended frustration when I was not 

44

chosen by clients. Janna believed me, and started to look for an appropriate bar for me. Thus, I worked in several German bars. 

One day, together with another three girls, I was taken by Janna 

to a bar under the name ‘‘Savoy,’’ which was on the highway between Hamburg and Hanover. I didn’t remember the name of this 

city, but it was close to Bielefeld, and the bar’s name was Savoy. 

By that time the bar was closed, and in 2 days we found out that 

it was closed because previously, several Russian girls had been 

killed there. 

So then the bar was opened, and we started to work there as 

hostesses and prostitutes. We were not allowed to go out, because 

we didn’t have any documents. Fortunately, soon the police came 

to the bar with a raid and they took us to a police station next to 

Bielefeld. We were questioned by a Russian lawyer, who sympathized with us, and we were released the next day. 

So we didn’t know where to go, because we didn’t know the language, and we didn’t know about any progress, about any organizations that could help us. And plus we didn’t have any money. So 

we returned to the bar to take our things or try to find some help. 

But by the time we were there, Janna was informed, and she 

showed up there. 

The same night she returned to the bar to take me to another place and sell me to another pimp for $1,000. I was forced to work 

as a prostitute at another German bar, and in a week there was 

another police raid and I was arrested again. So when I was released, I didn’t know where to go. And some people, other people 

helped me to do that, because I didn’t know where to go. 

So when I went to the police station to get my papers, by the 

time I reached this police station, they didn’t have my documents, 

and there was no translator to explain the situation. So usually in 

this situation, when women have no passport and the situation is 

not clear with them, they are resold again. 

So most clubs that deal with trafficking in women and exploit 

women in prostitution illegally, the same people deal with drugs, 

as well. So most of them also deal with fake documents. And as I 

know, some of the girls that were with me in this situation, they 

were this way, then trafficked to Netherlands with fake documents. 

So I couldn’t stand this situation any more, and this condition 

any more. And I stopped eating and threatened my so-called owner 

that I would actually jump out of the fourth floor. He believed me, 

and probably sympathized with me, and soon he bought a ticket for 

me for airplane. 

This way I returned home. But 2 years passed, but I was still 

in depression, and I didn’t know how to live further. By chance I 

found in the newspaper an article about assistance in St. Petersburg that provided assistance for women like me. I called them, 

and then they invited me to their place. So this way I met Angel 

Coalition and its members. 

I received from them psychological, moral, and financial assistance. I went back to my town and set up my own independent 

NGO. So it seems like we, Russian women, are placed in an impossible economic condition, and are not needed by our own country. 

In other countries we are just spit on as prostitutes, when we are 

really victims. 

45

I see that 10 years passed what happened to me, but the situation is still the same. Is the German Government really not aware 

of what is happening in their country? It looks like everybody 

knows everything, and everybody feels okay with what is going on. 

We think that the government profited from our suffering, exploiting us in prostitution. 

That is all. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Gnezdilova follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MS. MASHA GNEZDILOVA, RUSSIAN TRAFFICKING VICTIM

My name is Masha. I am 33 years old. By education I’m a lawyer in the field of 

social services. I previously worked as an inspector in the social security services 

department and as a human resource manager in a medical college. 

In 1996, I visited my relatives in St. Petersburg. While standing in a line at the 

railway station to buy a ticket home, I met a middle-age woman who seemed very 

nice. During our conversation she mentioned that she has good friends in Germany 

who are looking for a young Russian girl to assist them with housekeeping. She offered me a chance to go to Germany to see the country and learn the language as 

well as to earn some money. At the time, I had not been to a foreign country and 

was unemployed. The opportunity seemed interesting and I agreed. This woman 

helped me fill out the necessary paper work and in the beginning of 1997 I left for 

Germany on a bus. 

In Hamburg, I was met by a young Russian woman named Janna. She brought 

me to her home and immediately took my passport away, acting as though she 

wanted to show it to the people I was supposed to work for. The next day, she met 

three more Russian girls at the bus station and brought them to her home as well. 

Their passports were also taken away. Later that day, Janna informed me that the 

job I had been promised did not exist. However, she said that there was no need 

for me to go home as she would provide me with another job. Janna took all of us 

by car to a bar called ‘‘Sixty Four’’ where prostitutes worked. Janna told us that 

we would work as prostitutes and that there was no sense in resisting or complaining—in fact, it would be dangerous to do so. She threatened that if anyone 

tried to escape to the police she would be severely beaten since they have their own 

people in the police and runaways would be returned regardless and punished. 

I decided not to behave aggressively and pretended to be completely compliant; 

I even tried to demonstrate frustration when clients did not select me. Janna believed my act and began looking for an appropriate bar for me. This is how I came 

to work in several German bars. 

One day, Janna brought me and three other girls to a bar in a small city on the 

highway Hamburg-Hanover. I don’t remember the name of the city, but it was close 

to Bielefeld. The bar’s name was ‘‘Savoy’’ and it was closed. Two day later, we found 

out that the reason the bar was closed was that several Russian girls had recently 

been murdered there. Now that the situation with the police had been cleared up 

and the club re-opened, we were brought in to replace the murdered girls. There 

we found the clothes, underwear and purses of the murdered girls. 

At the bar’s grand opening, we worked as hostesses and prostitutes. We were not 

allowed to leave this place and had no documents. Fortunately, approximately a 

week later the bar was raided and we were taken to the police department in Bielefeld. At the police department, a Russian female lawyer questioned us. She pitied 

us and we were released into the streets. We did not have anywhere to go. No one 

told us about any shelters or services. We were lost and afraid in a strange country. 

We didn’t know the language and had no money, so we went back to the bar. 

We had hoped that we could get our things, call for help and arrange our escape 

but there was someone at the bar waiting for us who called Janna. That evening, 

Janna came to take me back to Hamburg. There she sold me to another pimp for 

$1000 and again I was put to work in one of the German bars as a prostitute. In 

a week this bar was also raided by the police and I was again detained at the police 

department. Later, I was released and was supposed to pick up my documents at 

another place. I did not know German or the city but kind local people helped me 

get there. When I finally got there, they did not have a translator but my documents 

were ready for my deportation from Germany. I wanted to explain what had happened and that I shouldn’t be deported, but nobody wanted to listen or talk to me 

and I ran away. 

Usually when a girl’s visa expires or when she is detained by the police, the traffickers provide her with a false passport (at that time for me it was a Polish one) 

46

and they immediately traffic her to the Netherlands. Most of the criminal groups 

have clubs in both Germany and the Netherlands, where they also sell drugs. 

The other girls from the German night club were given false passports and trafficked to Holland, but I could not tolerate it anymore. I stopped eating and told my 

pimp that I would jump from the fourth floor. He believed me and was afraid that 

I would draw more attention from the police; I don’t know exactly why, but this man 

helped me buy a ticket home and come back to Russia. 

Thus, in two months I was back home. But even two years later, I was depressed 

and had many troubles. Then I found an ad in a newspaper for the St. Petersburg 

Crisis Center for Women, which provides psychological assistance to the victims of 

human trafficking. I contacted them and they invited me to come in. This is how 

I came across the Angel Coalition. From them, I received psychological, moral and 

material assistance. I went back to my town and started an NGO which is a member of the Angel Coalition. 

It seems like we Russian women are placed in impossible economic conditions and 

are not needed by our own country. In other countries, we are spit on as prostitutes 

when we are really victims. Ten years have passed since I was trafficked, but the 

situation has still not changed. 

Is the German government really not aware of what is happening in their country? Or are they happy to profit from our suffering?

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Gnezdilova, thank you very much for your testimony. And I truly believe, and I hope it is conveyed back to Germany, that your testimony is not just a challenge and it is not just 

an appeal; it is really an indictment of the policy of the German 

Government. 

And the fact that all of this happened when perhaps the police 

were actually raiding brothels, since it has been legalized just a 

couple of years ago in Germany, I am sure those numbers have diminished rather significantly. 

So thank you. And when you mentioned that you replaced murdered girls, that must have been harrowing in itself, wondering 

what your fate might be, as well, as a replacement for those murdered girls. So thank you for your bravery, and for forming your 

own NGO, and for enlightening us and helping us better understand the tragedy of human trafficking. 

I would like to now ask Ms. Veselykh if you would provide your 

testimony. 

STATEMENT OF MS. IRINA VESELYKH, RUSSIAN TRAFFICKING 

VICTIM 

Ms. VESELYKH. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I want to 

also say that I would like to thank Congressman Christopher 

Smith personally, and the House International Relations Committee, for inviting me to this important event, and give an opportunity to tell the truth about the situation with trafficking in Germany. 

My name is Irina Veselykh, and in 1983 I graduated from construction college, and then, since 1984 until 1991, I worked as an 

engineer at the local construction company. 

In 1986 I got married, and I have two daughters from this marriage. At Peristroika time, I decided to get another education, and 

this education was in bookkeeping, because by that time this profession was in demand. And with this profession I worked as a 

bookkeeper in a clinic. 

So it happened that my husband became an alcoholic, and he got 

many debts. And of course, most of the debts were the debts of our 

whole family. So I had to change my profession again. I had 1-year 

47

course in massage and cosmetology, and then I moved to 

Volgodonsk. 

So it was hard with my specialty and my salary of $100 to raise 

my children, and my husband didn’t help me with all those debts. 

Once in a newspaper by chance I found an ad about employment 

overseas. 

So this appeared very promising, and I thought that if I work for 

6 months or a year, it will be enough to earn enough money to 

cover the debts that my family had. Plus, they said that they would 

give me advance of 500 euros, and they said that they would arrange everything with visa. They promised that my work would be 

as a waiter, and my final salary will be 800 or 900 euros. 

So this company had an office in Volgodonsk and Volgograd. And 

they said that they will arrange for me a contract, and arrange all 

the appropriate documents for me. 

I went to Germany by bus via Poland. And finally I arrived at 

Bremen, where I was met by a Russian capo, who immediately told 

me, in the rough form, that I shouldn’t expect any work as a waitress, and I will work as a prostitute. And they explained that there 

is no sense to resist or to complain again. And plus that when I 

tried to resist or contradict, they said that I have 1,000 euros debt 

on me. 

I refused to work, and then they severely beat me up. So when 

I tried to say that I would go to police or threatened them that I 

would go to police, they said that it won’t help, because the police 

is bought, and most pimps work under the cover of police officers. 

And plus, I didn’t have any documents. And they said if you don’t 

have documents, they will arrest you and put you in jail. Plus they 

showed me the pictures of murdered girls who tried to approach police. 

So I had to succumb. And then this married capo pointed for me 

in work as a prostitute, and I immediately left for Canary Islands. 

Then later they resold me to another pimp under the name 

‘‘Viktor’’ who worked in Bremen. So Viktor had a business in Bremen that sold girls to different European countries, including Belgium and Netherlands. So they sold Russian girls for 15,000 euros 

each. Plus they hold a network of brothels around Germany, and 

I was sent to one of those brothels. 

So the brothel that I got to was owned by Toni, a woman Toni. 

So Toni’s brothel was run illegally, so they had illegal status, 

though the women who worked in this brothel had fake documents 

on them, as their real documents were taken away by pimps. 

Viktor and his wife were from Lithuania. So they need for me 

Lithuanian fake passport. That actually increased the sum of my 

debt to 2,000 euros. I didn’t get this passport into my hands, because they keep it so I couldn’t run away. 

So the pimps in this brothel threaten us that we shouldn’t try 

even to run away, and they kept our documents. Plus they said 

that they know our family members, and if we try something they 

can easily find them, and then it will be dangerous for our family 

members. So plus that we had big debts, and we couldn’t cover 

that. 

48

By the time they realized that, they decided to resell us. So that 

is how we ended up in another club under the name ‘‘Diplomat’’ 

that was next to Holland, on the border with Germany. 

So there in that club, we had to serve so many clients. Besides 

me there were another three Russian ladies who actually worked 

there as well, with fake passports, and were forced to serve many 

clients. 

At that time I took a decision to run away. And with an assistance from another Russian young woman under the name Tatiana 

who helped me to get my fake documents back, I run away. And 

I said that soon I will help her, as well, because she refused to run 

away with me, being so threatened. 

So with the help of Tatiana, who actually stole these fake documents from the owners, I could run away. She said that she cannot 

run away with me because she had a son back in Russia, and she 

was afraid that something would happen to her son, because the 

pimp had threatened her. 

So then later I found out from one of the Russian clients that 

this young girl was murdered because of helping me with my documents. 

So in that runaway, I was helped by other girls from the club as 

well, who helped me to call a taxi and arrange with a man under 

the name Ben from Dutch city, Van Shoten, who was an owner of 

a club, ‘‘Antenna,’’ and was well known for helping women like me 

in these situations. 

So in Antenna Club, I didn’t work as a prostitute, and I found 

in a way a shelter there. But Russian mafia found me there, and 

then informed me that they would kill me next day. At that night, 

again with the help of Ben who, together with his friends, took me 

in a car to a different place, I could escape and run away from 

death again. 

So Ben’s friend’s place, I live at the garage. And they fed me 

there, and also provide me some money. Later I run away to another club, and they suggested if I want, I can earn some money 

if I work as a waitress serving beverages. 

Many Dutch people were very kind to me, but Russian mafia was 

after me. And the only good decision in this situation was for me 

to go to police. But it was dangerous because, again, mafia was 

after me. So I applied to police, Dutch police, and they helped my 

21-year-old daughter, who knew English, to come to Netherlands to 

help me with my case. 

As my daughter arrived, we immediately went to an appropriate 

police office. But as we reached this office and explained what happened to me, they immediately arrested me with a charge for the 

fake documents, for 5 days. 

Since that time the long process of investigation and interrogation started, with misunderstanding on the side of Dutch police and 

authorities. So they called me guilty for using a fake passport, 

crossing the borders. And that actually was produced not by me, 

but by perpetrators. I provided all information I knew about the 

traffickers with the hope that it would help. But instead of that, 

I became a perpetrator, and was arrested and put into jail. 

So they didn’t provide me with any attorney or advocate to help 

me in this situation that could help me to explain what happened. 

49

And they didn’t even inform me that I was charged for using a fake 

passport, but indeed that actually, in reality, I didn’t use. 

So nobody listened to me. And with all the information I provided them with the hope for justice, it happened just the opposite; 

that instead of getting good assistance with expectation that these 

perpetrators will be punished, different happened. So I was completely unprotected and treated badly. 

As the crime happened in Germany, they had to contact and pass 

the case to the German police. And it took more time, because then 

I was sent to another place and they interrogated me again, and 

started to collect all the data I had again. Everything I told was 

confirmed, and in 2 weeks I could meet my daughter. 

With the help from my daughter and some group Dutch people, 

I could obtain a special benefit, social benefit from the local government, that could hardly let me cope with payments for my lodgings. 

And I didn’t have enough money to buy even food. 

After that my daughter left for Russia, but I stayed there to participate in the further investigations, where I was supposed to give 

further testimony. Waiting for continuation of proceedings of this 

investigation lasted for 2 years. For that period I didn’t hear any 

developments or any news on this investigation from the local authorities. 

I couldn’t stand it any more, and I again applied to the local authorities with a request to return me back to Russia, because I 

couldn’t stand it any more. And I also explained that if they need 

further testimony, I can return and give this testimony. I was not 

in a good health by that time, and my children lived in Russia. And 

in this situation, I even tried to commit suicide. 

Instead of sending me back to Russia, the Dutch police recalled 

that previous case with fake documents, and charged me with this 

again. And I spent another 3 months in a jail for an old crime, socalled crime, that I didn’t commit. So the actions on the behalf of 

national and migration police contradict each other. 

Within the months that I spent in jail, I didn’t have any advocate 

or an interpreter. For me there were no opportunities to contact my 

relatives and my children. I tried not to eat. I tried to protest that, 

trying to find some justice. But instead of that, I was placed to another cell in a very, very bad condition, with the only mattress on 

the floor. 

Later, with the help from another young lady from Russia who 

was in the same jail, I could manage to get an advocate who for 

the first time let me contact my relatives back in Russia. 

The only help at that time that I could get, it was from the Councillor in Netherlands, who gave me a help line of the Angel Coalition, and help me to contact the police officers in Dutch Embassy 

in Moscow and Russian Councillor in Hague. 

Police officer contacted the police in Netherlands, while the 

Angel Coalition members tried to be in constant contact with my 

relatives, constantly updating them about the situation with me. 

So after 3 months of imprisonment with 30 euros in my pocket, 

I was just thrown out on the street. Police had to take me to the 

consulate, but they preferred to just leave me on the street. Only 

the local people, the Dutch people, helped me to reach this Embassy. 

50

From the consulate I was placed for a short period of time in a 

shelter while the local authorities tried to solve the situation with 

my documents. Back to Russia, in the airport, I was met by the 

members of the Angel Coalition who helped me to buy a ticket back 

home, paid for my hotel for 1 night, and provided me with medication. That was the only human treatment that I got after all these 

months of suffering. 

Angel Coalition is still helping me. I didn’t commit any crime in 

any of those countries where I have been. Why was I placed into 

jail? People that tortured me still are free, and they continue to exploit other young women under the cover of their local police. And 

with their policy of legalized prostitution, my rights were violated. 

Who will be responsible for that? 

In this country, the rights of immigrants are constantly violated, 

those ones who got in a difficult situation. But their government, 

as it looks to me, don’t even try to deal with that or be responsible 

for that, because it looks like they are quite satisfied with what is 

happening in their country. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Veselykh follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MS. IRINA VESELYKH, RUSSIAN TRAFFICKING VICTIM

My name is Irina Veselykh. In 1983, I graduated from the construction college 

in Amur and from 1984 until 1991 I worked as an engineer in the department of 

production at a construction company. I was married in 1996 and I have two daughters. During perestroika (1992–1997), I re-qualified to be an accountant and later 

worked as a senior accountant at a hospital. 

Afterwards, I divorced my alcoholic husband, took a one-year course in massage 

and cosmetology, and moved to Volgodonsk where I worked in a clinic as a 

physiotherapist. I was only making $100/month and supporting two children on my 

own. 

Because I needed more income and was in debt, I began looking for advertisements for short-term work abroad. I had hoped to work for a maximum of six 

months to one year and send the money home to my children. 

I came across an advertisement offering work abroad in the newspaper ‘‘Chance.’’ 

The company that I turned to for help finding work appeared to be entirely legitimate and I didn’t feel any apprehension. The Agency for Employment Abroad offered me work as a waitress. I was given 500 £ for a visa, tickets, and travel with 

the understanding that I would return 1000 £ when I was working. I was to earn 

800–900 £ a month. Everything was arranged from the company’s offices in 

Volgograd and Moscow. I was told that I would have a six month contract once I 

arrived in Germany. I signed their contract since everything seemed trustworthy 

and they assured me that the work in Germany was legal. 

I traveled by bus through Poland without any money for food. When I arrived in 

Germany in the city of Bremen, I was met by two extremely rude young Russians 

named Evgeny and Tatiana. They took my passport and informed me that there was 

no waitress job and that I was expected to work as a prostitute. When I objected, 

they told me that if I wanted to go home I had to pay back the 1000 £. I tried to 

refuse and they beat me. When I threatened to go to the police, I was warned that 

the police had been bought off and that without my documents I would be considered the criminal. They said that all the pimps are working under the protection 

of the police. They control girls with the help of the police. They showed me photographs of dead girls who had tried to go to the police. 

I was terribly shocked and afraid. I decided that the only way to survive was to 

cooperate. Almost immediately, Tatiana and Evgeny left for a vacation in the Canary Islands and I was sold to another man, Viktor, who was running a business 

in Bremen selling young Russian girls to Belgian pimps for $15,000 a piece. I started working in a brothel managed by a German woman named Tony. This was a 

kind of point of dispensation—some women were sold to Belgium, some to the Netherlands and other places. I was popular with German and Dutch men so they kept 

me there. The majority of men were Germans. 

Tony’s place was a legal brothel but she knew that most of the women there were 

illegal and had no documents because all of their documents had been taken by the 

51

pimps. Viktor and a Lithuanian woman named Monika gave me a fake Lithuanian 

passport. All the new Russian girls who came were forced to buy the fake Lithuanian passports for 2000 £. However, Viktor kept the actual passports and the false 

ones. In addition, Viktor and the other pimps reminded all of us constantly that 

they knew where our families were and they would kill our children if we tried to 

escape. 

I complained that I could not pay my debts, so they sent me to a different club 

where I could service more clients and pay lower rent. I was then taken to a club 

called ‘‘Diplomat,’’ which is in the Netherlands on the border with Germany. But 

I saw right away that no matter how many men there were, I could never repay 

the debts. I immediately made the decision to run away. There were three other 

women, also terrified, who had already been living there for a few months (also on 

false documents). A beautiful Russian girl by the name of Tatiana helped me try 

to run away by stealing my fake passport and all of my real documents from the 

pimps. She said she could not go with me because the pimps had threatened to kill 

her two year old son back in Russia. She wanted me to get away and get help for 

her and her family. But I later learned from Russian men who were trying to help 

me that she was killed for helping me. 

Other girls in the club helped me escape and I took a taxi to the town of Van 

Shoten, looking for a man named Ben who owned a nightclub called ‘‘Antenna’’ and 

was known to help girls escape from trafficking and the Russian mafia. He helped 

hide me but the Russian mafia found me working as a hostess and told me that 

I was going to be killed. That night Ben took me by car to his Dutch friends, who 

hid me for two weeks in their garage and brought me food while I was being hunted. 

I was moved from one place to another, working in nightclubs as a waitress but not 

as a prostitute. 

Many good Dutch people tried to help me, but I was always followed by the Russian gangsters. I needed to get to the police but it was dangerous. The Dutch people 

I was staying with brought my 21 year old daughter to Netherlands to help me. 

With my daughter, who speaks English, I went directly to the police. But at the police station, I was immediately separated from my daughter and detained for five 

days by the Dutch National Police. So began a long, terrible process of multiple 

questionings and misunderstandings by the authorities. 

The authorities wanted to charge me for using the false passport that I was provided by the criminals. I gave the Dutch police all of the information about what 

had happened including information about the traffickers, the Russian mafia. I told 

them everything I knew and I thought they would help me. I was not provided with 

a lawyer and I was suddenly told that I had to work out the fine levied by the judicial system of Netherlands for the use of a false passport. I hadn’t even used that 

passport and did not agree with the decision of the court. But who listened to me? 

After all the assistance that I provided the investigators, I was placed in 

humiliating conditions and remained in serious danger without protection from the 

Russian gansters. 

After determining that the crime had taken place in Germany, the Dutch National 

Police turned me over to the Migration Police and they placed me in a shelter. I 

provided the authorities with all of the information again while the police investigated and verified every part of my story. After two weeks, I was released from 

the shelter and I returned to my daughter. 

But eventually, my daughter had to go home to work. I stayed in the Netherlands 

for two years living only on the small benefits I received with the help of kind Dutch 

people. Finally, I grew tired of this situation. I could not wait any longer for my 

appointment in court living in such circumstances. I told the Dutch authorities that 

I wanted to go home. I said that I would return if they needed me to testify, but 

I was very, very tired. My health was poor. I missed my daughters. I was constantly 

depressed and often thinking about suicide. 

But instead of helping me go home, the Dutch government decided I had not suffered enough and placed me in prison for three months because I didn’t pay the fine 

for using a false passport—a fine that I didn’t know about. There was a contradiction between the Dutch National Police who wanted the fine paid and the Immigration Police who acknowledged that I was a victim of trafficking. 

For one month, I was not allowed to get in contact with lawyers or with my relatives. I started a hunger strike to defend my innocence, but as a result I was put 

into solitary confinement with only a mattress on the floor. 

I was only able to get help when my daughter contacted the Russian consul in 

the Netherlands with the help of the Angel Coalition in Moscow. My daughter had 

called the Angel Coalition Trafficking Victim Assistance Center on their toll-free 

helpline and the Angel Coalition contacted the Dutch law enforcement liaison officer 

at the Dutch Embassy in Moscow. He began investigating with the Dutch police 

52

while the Angel Coalition worked with my family. I was released on the street with 

30 £. The police were supposed to take me to the consulate but they gave me no 

help. Local people helped me get to the consulate. From there I was sent for a short 

time to a shelter and then returned home to Russia. The Angel Coalition met me 

at the airport, gave me a ticket home, and provided me with medicine. This is the 

only human assistance that I received during the entire time that I was in this terrible situation. The Angel Coalition is still helping me cope with all the terrible 

things I went through in Germany and the Netherlands. 

I did not commit any crime in those countries and I was put in prison for absolutely nothing. The people who involved me in that situation are still free and continue to traffic women under government cover. My rights were violated—who will 

pay me back for all of my suffering? In those countries, the rights of immigrants 

in difficult situation are violated and their governments do not want to take responsibility for what is happening on their territory.

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Veselykh, thank you so very much for your testimony, and again for making the long trip to be here. It does, again, 

help this Committee, and helps the Congress by extension, and the 

Executive Branch, with Ambassador Miller here, and Ambassador 

Ormond who has remained as well, to hear again, and to get motivated to combat this outrage that you have suffered. So thank you 

so much. 

We will have to take a very brief break. There are seven votes 

on the Floor. They are 2-minute votes, so they are very quick, and 

then I will come back and reconvene the hearing. And then we will 

hear from Mr. Kernaghan and proceed with any questions. 

And I thank you in advance for your patience, and I apologize 

for it. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. SMITH. Sitting in again, I want to apologize to our witnesses 

for that lengthy delay. There were eight votes, I think it was eight, 

on the Floor, and it took longer than they were advertised. So I do 

apologize for that. 

Mr. Kernaghan, you were next. Please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF MR. CHARLES KERNAGHAN, DIRECTOR, 

NATIONAL LABOR COMMITTEE 

Mr. KERNAGHAN. I wish everyone in the United States could 

have heard their stories this morning. It was incredibly powerful. 

And I think the American people are quite decent and would be 

sickened by what they heard. 

I want to discuss human trafficking and involuntary servitude 

under the U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement. Today there is an 

estimated 300,000 foreign guest workers employed in Jordan as domestic help in agriculture, construction, and also in Jordan’s garment factories, which export $1.2 billion a year of apparel, duty 

free, to the United States. Many of these guest workers are victims 

of human trafficking, and are being held today under conditions of 

involuntary servitude. 

Our research focuses on the conditions faced by the guest workers in Jordan’s factories, their garment factories. There are 36,500 

foreign guest workers in Jordan’s garment factories from Bangladesh, China, Sri Lanka, and India. They are employed in 114 

export factories, more than 90 percent of which are foreign-owned. 

And how the system operates, in Bangladesh, for example, the 

Bangladesh guest workers, the prospective workers, will see ads in 

the newspapers in Bangladesh advertising terrific jobs in Jordan. 

53

If you go to Jordan you are going to make $134 a month as a base 

wage. You are going to get $250 a month with overtime. They tell 

you you are going to have Fridays off, the Muslim holiday; you are 

going to have all national holidays off in Jordan. They tell you that 

you are going to have free healthcare, you are going to have free 

food, free housing. And they tell you these services are very good. 

They say, ‘‘You are going to live like they do in the West.’’

And so the workers in Bangladesh, where the wages are about 

21 cents an hour in the garment industry, they think to themselves, we are going to make a killing in Jordan, we are going to 

help our families. 

But the catch is you have to pay for these contracts. To get a 3-

year contract to work in Jordan, you have to pay about 180,000 

Taka, which is $2,657. Well, that is an enormous amount of money 

in Bangladesh, and these are poor workers. So they go out into the 

informal market and they borrow that money at exorbitant interest 

rates, at least 5 percent to 10 percent a month, meaning that loan 

more than doubles every single year. 

They take these loans, and they head to Jordan. But there is another catch in the contract: You can only work for one factory. You 

can’t leave that factory and work anyplace else, you are tied to that 

one factory. 

So the workers get on a plane, like 100 Bangladesh workers did 

to go to the Al Shahaed factory in Yobid, which is a large city in 

Jordan. They went to the Al Shahaed factory. When they arrive at 

the airport, their passports are immediately confiscated by management. 

Management wouldn’t give them their residency permits, which 

are necessary documents. You can’t go out onto the street without 

your residency permits. If the police stop you, you will be detailed 

and deported. So these workers were virtually held as prisoners inside this factory, unable to leave. 

They found themselves working 15 hours a day, 30 hours a day, 

48 hours a day, 72 hours straight. They would go 2 and 3 days in 

a row without sleep. They worked 7 days a week. Instead of getting 

the $250 they were promised, they got 2 cents an hour. They got 

$2.31 for a 98-hour work week. 

When workers asked for their wages, they were imprisoned. 

Workers would spend 3 days in prison without food for asking for 

their wages. If workers complained about food in the factory, food 

that was supplied by the company, the workers were beaten with 

sticks, beaten with belts. 

Twenty-eight workers shared each tiny room, 12 foot by 12 foot. 

They had access to water just once every 3 days. And in desperation, when the workers finally asked to be paid at least part of 

their wages, they were forcibly deported back to Bangladesh. Many 

of those workers today are back in Bangladesh hiding in Dhaka 

City, driving bicycle rickshaws, because they can’t return home to 

their villages because they can’t pay up their loans. And there is 

no way they will ever be able to pay up those loans now that they 

are back in Bangladesh. 

They were trafficked out of Bangladesh. They were sent to Jordan under false pretenses. They were abused and exploited, and 

54

now they are back in Bangladesh, and they and their families are 

going to sink deeper and deeper into misery. 

The same thing happened with workers who responded to an ad 

in Bangladesh to go to work in the Western Factory, also in Al 

Shahaed. Both these factories make clothing for Wal-Mart. The 

minute they arrived in Jordan, their passports were also confiscated by management. They didn’t receive their residency permits, either; they were virtual prisoners. 

They had to work 16 to 20 hours a day, 7 days a week. They 

worked 109 hours a week, and yet routinely they were not paid for 

months on end. 

So for example, in the beginning of 2006, for the first 4 months 

of 2006, the Western workers did not receive 1 cent in wages, despite working 109 hours a week, making clothing for export to the 

United States, which enters the United States duty free. 

When these workers asked for their wages, they were beaten and 

threatened with forcible deportation. 

We went on a delegation with the steelworkers to Jordan in midMay. And we were given numerous guarantees by the Government 

of Jordan that there would be no retaliation against any workers 

who met with our delegation. 

Well, sad to say that two workers from a factory called Saidan 

that met with our delegation, they were beaten and forcibly deported at gunpoint, and sent back to Bangladesh without their 

back wages, and without even their meager belongings, for the simple crime of meeting with the United States delegation. 

Right now in the Saidan factory, which is making clothing for 

L.L. Bean, the workers are working 56 hours a week of overtime 

with not 1 cent of overtime pay. The owner has recently told the 

workers that if they complaint about their wages, they, too, will be 

sent back to Bangladesh with nothing, just as the two workers 

were who had met with our delegation. 

Just last Sunday, in a factory called Al Nahat, 25 workers had 

the courage to try to do the right thing. They went to the local 

labor court to try to get help, that they would receive some of their 

back wages. 

When the owner of the factory found out that the workers had 

gone to the labor court, he brought them together, he took out a 

pistol, and he held it to the heads of many of the workers. And he 

told them if you dare go back to the labor court to complain about 

your wages, we will shoot you, or you will be forcibly deported. 

In Al Nahat they are working right now from 7:30 in the morning until 11 o’clock at night, minimum 151⁄2-hour shifts, 7 days a 

week. They get no days off whatsoever. They are being cheated of 

more than 60 percent of the wages that are legally owed them. 

They are in a situation of great desperation, both in the Saidan factory and in Al Nahat. The workers are fearing for their lives. The 

situation is rapidly deteriorating. 

I could go on with many of these horror stories about these guest 

factory workers in Jordan who are being trafficked, and who are 

being held under conditions of involuntary servitude, who are being 

exploited, who are being abused. 

In the Western factory there was very credible evidence that several of the young women from Bangladesh were sexually assaulted; 

55

one 16-year-old girl was raped. There is credible evidence about a 

young girl hanging herself in a bathroom in the Al Shahaed factory 

after she was raped by management. I think the clear picture of 

what has happened in those factories is only beginning to emerge 

now. 

But I also want to say there is some good news. The Government 

of Jordan has responded seriously and quickly. If the Government 

of Jordan fulfills what it says it intends to do, then Jordan will be 

on the road to ending human trafficking and ending involuntary 

servitude, and restoring the rule of law in its factories. 

Along with this, United Steelworkers has asked Jordan to demand that the factories immediately return the workers’ passports. 

We also are asking the Government of Jordan to give the workers 

the right of portability. To be tied to one single factory is a form 

of modern slavery. The Supreme Court in Israel just announced 

that with their own guest worker program. They also return the 

passports, but they are also ending tying workers to specific factories or job locations. Workers have to have the freedom to move 

from factory to factory, or job site to job site. That is the only way 

to punish bad factories and reward good factories. 

The workers in Jordan also need help, especially in the subcontract factories. There are 55 subcontract factories in Jordan 

which are operating below the radar screen. They are not being 

monitored by the mate United States companies. Most of the violations taking place in those smaller subcontract factories are the 

most egregious violations. 

We are asking the Government of Jordan to give special attention to these 55 subcontract factories, and to put permanent monitors in those factories to secure the workers, the safety of the 

workers. And in those factories where they have the worst violations, they need to shut those factories down. They need to prosecute those factory owners, and they need to safely relocate those 

workers into better factories so they don’t suffer any further. 

In Jordan, the guest workers have no right to organize, which is 

a violation of the labor practices. So we have asked the Government of Jordan to amend the bylaws of the local unions so that the 

local unions can accept as members these guest workers. These 

guest workers must have freedom of association, the right to organize, and the right to bargain collectively. 

So having said that, I really feel that the Jordanian Government 

is taking this seriously. We know right now on the ground in Jordan—we are monitoring it every day—we know that factories are 

shutting down earlier now. Most factories are closing down at 

about 9:00, after a 131⁄2-hour shift, but that is much better than 

working until 11 or 12 or 1 o’clock in the morning, or much later. 

Most factories are coming into compliance with the minimum 

wage law of 64.5 cents an hour. Not every one, but most factories 

are moving in that direction. 

Workers are now getting 1 day off a week, most factories, on Friday, the Muslim holiday. 

However, overtime pay all across Jordan is being violated, even 

in the big factories producing under direct contract for United 

States companies. There are still serious problems in Jordan. In 

56

only two or three factories, that we know of, have the workers actually received their passports back. 

So despite the good intentions, workers still have not received 

their passports back. Overtime wages are violated in the majority 

of factories across Jordan. There are workers in these 55 subcontract factories which are living under an atmosphere of terror, 

fear, threats of beatings, shootings, and being forcibly deported. 

So I think it is very important that we keep pressure on the Jordanian Government to act on its good intentions. And again, if they 

do so, Jordan will then become a model of fair labor standards and 

respect for human, women’s, and workers’ rights across the Middle 

East and beyond. 

Jordan is really at a crossroads, and they could come out as a 

model, or if these intentions are not implemented, Jordan will be 

a sweatshop with some of the worst conditions we have ever seen. 

They rival China, actually. It is completely out of control. And we 

are now very hopeful that the Jordanian Government will implement concrete steps to bring these factories into line with Jordanian law, and with United States commitments on the U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement. 

So thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kernaghan follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MR. CHARLES KERNAGHAN, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL LABOR

COMMITTEE

HUMAN TRAFFICKING & INVOLUNTARY SERVITUDE UNDER THE U.S.-JORDAN FREE TRADE

AGREEMENT

There are an estimated 300,000 foreign guest workers employed in Jordan as domestics, in construction and agriculture, and in factories producing goods for dutyfree export to the United States. Many of these guest workers are victims of human 

trafficking and are being held under conditions of involuntary servitude. Our research focuses on the 36,149 foreign guest workers, mostly from Bangladesh, China, 

Sri Lanka and India, who work in Jordan’s 114 export factories, over 90 percent of 

which are foreign-owned. 

The system operates like this. In Bangladesh, workers respond to local newspaper 

ads offering good jobs in Jordan, promising to pay $134.28 a month for regular 

hours and up to $250 a month with overtime. Workers will have Fridays and national holidays off, they are told. Medical care, food and housing will be entirely 

free. The workers are told they will live well, ‘‘like they do in the West.’’ The only 

catch is that the prospective guest workers will have to pay the Bangladeshi recruitment agency typically 180,000 Taka, or $2,657, to purchase a three-year contract 

to work in Jordan. As poor workers, they have no choice but to borrow the money 

on the informal market, at exorbitant interest rates of five to ten percent a month. 

Some families sell land or cattle to send a daughter or son to Jordan. The contract 

also ties the guest worker to just one factory, prohibiting them from working anywhere else. 

Over 100 Bangladeshi workers responded to an ad to work at the Al Shahaed garment factory in Irbid. Upon their arrival at the airport, management immediately 

confiscated their passports. Nor were the workers provided with residency permits, 

without which they could not go out on the street without fear of being detained 

by the police for lack of the proper papers. 

Once in the Al Shahaed factory, the workers found themselves forced to work 

shifts of 15, 38, 48 and even 72 hours straight, often going two or three days without sleep. They worked seven days a week. Workers who fell asleep at their sewing 

machines would be slapped and punched. Instead of being paid the $250 a month 

that the ad promised, the workers earned two cents an hour, or $2.31 for a 98-hour 

workweek. Workers who asked for their legal wages could be imprisoned up to three 

days without food. Workers who criticized the food the company provided were beaten with sticks and belts. Twenty-eight workers had to share one small 12-by-12-foot 

dorm room, which had access to running water only every third day. These workers 

sewed clothing for Wal-Mart. 

57

When, in desperation, the workers demanded their legal wages, they were forcibly 

deported and returned to Bangladesh without their back wages. Many of these 

workers are now hiding in Dhaka City and peddling bicycle rickshaws to survive. 

They cannot return to their home villages because they have no possible way to pay 

off the mounting debt they incurred to go to Jordan in the first place. 

At the Western factory, also in Irbid and producing clothing for Wal-Mart, 

Bangladeshi guest workers who were trafficked to Jordan faced much the same fate. 

They too were stripped of their passports and forced to work 16 to 20 hours a day, 

seven days a week. Despite working 109 hours a week, the workers routinely went 

for months without being paid. In the first four months of 2006, the Western workers were not paid a single cent in wages. There are also credible of reports of sexual 

abuse, including the rape of a sixteen year-old girl. Workers who asked for their 

wages would be beaten and threatened with forcible deportation. 

For the ‘‘crime’’ of meeting with a visiting U.S. delegation in May 2006, two workers from the Saidan factory in Sahab were beaten, forcibly deported at gunpoint and 

returned to Bangladesh without their back wages or even their meager belongings. 

Now they and their families are sinking into greater misery and debt. Despite being 

forced to work 56 overtime hours a week, the workers at the the Saidan are paid 

no overtime. Workers who dare complain are told that they too will be deported, just 

like the two others. The workers say the atmosphere in the factory is extremely 

tense, and they are afraid they will be attacked and beaten. 

Just this last Sunday, June 11, twenty-five workers from the Al Nahat garment 

factory in Sahab went to the local labor court to ask for help in winning the back 

wages they are owed. Forced to work 151⁄2 hours a day, from 7:30 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., 

seven days a week, the workers are routinely cheated of over 60 percent of the 

wages legal due them. Al Nahat’s owner responded by holding a pistol to many of 

the workers’ heads, telling them that if they return to the labor court, they will be 

shot or forcibly deported with nothing. Here too, the workers are afraid that violence 

could break out at any moment. 

The images described, of workers from Bangladesh being trafficked to Jordan 

where they are held under conditions of indentured servitude, exploited and abused, 

are of course bad news. 

The good news is that the Government of Jordan has responded quickly and seriously, and if their stated intentions turn into reality, they will be on the road to 

ending human trafficking and restoring the rule of law in Jordan’s export factories. 

The National Labor Committee and the United Steelworkers Union have asked 

the Government of Jordan to demand that all factory owners immediately return 

the workers’ passports. The practice of tying guest workers to a single factory is also 

a form of modern-day slavery which must end. Workers need the right of portability, 

so they are free to leave abusive plants to work in Jordan’s better factories. Special 

attention must be paid to the 55 subcontract plants in Jordan, which largely operate 

beneath the radar screen and where the worst abuses occur. In the worst cases, 

these factories should be closed, the owners prosecuted and the workers safely relocated to better factories. A message must be sent loud and clear—that in Jordan, 

human trafficking will never again be tolerated. Guest workers must also be guaranteed the rights to freedom of association, to organize unions and to bargain collectively, which are among the International Labor Organization’s core worker rights 

standards. 

The positive steps that the Jordanian Government is about to implement should 

go beyond the factory workers and also include the foreign guest workers employed, 

and often abused, working as domestics, in construction and in agriculture. 

Jordan is now at a crossroads, and hopefully will emerge as a model of fair labor 

standards, the rule of law and respect for human, women’s and workers’ rights. 

Under the U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement, we must demand nothing less. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you for inviting me to testify at this important hearing on 

human trafficking.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much for your testimony, and for 

your work all these years on behalf of workers’ rights. 

Let me just ask you, apart from being designated Tier 3, and I 

would note for the record that the TIP office at any time can designate any country any level—1, 2, Watch List, or Tier 3. It is not 

subjected to just the annual review. Ambassador Miller and his 

shop were so convinced by the data and persuaded others within 

the State Department, Jordan could be designated Tier 3, and 

58

could be done so tomorrow, based on evidence that is presented to 

him. 

The idea behind that flexibility is so that we don’t get at least 

the appearance of cooperation with the U.S. Government and with 

NGOs on trafficking as the review period comes to an end, only to 

revert and fall back to bad habits. 

Let me just ask you, apart from Tier 3, does the United States 

have any mechanisms under United States law, especially the Free 

Trade Agreement, that could be triggered by this exploitation of laborers in Jordan? 

Mr. KERNAGHAN. Under the U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement—which was considered a model at the time because it does 

actually include worker right provisions, worker rights language at 

the core of the agreement, not in a sidebar, much stronger than the 

North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)—the problem 

was there was a loophole put in the Free Trade Agreement that allowed Jordan to use its resources in any way they thought reasonable. So if the Minister of Labor said it didn’t have the resources 

to implement Jordanian law, they didn’t have to. 

And what happened is, and I think they pretty much acknowledged this, the Minister of Labor in Jordan actually turned into an 

agency which handed out work permits to foreign workers. There 

were no inspections of these factories that were very credible. Jordan only has 88 labor inspectors for 95,000 workplaces. Many of 

these inspectors are untrained and underpaid. 

So there was good language in the agreement, but the loophole, 

you could drive a Mack truck through it. And so essentially they 

didn’t do anything wrong, they just didn’t put the resources or the 

time into enforcing these standards. Which is one of the reasons 

why it got completely out of control. 

Mr. SMITH. You know, earlier Ms. Cohn mentioned that slavery 

is illegal, and I would just say, so is torture. And in both cases in 

the Peoples Republic of China, both are widespread and pervasive. 

What is your view, and Ms. Cohn, what is your view, as to 

whether or not China ought to be on Tier 3? It does have a sex 

trafficking problem, but it has an enormous labor trafficking problem. There is no collective bargaining. They have arrearage of payments that are not made to their own workers. Ten to twenty million child laborers, according to best estimates, six million, approximately, people are being exploited in the Laogai system. 

And as I said as we were coming in the door, back in the early 

1990s, Congressman Frank Wolf and I visited one of those Laogai, 

Beijing Prison Number One, and saw Tienenman Square activists 

doing slave labor. For what? Their crime was asking for freedom 

and democracy in the PRC. 

There are no OSHA regulations, and upwards of 126,000 occupational deaths occur in China every year. If ever there was a case 

to be made on labor—and I would submit also on sex trafficking, 

but certainly on labor—China ought to be a Tier 3 country. What 

is your sense on that? 

And just let me finally say, and I will include in the record at 

least a summary of it, on June 8, Congressman Ben Carney and 

I joined with the AFL–CIO in officially petitioning the U.S. Trade 

Representative to impose WTO sanctions on China for its violations 

59

of their freely-entered-into obligations with regards to laborers. So 

what is your thought? 

Mr. KERNAGHAN. I will just speak to the labor section quickly. 

We had workers in a factory called Four Way in China smuggle out 

their time cards, which showed them working from 7:31 in the 

morning until 4:30 the following morning. They were working 134 

hours a week; they were getting 161⁄2 cents an hour. China’s labor 

law says 40 hours a week, and no more than 6 hours of overtime, 

9 hours of overtime a week. 

The labor laws in China are being completely violated. The workers have no freedom of association. In fact, it has been so stamped 

out that if you ask many Chinese workers what a union is, and we 

have asked them this, they think it is a breakfast meeting. They 

have no idea. 

So there are tens of millions of mostly young women from rural 

areas in these factories with no rights whatsoever. And of course, 

you know, the number of goods that are coming to the United 

States are just unbelievable. Jordan sends us, I believe, 1.2 billion 

pairs of shoes a year, as an example. I mean, this is like a couple 

of shoes for every single man, woman, and child in the United 

States. I mean, it is really revving up to overwhelm the world with 

these exports, made by workers whose rights are denied. They are 

not part of the 10 percent growth in China that the economy is 

growing; they are being left behind. And the living conditions are 

also barbaric. 

Ms. COHN. Just to add to that. We are often asked if we do work 

in China, and could we do work in China. We don’t currently do 

work in China, and thus can’t comment directly as to the situation 

there based on our own investigative findings. 

However, I would say that the reason we have not worked in 

China to date is primarily not for lack of case referrals asking us 

to do so, but because we, in our assessment, don’t believe we could 

secure the sufficient government cooperation or leverage in order to 

get rescues for victims and prosecutions for perpetrators. 

And I think some of the reports you are referring to, and we 

would add to it just the North Korea-China connection with regard 

to sex slavery, as well. So I can’t comment as to the tier ranking, 

but to say it is a source of great concern for us, as well. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. Ms. Gnezdilova, if you could tell us, are 

you aware of any action that was taken by the German Government to prosecute the owners of the clubs where you were forced 

to engage in prostitution? 

And if you could, describe exactly what the Angel Coalition did 

for you, I guess before you set up your own NGO, which I assume 

is a part of it. 

Ms. GNEZDILOVA. I don’t know about any cases to press against 

the traffickers in Germany. Besides helping me to set up my NGO, 

the Angel Coalition personally helped me to feel again as a human 

being, free and open, and ready to fight for my own human rights. 

Mr. SMITH. Could I ask you, in your work as an NGO, have you 

met any women who were trafficked to Germany since prostitution 

has been legalized? 

Ms. GNEZDILOVA. In Belgrade, where I live, there are a lot of ads 

in newspaper. And I am sure there are a lot of cases, because I 

60

heard from my friends. But usually in those cases, women do not 

tell about that. 

So in our city I can say that there are several employment agencies, and most of them, they provide employment, so-called employment, in Germany. Those agencies that invite girls for work to Germany. 

Mr. SMITH. Let me ask you, Ms. Veselykh, when you worked in 

Toni’s brothel in Germany, which you described in your statement 

as a legal brothel, did you ever see the police or any government 

inspector in the brothel for the purpose of enforcing any of the socalled regulations? And did they make any effort to discern whether or not the women were there legally, on their own volition, or 

whether or not they were involuntarily? 

Ms. VESELYKH. When I was there I can tell you that I didn’t see 

any inspection on the behalf of police. Actually, Toni, the owner, 

from her words, was afraid of such inspection. But also from her 

words, what I have heard, she said that she paid some amount of 

money to police, so they basically turn their blind eye to what is 

happening there, because they knew that there were a lot of 

women who worked there illegally without any documents. 

Mr. SMITH. When were you there? And let me ask you in addition 

to that, did any Dutch authorities prosecute brothel owners when 

you were in the Netherlands? 

Ms. VESELYKH. When I was there, it was August 2003. And to 

my knowledge, I don’t remember or know any cases when these 

people were prosecuted, brothel owners. I was promised that they 

will be penalized, and that there will be a trial, but nothing happened. 

Mr. SMITH. So you were there after the legalization of prostitution, obviously. 

Let me ask you, in Germany, can you give us any sense as to 

how many of the women were there under force and duress, as opposed to those who might be there voluntarily, in the brothels you 

were in? 

Ms. VESELYKH. In one of the clubs, and if I am not mistaken the 

name of that ‘‘Poofah,’’ so I saw at least five Russian women who 

were forced. So at least three of them I know perfectly, because 

they were 30 years, those, and I saw that they were completely 

threatened. 

I was a witness of selling another Russian young lady—if I am 

not mistaken her name was Marina—to Belgian for 15,000 euros. 

So when I say that she was sold, it means that there was a fake 

marriage, but without, of course, her agreement on that. So there 

was an agreement between the owner of the club with Russian 

mafia with a Belgian party. So that there is a fake marriage. And 

then when the lady goes to Belgium, she has to work for her socalled husband. 

In the Diplomat Club, I know when I was there, they planned 

right after me to deliver another three or four Russian young ladies. And as I heard from the other women there, so that there is 

the same situation with the rest of these clubs in Netherlands. 

As I heard, the owner of Diplomat made some agreement with 

Russian mafia group, so they could provide these young ladies on 

a regular basis. 

61

Mr. SMITH. Let me ask you, you said in your testimony that 

pimps threatened to hurt your family if you tried to escape. Are 

you aware of any families that were hurt? Or did the threat do its 

dirty work, and people, women, not seek to escape? 

Ms. VESELYKH. As example, I can tell you, and you heard that 

already in my statement, that the young woman who helped me to 

get these fake documents in order to cross the borders, she was 

killed. That is already good example. 

So then I was also severely beaten up. That is already examples 

of that, of those threats, that they are real. 

And I think that the mother of that young woman who was killed 

still doesn’t know what happened to her daughter, and probably is 

looking for her right now. I know where her mother lives, but also 

at the same time I cannot inform her, because the only thing I 

know about this young woman, that her name was Marina. 

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Gnezdilova, you said that several Russian girls 

had been recently murdered in the Savoy. To both of you—and Ms. 

Cohn, you might want to speak to this—how widespread is the 

murdering of women who have been trafficked? 

Ms. GNEZDILOVA. As for that situation with Savoy collapse, when 

we arrived there, they didn’t let us in. And they explained that 

they had temporary problems with police. As we later found out, 

several Russian girls were killed there. But then later, as they say, 

they open it again, because they cleared the situation with the police. 

Ms. VESELYKH. For my experience, I can tell you that a murder 

happens really often in the situation of trafficking, at least in that 

case with me. And I can tell you the following, usually these people 

who I faced while I was in Germany, I can tell you that the traffickers always have the same men from Russia who are there on 

an illegal basis, basically, without documents, who do so-called like 

dark, or let us say dirty job. 

So their task to take those girls who resist to continue to work, 

take them to special apartments that they usually have, where 

they beat them up, so where they break their hands, so where they 

kill them. And personally I saw the pictures of those ladies mutilated, with faces mutilated. And as those young men who did that 

job being basically torturers for higher owners or management, 

they, with a joke, said we just usually put them in concrete and 

throw it away. 

Usually how it happens, so they can kill a resisting young lady 

even in a car, or take her to a woods and just throw or bury her 

there, and nobody will find out. 

Mr. SMITH. Is there any way that the German police are tipped 

off that this has happened, and do they do anything? 

Ms. VESELYKH. I don’t know about the cases of prosecution on behalf of the police. But what I can tell you is that the same Russian 

gangsters who operated that, they mentioned not once that there 

is no sense even to apply to police, because basically we have our 

people in police, and we will be actually against you. 

Mr. SMITH. Well, there is a lot of room for us to follow up on 

that. So I do thank you so much. 

Let me ask one final question of Ms. Cohn, and that is, what has 

been the typical sentence for a labor trafficker? 

62

Ms. COHN. The typical sentence we have seen in labor for slavery 

has been 1 day. 

Mr. SMITH. 1 day? 

Ms. COHN. 1 day, and a moderate-to-mild fine. And we have only 

had a few of those. But that has been the sentence. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. Let me yield to Maureen Walsh, our General 

Counsel for the Commission on Security Cooperation in Europe. 

Ms. WALSH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Actually, just maybe two 

questions for Mr. Kernaghan if I could. 

Your report mentions that at the time you were interviewing 

workers from one particular factory, a monitoring team from a U.S. 

company was at the same time inspecting the factory. You uncovered terrible abuses; the monitoring team apparently thought everything was fine, and signed off on the factory continuing its operations. 

Could you maybe make some suggestions about what we could 

do to maybe make the monitoring by U.S. companies more effective? 

Mr. KERNAGHAN. Well, what we want to do—and we have actually discussed this with the companies and had some favorable response—is to set up a workers’ hotline where they receive a card 

from us which states Jordan’s labor laws on one side, and the other 

side says that there are people willing to help them. That they 

should receive their passports back. That they can’t be, you know, 

beaten and denied their wages, what the minimum wage is, and 

whatnot, with a toll-free number where they could call back to 

their home countries, to women’s groups and human rights groups 

and labor rights groups, to ask for help. And they can report these 

violations confidentially. 

We did this as an experiment on our trip to Jordan in May. We 

handed out these fliers. We are now getting calls from all across 

Jordan. It works. The workers are anxious to speak, desperate to 

speak, but they are terrified. And the factories, because the monitors parachute in, even if they are well-meaning people, and many 

of them are, many of them are really, truly dedicated to human 

rights, but the workers have to say to them, ‘‘We only worked 8 

hours a day.’’

In a factory we went into in Jordan on this trip in May with the 

United States delegation, we went to a factory that was mostly 

Chinese women workers. And we walked over to a woman with our 

translator and we asked the young woman inside the factory how 

many hours a day do you work. And the woman started to actually 

physically shake. She was very young, and she blurted out, ‘‘I work 

8 hours a day, 5 days a week.’’ And then she started to shake, and 

then she started crying. And we obviously left her, not to terrorize 

her. The owner of the factory was at the same time telling me, ‘‘We 

work 12 hours a day, 6 days a week.’’ So the workers are so terrified that there is no way they could tell the truth inside the factories. 

So we need to have a system where the workers can feel confident of who they are talking to. And what we are finding out with 

the few fliers we handed out in Bangladesh, we handed out 50 fliers with this information on it: Call Bangladesh, call the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity, call the National Garment 

63

Workers Federation; here is their number; if you have complaints, 

call them, we will try to help you. The calls are flooding in from 

all across Jordan. 

So it will work if workers are given access to actually speak in 

confidence to people they trust. And you know, you can’t fly a corporate monitor into the country to parachute into the factory for 2 

or 3 days, if even that. Workers under those conditions cannot tell 

the truth, because they are told, ‘‘If we find out that you criticized 

the factory, you will never work here again.’’

So it is a situation which needs something independent 

Ms. WALSH. And in your report you actually name, by name, a 

number of U.S. companies which are having their goods produced 

in these factories. What has the response been from those companies since your report was issued? 

Mr. KERNAGHAN. I would say surprisingly good. And I was 

caught off guard, actually, but I will tell you the response on the 

part of many of the companies. Companies you would expect, clearly. Levi Strauss, very strong. Van Heusen, very strong, superstrong. GAP, Sears, very strong. 

I think the U.S. companies can play a very positive role. I received a letter from J.C. Penney’s vice president. I actually think 

the United States companies want to get it right in Jordan. They 

are committed to Jordan. We don’t want them to pull out of the 

country. Those workers need the jobs. We just want them to guarantee that the workers’ rights will be respected according to Jordanian law and international standards. 

So I know today the companies are actually meeting with the 

Jordanian Minister for Industry and Trade. So there is a large 

meeting today in Washington. So I think the response on the part 

of many of the companies has been very good. 

I mentioned the L.L. Bean label, which is a very well-known 

company in the United States, being produced in a factory called 

Saidan, where these workers were beaten up and deported at gunpoint for meeting with us. L.L. Bean wrote back to us and said, 

‘‘We have no connection to that factory whatsoever.’’ And I figured 

we should, you know, I told them we would do further research and 

we will get back to them. And I was ready to pull that stuff. And 

then the workers faxed us the L.L. Bean label. So it actually proves 

that there is this subcontracting going on that the companies don’t 

even know about. So L.L. Bean checked, and they could not track 

any productions to that factory. But sure enough, the workers are 

making L.L. Bean. So they have to do more. 

But this time around, I would say the response on the part of the 

U.S. companies has been surprisingly good. And they have actually 

given us some inside information on why the workers never get 

paid their real wages because they set the production goal so high 

that it is impossible to reach. So you have to keep working for free, 

5 or 6 hours a night, to reach the production goal, which itself is 

ridiculously impossible to reach. So they are working 5 to 6 hours 

a day without wages. And the companies want to try to crack down 

on that. 

So I would say it has been very good 

Ms. WALSH. Okay. Just one final question. You also mention in 

your report the programs where USAID has been training manVerDate Mar 21 2002 14:37 Aug 30, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00067 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\AGI\061406\28104.000 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL
64

agers at these factories, and you talk about training on accounting 

or just basic management principles, but not getting into issues of 

workers’ rights or trafficking. 

Have you had any conversations or interaction with USAID since 

your report came out? Is that type of training still ongoing? And 

is there a place there where we can talk to USAID and get them 

to insert some of these other human rights issues into their training? 

Mr. KERNAGHAN. Well, it is a very important question, I think. 

And we did meet with United States Embassy officials when we 

were in Jordan. We did not meet with USAID. We haven’t received 

any phone calls from them. But the role that they could play could 

be huge. 

So for example, the Jordanian Government has said they will 

allow the local unions to accept these guest workers as members, 

which would be some protection for the guest workers, obviously. 

The problem is that the union is not allowed to enter the factories. 

They told us when they were in Jordan that they are prohibited 

from entering the factories. And also they have no resources. 

So if they don’t have trained staff who can speak Bengali and 

speak Mandarin and speak to the Sri Lankan workers, the fact 

that the guest workers can join the union is meaningless, because 

if there are no resources there, the union won’t be able to even 

speak with the workers, let alone help them or accompany them. 

So I think there is a huge role here, where resources would need 

to be put into the local union there so that it could actually be in 

contact with the workers, and could accompany them and support 

them 

Ms. WALSH. Thanks very much. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much. One final question, if I could. 

What is the free labor movement like in India? And can it be used 

to improve the plight of the Dalits in bonded labor? 

Mr. KERNAGHAN. I am not qualified to answer 

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Cohn? 

Ms. COHN. I am not qualified to answer. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay, thank you. Thank you for your candor. 

I want to thank our very distinguished witnesses for your testimony today, which will be used as we go forward on these issues. 

It gives us incredibly valuable insights to get the real feeling on the 

ground as to what is happening. And your recommendations will 

be very carefully weighed, and I can assure you will find their way 

into policy as we go forward. 

I also want to thank, on our staff, Maureen Walsh, who you just 

heard from; Eleanor Nagy, who is our Chief of Programs Policy for 

the Subcommittee; Lindsey Plumley; Jonathan Bruno, who is actually our intern and doing a fine job; Dorothy Taft, the Deputy Chief 

of Staff for the Helsinki Commission; and Mary Noonan, who is my 

personal Chief of Staff, for all the work that they did in bringing 

this hearing together, and all the work you do on this important 

human rights issue. 

And thank you, the witnesses, for your leadership. 

The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 3:26 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

(65)

A P P E N D I X 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

RESPONSES FROM THE HONORABLE JOHN MILLER, DIRECTOR, OFFICE TO COMBAT

TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED

FOR THE RECORD BY THE HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY AND CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON

AFRICA, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS

Question: 

Section 105(b) of the TVPRA of 2005 tasks the Department of Labor to carry out 

additional activities to monitor the use of forced labor and child labor in violation 

of international standards, to provide information regarding trafficking in persons 

for the purpose of forced labor to your office for inclusion in the annual Report, to 

develop and publish a list of goods produced by forced labor, and to work to prevent 

the importation of such goods into the U.S. Please describe for the Subcommittee 

your discussions with the Department of Labor regarding these requirements and 

your understanding of the status of their implementation. 

Response: 

I informed the Department of Labor, along with other affected agencies, of their 

expanded responsibilities at the February 16, 2006, meeting of the Senior Policy Operating Group on trafficking in persons (SPOG). Prior to that meeting, I had a 

phone conversation with representatives from Labor regarding the new legislative 

requirements. On May 17, 2006, I met with the new Deputy Undersecretary of 

Labor for International Labor Affairs, Jim Carter. We used this opportunity to again 

discuss the new mandates under the TVPRA 2005. At the May 17th meeting, Carter 

noted that a plan to meet the new mandates was being reviewed by the DOL policy 

planning board. At the May 18th SPOG meeting, DOL noted that it is struggling 

to fulfill the mandates with its current staff. Again, DOL emphasized that it has 

a proposal on how to address these mandates under review by its policy planning 

board that would substantively address the new TVPRA mandates. The Department 

of Labor recently convened a task force within DOL to better coordinate its various 

anti-trafficking efforts. While funding was authorized in the 2005 law, there has 

been no corresponding appropriations legislation. Agencies are willing to tackle 

these issues, but these are difficult to fulfill the without additional funding. 

Question: 

In response to evils such as the sexual exploitation of young women and girls by 

UN peacekeepers in the Congo—some as young as 11 or 12, and in exchange for a 

banana or a dollar —the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2005 

includes provisions requiring the US government to press international organizations 

to do more in this area. Section 104(e)(1) requires the annual trafficking report to 

include information on measures taken by the UN, NATO, OSCE and other similar 

bodies to prevent trafficking, and I am pleased to see the inclusion of such information in this year’s report. Section 104(e)(2) requires a report by the Secretary of State 

at least 15 days prior to voting for a new or reauthorized peacekeeping mission which 

describes measures taken by the international organization to prevent trafficking and 

analyzes their effectiveness. I have not seen any such reports by the Department to 

date, and would ask for a clarification of where we are on this. 

Response: 

As discussed with your office, the Department of State plans to submit a report 

twice a year providing details on steps that the UN is taking to prevent trafficking, 

and assessing the efficacy of those steps, on anticipated new or renewed peacekeeping missions over the coming six months. We expect to submit the first such 

66

report on or about August 1. Individual reports may be submitted from time to time 

to cover multiple renewals of the same mission within a six-month period or unanticipated new missions that arise within a six-month period. 

The Department is aware of section 104(e) of the 2005 TVPRA, and fully intends 

to comply with its reporting requirements when a peacekeeping mission under the 

auspices of NATO or the OSCE is authorized or reauthorized, as envisioned by the 

statute. 

Question: 

The TVPRA of 2005 tasked USAID, State and DOD with doing more to incorporate 

anti-trafficking and protection measures for vulnerable populations, particularly 

women and children, into post-conflict and humanitarian emergency assistance program activities. The law requires a study of best practices and a report including 

proposed recommendations due six months after the passage of the Act, which is in 

July 2006. Please update the Subcommittee on the Administration’s implementation 

of these requirements. 

Response: 

USAID funded a study on trafficking in post conflict and humanitarian emergencies as required by the 2005 TVPRA. The study is complete and the report will 

be transmitted to Congress by July 7, 2006. 

The protection of vulnerable populations, especially women and children, in conflict and humanitarian crises continues to be of paramount concern for the Administration. The Department of State continues to engage the UN in aggressively implementing necessary reforms to prevent further trafficking, sexual exploitation and 

abuse by UN staff and peacekeeping personnel stationed in post-conflict and humanitarian emergency locations. We are pleased to see that the UN Department of 

Peacekeeping Operations, in response to allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse 

by UN staff and peacekeepers in various peacekeeping missions around the world 

in recent years has instituted a package of disciplinary and preventive measures in 

Liberia and other peacekeeping missions. UN peacekeepers who have committed offenses are sent home, with recommendations to the sending governments for disciplinary action. International staff are fired. We are also closely monitoring the implementation of NATO and OSCE zero-tolerance policies. 

In April 2006, an interim Federal Acquisition Rule (FAR) was issued pursuant to 

a TVPRA requirement that all federal contracts include a provision authorizing the 

relevant U.S. Government agency to terminate a contract if the contractor or subcontractor engages in severe forms of trafficking, purchase of a commercial sex act 

or use of forced labor. Additionally, contractors are required to establish policies and 

procedures to hold their personnel accountable. 

The State Department’s Bureau for Population, Refugees, and Migration and the 

U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) require their overseas implementing partners involved in assistance in humanitarian crises to certify they have 

adopted a code of conduct that is consistent with the six core principles of the UN’s 

Inter-Agency Standing Committee Task Force on Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in Humanitarian Crises. Additionally, the U.S. Government’s implementing partners have set up additional mechanisms dealing with this issue, including the regular training of all staff, conducting seminars on recognizing and reporting cases, and establishing legal aide clinics and other avenues for assisting victims in these cases. 

The Department of State continues to ensure that U.S. civilian police deployed to 

overseas peacekeeping missions understand trafficking and the U.S. government’s 

zero-tolerance on this issue through comprehensive pre-deployment training administered by the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. 

The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) has also taken seriously efforts to prevent 

trafficking where DOD personnel and contractors are deployed. As DOD officials 

stated at the June 21st before your Subcommittee, the Department has a zero-tolerance policy on human trafficking. Human trafficking awareness training is mandatory for all U.S. military and civilian personnel deployed overseas. Also, confidential 

hotlines have been established for DOD personnel, and the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation human trafficking rule is being amended to supplement the Federal 

Acquisition Regulation rule for types of contracts susceptible to labor trafficking 

overseas. Additionally, the DOD Inspector General will issue a report on its findings 

on the implementation of DOD’s zero-tolerance policy. DOD took swift action recently to address instances of mistreatment of foreign workers by U.S. contractors 

in Iraq and will continue to ensure contractors are abiding by US anti-trafficking 

policy and law. 

67

While the three agencies have undertaken several measures to protect vulnerable 

populations and prevent trafficking, there is more that we can do. We have begun 

to engage key troop contributing countries in bilateral meetings to acknowledge 

their shared responsibility in preventing trafficking, sexual exploitation and abuse, 

and holding accountable their personnel. In light of the recent report ‘‘From Camp 

to Community: Liberia Study on Exploitation of Children’’ by Save the Children/UK, 

the Department of State and USAID established an informal working group to assess current protection measures and to identify areas for improvement. 

Question: 

What criteria were used to determine the countries that would be placed in the 

‘‘Special Cases’’ category, why were some countries that have suspected problems with 

trafficking, such as Fiji, left off the special case list? 

Response: 

The ‘‘Special Case’’ designation—an unranked category of countries in The Trafficking in Persons Report—is applied to countries in two different types of situations: (a) Countries without functioning national governments that can be held accountable for combating human trafficking; (b) Countries where the existence of a 

significant trafficking problem is suspected, but not confirmed by sufficient concrete 

evidence. Fiji was not listed in the 2006 Trafficking in Persons Report as a ‘‘Special 

Case’’ because information available did not indicate that Fiji has a significant trafficking problem. Over the reporting period for the 2007 Report, G/TIP and Embassy 

Suva will gather further information on the trafficking situation in Fiji in an effort 

to assess the magnitude of the problem. 

Question: 

Can you provide a break-down of total U.S. domestic and foreign spending to combat trafficking in persons? Given the scale of the human trafficking problem, are the 

resources provided adequate? 

Response: 

In FY 2005, the U.S. Government obligated approximately $95 million to 266 

international anti-trafficking in persons (TIP) projects in 101 countries, up from approximately $82 million in FY2004. These projects are working to ensure human 

trafficking is prevented, the survivors are protected, and the traffickers are put in 

jail. They are sponsored through the coordinated efforts of the Departments of State, 

Justice, Labor, Health and Human Services, and USAID. 

While funding was authorized in the 2005 TVPRA, there has been no corresponding appropriations legislation. Agencies are willing to tackle these issues, 

but have noted that it will be difficult to fulfill the mandates without additional 

funding. Appropriated funds consistent with levels proposed in the reauthorization 

are needed to fully meet Congressional mandates. In FY 2007, the Department of 

State requested approximately $26.54 million in anti-trafficking program funds; increased funding could lead to the rescue of more victims, the passage of more international laws, an increase in public awareness as well as other efforts to eliminate 

human trafficking. 

Question: 

According to the current Trafficking in Persons Report, Sudan has done nothing 

to address the longstanding concern about Sudanese who have been kidnapped into 

slavery as part of the long civil war in the country. What has the Khartoum government said in your conversations with them about slavery in Sudan? Have they acknowledged that it even happened? What are they prepared to do to help find and 

recover those abducted into slavery? 

Response: 

According to the Committee for the Eradication of Abduction of Women and Children’s (CEAWC), approximately 694 victims of abduction and slavery were collected 

from the northern states of South Darfur and South Kordofan and returned to the 

Bahr el Ghazal region of Southern Sudan during the 2005 reporting period. These 

retrieval and transport missions took place in June 2005 and January/February 

2006; between June and January, the Government of National Unity (GNU) did not 

provide CEAWC with the necessary funding for the transport and reunification of 

previously identified abductees with their families. In the latest round of repatriations, in January and February 2006, there were noticeable improvements in 

CEAWC’s methods of returning abductees, including no known cases of forced returns and improved provisions and condition of the convoys. 

68

The GNU readily acknowledges that abductions of Southern Sudanese citizens occurred during the decades of the North-South civil conflict. To date, however, high 

ranking government officials have not publicly recognized a linkage between such 

abductions and the resulting enslavement of some of the abductees. 

As a result of a downgrade from Tier 2 Watch List to Tier 3 in the 2006 Trafficking in Persons Report, the GNU has opted to discontinue bilateral engagement 

with the USG on the subject of trafficking in persons. As a result, it is unknown 

what the GNU intends to do in the near-term to address the situation of those abducted into slavery. The Department of State and the US Embassy in Khartoum 

will continue to monitor all known types of human trafficking occurring on the 

ground and the government’s efforts to combat them. We will also persist in fostering meaningful dialogue on this subject in every manner possible. 

Question: 

There are numerous estimates of how many Sudanese have been abducted into 

slavery over the past two decades. What numbers does your agency accept as most 

reliable for the number of Sudanese in slavery today? On what evidence are you basing your estimate of the number of Sudanese held in slavery at this time? 

Response: 

During the decades of civil war, thousands of women and children from various 

tribes located in Southern Sudan were abducted and subsequently enslaved in 

Northern Sudan by members of Baggara tribes. Some of those who were abducted 

and enslaved remain with their abductors in South Darfur and West Kordofan; others were sold or given to third parties, including in other regions of the country; 

others were ‘‘redeemed’’ through the assistance of middlemen; several hundred were 

freed through the work of the Dinka Chief’s Committee and/or CEAWC; and some 

ultimately escaped from or were released by their captors. Therefore, slavery in 

Kordofan and Darfur over the last 24 years can best be described as fluid. Because 

of this transitory nature, as well as difficulty accessing affected regions and overall 

dearth of professional quality statistical research on this subject, precise estimates 

of those abducted or held is slavery were impossible to obtain during the northsouth civil war. Such efforts to quantify this phenomenon have been further complicated by the emergence of civil conflict in the Darfur region, where many of those 

still remaining in slavery are thought to be currently located. 

Available estimates of abducted Dinka—to date there have been no known attempts to document the number of Nuba similarly abducted and enslaved—vary 

greatly, ranging from several thousand to two hundred thousand [Note: Some of 

these estimates also include men and boys that were abducted for use in conflict 

by armed groups.]. The methodologies utilized to establish these figures vary dramatically in rigor and comprehensiveness, with all, save one, constructed without 

the use of a systematically-based sampling process or sound quantitative 

underpinnings. To date, the Department has been unable to sufficiently verify the 

accuracy of existing estimates or independently establish a reliable estimate of the 

number of persons initially abducted and enslaved or that remain in such conditions 

at present time. As such, we decline to promote any specific organization’s approximation as ‘‘most reliable’’ until such time as a more thorough investigation can be 

conducted. 

Question: 

The TVPRA of 2005 in section 104(c) recommended further research on the interrelationship between trafficking in persons and terrorism, including the use of profits 

from trafficking in persons to finance terrorism, and tasked the Human Smuggling 

and Trafficking Center with carrying out this research initiative. Please update the 

Subcommittee on the progress of this initiative. 

Response: 

As you know, the Human Trafficking and Smuggling Center (HSTC) is an interagency initiative composed of several agencies, including Justice, State, and Homeland Security 

HSTC informed us that it has assigned analysts, is levying intelligence requirements, and is conducting research related to interrelationship between trafficking 

in persons and terrorism. I refer you to the HSTC for more detailed information as 

to these activities. 

Question: 

The TIP Report notes that the estimates of people in forced labor, bonded labor, 

forced child labor, and sexual servitude range from 4–27 million people. Last year 

the ILO estimated that 12.3 million people were held in one of these conditions of 

69

servitude at any given time—and more than 2 million were victims of trafficking? 

Can you explain the distinction? Of the other estimates ranging from 4–27 million 

in a slavery-like condition, how many are victims of trafficking? 

Response: 

There are no accurate estimates of the exact number of trafficking victims within 

the definition under the TVPA related to trafficking for labor purposes. The numbers vary widely depending on the organization that produced the number and they 

may differ because each organization may account for trafficking for labor in a different manner. For instance, children in commercial sexual exploitation are in a 

‘‘worst form of child labor’’ but are also victims of a ‘‘severe form of trafficking’’—

these numbers are not always counted the same; many of the labor estimates are 

accounted for separately: domestic servitude, bonded labor, and/or forced child labor, 

which may lead to large discrepancies. The TVPA accounts for all forms of this type 

of labor whereas ILO accounts for them differently as defined by the international 

instruments under which it operates under. For example, a large portion of the 10.3 

million victims of forced labor in the ILO report who are not also counted as trafficking victims in that report are victims of bonded labor in South Asia—persons 

who would be considered victims of a ‘‘severe form of trafficking’’ under the TVPA. 

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