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COMBATING TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL 

MONETARY POLICY, TRADE AND TECHNOLOGY

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

APRIL 28, 2005

Printed for the use of the Committee on Financial Services

Serial No. 109–22

(

(II)

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES 

MICHAEL G. OXLEY, Ohio, Chairman

JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa 

RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana 

DEBORAH PRYCE, Ohio 

SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama 

MICHAEL N. CASTLE, Delaware 

PETER T. KING, New York 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

ROBERT W. NEY, Ohio 

SUE W. KELLY, New York, Vice Chair 

RON PAUL, Texas 

PAUL E. GILLMOR, Ohio 

JIM RYUN, Kansas 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois 

WALTER B. JONES, JR., North Carolina 

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois 

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut 

VITO FOSSELLA, New York 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio 

MARK R. KENNEDY, Minnesota 

TOM FEENEY, Florida 

JEB HENSARLING, Texas 

SCOTT GARRETT, New Jersey 

GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida 

J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina 

KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida 

RICK RENZI, Arizona 

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania 

STEVAN PEARCE, New Mexico 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

TOM PRICE, Georgia 

MICHAEL G. FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania 

GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky 

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina 

BARNEY FRANK, Massachusetts 

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania 

MAXINE WATERS, California 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois 

NYDIA M. VELA ́ ZQUEZ, New York 

MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

DARLENE HOOLEY, Oregon 

JULIA CARSON, Indiana 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

BARBARA LEE, California 

DENNIS MOORE, Kansas 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

HAROLD E. FORD, JR., Tennessee 

RUBE ́ N HINOJOSA, Texas 

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEVE ISRAEL, New York 

CAROLYN MCCARTHY, New York 

JOE BACA, California 

JIM MATHESON, Utah 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

BRAD MILLER, North Carolina 

DAVID SCOTT, Georgia 

ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama 

AL GREEN, Texas 

EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri 

MELISSA L. BEAN, Illinois 

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida 

GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin, 

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

Robert U. Foster, III, Staff Director 

(III)

SUBCOMMITTEE ON DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL MONETARY POLICY, TRADE AND

TECHNOLOGY

DEBORAH PRYCE, Ohio, Chair

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois, Vice Chair 

JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa 

MICHAEL N. CASTLE, Delaware 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

RON PAUL, Texas 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois 

MARK R. KENNEDY, Minnesota 

KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida 

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

TOM PRICE, Georgia 

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina 

MICHAEL G. OXLEY, Ohio 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont 

MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina 

MAXINE WATERS, California 

BARBARA LEE, California 

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois 

MELISSA L. BEAN, Illinois 

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida 

GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin 

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York 

BARNEY FRANK, Massachusetts 

(V)

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on: 

April 28, 2005 ................................................................................................... 1

Appendix: 

April 28, 2005 ................................................................................................... 35

WITNESSES 

THURSDAY, APRIL 28, 2005

Frundt, Tina, Polaris Project .................................................................................. 23

Hotaling, Norma, Executive Director, SAGE ........................................................ 20

Miller, Hon. John, Director, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in 

Persons, U.S. Department of State ..................................................................... 6

APPENDIX 

Prepared statements: 

Oxley, Hon. Michael G. .................................................................................... 36

Wasserman Schultz, Hon. Debbie ................................................................... 38

Frundt, Tina ...................................................................................................... 41

Hotaling, Norma ............................................................................................... 48

Miller, Hon. John .............................................................................................. 58

(1)

COMBATING TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS 

Thursday, April 28, 2005

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL

MONETARY POLICY, TRADE AND TECHNOLOGY

COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES, 

Washington, D.C. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:07 a.m., in Room 

2128, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Deborah Pryce [chairman of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Pryce, Biggert, Leach, Castle, Kennedy, 

Harris, Gerlach, Neugebauer, Price, McHenry, Maloney, Lee, Sherman, and Wasserman Schultz. 

Chairman PRYCE. [Presiding.] This hearing of the Subcommittee 

on Domestic and International Monetary Policy, Trade and Technology will now come to order. 

Good morning. 

I would like to begin by welcoming my distinguished colleagues 

and our expert panelists to this hearing this morning. 

The topic before us today in the subcommittee is wrought with 

emotion. It yanks at our heartstrings because it is about real people. More often or not, it is about young people, girls and boys. It 

is about innocent children, women and men who are stripped of 

their dignity and robbed of their human rights. It is slavery. Today, 

in the 21st century, it is trafficking in persons. 

Trafficking in persons, or TIP, as the State Department calls it, 

is a term used in U.S. law and around the world. The term encompasses slave trading and modern-day slavery in all its forms. 

It takes only a brief history lesson to jog our memories that 

President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 

commenced the effort to end slavery in this country. Two years 

later, by way of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, a ban on 

slavery and involuntary servitude was enacted in the United 

States. 

We should all be shocked and horrified that 140 years later slavery is still rampant in America. 

As I have been learning more and more about the reality that we 

call trafficking in persons, I found myself sharing what I learned 

with friends and family and colleagues. To those of you in this 

room who have been working on this issue for a long time, I am 

sure you have shared the same experience and the reaction of your 

friends. 

People quite simply have no idea that slavery still exists. They 

have no idea that somewhere upwards to 17,500 people are trafVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:07 Sep 14, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\DOCS\23248.TXT FIN1 PsN: MICAH
2

ficked across U.S. borders every year. They are astounded to learn 

that between 600,000 and 700,000 children, women and men are 

trafficked across international borders every year. 

But the numbers are not enough. They do not mean a thing until 

you give each number a name, a face, an age, an identity. So let 

me tell you about one. 

Her name is Aurica. She is 19 years old from the country of 

Moldova, the poorest country in Europe, between Ukraine and Romania. 

I met Aurica when I traveled overseas earlier this month on an 

investigative mission to address trafficking in persons in Europe. 

Aurica had just arrived at a rehabilitation center run by a nongovernmental organization in Moldova’s capital. 

Like any typical young woman, Aurica just wanted to make a life 

for herself. She wanted to get a job, provide for herself and one day 

have a family of her own. 

But Moldova’s lack of natural resources and dismal economy is 

making it terribly difficult for young people to carve out a meaningful or even a hopeful future there. It also makes it a breeding 

ground for traffickers. 

Aurica became friendly with a young man who told her about an 

exciting job opportunity in Turkey. Her spirits lifted when he told 

her about all the money that she could make. She might even earn 

enough to send home to her poor parents in Moldova. 

The alternative, finding a job in Moldova that paid a decent 

wage, was a nonstarter. It was an impossibility in this ambitious 

and realistic young girl’s eyes. 

Upon her arrival in Istanbul, however, Aurica was immediately 

not given a job; she was sold into a brothel. 

After coming to the devastating realization that she would be 

forced to stay in the brothel with other young women who had been 

held there as sex slaves, she attempted to escape by jumping from 

the sixth story of the building. Sadly, she incurred significant injuries, a broken spine. She spent 4 months in a Turkish hospital 

without adequate medical care, finally to be returned to Moldova 

where we met her. 

She is one girl, but she is one of thousands and thousands. 

In an ideal world, we would be out rescuing every last victim we 

could. But we do not live in an ideal world, and we must do what 

we can. And we did what we could for Aurica. 

Congresswoman Kay Granger lined up a doctor in Dallas, Texas, 

that would give her free surgery. I lined up MedFlight from Columbus, Ohio, that would give her free transportation. And just yesterday she endured 12 hours of surgery, and they believe that she will 

be able to walk. 

We did what we could for Aurica, but there are thousands like 

her. Each and every day, nongovernmental organizations across the 

world are doing what they can to help innocent victims of this horrendous practice. 

Governments across the world are on notice that, thanks to the 

annual TIP report that Ambassador Miller’s office puts out every 

year, we are watching. And the U.S. is lending support across the 

globe to help provide other countries with tools to combat trafficking inside of their borders. 

3

The scale of this issue is almost incalculable. But we have to 

start somewhere, and we have. 

Congress, under the strong leadership of Frank Wolf of Virginia 

and Chris Smith of New Jersey, among many others, has enacted 

critical legislation such as the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, 

and the Protect Act. 

Congresswoman Maloney, my colleague and good friend, and I 

will be introducing legislation later this week that focuses on ending—well, we will be introducing it today, as a matter of fact—focusing on ending the demand for sex trafficking here in the United 

States of America. It still exists here. 

More needs to be done. We must continue to build awareness 

about this crisis and identify new and improved ways to combat it. 

It is a multi-dimensional, very complex and ever-changing issue. 

That is why we have to continue the fight. 

I would like to close by quoting what I believe to be an incredibly 

powerful statement articulated by President Bush before the 

United Nations General Assembly in September of 2003. The President said: ‘‘There is a special evil in the abuse and exploitation of 

the most innocent and vulnerable. The victims of sex trade see little of life before they see the very worst of life—an underground 

of brutality and lonely fear.’’

I commend the President for his commitment to unleashing the 

forces that he has to fight this special evil. Only by building awareness that this abuse exists, enacting and implementing sound policies to combat the abuse, and ensuring the availability of support 

for victims can we truly invoke real change in communities across 

this country and in communities throughout the world. 

Thank you, again, to all of our panelists for joining us this morning. I look forward to hearing your assessment of the current dynamics surrounding trafficking in persons both in the U.S. and 

abroad. 

Without objection, all Members’ opening statements can be made 

part of the record. 

And I now would like to recognize my good friend, the gentlelady 

from New York and Ranking Member of this subcommittee, Congresswoman Maloney, for her opening statement. 

Mrs. MALONEY. I thank Chairwoman Pryce. 

And I congratulate her on chairing this committee and for holding this important hearing. I think it is very meaningful that her 

first hearing is on domestic and international anti-trafficking efforts and especially what our country can do to combat trafficking. 

This is a topic that we both personally care about deeply and one 

that I have worked on for many years in Congress. 

A very special thank you to Ambassador Miller for your efforts 

and your passion and your dedication for being here today with 

your testimony and for all that you have done so far. You have 

truly already made a tremendous difference in the international 

trafficking in the world. I have seen it for many years. This is the 

first time I have seen real strides and differences take place, and 

a great deal of it is due to your leadership. 

I also would like to thank our witnesses—Norma Hotaling and 

Tina Frundt. They are in the trenches, and they work every day 

4

to combat trafficking at the most direct level, helping the individual women and girl victims. 

I must say a very, very special word to Tina. I was not aware 

that it was so prevalent in our own country until she told me about 

it. I think it takes a great deal of courage to speak out about your 

personal tragedy and to share it with others. But it is important 

for policy-makers and other people to know about it. 

She is a brave woman who survived years of forced prostitution 

at the hands of her own foster mother and was later victimized by 

a pimp. She not only survived but went on to become a fierce advocate for others who are trapped in the same life of violence. 

At present, there is very little funding for survivors like Tina and 

virtually no recognition or support. Instead of helping, we prosecute, and then we allow the real criminals to go free. 

Tina says that she often goes into court to help victimized young 

women and that pimps are literally waiting outside the courtroom 

to pick them up. Yet, many judges tell me they have never had a 

pimp or a john brought into their courtroom; it always is the victimized woman. 

And that is why I am so very proud to join with Representative 

Pryce to end this unconscionable practice. The bill that we are introducing today will provide $15 million a year for 5 years to jurisdictions that prosecute the perpetrators of this terrible crime. 

This bill focuses on prevention. This bill is designed to starve the $5 billion a year beast that the illegal sex industry has become in 

our country. It is an industry that profits from the victimization of 

individuals who cannot defend themselves. 

One-third of this money, if it passes, will go toward helping victims of sex trafficking become survivors, like Tina, so that they can 

become part of the effort of helping others. The rest will be awarded to fight the real criminals—the pimps, the johns, the brothel 

owners—who currently function without fear in our own country. 

Sweden has aggressively pursued and prosecuted pimps and 

brothel owners since 1999. And according to one study, just 2 years 

after beginning the program, they reduced the number of women 

working as prostitutes by 50 percent and the number of men buying sex by 75 percent. 

For too long in our country, we have focused on blaming those 

who are kidnapped, coerced or tricked into working as prostitutes 

and in brothels against their will. Now we are taking on the perpetrators of this terrible crime rather than the victims. It is a 

major policy shift and a major bill. 

This problem affects every city in our country. And it is happening now even in my own district in New York which I represent, and I am astonished and horrified to learn this. I researched it preparing for this hearing, and it is so widespread in 

our country. 

Each year, up to 20,000 men, women and children from all over 

the world are brought to the United States for the sole purpose of 

being bought and sold by Americans, and we are going to do something about it. 

I just want to conclude by saying that it is a lot easier to look 

at sex trafficking in other countries rather than our own. In Congress, we have looked to cut off funding for foreign nations that tolVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:07 Sep 14, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\DOCS\23248.TXT FIN1 PsN: MICAH
5

erate or support the sex trafficking industry. But only now have we 

turned to combat the problem in our own backyard by helping victims and providing local jurisdictions incentives to target and prosecute the users of commercial sex acts. 

We will make significant strides in ending this horrendous crime 

in our own country. 

I became interested in this issue because of a firm in the district 

that I represent called the Big Apple Tours. And this firm would 

literally advertise in brochures and on the Internet to go on their 

trips to Indonesia and to Thailand, and they would advertise that 

if you went on their trips, they would be provided with young children-virgins and ‘‘please describe the age that you would like′′—

just disgusting. 

I went to the D.A. and they said they could not close them down 

because they had to prove intent and it was very difficult to do. But 

with the work of Deborah Pryce and others, we have really closed 

down a lot of these sex trafficking firms and made the laws tougher. 

This is a continuing effort, and I am proud to join with this effort, and I thank all that have been part of it. 

I yield back. 

Chairman PRYCE. Thank you, Ms. Maloney. I appreciate your cooperation and your assistance in the drafting and putting together 

this bill and this hearing today. 

At this time it is my very special honor to introduce an extraordinary and passionate leader in the effort to combat trafficking in 

persons, Ambassador John Miller. 

Ambassador Miller directs the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. The Trafficking in Persons 

Office coordinates U.S. government activities in the global fight 

against modern-day slavery, including forced labor and sexual exploitation. 

I have had the privilege to work with Ambassador Miller and his 

staff for some time now and have seen firsthand their incredible 

dedication on behalf of this president and to ensuring that the U.S. 

is a world leader in efforts to combat trafficking in persons. 

Ambassador Miller, as a credit to you, on our journeys in 

Moldova and Albania and other places, our country and our president were given great accolades for their leadership. And if you 

have not heard that, you should hear it firsthand. 

He is no stranger to Capitol Hill. He served in Congress for 8 

years representing the state of Washington. While in Congress, Mr. 

Miller held a seat on the House Committee on International Relations and was a member of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus. 

We are very grateful to have him here this morning. His unwavering commitment to ending modern-day slavery is clear, and his 

energetic spirit is contagious. 

Ambassador Miller, thank you so much for joining us. Without 

objection, your written statement can be made part of the record. 

You are now recognized. 

6

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN MILLER, DIRECTOR, OFFICE TO 

MONITOR AND COMBAT TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Mr. MILLER. Well, thank you, Madam Chairman. I will submit 

a statement for the record. 

I have to tell you that I feel very honored to come before this 

committee to speak about the United States’ role in trying to abolish slavery in the 21st century. 

Madam Chairman, your CODEL, your trip to Greece, Moldova, 

Albania and Italy, contributed significantly to our efforts in this 

area. As far as I know, I think it was the first CODEL exclusively 

devoted to the trafficking-in-persons issue. And I commend you. 

And, Congresswoman Maloney, your speech, which I heard—was 

it a week or 2 weeks ago?—at the Congressional Women’s Caucus 

was one of the most moving and eloquent expositions on the issue 

of slavery in the 21st century. 

So the leadership that you all are giving is most welcome. 

Now, you are going to listen to me describe the U.S. efforts, but 

you also have an all-star panel following me. And I know that Tina 

from the Polaris Project is testifying. The Polaris Project has done 

some great work, not only at home but abroad. We worked with 

them in Japan, for example. 

You also have Norma Hotaling, the director of SAGE, who really, 

among other things, started the Johns’ school movement in this 

country. It is one of the first education efforts to change society and 

to change the mores of the perpetrators here. I had the privilege 

of visiting her school just a couple of weeks ago in San Francisco. 

Well, when we start talking about this, as the Chairman said, it 

is easy to get into figures and reports. But, of course, all of us here 

have met victims. Both of you referred to victims that you have 

met. And I have met so many abroad. 

So when I think of these figures, the 800,000 across international 

borders every year and all these other figures, I do think of people 

like Khan and Lord that were put into factories and had chemicals 

dumped on them, and I think of Katya, who was trafficked across 

Europe from the Czech Republic to the Netherlands and forced to 

work in a brothel in the Amsterdam red-light district—and hundreds of more of these cases. 

And as you said, Congresswoman, this challenge extends to every 

country in the world, including the United States of America. 

The categories are vast—sex slavery, domestic servitude slavery, 

factory slavery, farm slavery, child camel jockey slavery. And when 

you talk with victims in these categories, you cannot do anything 

else but become a 21st century abolitionist. 

I think President Bush did set the tone for our efforts when almost a year-and-a-half ago he went to the U.N. and devoted over 

20 percent of his speech to how nations in the world must wake 

up and join in fighting this scourge. 

Let us begin with our efforts in the U.S. government. I will talk 

briefly about my office, which was set up by you, by Congress, in 

the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, reauthorized in 

2003. 

What are some of the things we do? 

7

We have the annual report that you referred to that evaluates 

countries throughout the world. 

There is another report that we participate in, that Justice takes 

the lead, evaluating U.S. efforts in this area. 

And I can say—I mean, this is true of this whole area. I get a 

little concerned about talking about efforts, because it implies that, 

you know, great progress has been made and the problem is on its 

way to solution. And this is not true. There is so much more to do. 

However, steps are starting to be taken. And we see with this report, whether it is due to countries awakening on the issue, or 

whether they want a better rating in the report, or whether they 

have a fear of the sanctions that may come from being rated low, 

we see tremendous efforts that were not there before—we see 3,000 

convictions worldwide of traffickers last year; we see almost 50 

countries in the last 2 years passing comprehensive anti-trafficking-in-persons laws. 

Then we have programs abroad, and they are not just State. Department of Labor, USAID, and now we are getting Justice and 

HHS involved. 

The last 4 years, there has been an increase every year. It is now 

getting up between $80 million and $90 million a year. It is a modest amount, given the challenge, but of course it is probably five, 

10 times more than any other country is spending on this issue 

abroad. 

Lastly, we are trying in our office to put the spotlight on this 

issue—not just the report, not just our prosecution prevention and 

protection programs—but to get the news media to start covering 

this issue around the world. We are starting to see that. And when 

the awareness increases, then good things happen. 

We also have another role in our office. We chair the senior policy operating group that you set up. First you set up a presidential 

task force, the Cabinet officers. They meet once a year. But then 

you set up a senior policy operating group to do the day-to-day coordination work. All the agencies are represented. I chair this 

group. And through this group, we are doing a lot of interesting 

things. 

The President asks that every agency come up with its own strategic plan for how they were going to fight trafficking in persons, 

and that has now been done. 

The group is trying to coordinate the grants so that we do not 

have duplications, so that we have a coordinated approach. 

We are trying to put more emphasis on child-sex tourism, which 

the President singled out at the U.N. 

We are trying to put more emphasis on demand, which you both 

referred to. 

I think at the beginning when we started looking at this issue, 

we said, ‘‘Well, where are these trafficking victims, slaves, coming 

from?’’ And we looked to the less-developed countries in the world. 

But demand exists all over the world, in some of the wealthiest 

countries of the world—Western Europe, Japan, the United States. 

And we are trying to see how we can do more to address demand, 

whether it is through projects such as Ms. Hotaling’s or other 

projects. 

8

Now, one of the reasons I am really pleased that you are holding 

this hearing is that you can bring new energy to looking at the financial aspects of this crime. 

We know human trafficking fuels organized crime. We know organized crime flourishes because of this. We know it can weaken 

governments. We know that people suffer. 

According to the Congressional Research Service, human trafficking is now considered the third largest source of profits for organized crime worldwide, after the drug trade and the arms trade. 

Our government estimates $9.5 billion in annual revenue for organized crime. UNODC, the U.N. organization, concludes that trafficking, the globalization of trafficking, has allowed crime groups 

formerly active in specific routes or regions to expand the geographic scope of their activities to explore new markets. 

So here we have this lucrative criminal industry, high profit 

margin, low risk. A trafficker receives a few hundred to thousands 

of dollars from the work of a trafficked child laborer. A brothel 

owner may obtain profits of a few thousand to tens of thousands 

of dollars for each trafficked woman forced into prostitution. 

And they benefit because the recruiting, the transportation, the 

documentation costs are low, and the risk of prosecution is not as 

low as it was, but it is still low. 

In many of the poorer countries that are the targets, the money 

that could be going to productive enterprises is going to these crime 

units. 

So I really believe we need more research to get a better understanding of how traffickers and organized crime groups are using 

the modern-day slave trade to launder money and finance other 

criminal activities. And your subcommittee can play a vital role. 

It has been 5 years since we issued the first report, long before 

many of us here got interested in this issue. So many countries did 

not recognize the issue. 

In that 5 years, the U.S. has increased its efforts. Domestically 

we now have Department of Homeland Security taking an aggressive approach around the world arresting, processing, detaining, removing traffickers from the U.S. 

Department of Health and Human Services started this year a 

public awareness campaign in 10 pilot cities—it is going to be increased to 20—and the first national 24-hour hotline. 

If you look at the Justice Department over the last several years, 

there has been a tripling of prosecutions. 

The Department of Defense, the first defense department that I 

am aware of in the world, possibly excepting Sweden that issued 

a zero tolerance policy on trafficking in persons for its members 

and now is following up with education and training for its members. 

And there are other agencies involved. 

We cannot underestimate the importance of this work. We have 

a threat to human rights, we have a threat to public health, we 

have a threat to public safety. It is a crime that has troubling implications, not just to Kahn, to Lord, to Katya—to Aurica, that you 

talked about—to Tina. It has implications for us all. 

I am happy to take your questions. 

9

[The prepared statement of John Miller can be found on page 58 

in the appendix.] 

Chairman PRYCE. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. Your enthusiasm 

is contagious. We have all learned a lot from you. Thank you for 

your efforts. 

This is the first of a series of hearings on this issue that I would 

like the subcommittee to hold. And you have suggested that we 

pursue the laundering aspect and how this may fuel organized 

crime. 

Do you have any other suggestions? I thought that perhaps the 

tourism aspect of this is another one. Are there other things that 

come to mind that you might suggest for us to shed some spotlight 

on? 

Through our travel and through these hearings we can continue 

to assist you in putting the light of day on this increasingly horrid 

subject. Any suggestions you have, we would appreciate. 

Mr. MILLER. Well, what you have already done in talking with 

foreign governments, in talking to local governments and talking to 

the news media is a tremendous help. 

I mentioned the financial aspects because our office does not believe there has been enough research done in this area, the actual 

links. And we get asked a lot of questions about this money—where 

does it go, and what groups end up with it, and what happens to 

the billions, and does it fund other organized crime units, and does 

it lead to terrorist groups, and all this. 

And I have not seen hard research and evidence to answer these 

questions. I just have not seen it. 

So to me, this would make a tremendous contribution, and it obviously fits the mandate of your committee. 

Child-sex tourism has tremendous financial implications. 

And I think it was either you or Congresswoman Maloney who 

referred to the sex-tour operators. You can get on the Internet, still 

today, as the congresswoman said, since the passage of the Child 

PROTECT Act, where we can throw people in jail for 30 years that 

are caught abusing children abroad and sent back, maybe there 

has been a lessening. 

But you can still get on the Internet today—there are groups like 

Equality Now that monitor this—you can get on the Internet today 

and find slave-auction sites, sex-tour sites that are very clearly 

marketed to those Americans who will go on trips to abuse children. 

It is a very complicated legal issue. Our Justice Department has 

worked on this, various state attorneys general offices have worked 

on it. There has not been a dramatic success. 

There may be an area to explore here in terms of the financial 

links of these child-sex-tourism tour operators. To what extent, 

where do they get their money from, to what extent do they take 

advantage of credit card and banking networks? Any work in that 

area I think would be most welcome. 

If I come up with some other suggestions, I will get back to you. 

Chairman PRYCE. Well, I appreciate that. 

And we will continue to work very closely with your office, because you certainly are a resource that we cannot do without, and 

your staff has been wonderful to us. So thank you so much. 

10

At this time, I will yield back my time and recognize my Ranking 

Member, Congresswoman Maloney, for questions. 

Mrs. MALONEY. In your work internationally, are there certain 

countries that are particularly successful? I gave the example of 

Sweden. I read a report where they were able to cut the activity 

and really proceed with prevention. 

If you have seen some case studies in other countries that have 

been able to prevent sex trafficking or to control it or to convict it, 

could you share them with us? 

Mr. MILLER. Sure. 

I think you started with a good example. We are looking with 

great interest and sympathy at the Swedish experiment, where, as 

you said, they have decriminalized the conduct of the women engaged in prostitution and have criminalized the conduct not only 

of the brothel owner, the trafficker and the pimp, but the sex 

buyer. We are looking at that with interest. 

We have cooperated with Sweden, the two of us, our countries, 

in opposing legalization of prostitution abroad and in international 

forums. 

Another country that is taking some interesting steps is Korea. 

And this has just started. 

Korea has also started to prosecute, as Sweden has. Korea prosecutes the women as well as the men. They have not decriminalized. But consistent with the purpose of your bill, for the first time 

they are prosecuting the men as well as the women, which is what 

your bill is trying to get at. This just started this past year, so it 

is too early to see what happens. 

We are working with Korea, Norma Hotaling of SAGE is working 

with Korea, to try to see if we can help them set up some education 

programs so that the men who are arrested get some special education on how prostitution contributes to the phenomenon of trafficking, how they are likely to be interacting with trafficking victims in demeaning women. 

So Korea is interesting. 

I will just take another example: Gabon, in Africa. Gabon is 

strapped for resources but has shown tremendous interest in doing 

things that are low-cost—working with groups, taking ideas, going 

into the villages. 

There is another example. I like to cite it because you do not 

have to be a rich country to do a lot of things. It helps to have resources, do not get me wrong. 

So those are a few examples. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Other studies that I read showed that in the 

countries that have gone to the steps of legalizing prostitution that 

trafficking has increased and the oppression of women has increased. 

Now, this was a very interesting statistic to me, because every 

now and then I have someone who comes to me and says, ‘‘One way 

we could alleviate the problem is to make it legal.’’ The studies that 

I read, internationally, last night showed that making it legal increased the problem and increased trafficking. Was that your experience, too, and do you have any concrete examples? 

11

Mr. MILLER. No, that is our experience. I think trafficking can 

increase when it is illegal and tolerated, and it certainly can increase and has increased when it is legal. 

What happens—and we have seen numerous examples of this—

it is legalized, but the illegal sector does not go away. Organized 

crime is so involved in it. The illegal sector just expands. 

The legal sector serves as somewhat of a front. And we have 

looked at countries from the Netherlands to Australia to New Zealand—Australia, it is just legalized in some provinces—and the 

studies show no decrease in the number of trafficking victims. 

What has happened is, you create magnets which draw more trafficking victims. So it does not seem to work. 

The idea of regulating has some appeal to people. I think, Congresswoman Maloney, of the trans-Atlantic slave trade a few centuries ago when I hear that argument. Because at that time there 

were people that said, ‘‘We can control this by having better ventilation on the slave ships, providing doctors on the slave ships, 

better rations.’’

There is nothing wrong with that. I mean, who would be opposed 

to it? Those are good things. But that is not abolishing slavery. 

And it did not lead to a decrease in the Atlantic slave trade, and 

it did not lead to the abolition of slavery. 

Mrs. MALONEY. My time has expired. 

Chairman PRYCE. Your time has expired, thank you. 

I would like to recognize the Vice Chairman of the subcommittee, 

Judy Biggert, for questions. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. I am 

delighted to be here at your opening hearing of the 109th Congress 

for this subcommittee. Congratulations. 

Ambassador Miller, you talked about the various departments or 

agencies of the federal government—the Department of Labor, obviously the State Department, Homeland Security—that are all involved in this issue. But you did not mention the Treasury. What 

is their part in working with you? 

Mr. MILLER. I think Treasury has gotten involved in our process 

when countries are in danger of falling on Tier 3. And Treasury is 

concerned that this may lead to their having to oppose, under the 

law, International Monetary Fund or World Bank assistance for 

various projects. 

I think this subcommittee—there is an issue to explore, how to 

get the Treasury Department involved as part of this 21st century 

abolitionist movement. I think you will find that they are certainly 

willing to listen to ideas. 

I know the President would like to find ways—and maybe there 

are ways that we have not explored, that I have not thought of and 

should have thought of—for the Treasury Department to get more 

involved in this. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. You indicated that the departments have strategic 

plans, so I would assume that that is probably not true with the 

Treasury. Since we deal with that in this committee, this would be 

another committee that we would want to focus on. 

Mr. MILLER. I am going to get back to you on that. I know all 

the agencies that I referred to have strategic plans. Let me get 

back to you on whether Treasury has such a plan, and if it does 

12

not, what it could do, and if does, what it includes. I apologize for 

not knowing the answer to that question. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. Thank you. 

Then regarding the coordination of the TIPS-related aid, does the 

interagency process focus only on coordinating bilateral aid? Or 

does it encompass multilateral aid to international organizations 

and development banks? 

Mr. MILLER. Both, and I should have mentioned that. 

Yes, there is bilateral aid to other governments; yes, there is aid 

through NGOs, U.S. NGOs, the foreign NGOs—there is also aid 

through international and multilateral organizations. Now, a lot of 

their aid, in turn, goes through NGOs—but UNICEF, International 

Organization of Migration, to cite two examples of international organizations that are heavily involved in this and that the U.S. government has given a lot of support to. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. And then you suggested that a name-and-shame 

campaign through a publication of the annual TIPs report may be 

at least as effective as sanctions as a means of encouraging government action. Is this a correct interpretation of your testimony? 

Mr. MILLER. Well, I think it all has an effect. I think our diplomacy, our engagement, has an effect. I think the publicity for countries that are doing well and the publicity for countries are doing 

badly has an effect. 

And I think that the threat that a country at the lowest rating, 

Tier 3, potentially, if they do not shape up in the 3 months after 

the report, could face sanctions—I think that has an effect, and I 

can document—I will give you why I say this. 

If this did not have an effect, why, in the 2 months before the 

report, do we find nations stepping up their efforts? I mean, it is 

incredible. I have ambassadors calling on me—our office, that cannot find evidence of things being done, suddenly is deluged with 

evidence of things being done. 

And, then, on the sanctions part, after the report comes out—

well, just to give two examples. 

It was very notable a couple of years ago. We had two allies, 

Greece and Turkey, listed in Tier 3. And in the 3 months after the 

report came out, before the President had to make a decision on 

sanctions, they, and other countries, did remarkable things: arrests, prosecutions increased, shelters were set up, referral systems 

for getting victims to NGOs were set up. It was truly remarkable. 

And they were lifted off Tier 3. 

So these are all examples of how I think these effects take place, 

although I cannot scientifically measure it in each case. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. Thank you. My time has expired. But thank you 

very much for your spirited testimony and your continued passion 

in this field. 

Thank you. 

Chairman PRYCE. The Chair now recognizes Patrick McHenry. 

Mr. MCHENRY. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Ambassador Miller, thank you so much for being here today. I 

certainly appreciate your testimony. 

Can you talk about maybe the logistics of this, I mean, in terms 

of a national security risk? When you are trafficking people, for 

whatever purpose, I think it goes, at its heart, could bleed over into 

13

national security issues. And so, could you speak maybe to the logistics? 

Mr. MILLER. Well, if you are trafficking people across borders, 

whether you are doing it ‘‘legally or illegally,’’ obviously it shows 

that either there are some holes or there is some corruption or 

there is not as efficient approach as there should be. 

When you traffic a victim from one country to another and he is 

held in slavery, and this activity continues and he is held several 

years, and the police do not do anything, either it is—it might be 

a lack of knowledge, or it might be inefficiency, or it might be corruption. 

In many countries, if you have—all of you have wrestled with 

this; you are more knowledgeable on this than I am—if you have 

a corrupt or inefficient police, you have not only got a problem in 

law enforcement, it does affect national security. 

I will give you an example of a country—I do not like to do this, 

but I will. 

There is a country, Cambodia, in Southeast Asia, where we have 

seen evidence that the traffickers are apparently so powerful that 

the government, in one notorious example, not only released suspects that were arrested by a U.S.-trained anti-trafficking unit, but 

then when the traffickers were released, the government did nothing when the traffickers then went to where the 80 victims, potential victims, were being held and grabbed them. 

Now, if this goes on in a country, what sort of stability or security are you going to have? 

Mr. MCHENRY. Well, an additional question—I realize that trafficking comes from countries that have been adversely affected by 

events such as the tsunami or war. But also totalitarian regimes 

are notorious for encouraging this if not, at the very least, not discouraging it. 

And just right off the tip of Florida, we have one of the worst 

abusers of this: Cuba. Can you speak to the Cuba problem——

Mr. MILLER. Yes. 

Mr. MCHENRY.—and what we can do in terms of taking it on as 

someone that is very close to our borders? 

Mr. MILLER. Well, if you look at our annual report last year, 

without getting into what our report is going to say this year, if 

you look at our report last year, we gave Cuba a very poor rating. 

And the reason we gave Cuba a poor rating is that Cuba officially 

supports travel-industry ventures that encourage and promote 

child-sex tourism. 

And not just under our law; under international covenants, 

under international laws, this is per se a form of slavery. The victim of child-sex tourism cannot ‘‘consent.’’

We offered, through our Interest Section in Havana, to work with 

the Cuban government on this issue, but that offer was refused. 

And the leader of Cuba made his hour-and-a-half or two-hour 

speech denouncing our report, among other things. 

So I would like to see the situation in Cuba, as in every country, 

improve. 

When you talk about slavery and totalitarian states, North Korea 

is an example. There is no question there is slavery in North 

Korea. Some of the victims of slavery flee across icy rivers and borVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:07 Sep 14, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00019 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\DOCS\23248.TXT FIN1 PsN: MICAH
14

ders, and then are returned on occasion by the Chinese government 

to North Korea. These are problems we comment on in our report. 

Mr. MCHENRY. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Thank you, Ambassador, for your testimony. 

Chairman PRYCE. Thank you, Patrick. 

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Price. 

Mr. PRICE. Thank you, Madam Chair. I am honored to serve on 

this committee, and I, too, commend you for your new chairmanship and am pleased to be with you. 

Ambassador Miller, I welcome you as well, along with others. I 

am astounded by the magnitude of this problem, and I commend 

you for your work. 

I am interested in how we define the magnitude of the problem 

and kind of what the triggers are. Recently, as I understand it, 

with the tsunami there was an increase in human trafficking. 

Help me understand how we knew that. What were the indicators? 

Mr. MILLER. I think the tsunami, Congressman, focused attention on this issue. But in that area, East Asia, Pacific, there was 

and is a huge trafficking problem. I cannot say that the tsunami 

greatly increased it. I think it focused needed attention on it. 

But you asked the more difficult question and that is, how do you 

measure this issue? 

It is very hard, because the victims do not stand in line and raise 

their hands to be counted. Okay? So the estimates are guesstimates, in my opinion. You take law enforcement figures, prosecutions, victims. You go to NGOs and you get their reports of victims. 

You go to academic studies, news media reports, et cetera. 

This leads to our government coming up with an estimate that 

as many as 800,000 men, women and children are trafficked into 

slavery across international borders every year, and up to 17,500 

trafficked across our borders into slavery every year. 

Mr. PRICE. Those numbers are extrapolations, or are those actual——

Mr. MILLER. They are partly extrapolations and they are partly 

based on—yes. 

But is it a scientific figure? Of course not. Nobody counted 

800,000. 

Mr. PRICE. Right. 

Mr. MILLER. And some people think the figure is too low, and 

some people think the figure is too high. But, remember, that is annual across international borders. That does not count internal 

slavery in the brick kilns of India or Pakistan, for example. That 

does not count those who were in slavery at one time. That is just 

counting traffic across international borders in one year. 

So obviously, if you are looking at a total slavery figure, and you 

give any credibility to that 800,000 figure, the total figure of those 

in slavery in a year has to be in the millions. 

Mr. PRICE. Which gets to my next question: If we cannot quantify 

the magnitude of the problem, how do we measure success? 

Mr. MILLER. Well, the first speech I ever gave when I took over 

this position 2 years ago, I went out to Georgetown and I gave this 

speech, and I was all fired up, and some sociology professor got up 

15

and asked the same question: How are you going to measure success in this? 

Our office is right now, we are working with the CIA—there is 

going to be a conference in the next couple of months; we are inviting academics—we are trying to get a better handle on measuring 

success. 

What we do now, we can measure prosecutions—and now we can 

measure them around the world pretty much. We can measure convictions. We can measure sentences. We can measure victims 

served in shelters. We can measure victims reemployed. We can 

measure how many people are reached by education programs, either warning potential victims or trying to change the attitude of 

society—that we can start to measure, and we know those measurements are showing progress. 

And so we conclude if those things are happening—there are 

more convictions, more anti-trafficking-in-persons laws, more leaders speaking out—we hope that the corner is being turned. 

But can we prove it scientifically? Not yet. 

Mr. PRICE. I have a very specific question about the countries of 

Sudan and Venezuela and Equatorial Guinea that I understand are 

under sanctions, or have had sanctions against them, but they have 

been given exceptions. Can you enlighten me as to why we would 

give countries that are under sanctions exceptions and in what national interest we——

Mr. MILLER. Sure. 

You mentioned Sudan——

Mr. PRICE. Venezuela and Equatorial Guinea. 

Mr. MILLER.—and Equatorial Guinea. 

I am not aware of an exception on—well, Sudan, I will tell you 

the exception on Sudan. 

The exception was, if Sudan were to sign a peace accord, that 

AID would be allowed to implement the peace accord. The decision 

was made, I think appropriately, by the Secretary of State and the 

President that in an effort to stop the killing and the genocide that 

it was important not to cut off all aid to Sudan, if they signed the 

peace accord, which they did. 

Chairman PRYCE. Then gentleman’s time is expired. 

Mr. MILLER. Let me get back to you——

Mr. PRICE. Thank you. 

Mr. MILLER. I will get back to you on Equatorial Guinea and 

Venezuela. They did see some sanctions, but it may not have been 

the full panoply, and I will get back to you on that. 

Mr. PRICE. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Chairman PRYCE. The Chair would like next to recognize the 

former Chairman of this committee, Mr. Leach. 

Mr. LEACH. Well, thank you. I am delighted to serve under you 

in your maiden voyage here. 

It is hard to put perspective on issues of the day, particularly 

this kind of issue. 

I want to make a couple of comments about you, Madam Chair. 

In the Congress of the United States, committees have certain jurisdictions, but people have certain rights to do what they want to 

do. And you have chosen to take on one of the most profound issues 

in the world. We are all in your debt, and we thank you. 

16

In terms of jurisdiction, in one sense, when I looked at the subject of this hearing, I thought, ‘‘Why this subcommittee?’’ And then 

you think, we have jurisdiction over trade. And of all the extraordinary things, there is a trade in people. That is very profound. 

And it fits. 

We also have certain jurisdiction over technology. And you indicated that on the Internet slave-trading sites appear. I had no idea 

that something so terrible would be on the Internet. I guess I am 

beyond an age that I would think such things exist, but the idea 

of sex-tour sites is really horrifying. 

And so one of the things that comes immediately to mind, it 

seems to me that if someone tracks us from a governmental point 

of view, instantaneously one would communicate with a country, 

‘‘This site has appeared. What are you doing about it?’’ Do you do 

that sort of thing? 

Mr. MILLER. I am sorry, say that last——

Mr. LEACH. You suggest things appear on the Internet. 

Mr. MILLER. Right. 

Mr. LEACH. Let us say it is an auction site. 

Mr. MILLER. Right, right. 

Mr. LEACH. Do you instantaneously contact the government of 

that country with this information: ‘‘This site is here, this is the 

information, what are you doing about it?′′ Mr. MILLER. Well, interestingly, Congressman Leach, the sites 

that have been brought to my attention are in the United States. 

Mr. LEACH. Okay. 

Mr. MILLER. And what I do is, I ship this over to the Justice Department when I get this material, and they are trying to figure 

out a way to get at these sites. I do not think yet they have solved 

that riddle. 

The New York attorney general brought a lawsuit against one of 

these sites, Big Apple Tour, and lost the lawsuit. There are free 

speech, intent—all these issues—how do you know the person is 

going to commit the act when they get there, how do you—you 

know, all the defenses that can be raised. 

So we have to, in government—I am speaking as somebody not 

directly involved in this—but I think, clearly, we in government 

have to focus more attention on how we get a handle on this. And 

I do not have the magic-bullet answer right now. The lawyers are 

going to have to come up with that answer. Because people send 

this stuff to me, and it is outrageous. It is really outrageous. 

And we will get some of this to you so you can look at it. 

Mr. LEACH. Well, I am less inclined to look at it. But someone 

else should, someone who is accountable for doing something about 

it. 

Mr. MILLER. I understand. 

Mr. LEACH. There is a distinction between prurient interest and 

the national interest, and we have to be very careful here. 

Do you contact the governments of the countries that are advertised? 

Mr. MILLER. Yes, yes, we do, we do. And we are in communication—we know the countries that have most of the sex-tourism facilities. I can name them. They are countries like Thailand, Cambodia, Costa Rica, The Gambia, et cetera. 

17

We are in touch with those countries, and we do urge them to 

take action. 

But at the same time, when we talk with them, we say we recognize that we, and other so-called developed nations, are contributing to this problem. 

I mean, when I visited Chiang Mai, Thailand, which is a childsex-tourism center, and I talked with the kids and NGOs there, 

and I said, ‘‘Where do these tourists come from?’’ they were not 

coming mostly from Thailand. They were coming from the Netherlands, Germany, United Kingdom, United States, Japan, Australia. 

So this is what led you to pass the Child PROTECT Act a yearand-a-half ago to crack down on this. 

This is not just the problem for the country where the site is—

and the President recognized this in his speech to the U.N. We, the 

countries that are sending the tourists, have a challenge. 

Mr. LEACH. Let me just conclude very quickly, Madam Chair. 

I am very impressed with the speech of the President. His words 

were thoughtful, on the target and, frankly, eloquent. 

I am also very impressed that he has designated you to head this 

office, Ambassador. We are very impressed with your work and 

your commitment, and thank you very much. 

Mr. MILLER. Thank you for the kind words. 

Mr. LEACH. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Chairman PRYCE. Thank you, Mr. Leach. 

I would like now to take an opportunity to recognize Ms. Lee. 

I believe you are here with your granddaughter——

Ms. LEE. Thank you very much. 

Chairman PRYCE.—introduce her. 

Ms. LEE. Yes. Let me just say thank you for this hearing and 

thank our Ranking Member. 

And this is my granddaughter who is from Sierra Madre, California, Miss Jordan Lee, 11 years old. She will be 12 on Saturday. 

And I am very delighted to have her with me today, especially 

during this very important hearing because young girls and young 

women, first of all, are so affected by this issue. And secondly, I 

think women are going to have to really figure how to address it. 

This is such a horrendous problem. What it is, is modern-day slavery. 

So I just want to thank you, Ambassador Miller, for being here. 

And I again thank our Chair and Ranking Member for this hearing. 

I am glad that we do have young people here to listen to this. 

Let me ask you a couple of things just about the mechanisms 

that are in place that maybe we have not utilized. And I want to 

read you what this says in terms of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. 

Now, 20 years ago the United Nations General Assembly adopted 

this convention, and so Part 1, Article 6 of the treaty obligates governments which are party to CEDAW to take, and this is what 

Part 1, Article 6 says: Take all appropriate measures, including 

legislation, to suppress all forms of trafficking in women and the 

exploitation of prostitution of women. 

Now, the United States signed the treaty in 1980, but we have 

yet to ratify it. 

18

So, Mr. Ambassador, I wanted to know: Given the concern of the 

President, and of course your concern, and the magnitude of this 

problem, why in the world does not this administration lobby the 

Senate to ratify CEDAW? 

And I just want to know, have you and Secretary Rice weighed 

in with the White House or Senate in terms of just trafficking, sex 

trafficking, and utilize this as a vehicle to really help us come to 

grips with addressing it and eliminate it? 

Mr. MILLER. Well, Congresswoman, I do not pretend to be an expert on that treaty, but I think the administration’s objections do 

not relate to the trafficking section. 

And if you are talking about international covenants to oppose 

trafficking, the U.N. passed a wonderful covenant on sex exploitation in 1949, which we did ratify. The U.N. just recently, several 

years ago, adopted a special protocol to fight trafficking. And the 

present administration fully supports it, sent that to the Senate 

over a year ago. 

We are hoping to get Senate ratification soon. Many countries 

are starting to ratify it. And it lays out—and to a large extent it 

is based on our law, the law you passed, and it lays out a whole 

array of tools that countries can and should use on this issue. 

Ms. LEE. But in terms of CEDAW, again, I think anytime we 

have any laws or treaties that address sex trafficking and the 

human exploitation of women, we should be party and we should 

ratify those treaties. 

Mr. MILLER. Well, I will say this: Here I have told you about this 

U.N. protocol that we signed and the President wants us to ratify, 

but I am also going to say that while I am all for this protocol, I 

will give my opinion that while protocols are helpful, my experience, traveling around the world, is that the will of governments 

is more important. 

Ms. LEE. Sure. 

Mr. MILLER. And when I talk to justice ministers and foreign 

ministers and sometimes prime ministers and they say, ‘‘Well, we 

signed this agreement,’’ and I say, ‘‘That is nice, but what are you 

doing to throw the traffickers in jail and free the slaves?′′

Ms. LEE. Sure. 

Mr. MILLER. And that comes from willpower at the ground level. 

Ms. LEE. And by signing and by ratifying CEDAW, that would 

show that the will of our government is right there with the international community in terms of eliminating all forms of discrimination against women and using another mechanism to address sex 

trafficking, especially since so many of the customers come from 

the United States of America. 

Let me just conclude by asking you about Africa, in terms of 

countries in Africa where many applied for asylum in the United 

States because of the dangers of human trafficking. Do you have 

any handle on the numbers of Africans that have requested asylum 

based on this notion or this part of the asylum provision of our 

laws? 

Mr. MILLER. I do not. And I am not sure that the asylum provisions specifically include a trafficking section. You raise a very interesting point. I think asylum is directed to fear of persecution. 

19

Fear of persecution could involve persecution by traffickers, if 

you get sent back home, as well as governments. 

But let me check into that further and get back to you, Congresswoman. 

Ms. LEE. I would appreciate getting your response on that. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. 

Chairman PRYCE. We have vote on. We have 10 minutes and 30 

seconds left. It is probably 10 minutes now. We will take another 

5-minute question and recognize Ms. Harris from Florida. 

Ms. HARRIS. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Thank you so 

much for your outstanding leadership on this incredibly important 

issue. 

I truly appreciate your scheduling this hearing on human trafficking, which continues to grow in scope and intensity. And I 

share your very passionate concern and look forward to working 

with you to find a solution to this scourge. 

I also wish to welcome our distinguished panel. 

And, Ambassador Miller, in particular, thank you for your outstanding work. We think you are doing a magnificent job to end 

this evil practice. 

A couple of questions real quickly: The sentencing guidelines 

under the Protect Act of 2003 limits sentences for sex crimes 

against children to 30 years. The punishment seems lenient, particularly when fines and parole remain options. 

Do you think it would be more appropriate to define these offenses as violent crimes—we have discussed this before—that 

would be subject to federal sentencing guidelines, as such? And, 

then, perhaps we could strengthen asset-forfeiture laws regarding 

them as well. 

Mr. MILLER. Well, Congresswoman Harris, you have taken a 

great interest in this issue, and I want to thank you. 

I agree with the spirit of your question. I think we can always 

look at strengthening the laws. 

The sentences that have been handed down—and I do not have 

them in front of me—but my recollection is, the sentences that 

have been handed down, while they are much heavier than in other 

countries, I am not aware of anybody getting 30 years. If there 

was, that was an exception. You know, there is this plea bargaining that goes on. 

But from my point of view, when you are talking about people 

that have committed kidnapping and rape, the sentences ought to 

be equivalent. 

Ms. HARRIS. If they were reclassified as a violent crime, then the 

federal guidelines would be associated as such. Because right now, 

even though it says 30 years, when you can waive the fines and 

waive the parole, it just does not seem it is adequately being addressed. 

Mr. MILLER. Well, I am not knowledgeable on the nuances of the 

sentencing rule, but I appreciate your concern and welcome your 

looking into it. 

Ms. HARRIS. Thank you, sir. Thank you for your service. 

20

Chairman PRYCE. At this time we have to leave for our vote. I 

would like to recess the hearing for 15 minutes, at which time we 

will return to our second panel. 

Once again, our gratitude to you, Mr. Ambassador, for being here 

today and for your work on this issue. 

Mr. MILLER. Thank you for holding this hearing, Madam Chairman. 

Chairman PRYCE. Recess, 15 minutes. 

[Recess.] 

Chairman PRYCE. We left in haste. 

I would like to say before dismissing the panel and Ambassador 

is still here, the Chair notes that some members may have additional questions for this panel which they may submit in writing. 

And without objection, the hearing record will remain open for 30 

days for members to submit written questions to our last witness 

and to place his response on the record. 

Without further ado, we will move on to the second panel of witnesses. 

Norma Hotaling is a familiar face to many, many of you here 

today. She is an innovative and effective voice for survivors of prostitution, exploitation and trafficking and a founder of the SAGE 

Project in the San Francisco area and soon all across the United 

States, very thankfully. 

Ms. Hotaling is joined on the panel by Tina Frundt, a representative from the Polaris Project, a multicultural, nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., and Japan. 

This organization is recognized internationally for their efforts in 

outreach and service to victims of trafficking. 

We welcome these witnesses here today, recognize them for a 5-

minute summary of their testimony. 

Without objection, your written statements will be made a part 

of the record. 

We are very, very pleased to have you here, and, Tina, especially 

for your very courageous words that we will hear. 

And who would like to go first? Ms. Hotaling? 

STATEMENT OF NORMA HOTALING, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

SAGE 

Ms. HOTALING. That would be fine. 

Madam Chairman, I am so honored to speak here today and am 

especially honored that this is the opening subcommittee of the 

109th Congress. I am particularly happy to see so many women 

standing up for the rights of other young human beings, both boys 

and girls and women. 

And I would like to start my speech by saying how proud I am 

to know Ambassador Miller. I consider him to be a beacon of light 

in the efforts to eradicate the accepted and endorsed rap and torture of millions of women and girls. 

I hope you make every effort to give him and the TIP office all 

the support, tools and resources they need. He is an absolute champion for those women and girls who are exploited, abused and 

forced into slavery. 

I am proud to call him a friend and to know him as a colleague. 

21

My name is Norma Hotaling, and I am the executive director and 

founder of the SAGE Project in San Francisco. 

SAGE is the first and the foremost organization providing integrated trauma, mental health and substance abuse services for survivors of prostitution, exploitation and trafficking. 

Because our programs are designed and delivered by survivors of 

prostitution, we effectively provide support and engender trust 

without re-traumatizing even the most fragile of clients. 

Each week we serve over 350 women and girls, most of whom are 

life-long victims of sexual, emotional and physical abuse. And then 

they suffer the humiliation of arrest after arrest. 

SAGE, in coordination with the San Francisco district attorney’s 

office and police department, developed the nation’s first restorative justice program that addresses the demand side of prostitution. And that was developed in 1995, and it is called FOPP, or 

First Offender Prostitution Program. 

Over 7,000 men have attended this program. They are arrested, 

they pay a fee. Those fees fund rehabilitation services for the real 

victims of sexual slavery: women and children. 

The program has been replicated in over 35 jurisdictions 

throughout the country. 

SAGE is a dynamic departure from the previous practice of revolving-door arrests of individuals involved in prostitution with little or no services available. And because the average age of entry 

into prostitution is 12, 13 and 14, the issue is not only one of violence but also sexual abuse and rape of our children. 

Every day vulnerable girls of color as well as white, blue-eyed, 

blond girls and any girl who is vulnerable and naive and between 

the ages of 12 and 17 are brutally and cunningly recruited by violent or smooth-talking pimps from high schools, streets and shopping malls, and they are delivered in our U.S. major cities. 

Poor, vulnerable Asian, Central American and Russian women 

and girls are smuggled, kidnapped and raped and tricked and coerced by traffickers and organized crime syndicates into highly invisible and mobile sex trade that includes strip clubs, escorts, massage parlors, brothels and street prostitution. 

These women and children make up the supply side of prostitution. The demand side of prostitution is comprised mostly of educated, middle-class and upper-class men. 

In prostitution, we see the fragility of the human mind. We see 

it brutally manipulated and molded to serve the purposes of perpetrators. 

Universally, we experience the victims being targeted, blamed 

and punished by social service, mental health, medical and criminal justice systems. 

Vanessa, who came to us at 18, said, ‘‘My pimp knocked me out 

with a baseball bat. I woke up, and he was sewing up my head. 

He would not even take me to the hospital. How can I get away? 

He would kill me first. Besides, he was all I knew. I had been with 

him since I was 12.’’

Through SAGE, we shed light on a subject that thrives in darkness, secrecy, silence and shame. 

SAGE raises community awareness regarding international and 

domestic trafficking in addition to providing direct service to the 

22

victims of trafficking. But combating trafficking requires coordination between law enforcement, legislators, the judiciary and community-based organizations. 

We have found that unlike domestic-trafficked victims, international trafficking victims are less likely to be found in jails. They 

are found in quasi-legal, U.S. government-licensed and tolerated 

prostitution systems commonly known as massage parlors. 

We have, therefore, been involved in significant prostitution 

abatement and legislative reform efforts aimed at massage parlor 

licensing, as well as nail salons and acupuncture clinics. These type 

of businesses have proven to be destinations for individuals who 

come to the country under promissory arrangements in which 

women and girls are forced to work off their debts. 

The trend we observed is that arrestees who are being solicited 

out of private residences are immediately relocated once arrested. 

This indicates that there is a third-party oversight of these women’s activities and that resources, which pay for plane tickets and 

relocation costs, are directed towards keeping them working in the 

sex trade. 

We have heard story after story told and retold about the billions 

of dollars made from trafficked women and girls that enrich 

transnational crime networks, the corruption of officials through 

bribes and the collaboration of criminal networks with government 

officials that enable traffickers to operate. 

But what is historic, what is heroic and what is transpiring now 

is that we have awakened to the fact that these networks are financed $1 at a time by men, who we call ‘‘the demand,’’ who we 

have allowed to buy human beings and use them though they are 

nothing more than receptacles, like toilets and sewers. 

We have normalized their behavior while criminalizing the real 

victim. 

I can tell you story after story where there were no bribes of officials. These are the stories that involve ‘‘the demand,’’ the men. 

They are always free to go. They are released without ever paying 

a bribe, without an arrest, to enjoy their dinners, their families, 

their jobs while continuing to pretend that their hands are clean, 

and the millions of wounded, missing, dead women and children a 

result of other very bad, very organized people doing very bad 

deeds. 

Today, with your efforts, and the introduction of the End Demand For Sex Trafficking Act of 2005, this protection and collusion 

with the real perpetrator is ending. 

Dollar by dollar paid by ‘‘the demand,’’ the line between the state 

and criminal networks starts to blur, making it seem impossible to 

intervene in the succession of corruption, collaboration, crime and 

profit. 

Dollar by dollar, the money that the men pay to buy, have delivered, harmed, toss aside women and children is laundered through 

bank accounts in offshore accounts. 

We like to fool ourselves into thinking that domestic and international trafficking is driven by economic despair and not by the 

protection and collusion with the men who demand to buy women, 

human beings, and thus create the market for sex slaves. 

23

As long as we point our finger away from ourselves, away from 

the institutions that blame and criminalize women and children for 

their own rape, their own sexual abuse, their own trafficking, their 

own slavery, as long as we point our fingers away from the men 

who we normalize as johns, and as long as we disconnect adult 

prostitution and the exploitation of children, and disconnect prostitution and trafficking in human beings for the purposes of rape, 

of sexual abuse, of sexual slavery, then we are to blame. 

Like most of SAGE’s clients, I was exploited as a child through 

prostitution. I suffered years of trauma, drug use, criminalization 

and involvement in this adult-sex trade. 

It is my job and my purpose to prevent sexual slavery and to end 

the demand for prostitution while providing women and girls like 

myself and the staff of SAGE the opportunity to lead healthy and 

fulfilling lives. 

Thank you for my chance to speak to you today. It is such an 

honor and a dream come true. With your continued assistance and 

the recommendations that are forthcoming from this committee, we 

can put an end to sexual exploitation and slavery of millions of 

women and girls in and outside of our borders. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Norma Hotaling can be found on 

page 48 in the appendix.] 

Chairman PRYCE. Thank you, Norma, very much. 

Tina? 

STATEMENT OF TINA FRUNDT, POLARIS PROJECT 

Ms. FRUNDT. Chairwoman Pryce, Ranking Member Maloney and 

subcommittee members, thank you for convening this hearing on 

trafficking in persons, for giving me an opportunity to share the experience of Polaris Project, as well as my experience as a survivor 

of sex trafficking. 

I also want to thank you for supporting the End Demand For Sex 

Trafficking Act. It is historic legislation and addresses a terrible 

long-overlooked problem. Your leadership means a tremendous 

amount to myself and to all of our clients. 

Polaris Project is a multicultural nonprofit organization based in 

Washington, D.C. We also have an office in Tokyo, Japan, with a 

national advocacy and local direct intervention programs. 

We serve victims of all forms of trafficking, including both foreign nationals and U.S. nationals, exploited in both sex and labor 

trafficking. 

Today, however, I am going to focus on domestic sex trafficking 

of U.S. citizens within our own borders. 

I understand this problem very well. Because 20 years ago, my 

first pimp was my foster mother’s boyfriend who forced me to have 

sex with strange men who came to our house. 

When I was 14 years old, I was forced out on a street in Chicago. 

I ran away from home to be with a wonderful man, I thought, an 

older man who sold me great dreams of living together, making 

money and becoming rich. He told me that if I loved him, I would 

help make money for us. 

At first, it was the just two of us. But then he introduced me to 

other women, and I soon learned he was a pimp. 

24

He brought us to Cleveland, Ohio, and told us how we will make 

for us and then that we were a happy family. He told me to have 

sex with one of his friends. I did not want to, so his friend raped 

me. 

Afterwards he said that would not have happened if I just listened to him from the very beginning. So I took it as my fault. Instead of being angry at him for being raped, I was angry at myself 

for not listening to what he said. 

Right after that he started telling me what to wear, what to do, 

and forced me to go out on the streets to have sex with men. 

When I was first on the streets, I walked back and forth for 

hours, hiding until the morning. Our quota was $500, but I had 

only $50 that night to give to my pimp. So he beat me. He beat 

me in front of the other girls as a lesson and made me go outside 

until I made the money. My second night out, I came back with $500, but it still was not 

enough. It was not enough for him. He told me to go out again. I 

was out for a straight 24 hours. When I went back, he finally 

bought me something to eat. But as a punishment, he locked me 

in a closet to sleep. 

I will sleep in that closet for many, many times more. 

This is the same man who took me out to eat, listened to me 

when I wanted to complain about my parents and gave me words 

of advice. But increasingly, I was seeing a side of him that I never 

saw before. I was shocked and I was scared. What will happen to 

me if I did try to leave? And who will believe me if I told them 

what was going on? 

After a while, I became numb to the abuse. It happened so much, 

it is like eating breakfast in the morning: You may not like what 

you eat, but you get used to the routine. 

Pimps are very sadistic. They train you and they manipulate 

you. After my pimp broke my arm with a bat, he told me to sit on 

his lap and asked me what was wrong. When I said, ‘‘You broke 

my arm,’’ he beat me some more. He kept beating me until my answer changed: that I fell down. 

When he broke my finger, I was not allowed to see a doctor, so 

I wrapped it with some tape, and it never set correctly. 

What happened to me 15 to 20 years ago is still going on today 

across the U.S. In some cases, today’s young women and girls have 

it much worse than I did. 

Our clients include a young woman first prostituted by her mother when she was 12. Another was sold to a pimp by her mother 

2 days before her 14th birthday. Another was kidnapped and prostituted on a national circuit when she was 12 years old. 

The reality of our clients is sex with men 7 days a week, year 

round, usually between the hours of 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. On an average night, they are forced to have sex with 10 to 15 people a 

night so that their pimps can buy luxury cars and houses, have 

quotas ranging from $500 to $1,000 every night for each woman. 

This is a lucrative, criminal industry. Some estimate profits from 

human trafficking range from $7 billion to $9 billion annually. 

We recently sat down with a survivor of sex trafficking who was 

first prostituted in her early teens. Representing a typical case, her 

trafficker generated an estimated $130,000 from her profits each 

25

year alone. He made approximately $24,000 a month off her and 

other women and made about $642,000 a year between her and the 

other women, tax-free. 

The pimps are cocky now. They are not afraid of the police. They 

are not afraid of the judicial system. We as Americans have made 

them untouchable by not recognizing the problem and solving it. 

If we are judging the efforts of other countries to combat trafficking, we certainly must aggressively fight the traffickers of our 

own U.S. citizens, ensuring that no sex trafficker feels he can profit 

from modern-day slavery. 

Undermining demand is the key to cutting off the funding at its 

source, preventing traffickers from generating and laundering profits. 

Like foreign national victims, domestic victims are also moved 

away from their home. The pimps move these young girls and 

women from state to state where they have no one to trust and no 

one to turn to. They cannot go back because they are ashamed and 

they are afraid to tell their families. 

On the outside looking in, we think, ‘‘There are so many resources for them.’’ But in reality, where are the resources and how 

do they know about them? How can you ask for help from the police when they have done nothing but arrest you and they treat you 

as a criminal and not as a victim? 

The domestic sex trafficking of women and children across the 

United States can only be described as a crisis. To begin to address 

his problem, I would like to make the following recommendations: 

First, recognize all victims of trafficking, including adult citizens 

who are trafficked by force or coercion. 

Two, provide funding for comprehensive and specialized service, 

especially shelter, for domestic trafficking victims in cities across 

the U.S., complementing the existing funding for foreign national 

trafficked persons. 

Three, we need to train local units and youth service units in police departments, and especially Child Protective Services to combat trafficking, including domestic sex trafficking. 

Four, we need to modify the sex offenders registry to flag sex 

traffickers, pimps and johns who commit sexual abuse. A tracking 

system is necessary, because the sex trafficking of pimps, they 

move from state to state, selling women and children. 

Five, we need to prosecute of hotels and advertisers and other 

legal businesses that knowingly profit from or launder profits from 

human trafficking. 

As a voice among hundreds of thousands who have been unheard, I thank you again for supporting the End Demand For Sex 

Trafficking Act and for your commitment and continuing leadership 

on this issue. 

Now that you have the knowledge, what will you do with it? 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Tina Frundt can be found on page 41 

in the appendix.] 

Chairman PRYCE. Thank you both very much for your testimony. 

You both have exhibited great courage here today and in your daily 

work. 

26

I sense that your stories are very common, that there is something similar in each victim, and that is very sad. 

And, Tina, thank you for your suggestions. Hopefully much of 

what you would like to propose that we do is touched upon in the 

bill that we are going to introduce later today. So once we get that 

done, you can help us as you continue in your work to help us get 

it passed too. 

I am curious if either of you have an opinion as to what the most 

effective measure that we as the United States government can 

take in combating trafficking, both at home and overseas? 

Ms. FRUNDT. I think one of them would be that sex-offenders registry, because the pimps and johns are pedophiles. They are abusers, they are rapists. Adding them to the sex registry, because they 

move from state to state, and flagging them for what they truly 

are, as pimps as johns, will make everyone aware and put them in 

the spotlight and showing that this is glamorized, that these are 

sex abusers who are preying on our children and women. I think 

that is one way we can help. 

Ms. HOTALING. In my experience and with working with johns—

which is a term I hate—when we start talking to them about what 

would happen, what would they do if they were going to be arrested as rapists and sexual abusers, they immediately say they 

will stop. 

I think that there needs to be an advocacy program that says—

I do not believe that you criminalize your way out of this. I think 

you can criminalize and advocate your way out of this, but it has 

to start with the men. They are the ones that are supplying the 

money for all of this, for all of the harm. 

And we have to be very serious that their behavior is not normal, 

it is not just normalized prostitution, and that when it involves a 

child that it is sexual abuse and it is rape, and they are going to 

be arrested and charged with that. 

And one of the hardest of folks to work with are the police on 

this. They let the men go. Every girl that has been through our 

program has said, ‘‘They have found me in a sex act. They have 

told the guy, ’What are you doing out here with this dirty little 

whore?’ and they have let the guy go, and they have arrested the 

girl.’’ And that has to end. The good ’ole boys network has to end. 

And the criminal justice folks really need to take this seriously 

and look at the men as what they are, as real predators. 

We are teaching men through especially child prostitution how to 

be pedophiles, and then we are normalizing their behavior, and we 

are creating—we have created a group of children that it is okay 

to sexually abuse and rape. We just set them aside, and then we 

arrest them. 

So we have to change our language and how we address this 

issue. 

And I love the idea of a sex registry. They should be registering. 

Chairman PRYCE. Well, Norma and Tina, let me just say, as a 

former judge, I am here to attest that there is a definite ingrained 

bias in our system. It is centuries old, and it is going to take a lot 

to change the mentality. 

Can you think of ways besides the registry that we can shine 

light on this and make Americans, especially, more aware? 

27

Ms. HOTALING. In California, we just passed a law which is—it 

is so common-sense it is hard to even talk about—and we have 

changed the sexual abuse in the statutory rape law to add years 

to it. We have enhanced that law that says: If you use money, 

goods or services in order to gain sexual access to a child, you are 

not only going to be charged with sexual abuse and statutory rape, 

you are going to be—there are going to be extra years added to 

your time. 

And what we need to do is, we need to make sure that it is not 

only being investigated and prosecuted that way in San Francisco 

but throughout the country, that the laws that we are using on 

child exploitation, especially, are the sexual abuse and the statutory rape laws—end of story. 

Even the Center for Missing and Exploited Children still call it 

child prostitution. They do not analyze the sexual abuse in the stat 

rape laws. They do not look at how those laws are being used 

throughout the country, and they are directing criminal justice 

folks throughout the country to go after the pimps and the traffickers but not the johns. 

Chairman PRYCE. Well, I appreciate those suggestions, and we 

will take them to heart. It is certainly important that we keep the 

spotlight on this issue. 

Thank you both very much for being here today and sharing with 

us. 

I now recognize my Ranking Member, Ms. Maloney. 

Mrs. MALONEY. I want to thank you both for your very brave and 

moving testimony. It is very difficult to talk about yourself publicly, 

but I feel that your story helps to educate us, inspire us, and will 

help us be more effective in preventing such actions towards others. 

So I want to compliment you for what you have done with your 

life. You have taken a tragedy and turned it into a success in helping others, and it is truly remarkable. 

As you know, in our bill a third goes to helping-victim programs 

that would help young girls and boys, and two-thirds goes to grants 

that would be an incentive to states and localities to prosecute 

pimps and johns, or perpetrators. 

What would be a better word of johns? Perpetrators? 

Ms. HOTALING. Perpetrators, ‘‘the demand.’’

Mrs. MALONEY. ‘‘The demand’’ side. But currently it is against 

the law now. They are just not doing it. 

Ms. HOTALING. Exactly. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Earlier, I remember we used to give grants to 

educate the police and the prosecutors across this country about 

rape as a crime, that beating up your wife was not an acceptable 

activity and that rape should be treated like a serious crime. 

We have made a tremendous effort, and maybe we need to do the 

same thing. 

I think another thing that one of your advocacy groups—it may 

have been Polaris—said to me, that in their research on the criminal cases, it is always the women, never the men——

Ms. HOTALING. Yes, right. 

Mrs. MALONEY.—and possibly keeping a report—or just requiring 

a report; it would not cost government money—of how many 

28

women are convicted versus men when it is illegal for both. That 

would be another way of providing a spotlight on it. 

I would like to ask Tina: In your second recommendation you 

said that we needed funding for services and support for domestic 

trafficking victims that complemented the existed funding for foreign national victims of trafficking persons. 

I would ask you to clarify: Are we funding for foreign trafficking 

of victims but not for domestic trafficking of victims? 

Ms. FRUNDT. Yes. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Do you know how much funding we put in for 

foreign trafficking of victims? 

Ms. FRUNDT. That I honestly will have to check on that and come 

back with that amount for you. 

Mrs. MALONEY. I find this so troubling, because your story tells 

a failed story of a government that I believe in and that I support—the foster care system not reporting the foster mother being 

an extreme abuser, and the fact that our existing systems that we 

were hoping were helping people are not. 

As two victims, could you advise us: What could we have done 

better as a government? 

Many of us have served in local government and funded foster 

care, supported it. Obviously the system did not work, and if you 

could share how you got out of it. Was it an age item, that you got 

old enough to realize what was happening to you so you left? 

Could you share that so we would understand how we could help 

other young ladies and men get out victimization? 

Ms. FRUNDT. Well, fortunately, I was lucky enough to get adopted when I was 13. However, I went through years——

Mrs. MALONEY. Tina, how did you get out? Did you just one day 

realize and run away? How did you get out? 

Ms. FRUNDT. No, I ran away numerous times when I was 10 

years old to sleep in abandoned buildings in Chicago. I told my social worker repeatedly what was going on, who did not choose to 

believe me. 

I was taken to a doctor, 11 years old, who did not want to believe 

me. 

I tried to commit suicide when I was 11, and they stuck me into 

a mental hospital for children in Cook County. 

The problem is, social workers are telling them, telling children, 

‘‘Look, I have too many cases. Try to behave. Try to behave and 

calm down.’’ But what they are doing is sweeping the problem 

under the carpet. 

So do I have some plan on how to stop this? No, but it is a problem. They need better training. They need training of recognizing 

sex crimes, that we are being trafficked. 

We need someone to listen to us when we are telling them what 

is going on, not that ‘‘I have too many cases and I cannot address 

the problem.’’

Ms. HOTALING. I had my staff do an experiment of calling CPS, 

Child Protection Services, on every child that came in that was exploited through prostitution and tried to put in a claim, they would 

not take them. 

And the calls went something like, ‘‘I have a child here who has 

been exploited, sexually abused by over 300 men.’’ They would say, 

29

‘‘Well, what is the name of the man?’’ and we would say, ‘‘We don’t 

know.’’ And they would say, ‘‘Well, we are not going to take a case, 

we are not going to make a claim.’’

Probation officers, a child comes in for prostitution, that should 

be an assumption right there that that child has been raped and 

sexually abused, and they are mandated reporters and they need 

to be held accountable as that. 

And we fight continually with probation officers, and they scream 

at us, saying, ‘‘How dare you try to make this child the victim. She 

is a perpetrator.’’

And we cannot get victims-of-crime money for these children, because they are considered involved in a crime at the time of their 

victimization. 

So the discrimination goes all the way up. 

So, one, we have to redefine, first, ‘‘child exploitation.’’ We have 

to do away with the term of ‘‘child prostitution’’ and make it ‘‘child 

rape’’ and ‘‘child sexual abuse.’’ Period. End of story. 

Mrs. MALONEY. My time is up. I just want to say that changing 

attitudes is a huge hurdle, but we have to go really to the core in 

our society of changing attitudes. 

I think both of your testimonies were excellent. Thank you. 

Ms. HOTALING. I would like to just say one thing, that a study 

just came out in Denmark about 3 days ago on customers, and they 

found that when men started in prostitution as youth, they are the 

ones that continue throughout their lifetimes as customers. 

And so really starting prevention education programs for men 

around this is very, very important. 

Chairman PRYCE. Thank you. 

I would like now to recognize the gentlewomen from Florida who 

is working very hard on some of your suggestions already, Ms. Harris. 

Ms. HARRIS. Thank you so much, Madam Chairman. 

I do want you to know we are working in law in honor of Carly 

Brucia—who was kidnapped, brutally raped and murdered—that 

will address some of these things, including a national sex registry. 

I think Chairman Pryce’s explanation and opportunity she said 

she would work with me on it, so I am looking forward to doing 

that. 

I want to say how grateful I am to both SAGE and Polaris for 

your leadership for these kind of things. I would like to see it firsthand and know more what we can do. 

I was going to ask the name, what we should call them instead 

of johns, predators. But definitely to change the definition. I mean, 

to call it child prostitution when they do not have a choice is unconscionable. 

So certainly to change it to exploitation, that then you would 

have no choice but to take the case instead of saying they were 

part of a crime, they were a victim. 

As for my questions: Do you think that organizations such as 

yours receive enough cooperation and support that it takes from 

local communities and local governments for your work? Or is there 

something lacking? 

What can we do to be more supportive? How can we help communities get more engaged, communities in our states? 

30

Ms. FRUNDT. Well, Polaris Project is currently on a task force 

trying to change the police minds on, one, that these are victims 

and they are forced into prostitution and not willing want to be 

into prostitution. 

That is the hardest part, is having them understand the victim 

status, even of the young women—and also recognizing that there 

are lots of young children that go through the adult court system, 

and they paper them as 18 and they go through the court. They 

are 14, 15 years old, going in front of the judge, going into D.C. jail. 

And we have talked to a few people on the police force who had 

said, ‘‘Well, it is so much paperwork to paper them as juveniles.’’

Ms. HARRIS. This is just unbelievable testimony. And I think the 

most thing, when we talk about it takes a long time to change a 

mindset, I think it is also because people do not know, when you 

talk about sex trafficking or human slavery, you just do not think 

that exists in this century, and if it does, it is in some remote area. 

And when you hear that it actually occurs in our nation where we, 

you know, consider it to be just and moral, it is discouraging. 

But I do not know that it will take that long once you shine the 

spotlight on it, because everybody will be just as mortified as we 

are. 

I am grateful for your testimony. 

But Polaris, the statistics I have, it said that your materials included about 225 high-risk individuals, but you only were able to 

give 14 people support. What is it—you know, are we missing a lot 

of victims? Do you need more support? How can we help? 

Ms. FRUNDT. Well, again, victims do not shout out and say, ‘‘Hey, 

I am a victim, come help me,’’ one, because of trust issues, of not 

even wanting to believe that there is someone that actually cares 

enough. 

When I come in contact with our clients, the first, initial contact, 

first of all, is, ‘‘Oh, my goodness, I never heard of anything like 

this, and someone actually cares about me′′—that is one. 

And then just realizing that, yes, we can do—it is a mind frame. 

Once you have been trained to think a certain way, it is very hard 

to be trained out of thinking that way, to think on your own, to 

say that you can do something on your own without someone controlling you. 

So, yes, of course, you are not going to reach—unfortunately, not 

everyone is going to come up and jump up and say, ‘‘I am a victim, 

please help me.’’ It is a process. 

Ms. HOTALING. At SAGE we see around 350 women and girls a 

week in our services. The girls are referred to by juvenile probation. They are referred by Child Protection Services now. 

The police department, because of a very serious murder of a 

young girl, before she was murdered she was arrested when she 

was 14 when she was found in a sex act with a 45-year-old man. 

The man was let go. She was arrested. A month later she was 

found dead. 

And as a result of that, we have made sure that the police department identifies any child or anyone that they suspect to be a 

child so that we can have a continual record of that child and know 

who she is and who she belongs to and everything else. 

31

The girls in our program are also self-referred. They bring in 

other girls to the program. Their parents bring them to us. And it 

is a very, very intensive program. 

We are starting a safe house for girls in June. 

Ms. HARRIS. I would like to know about that. Just one last question——

Ms. HOTALING. And we are starting with a budget deficit the moment we open the door, but we are going ahead with it. 

Ms. HARRIS. In Sweden they have criminalized the behavior of 

men, and it is drastically reduced, this type of behavior, when they 

are criminalized and not the victims, particularly the children. 

The most important thing we can do is end this type of behavior. 

Do you have any other suggestions with regard to being able to 

shut down the brothels and the massage parlors, those kinds of 

things, that would deal in human trafficking or child exploitation? 

Ms. HOTALING. Well, a number of places throughout the Bay 

Area—Oakland just started brand new ordinances to shut down 

massage parlors that are known to be fronts for prostitution. So 

they have an ordinance that would be very important to look at. 

San Francisco today is putting forth an ordinance to change the 

way massage establishments are licensed and that it has to be approved by the community. So they have to go through a community 

awareness. 

They have to go through the planning department and the community becomes advised that this establishment is opening up. So 

the communities are going to really stop these establishments. 

We are also training fire department, planning departments, 

other people that can go into these establishments and identify 

trafficking victims and identify prostitution—and if there is prostitution, there is trafficking—and then have a whole procedure of 

working with the victims. 

Chairman PRYCE. The gentlewoman’s time has expired. 

Now I would like to recognize Mr. Castle from Delaware. 

Mr. CASTLE. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. And let me just 

thank you for having a hearing on something of vital importance. 

Let me thank both of you for being here. These are stories that 

are probably not that easy to tell in public, and I think it makes 

a great impression on everybody here. 

I have been sort of sitting here thinking a little bit perhaps differently, and I must admit that my questions may not be on international trafficking as much as just stopping the problem on a local 

basis, which could perhaps apply internationally. 

But just to get some ideas: I am from Delaware, and I know 

when we stop drunk drivers in roadblocks, it changed the behavior 

of people I know dramatically. They put their names in the paper, 

changed it even more. 

Every now and then they do that with the so-called perpetrators, 

johns, whatever you wish, they put their names in the paper when 

they stop them. And to me it seems to have changed behavior. I 

do not know if you have seen that before or whatever. 

I am going to add something else to that: The other aspect to it 

is visible prosecution of these individuals, particularly the pimps, 

where the evidence can be put together. I have seen very strong 

evidence that if you have strong, visible prosecution, that also 

32

changes behavior. You know, all of a sudden you see 3 days in the 

paper, whatever it may be. 

Are we doing—I mean, you can comment on those two things, 

that is, publishing the names of the perpetrators and the prosecution. 

But those kinds of things which actually shine a light on the 

problem and on those who really are the ones who are causing the 

problems, the pimps and the perpetrators, with the young people, 

I would be interested in your comments on that kind of an approach. 

In addition—do not get me wrong, I realize it cannot be alone, 

but in addition to other things that we are doing. 

Ms. HOTALING. I am a health educator, so I design health education programs, public health programs, and I really believe that 

there are number important aspects to the first-offender prostitution program. 

One is that the men’s personal life, their intimate relationships, 

are very fragile at best, at very best. The minute you get involved 

in prostitution, you lose the ability to create meaningful relationships, intimate relationships. You just lose it. And you do not develop that way. 

So publishing the names the first time, for the first arrest, I 

think has the capacity of tearing apart whatever personal relationships and intimate relationships they have. So our program is really about building on those relationships, giving them one chance 

and giving them an education and saying——

Mr. CASTLE. All right, well, then what about the second or the 

third time? I mean, in other words, you do not bury murderers and 

rapists, I mean, the kind of rape you think about with violence, not 

child rape, I mean, we do not bury their names. 

So at what point——

Ms. HOTALING. The second time, anything goes——

Mr. CASTLE. So at some point——

Ms. HOTALING. Hang them up and strip them, I do not care. 

Ms. FRUNDT. It is continuous, continuously putting their name in 

the paper. 

And as far as the pimps are feeling untouchable, because when 

the women are arrested, sometimes the pimps are right there. They 

yell, they scream at the police, and they are not arrested, saying 

that they do not have enough evidence, saying that they are pimps 

in this supposed situation. 

So we need to come down on that, on how the police receive that. 

Because of course the woman’s not going to say in front, ‘‘Yes, 

that is my pimp, please arrest. Him.’’

So we need to also look at those laws for that. 

Mr. CASTLE. Exactly. And I think you said something in your answer that you just sort of said, which was ‘‘continuous,’’ and I think 

you are right about that. I do not think you can do this once and 

let it go for 5 years. This has to be something that recurs enough 

that it is going to get everybody’s attention. 

Let me expand it to another area, and that is dedicated law enforcement. 

I am on the Education Committee, and we have all kinds of people playing all kinds of games with degrees and selling them and 

33

everything else. There used to be sort of a couple of guys in the 

FBI who really focused on this and really sort of kept it away because of their focus. Now there is really nobody doing that. 

I sort of sense the same problem with local police departments, 

maybe all the way through even the FBI with international trafficking or whatever it may be. 

Do we lack the law enforcement focus, shall we say, on this? Do 

you see that as you deal with all the women that you deal with, 

that they are dismissive of the claims or whatever it may be? Do 

we need to educate the law enforcement people and go to these 

chiefs and see if they will take three people and make sure that 

they are educated and prepared for this so they can help with that? 

Or is that already going on? 

Ms. HOTALING. No, you need specialized teams. We have a 

crimes-against-prostitutes team in San Francisco that focuses on 

this. I have a dedicated district attorney, and I have had one 

through three elected district attorneys, fortunately. And you really 

build on that when you have specialized individuals that are focused. And we have had extremely good prosecutions of pimps in 

San Francisco. 

And it is not always on pimping. You get them on—you know, 

we put a guy away for some of the longest time on clone phones, 

because we had teams that were educated on what they could get 

them on: Get them on guns, get them on silencers. 

They have things in their apartments, get immediate search warrants for their apartments. Because a lot of times the victims are 

going to go sideways. If you rely on the victims as the ones that 

make the case—and that is what the police say over and over 

again, ‘‘Well, we do not have a victim so we do not have a case,’’ 

you know. But they are not doing the work. 

And it is so much easier to arrest women—and I think for police 

officers, it is a lot more fun. 

Ms. FRUNDT. Also, quickly, I wanted to note that we also work 

with a prostitution unit. But, again, training is great; mind set is 

hard to change. 

Chairman PRYCE. Well, the gentleman’s time has expired. 

We have come to the end of our hearing. 

Before we dismiss the panel, the Chair notes that some members 

may have additional questions for this panel which they may wish 

to submit in writing. Without objection the hearing record will remain open for 30 days for members to submit written questions to 

these witnesses and to place their responses in the record. 

I cannot thank you enough, ladies, for being here. 

Mrs. MALONEY. May I ask one last question? 

One of the things you said just keeps running in mind, when you 

called it ‘‘discrimination.’’ And we in Congress spend a great deal 

of time on discrimination, because we feel everyone should have a 

fair shot and a fair deal and be treated equally. I would say all 

Americans believe that. 

But you mentioned it several times, you said, ‘‘This is discrimination against women, it is discrimination against women.’’ Would 

you elaborate? 

Ms. HOTALING. Well, the laws are written in nondiscriminatory 

fashions, and if you analyze how the arrests are going throughout 

34

the country, you will find that around 98 to 100 percent of the arrests on prostitution are against women and children, that the 

failed policies that we have applied towards women are now being 

applied towards children. 

So just the arresting of women has now become the standard for 

children. And to get—San Francisco is one of the I think very good 

examples where our arrests, since we started the first-offender 

prostitution program, has always been more arrests of men than 

women. And the women, if they are arrested, are sent to diversion 

programs and funded by the men. 

So they get services. Nobody clogs—they do not clog up the court 

system; they get appropriate services. The men pay for the services, so it is a restorative justice program. And I think that that 

is really important. 

Discrimination, the way that I frame it is that it is—being a police officer is a great job if you can get it. You get to wear a badge, 

carry a gun, go out solicit a woman, which means asking them for 

a sex act, very blatantly, and then you get to arrest her and you 

get to spend the time of charging her, and you usually do it on 

overtime. And so they are getting charged overtime for this. 

But to get them to arrest men, they believe that the men—and 

I have heard this from some of the experts that DOJ is using now, 

‘‘Who are the men anyway? They are just kind of fuel the fire,’’ or, 

‘‘You know, we are not going to waste our resources on them.’’ So 

that really has to change. 

Chairman PRYCE. Once again, thank you very, very much. We 

look forward to continue to work with your organizations and with 

you and with everyone else who is present and interested today. 

The committee thanks you all. 

Ms. Maloney and I thank you for your cooperation and your insights into putting this bill together. We look forward to introducing it very shortly. 

Ms. HOTALING. Thank you. 

Chairman PRYCE. With that, we are adjourned. 

Ms. FRUNDT. Thank you so much. 

[Whereupon, at 12:27 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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A P P E N D I X

April 28, 2005

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