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COMBATING TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS:

AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

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

JUNE 22, 2005

Printed for the use of the Committee on Financial Services

Serial No. 109–40

(

(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: 

June 22, 2005 .................................................................................................... 1

Appendix: 

June 22, 2005 .................................................................................................... 19

WITNESSES 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 2005

Leidholdt, Dorchen A., Co-Executive Director, Coalition Against Trafficking 

in Women .............................................................................................................. 11

Neuwirth, Jessica, President, Equality Now ......................................................... 8

O’Connor, Michael E., Jr., Director of Operations, South Asia International 

Justice Mission ..................................................................................................... 6

Thompson, Lisa L., Liaison for the Abolition of Sexual Trafficking, The Salvation Army National Headquarters ...................................................................... 13

APPENDIX 

Prepared statements: 

Pryce, Hon. Deborah ........................................................................................ 20

Lee, Hon. Barbara ............................................................................................ 30

Leidholdt, Dorchen A. ...................................................................................... 32

Neuwirth, Jessica ............................................................................................. 39

O’Connor, Michael E., Jr. ................................................................................. 42

Thompson, Lisa L. (with attachment) ............................................................. 47

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

Leidholdt, Dorchen A. 

Written response to questions from Hon. Barbara Lee ................................. 63

O’Connor, Michael E., Jr. 

Written response to questions from Hon. Barbara Lee ................................. 65

Thompson, Lisa L. 

Written response to questions from Hon. Barbara Lee ................................. 67

Neuwirth, Jessica: 

Written response to questions from Hon. Barbara Lee ................................. 69

(1)

COMBATING TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS: 

AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE 

Wednesday, June 22, 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 2:36 p.m., in Room 

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

Present: Representatives Pryce, Biggert, Maloney and Moore. 

Chairwoman PRYCE. Thank you all very much for your patience. 

We were hung up on the floor with a series of votes, and I appreciate my ranking member Mrs. Maloney for being here. Good afternoon. We will start right away so as not to hold up anybody else 

any further. 

The hearing on the Committee on Domestic and International 

Policy, Trade and Technology will come to order. 

I would like to welcome everyone this afternoon. Today we are 

convening the second in a series of hearings in this subcommittee 

on a serious issue, trafficking in persons. 

At our first hearing in April, we heard testimony from a great 

leader at the State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Office, Ambassador John Miller. Ambassador Miller offered a thorough and 

passionate testimony about U.S. efforts to combat trafficking here 

andabroad. 

We also heard from Ms. Norma Hotaling, executive director and 

founder of the SAGE Project in San Francisco. Norma turned her 

own experience with homelessness, addiction and sexual exploitation into a mission to make it easier for other women, men and 

youth to want to make lives for themselves and leave the sex trade 

behind. 

Ms. Tina Frundt, our final witness, courageously offered her 

firsthand experience as a victim of sex trafficking and sexual exploitation in the United States. Her harrowing encounters with victimization by pimps and johns put a human face on this tragedy 

and shed light on an issue that is all too often kept in the dark. 

I expect today’s hearing to further expose members of this subcommittee, members of the media and the public to the multifaceted and destructive issues surrounding human trafficking, including the significant economic and financial implications. 

Today’s hearing is timely for a number of reasons. First, in stating the obvious, modern-day slavery will be a timely issue to deVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:08 Dec 09, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\DOCS\24400.TXT FIN1 PsN: MICAH
2

bate in the halls of Congress and committees across the world until 

it has its own chapter, complete with a start and a finish, in the 

history books of every country in the world. 

Second, just a few weeks ago Ambassador Miller’s Trafficking in 

Persons Office at the State Department released a much-anticipated Trafficking in Persons report, or the TIP report, for 2005. 

The State Department is required by law to submit a report each 

year to Congress on the efforts of foreign governments to eliminate 

severe forms of trafficking in persons. This report covering April 

2004 to March 2005 is the fifth annual TIP report. 

The intent of the report is to raise global awareness and prompt 

foreign governments to combat all forms of trafficking in persons. 

The report highlights the three Ps, prosecution, protection and prevention, and the three Rs, rescue, rehabilitation and reintegration. 

There is great significance in this marriage between the Ps and the 

Rs, and we need to focus on both in order to fully understand and 

tackle the scope of the problem. 

During my time overseas meeting with NGOs and victims, I saw 

firsthand the great potential to make this holistic approach work. 

While no country I visited came close to perfecting this approach 

in its entirety, I witnessed improved prosecution efforts in Albania, 

and the implementation of better prevention and reintegration efforts in Moldova, showing that progress can be made with commitment and coordination across the globe. Countries, including the 

U.S., must strive to implement all aspects of this victim-centered 

approach to fighting trafficking. 

The 2005 report gave a Tier 3 classification to 14 of the 50 countries that were assessed. A Tier 3 country, the lowest of the ratings, fails to take significant actions to bring itself into compliance 

with the minimum standards for eliminating trafficking in persons. 

Such an assessment can trigger the withholding of nonhumanitarian, nontrade aid, and U.S. Opposition to assistance from public 

lenders, such as the International Monetary Fund or the World 

Bank. 

One country on the Tier 3 list has already ignited action. Jamaica, a country previously on the Tier 2 list was downgraded because of a failure to follow through on previous commitments to 

strengthen law enforcement and protection measures. Not long 

after the reports were released, the Jamaican Prime Minister disclosed in a meeting with several journalists that a Cabinet office 

group consisting of representatives for the Ministries of Health, 

Education and Foreign Affairs, the Attorney General’s Office and 

the immigration authorities would be established to act on the findings of the report and review existing law to identify areas to improve. 

Several countries that were on the Tier 3 list last year jumped 

up a notch this year, and that is a good thing. For example, Bangladesh showed a strong commitment to implementing 

antitrafficking efforts over the last year. The country established 

an antitrafficking committee to oversee its national efforts to combat the issue, and set up a much-anticipated special antitrafficking 

police unit which initiated new investigations for rescuing more 

and more victims. 

3

And in South Africa, Guyana’s President facilitated the enactment—South America, excuse me. Guyana’s President facilitated 

the enactment of the country’s first antitrafficking law and 

launched a countrywide awareness campaign on the dangers and 

risks of trafficking. The report revealed that progress is being made 

in the campaign to combat sexual slavery and other forms of forced 

servitude. 

New antitrafficking measures were enacted in 39 countries last 

year, and there were more than 3,000 convictions worldwide relating to trafficking. Upon release of the report, Ambassador Miller 

was quoted as saying, ‘‘Shining through these global tragedies are 

many, many rays of hope.’’

Though there is still much work to be done, the U.S. is putting 

its laws to work. In 2003, Operation Predator was launched within 

the Department of Homeland Security and in the Immigration and 

Customs Enforcement Agency. This marked an unprecedented initiative to protect children worldwide from sexual predators, including those who travel overseas for sex with minors, Internet child 

pornographers and sex traffickers. Operation Predator targets U.S. 

citizens suspected of sex crimes against children, as well as noncitizens whose child sex crimes render them deportable from the U.S. 

Since its inception there have been more than 5,700 individuals arrested nationwide, including 14 arrests brought under the child sex 

tourism provision of the Protect Act. 

While progress has been made to combat trafficking, sobering 

statistics linger. An estimated up to 800,000 people are trafficked 

across international borders each year; 80 percent are females, and 

50 percent are minors. According to a recent study by the International Labor Organization, a special agency of the United Nations that seeks to promote human and labor rights, at least 12.3 

million people are trapped in forced labor across the globe. Of this 

number, over 2 million are victims of human trafficking, and 1.2 

million are children forced into prostitution, drug trafficking and 

armed conflict. 

These victims of trafficking are an enormous source of revenue 

for organized crime. The ILO study estimates that $44 billion in 

global profits is brought in annually from forced labor, including 15 

billion from victims of trafficking in persons. 

This report offers us evidence that there is much to learn about 

how effectively or ineffectively we are following the money and enforcing existing antilaundering money laws to deprive criminals of 

the economic gains associated with the global sex trade. 

There is not one clear cause of modern-day slavery, nor is there 

one clear solution, but there is a clear goal: to stamp it out for 

good. 

I want to thank the witnesses we have here today. We know that 

you each bring a unique perspective, and we appreciate your time, 

your energy and your courage on educating us about this global crisis. 

Chairwoman PRYCE. Without objection, all members’ opening 

statements will be a made a part of the record, but I would like 

to acknowledge the gentlewoman from New York, Ms. Maloney, her 

passion for tackling this issue is admirable, and I appreciate her 

partnership with me. 

4

Chairwoman PRYCE. Mrs. Maloney. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Well, I appreciate very much your leadership and 

partnership on this really, really critical issue, and I feel that together we can really make a difference and will make some 

changes that will help thousands, if not millions, of young women 

and men. And I really appreciate your making this the spotlight on 

what the United States is doing and can continue to do to combat 

sex trafficking. 

This is a topic that I personally care about deeply and have 

worked on for many years in Congress. The exploitation of the 

world’s young women and children in sex trafficking is a tragic 

human rights offense. As you will hear, many of these victims are 

kidnapped, sold or tricked into brothel captivity. 

The 2004 State Department Trafficking in Persons report estimates that 600- to 800,000 persons are trafficked across international borders each year, with some 18,000 brought into the 

United States. This doesn’t mention the number of people in the 

United States that do not cross international borders that are 

tricked or forced into sex slavery. Instead of the better jobs and 

better lives they dream of, they are trapped into a nightmare of coercion, violence and disease. 

I have worked on the trafficking issues for many years, including 

working with the Equality Now, and I am pleased that the founder 

and president of it, Jessica Neuwirth, is one of the participants 

today. She has a background in international law. She is an expert 

on women’s rights and has dedicated her life to helping women 

across the globe and in the United States. 

We worked together to stop a sex tour operator that was operating blatantly in the district I represent in Queens called the Big 

Apple Oriental Tours, and they would literally advertise in brochures on the Internet, all over the place. Call them up and they 

would tell all about how they could take men or boys on sex tours 

to the Philippines and Thailand and sexually exploit impoverished 

women and young girls, advertising young ages, 11 years old. 

And we worked for 7 years against Big Apple Tours’ blatant and 

obvious violations and tried to prosecute them under existing laws. 

It was against the law in the United States, against the law in the 

Philippines, yet they continued to operate for 7 years. The Department of Justice declined to take action, and only New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer obtained an indictment that shut Big 

Apple down, and he has continued to proceed with this case. Although in the first level he was not successful, just the attention 

and press pressure basically closed them down; not a law, but the 

focus that we put on them. 

The story of Big Apple, although a story of some success, demonstrates that we need to do more to convince law enforcement in 

this country, as well as abroad, that we need to focus on the demand side of the trafficking equation. 

While the laws against prostitution in this country applies to 

johns as well as prostitutes, the overwhelming practice is to arrest 

the women and to let the men go, as though the women were the 

perpetrators and the men the victims. If we see this situation 

through the lens of trafficking, then this is backwards. The buyers 

5

of sex and the pimps selling it are the perpetrators, and the victims 

are those whose bodies are bought and sold. 

It is critical that we protect the women and children victims of 

the sex trade industry and punish the predators that exploit them, 

recruiters, traffickers, brothel owners, customers and criminal syndicates. This is why I am so pleased to join with Chairwoman 

Pryce to reintroduce legislation that will strengthen U.S. Laws and 

help victims in our country, whether they are foreign or U.S. citizens, and this is H.R 2012. The End Demand for Sexual Trafficking 

Act of 2005 combats trafficking by going after the purchasers of 

commercial sex acts and providing U.S. Law enforcement with improved tools to fight trafficking and assist victims. 

We have 12 cosponsors, and I urge all of the public here today 

to reach out to your Congress Members and Senators to urge them 

to become cosponsors of this important bipartisan legislation. And 

I am hopeful that we will be able to pass it this year. 

We are also working together, Deborah Pryce and I. We have requested a GAO report to conduct a study of trafficking and of what 

the U.S. and the multilateral development banks are doing to combat this problem. We are also working with Sue Kelly, with her 

subcommittee on criminal activity with money laundering, to see if 

there is any money in sex trafficking also illegally being laundered. 

This year I also introduced the Prevention of Trafficking of Tsunami Orphans Act, which would authorize critical assistance to the 

Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development to support programs that are being carried out by nongovernmental organizations to protect tsunami orphans or homeless children from becoming victims of trafficking. Although the 

tsunami is no longer front-page news, the thousands of homeless 

children and orphans it created are still very much at risk. 

We certainly must do more to stop the human rights abuses inflicted on men, women and children around the world by preventing trafficking and ending the sex trade industry. Although we 

continue to make important advances in the rights of women 

throughout the world, as long as there are women whose freedoms, 

livelihoods, bodies and souls are held captive because of trafficking, 

our work will never be done. 

I look forward to your testimony, and I hope that you will address many items. But may I ask one particular troubling item that 

has come up that I would like them to address in their testimony? 

Believe it or not, since we have been working on this, I am now 

being contacted by many organizations, some of whom are ex-prostitutes, gems from the Gem Society helping other prostitutes restore their lives. But some organizations that are arguing they like 

being prostitutes, they want to legalize prostitution, legalize 

johns—I am not kidding you, I am blown away by this. 

And in your testimony, if you could give me your response. I 

have been contacted by two or three organizations coming forward 

with this point of view of having tolerance for the beliefs or choices 

of other people. And one said, I like my profession, and, you 

know—I don’t have to draw a picture, but I would like to hear your 

responses of how you would respond to that. 

Thank you. 

6

Chairwoman PRYCE. Thank you, Mrs. Maloney. I think some of 

our witnesses look eager to respond to that question. 

Chairwoman PRYCE. I would like to introduce now our witnesses. 

Mr. Michael O’Connor serves as the director of operations, South 

Asia, for International Justice Mission, IJM. IJM is an international human rights agency that rescues victims of violence, sexual exploitation, slavery, oppression and other injustices. Based on 

referrals from relief and development agencies around the world, 

IJM conducts professional investigations of abuses, and mobilized 

interventionson behalf of the victims. 

And Ms. Jessica Neuwirth is president of Equality Now. I know 

that the ranking member of the subcommittee gave you some recognition. Welcome today. 

And Ms. Dorchen Leidholdt is the co-executive director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, which she helped found in 

1998. An umbrella of grass-roots organizations around the world, 

the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women has strong, growing regional networks in Asia, Latin America and Africa. 

And Ms. Lisa Thompson is the liaison for the Abolition of Sexual 

Trafficking for the Salvation Army USA National Headquarters. In 

this role she develops and coordinates the strategies for the Salvation Army to create recovery services for survivors of sexual trafficking. Ms. Thompson is a member of the Salvation Army’s International Antitrafficking Task Force representing the Americas. 

We welcome the witnesses to the hearing today. Without objection, your written statements will be made part of the record. You 

will be recognized for 5 minutes to summarize your testimony. And, 

Mr. O’Connor, we will begin with you. Thank you very much for 

being here today. 

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL E. O’CONNOR, JR., DIRECTOR OF 

OPERATIONS, SOUTH ASIA INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE MISSION 

Mr. O’CONNOR. Chairman Pryce, my name is Michael O’Connor, 

and I work for IJM, International Justice Mission. IJM helps rescue slaves, sex trafficking victims, forced labor victims. In 2004 

alone we helped rescue more than 400 victims of slavery and sex 

trafficking. 

The international data regarding sexual trafficking suggests it is 

a massive problem, but we can’t forget that there are individual 

perpetrators and individual victims with specific names and faces, 

and many of these victims are children. As but one example, in 

February of 2003 IJM undercover investigators went into a brothel 

in Svay Pak, Cambodia. An investigator was offered several young 

girls to have either sexual intercourse or oral sex with him for $30 

an encounter. IJM then went to the Cambodia authorities. The 

Cambodian authorities did a raid and rescued 37 young girls, all 

of them under the age of 16; 10 of them were 10 years of age or 

younger, one of them was approximately 5 years old. 

If you extrapolate on a yearly basis, the victims were producing for the brothel managers approximately $400,000 a year in a country where the per capita income is $2,000. This is big money, big 

business. 

Just a couple months ago undercover agents went into a brothel 

in Southeast Asia where we suspected sex trafficking to be taking 

7

place. The brothel had about 200 women and girls there. An IJM 

undercover investigator talked to one of the women, who said she 

has sex approximately five times a day, $26 a time. Again, if you 

extrapolate, that brothel is pulling in approximately $9.5 million a 

year. This is a lot of money. 

Sex trafficking is not a crime of passion, it is an economic crime, 

and as an economic crime you need a market. You have drunk perverts who are trying to find these young girls to have sex with, and 

they find them. IJM was just an NGO, and we find them. So why 

can’t the police find them? 

Well, the answer is a complicated one, but at least in part it is 

because many police accept bribes. Many of the countries where sex 

trafficking flourishes are countries where the police make desperately woefully inadequate wages, sometimes $40 or less per 

month. Meanwhile, the sex traffickers are making literally tons of 

money and can shower police with money to turn a blind eye. 

Where is this money coming from? A lot of it is coming from 

abroad, internationally; a lot of it is coming from sex tourism, and 

sex tourism isn’t hidden. You go on the Internet, you go to Google, 

you put ‘‘sex tourism’’ into its search engine, and you get approximately 1.8 million hits. The second of those hits is an organization 

called WSA, the World Sex Archive. It seems to me to be a place 

where sex tourists can compare notes about good places, bad places 

to go. The Website itself says on the ‘‘you need access’’ page, quote, 

‘‘You will save tons of money by joining this site. Imagine spending 

a ton of cash to travel somewhere only to find yourself yanking 

your ’blank,’’’ it is a slang word for male genitalia, ‘‘because the 

cops busted all of the ’blank,’’’ a slang word for female genitalia. 

This would totally ’blank.’ but members of WSA are informed. They 

know the best places to go. We have chicas to yank our ’blanks’ for 

us.’’

I am not saying that all sex tourists are pedophiles, but some of 

them are. There is a man named Donald Bakker. He is a Canadian 

citizen, and the Canadian Government, the police authorities got a 

copy of a sex tape that he apparently made of having sex with 

young children, but the Canadian authorities couldn’t identify who 

these young children were. Coincidentally, one of the Canadian 

cops on the case was watching a Dateline NBC special of the IJM’s 

Svay Pak raid and noticed that the same brothel room on the Dateline piece was the brothel room that Donald Bakker had used to 

film his videotape. The Canadian authorities called us up, and we 

shared our information with them. Donald Bakker was, last month, 

convicted of seven counts against these young girls in Cambodia. 

But the unique thing is he wasn’t prosecuted in Cambodia. They 

didn’t have to ship him off to Cambodia to prosecute him, they 

prosecuted him in Canada. It was the first time that the Canadian 

authorities had done this under a new law that allows Canadian 

authorities to prosecute Canadians who go abroad and commit sexual acts against children abroad. It is a great law. The United 

States has a similar law. It is called the Protect Act. This law 

needs to be better publicized. 

Child molesters are, in general, cowards. It is why people spend 

so much money to go abroad to have sex with children, because 

they are afraid to do so in the United States because they know 

8

they will be prosecuted. We have got to get the word out that they 

will be prosecuted if they do such crimes in other countries as well. 

One thing I would suggest is that in each new and each reissued 

passport, that just a simple fact sheet be put in that passport regarding the contours of the Protect Act so that people are put on 

notice. I would also suggest that people who are convicted in the 

United States of sex crimes against children have such convictions 

stamped in their passports so at the very least we put foreign governments on notice of the people that they are letting into their 

country. 

I would like to thank, in conclusion, the Chair as well as the bipartisan efforts regarding sex trafficking. The traffickers are 

strong, they are united, they are committed, and we have to be 

committed as they are. Thank you. 

Chairwoman PRYCE. Thank you very much, Mr. O’Connor. 

[The prepared statement of Michael E., O’Connor Jr. can be 

found on page 42 in the appendix.] 

Chairwoman PRYCE. Ms. Neuwirth. 

STATEMENT OF JESSICA NEUWIRTH, PRESIDENT, EQUALITY 

NOW 

Ms. NEUWIRTH. Thank you, Congresswoman Pryce, for this opportunity to testify before you. And thank you for your interest and 

support of efforts to combat trafficking in persons. 

My name is Jessica Neuwirth, and I am the founder and president of Equality Now, an international human rights organization 

based in New York working for the protection and promotion of the 

rights of women and girls around the world. 

Equality Now’s membership network is comprised of more than 

25,000 individuals and organizations in 160 countries. Issues of 

concern to Equality Now include trafficking of women and girls, as 

well as rape, domestic violence, reproductive rights, female genital 

mutilation, denial of equal access to economic opportunity and political participation, and all other forms of violence and discrimination against women and girls. 

The Trafficking Victim Protection Act of 2000 recognized that sex 

tourism is one of the means through which commercial sexual exploitation of women and girls has contributed to the growth of the 

international sex industry and feeds the demand for sex trafficking. 

The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2003 

went a step further in requiring the dissemination of materials 

alerting U.S. citizen travelers that sex tourism is illegal, will be 

prosecuted, and presents dangers to those involved. 

In evaluating how other countries are addressing human trafficking, H.R. 972, the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2005, would require adding, as a minimum standard for 

eliminating trafficking in the State Department’s annual report, 

measures to reduce the demand for commercial sex acts and for 

participation in international sex tourism. We should hold ourselves to the same minimum standard and play a leadership role 

for other countries in this regard. 

My comments today will focus on Big Apple Oriental Tours in 

Bellerose and Poughkeepsie, New York, and the G&F Tours of New 

Orleans, Louisiana. I will speak about these sex tour companies beVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:08 Dec 09, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\DOCS\24400.TXT FIN1 PsN: MICAH
9

cause in their methods of operation, they demonstrate the typical 

activities of sex tour companies. I will also speak about them because the lack of action against them by both Federal and State 

prosecutors is also typical of our country’s inadequate response to 

the demand side of the trafficking of women and children. 

From its location in New York, as Congresswoman Maloney mentioned earlier, Big Apple Oriental Tours was advertising its services, communicating with potential sex tourists to persuade them 

to travel with Big Apple Oriental Tours, making airline and hotel 

reservations, and arranging for local tour guides in the destination 

countries to introduce men to women from whom they could buy 

sex. The local Big Apple representative who escorted the men to 

the clubs was also available to negotiate the sex acts to be purchased and their price with the mamasan who controlled the 

women in these bars and clubs. 

G&F Tours in New Orleans is currently conducting its activities 

in precisely the same way, even using the same tour guide as Big 

Apple in Thailand. 

It should be simple to prosecute a company that so blatantly accepts money to facilitate and arrange commercial sex acts. New 

York penal law section 23020 makes it a class A misdemeanor 

when a person knowingly advances or profits from prostitution. 

Penal law section 23025 makes it a Class D felony to knowingly advance or profit from prostitution by managing, supervising, controlling or owning, either alone or in association with others, a house 

of prostitution or a prostitution business or enterprise involving 

prostitution activity by two or more prostitutes. 

Despite the clear language of the New York penal law and the 

uncontroverted activities of Big Apple Oriental Tours, Equality 

Now campaigned unsuccessfully for 7 years with the Queens County District Attorney to prosecute Big Apple Oriental Tours for promoting prostitution. Only when the case was brought to the attention of New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer in 2003 was a civil 

proceeding to shut down the company undertaken, and a criminal 

prosecution subsequently commenced. The criminal case was dismissed, and then the dismissal was reversed on appeal. We are 

now waiting for another grand jury proceeding, and hoping that the 

case will finally go to trial. 

No other State-level prosecution against sex tour operators for 

promoting prostitution has even been attempted, despite most 

States have similar prohibitions of such activities of those in New 

York that I just described. 

I would like to note that from the beginning of our campaign 7 

years ago, Congresswoman Maloney has been tremendously supportive of our efforts to close down Big Apple Oriental Tours and 

prosecute its owner/operators. I would like to thank her for her 

support, which has been instrumental in leading finally to the case 

currently under way. 

The Federal prosecutors have been equally unwilling to address 

the demand for trafficked women and girls created by sex tour operators and their customers. Unless it can be proven that children 

are involved, they are not interested. Very often minors are involved, but it is usually impossible to prove. Moreover, as a matter 

10

of principle as well as practicality, law enforcement interest in sex 

tourism should not be confined to cases involving minors. 

Section 2421 of Title 18 of the United States Code, known as the 

Mann Act, provides a 10-year sentence for anyone who knowingly 

transports any individual in interstate or foreign commerce with 

the intent that such individual engage in prostitution or in any 

sexual activity for which any person can be charged with a crime. 

Section 2422(a) makes it a crime for anyone who knowingly persuades, induces, entices or coerces any individual to travel in interstate or foreign commerce to engage in prostitution or in any sexual activities for which any person can be charged with a criminal 

offense. 

These provisions of the Mann Act could be effectively used 

against United States sex tour operators, but the Department of 

Defense has so far failed to apply this statute against them. Neither of these sections requires that the individual being transported or induced or persuaded to travel in foreign commerce be 

the prostituted person or the victim. In other words, transporting 

johns in foreign commerce, which is exactly what sex tour companies do, falls within the scope of the Mann Act. 

In virtually every popular sex tour destination country, such as 

Thailand, patronizing a prostitute is illegal, and johns can be 

charged with a crime for purchasing sex acts. 

Although both of the Mann Act sections just described could be 

applied to sex tour operators who every day induce, persuade and 

ultimately transport individuals in foreign commerce to engage in 

criminal sexual activity, Equality Now has now not been successful 

in its efforts over the past 6 years to get the Department of Defense, United States Attorney’s Offices in the Eastern District of 

Louisiana and the Southern District of New York to apply the 

Mann Act against G&F Tours——

Chairwoman PRYCE. Ms. Neuwirth, you are going to have to sum 

up because your time has expired. 

Ms. NEUWIRTH. Sorry. 

Equality Now welcomes the End Demand for Sex Trafficking Act, 

and thank you for your sponsorship of this bill. The bill includes 

the needed clarification that the Mann Act does apply to sex tour 

operators who transport purchasers, as well as sellers of commercial sexual acts. We hope this clarification will facilitate law enforcement efforts to end sex tourism. And more generally, we welcome the focus on demand for prostitution, which is the engine 

driving the commercial sex industry. Thank you. 

Chairwoman PRYCE. Thank you. And I am so sorry, we are due 

to have another vote in about 10 minutes, so I wanted to leave time 

for the other witnesses as well. So thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Jessica Neuwirth can be found on 

page 39 in the appendix.] 

Chairwoman PRYCE. Ms. Leidholdt. 

STATEMENT OF DORCHEN A. LEIDHOLDT, CO-EXECUTIVE 

DIRECTOR, COALITION AGAINST TRAFFICKING IN WOMEN 

Ms. LEIDHOLDT. Congresswoman Pryce, Congresswoman 

Maloney, members of the subcommittee, I am grateful for this opportunity to address the subject of the economics of sex slavery. 

11

In addition to speaking as a founder and co-executive director of 

the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, which has been working against all forms of commercial sexual exploitation of women 

and girls since 1998, I am speaking as director of the Center for 

Battered Women’s Legal Services, Sanctuary For Families. It is a 

provider of legal and social services to domestic violence victims in 

New York City primarily, but has assisted many victims of sex 

trafficking in the United States. 

We have been asked to focus on the economics of the international sex trade, and this is a formidable task for several reasons. First of all, much of the industry operates underground, is 

run by organized crime groups that don’t undergo financial audits 

or file tax returns. Second, only recently have criminal justice 

agencies had the legal mandate and motivation to investigate traffickers and other sex trade predators. And finally, myths about the 

agency of women in the sex industry accompanied by obliviousness 

to the role of men, both as patrons and profiteers, has led both governments and civil society to view the industry as inevitable, harmless, and its economics is a matter of little consequence. 

Thankfully all of this has begun to change. The magnitude of the 

industry’s harm to women and children propelled into conditions of 

exploitation and slavery, the millions of lives maimed and destroyed can no longer be ignored. At the same time the growth of 

the industry over the last two decades in particular, the enormous 

profits made has caused social scientists, journalists and economists to begin to pay attention and to numbers crunch. If we analyze this growing body of data while following the money trail, focusing, as the Norwegian feminist group Kvinnefronten urges us to 

do, on the buyer, the bought and the business, a picture of the industry’s economics and its economic and human toll begins to 

emerge. 

First the buyer. The economics of the global sex trade in women 

and children starts with the dollars, or pesos, or bhat in the pockets of prostitution buyers, known as johns in the United States, 

kerb crawlers in the United Kingdom, and more often than not as 

ordinary husbands and fathers in their communities. Although the 

amount they spend on purchased sex varies from country to country and within the sex industry’s specialties, their collective demand fuels a gigantic global industry estimated by a 2004 European Parliament report to turn over more money each year than 

the total of all of the military budgets in the world. This doesn’t 

include the money generated by the sex industry’s Internet sites, 

which promote and facilitate this trade. 

In the U.S. alone, Internet pornographers make an estimated $1 

billion annually, a figure that is expected to climb to 5- to $7 billion 

by the year 2007. 

Research shows that like perpetrators of domestic violence, the 

buyers of prostitution come from all races, classes, nationalities 

and walks of life. One study shows that about 70 to 90 percent are 

married men. While discretionary income facilitates their purchase 

of the body of a women or a child, buyers often spend income their 

families desperately need for necessities. Instead of being used to 

feed, cloth and educate their children, this money is spent in ways 

that place their families and communities in jeopardy, at the inVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:08 Dec 09, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00017 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\DOCS\24400.TXT FIN1 PsN: MICAH
12

creased risk of HIV/AIDS and the criminal activity that is part and 

parcel of the sex trade. 

The money is also spent in ways that reinforce the buyer’s perception of women as goods available for a price, a perception that 

is not confined to his activities with prostituted women and children, but spills over into his interactions with other women, his 

wife, the women in his workplace, the woman he encounters in the 

street. In other words, buyers’ transactions inside the sex industry 

reinforce and bolster gender stereotyping and inequality in the rest 

of society. 

The bought. The most acute and damaging manifestation of gender inequality, of course, is the buyer’s interaction with the woman 

or child he purchases. Even if he does not batter or rape her, a frequent reality for sex industry victims, research demonstrates that 

the act that he purchases is experienced by her as a violation. One 

victim, who went on to found the first organization of sex industry 

survivors, called the sex of prostitution ‘‘bought and sold rape.’’ a 

Russian trafficking victim I work with at Sanctuary for Families 

likensit to being strangled. 

Thousands of testimonies like these gathered by social scientists 

and organizations conducting research into the sex trade have led 

many to conclude that not only is prostitution a severe practice of 

sex discrimination, it is a form of violence against women and children that leaves them physically and psychologically traumatized. 

Often the buyer’s money doesn’t even make its way into the 

hands of the woman or girl whose body he purchases, but is handed off to the individual or group that owns her. When she does take 

the money, its possession is usually transitory. It is rapidly handed 

off to her pimp, trafficker, madam or husband, used to pay off inflated debts, or sent back to the family members who sold her into 

slavery. 

Research shows that even for the ostensible free agent, the 

money made from prostitution is spent on the drugs or alcohol she 

needs to numb her pain and depression so that she can endure another day in the sex trade. The romantic fantasy that, quote/unquote, sex work is a means to women’s economic and sexual empowerment, I think described by some of the—Congresswoman 

Maloney when she talked about some of the interaction with 

groups that have reached out to her, has been punctured by the 

work of organizations of sex industry survivors led by courageous 

women like SAGE’s Norma Hotaling, Breaking Free’s Vednita 

Carter, and GEM’s Rachel Lloyd, who have documented prostitution’s grim physical, psychological and economic toll, hardly a job 

like any other as its adherents claim. 

Many organizations promoting the point of view that this is a job 

like any other have strong financial connections to the sex industry. A couple of years ago I met a woman who held herself out as 

the leader of the sex workers in Mexico City, only to learn that her 

real work was actually running a brothel. 

Chairwoman PRYCE. Ms. Leidholdt, I will have to ask you to sum 

up, too. I am sorry. We will have time to get back to you all in 

questions. 

13

Ms. LEIDHOLDT. I have many, many statistics about the business. 

I am afraid I am going to just turn to my recommendations at the 

very end. 

When we followed the sex industry’s money trail from the hands 

of the buyer, past the bought, into the coffers of the business, it is 

clear that addressing and stopping the demand for all forms of 

commercial sexual exploitation is essential if we are to curtail 

human trafficking and its devastating consequences. 

The Coalition applauds the Trafficking in Persons Office for its 

focus on demand, and urges Federal authorities to continue to look 

to Sweden for inspiration and guidance. We wholeheartedly support the End Demand for Sex Trafficking Act, especially the incentive it provides State and local law enforcement to marshal their 

resources against the buyer and the business. We hope that the 

swift passage and implementation of this legislation will lead to 

other even stronger Federal measures that will hold accountable 

law enforcement agencies that violate equal protection guarantees 

by penalizing and stigmatizing sex industry victims while ignoring 

the buyers who ensure their continued exploitation. 

The sex industry and its lobby have long tried to deny the link 

between prostitution and trafficking, even though research consistently demonstrates that most trafficking is for purposes of prostitution. If we address only one of the faces of this many-headed hydra, 

our efforts to stop the trafficking of women and children will be in 

vain. The Coalition is grateful to the Trafficking in Persons Office, 

which under the leadership of Ambassador John Miller has helped 

expose the many and interrelated facets of the global sex trade——

Chairwoman PRYCE. The gentlewoman’s time has expired. Your 

full statement will appear in the record, and we will get back to 

you with questions. 

[The prepared statement of Dorchen A. Leidholdt can be found 

on page 32 in the appendix.] 

Chairwoman PRYCE. Ms. Thompson, thank you. 

STATEMENT OF LISA L. THOMPSON, LIAISON FOR THE ABOLITION OF SEXUAL TRAFFICKING, THE SALVATION ARMY NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS 

Ms. THOMPSON. Today we have heard human trafficking referred 

to as modern-day slavery, and I would like to take that slavery 

analogy a step further and introduce to you what I call the sexual 

gulag. The term ‘‘gulag’’ is used to describe networks of prisons or 

labor camps, and during the Soviet era the country built a network 

of prisons for slave labor called gulags so vast and brutal that the 

word was adopted into the English language, and its use is synonymous with inhumane and torturous prison conditions. 

The Soviet regime and its gulags has collapsed, but a new gulag 

system has risen to take its place, the sexual gulag. The sexual 

gulag is a global system made up of hundreds of thousands, if not 

millions, of brothel, bars, strip clubs, massage parlors, escort services and streets where people are sold for sex. My use of the term 

‘‘gulag’’ to describe this exploitation is not hyperbole. The analysis 

laid out in my written testimony details the many chilling similarities between the two systems, particularly the scale of the systems 

and the dehumanizing treatment of those within the systems. But 

14

today we only have time to examine one point of commonality, and 

that is a purpose. 

The primary purpose of the Soviet gulag was an economic one. 

They produced a third of the country’s gold, much of its coal and 

timber, and a great deal of almost everything else. But as you will 

see, the Soviet gulag and the sexual gulag share the same purpose, 

an economic one. The principal difference between the two is that 

the sexual gulag limits its exploitation to one industry, the sex industry. 

The value of the global trade in women as commodities for sex has been estimated to be between 7- and $12 billion annually. 

However, as the information I am going to share with you demonstrates, these estimates are astonishingly low. As I share this information, it is important to keep in mind the four following items: 

One, all prostitution of persons under 18 is de facto sex trafficking. 

Two, a high prevalence of foreign-born women in a country’s sex industry is highly indicative of sex trafficking. Three, the vast majority of adult women in prostitution experience levels of physical and 

psychological abuse that plainly classify them as victims of sex 

trafficking. And four, victims of sex trafficking are used in various 

forms of commercial sexual exploitation such as prostitution, pornography and stripping. Thus, prostitution and sexual trafficking 

are intrinsically related; the existence of prostitution is the only 

reason sex trafficking exists. 

Now my main point. The sexual gulag is big business. In Japan, 

where prostitution is not legal, but widely tolerated, the sex industry is estimated to make $83 billion a year. There are an estimated 

150,000 foreign women in its sex industry, many from the Philippines, Thailand, Korea, Russia and Latin America. 

Prostitution in the Philippines, a de facto legal industry, now is 

the fourth largest source of gross national product for the country. 

The sex industry in the Netherlands is estimated to make almost 

a billion a year, and it is a major destination country for trafficked 

women. In Germany, where prostitution is legal, an estimated 

400,000 prostituted persons serve 1.2 million buyers a day, in an 

industry of an annual turnover of 18 billion U.S. Dollars. 

Now, in Germany, one of 12 cities to hold the World Cup 

matches, the city is installing a series of drive-in wooden sex huts 

so as to capitalize on the expected boom in the local sex trade when 

the games are in town. In 2003, an IPO of brothel shares was introduced on Australia’s stock exchange. And a 1998 study by the 

IOL said that the sex sector made up as much as 14 percent of 

Thailand’s gross domestic product. 

The report said, the stark reality is that the sex sector is a big 

business that is well entrenched in the national economies and 

international economy, with highly organized structures and linkages to other types of legitimate economic activity. According to the 

reports, the revenues generated by the sex industry were crucial to 

the livelihoods and earnings of potentially millions of workers beyond the, quote, prostitutes themselves. Owners, managers, pimps, 

related entertainment industry, segments of the tourism industry, 

cleaners, waitresses, cashiers, parking valets, security guards, medical practitioners, operators of food stalls, vendors of cigarettes and 

liquor, property owners who rent premises to providers for sexual 

15

services are just some of those who profit from the existence of a 

sexual gulag. 

In an interview of Ms. Lim, the woman who edited the IOL report, she said government policies had encouraged the growth of 

tourism, promoted migration for employment, promoted export of 

female labor for earning foreign exchange, and thus contributed indirectly to the growth of prostitution. 

It is clear from the monumental profits generated by the sex industry that the fight against the sexual gulag is a battle like that 

of David against Goliath; those who have profited have grown extremely powerful, and it will take our relentless energy, creativity 

and sizable resources and strategic planning to bring the giant 

down. 

Current U.S. policy recognizes the innate harm in prostitution, 

acknowledges the symbiosis between prostitution and sexual trafficking, and we have a national presidential security directive 

which makes this link. But we need to do more, including we want 

to see passage of the End Demand Act. We are fully behind that. 

But I would also suggest that the Congress mandate a report to be 

done by the international—in the State Department the Bureau of 

Narcotics and Law to look at organized crime and the financial aspects of trafficking. That would be very productive. 

In addition, we need to enhance the minimum standards of the 

Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act to include provisions such as whether the Government of a country sponsors and 

supports laws tasked with reducing demand for international and 

domestic trafficking in persons as a tier-rating estimate, as well as 

whether or not the Government has legalized its sex industry. 

Have they legalized pimping, pandering, brothel-keeping, soliciting? These are factors that should be considered for reducing 

them in their tier ranking. Thank you. 

Chairwoman PRYCE. Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Lisa L. Thompson can be found on 

page 47 in the appendix.] 

Chairwoman PRYCE. I know that 5 minutes is not very long to 

devote to this very, very important subject, and I apologize, but 

those are the rules, and we will just try to get—and there is the 

votes. Well, we have probably about 5 minutes. Let me ask the first 

question just real quickly. 

We are trying to get a handle on some money laundering and the 

economy that this terrible crime supports. And how do we get those 

statistics? Who can this committee call upon to start to educate us? 

Mrs. Maloney and I were just saying how difficult it is to get our 

arms around this. Any advice to the committee? 

Ms. LEIDHOLDT. Well, in preparing my testimony, I really tried 

to find out what information there was on money laundering, and 

there is very little information out there. I know that Professor 

Donna Hughes, who authored The Natasha Trade, has addressed 

it. And I don’t know if she has testified before this subcommittee, 

but I think that she would be an excellent person to ask. And she 

has documented considerable money laundering; for example, during the late 1990s, about $10 billion, proceeds from trafficking in 

weapons, drugs and prostitution in Central Europe and the United 

States, was laundered through the Bank of New York by a UkrainVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:08 Dec 09, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00021 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\DOCS\24400.TXT FIN1 PsN: MICAH
16

ian-born crime boss. She has also documented a great deal of 

money laundering of the profits of prostitution and sex trafficking 

from Eastern Europe into businesses, banks, and real estate ventures in Israel. So I think Professor Hughes might be a good person 

to reach out to. 

Chairwoman PRYCE. Ms. Thompson, you mentioned that Treasury is a good place to start. 

Ms. THOMPSON. The State Department’s Bureau of International 

Narcotics and Law, they already do investigations on organized 

crime, and we just need to ask them to expand their purview and 

look at trafficking. It is under the global—under Paula 

Dobriansky’s office at the State Department. 

Chairwoman PRYCE. Mr. O’Connor. 

Mr. O’CONNOR. On page 13 of the Trafficking in Persons Report, 

it says that the FBI estimates there is $9.5 billion in revenues 

spent each year in human trafficking. It would be fascinating to 

have someone from the FBI testify on how those numbers were 

gathered. 

Chairwoman PRYCE. Mrs. Maloney, I will yield to you. 

Mrs. MALONEY. There is just so much to ask, and we have to go 

vote. 

I consider sex trafficking and prostitution violence against 

women the worst form—I consider any discrimination violence 

against women, and I consider this the worst form. But since we 

have been working on it, believe it or not I have been contacted by 

several unions to, quote, legalize prostitution and to make it a clear 

distinction between prostitution and trafficking. And they find it offensive that as, quote, sex workers that enjoy their trade, that we 

are acting like they are incapable of making decisions on their own. 

And to me, I have a visceral reaction against the entire trade. 

I feel it is exploitation—I cannot imagine any other reason but exploitation. But I wanted to give that to you to hear what your response is to that. 

We live in a free society. One of our States, Nevada, has legalized prostitution. And if you want to think about it and get back 

to us in writing, or if you could respond to it. It caught me totally 

off guard. I did not even know what to say, because in my opinion 

it is exploitation and violence. Would anyone like to comment? 

Ms. NEUWIRTH. I would like to comment briefly on that, I think 

there are two categories of support for prostitution coming from a 

different place. One, the idea—it is an ideology support, that prostitution equals work; it is a form of labor that should be recognized 

and legitimated. And I think we simply just disagree with that, it 

is wrong. If you look in the trafficking report, figures are quoted, 

89 percent of the women in prostitution want to escape. I don’t 

think most people see this as a form of work, but there is an ideology minority that has been put there for that position. 

I think more commonly what you find is people are coming at it 

from a humanitarian point of view: We want to help these women; 

if we make it legal, it will be safer. Again, I feel that is completely 

the wrong direction. And that was an argument that was made, of 

course, with respect to slavery, let’s just make it safer, more manageable; don’t put all the slaves in a hold. It is just the wrong way 

to think about it. We want to end this institution. And before we 

17

talk about the right of prostitution, we should talk about the right 

to not have to be a prostitute. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Any other comments? 

Ms. LEIDHOLDT. Well, I am just very suspicious. Who are these 

unions; and in fact, are these really the voices of women who have 

been in prostitution? I mean, one thing we find, a little bit like domestic violence, when you are in an abusive and oppressive system, 

you don’t have the freedom to speak out against it, and you say 

what your masters want you to say. Once you get out, you hear 

something very different. Norma Hotaling represents that point of 

view. 

But when we have looked at who is speaking out and saying this 

is a job like any other job, this is free choice, very often we are 

finding groups with very, very close ties to the sex industry. I 

mean, the sex industry has a lot of money and a lot of power, and 

many of these groups are indebted to the sex industry financially. 

Ms. THOMPSON. And just earlier we were speaking among ourselves, and Jessica made an incredibly poignant point about how 

legalization really creates the perfect umbrella for money laundering; what a better opportunity than when you normalize an activity that you can hide, you know, criminal activity under that 

legal regime. So I think that would be another compelling reason 

not to legalize. 

But like in the United States, the average age of entry into prostitution is between 12 and 14. So we are talking about children 

coming into prostitution, grow up in prostitution; one day they are 

a victim, the next day this is a choice. Now, that is simply because 

of a misunderstanding about what is going on in prostitution. And 

to quote one survivor, she said, ‘‘You feel like a piece of hamburger 

meat, all chopped up and barely holding together.’’ And that is the 

predominant view. There is always going to be, as Jessica pointed 

out, the minority of people who have experienced prostitution who 

tout it as liberating, but that is the minority. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Sir. 

Mr. O’CONNOR. I can talk about minors. We rescue 15-, 16-, 17-

year-old girls. If we can get them out of the brothels within a 

month or two of them getting there, they are always very thankful. 

If we get them out 5, 6, 10 months after they get there, they are 

not thankful at all when we first rescue them. 

These are orphans, or people who have been isolated from their 

families. They have been brutalized, and they have been told that 

the police will rape them if they are rescued. They are extremely 

afraid. And so when you see a 15-year-old telling you that, no, she 

wants to go back to the brothel, it is devastating. 

Mrs. MALONEY. I just to want say—our time is up, but I think 

all of you are extraordinary, and your testimony was incredibly 

moving. I could listen to you all day. But we will not be coming 

back, the Chairwoman tells me, but if you could get to us any examples of what you have heard that is happening in the States 

around our country in combating this violence, it would be helpful. 

And also, I think the story of Jessica Neuwirth with Big Apple 

Tours, where it is obviously against our laws, against the laws of 

the other countries, yet the law enforcement people we went to—

and we went to many, many offices—said they were powerless to 

18

react to it. And it shows the need, that we do need the law that 

we are working on. And if you have other ways that you think we 

should—other things we should be working on, if you could get it 

to us, we would really appreciate it. Thank you very much. 

Chairwoman PRYCE. Ms. Moore, you have been patient. And 

there is probably about 7 minutes left. Would you like to take just 

a few minutes and ask a question or two? 

Ms. MOORE. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. I, too, am very, 

very interested in this topic, and I appreciate the thrust and focus 

of this panel to look at the buyers in the industry. One of my trepidations about this topic has always been to wage some enforcement 

battle against the victims, and so I am happy to see this focus. 

Thank you. 

Chairwoman PRYCE. Thank you. And once again, the record will 

remain open for 30 days for any member who was here—or even 

who wasn’t here—who would like to put forth some questions. And 

so if you wouldn’t mind answering those if any come forward, we 

would really appreciate it. 

Chairwoman PRYCE. The demands of a congressional day in 

terms of our voting schedule are really not of our own making, and 

we just don’t have any control over them, but we do so much appreciate what we know you do day in and day out, and once again, 

is it is so hard to sum up in 5 minutes. But hopefully we will continue in this battle together. Thank you for your presence here 

today, and we are adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 3:33 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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A P P E N D I X

June 22, 2005

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