U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

63–274 CC WASHINGTON : 2000

TRAFFICKING OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN

THE INTERNATIONAL SEX TRADE

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON

INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS AND HUMAN RIGHTS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

SEPTEMBER 14, 1999

Serial No. 106–66

Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations

(
(II)

COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York, Chairman

WILLIAM F. GOODLING, Pennsylvania

JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa

HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois

DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey

DAN BURTON, Indiana

ELTON GALLEGLY, California

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina

DANA ROHRABACHER, California

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California

PETER T. KING, New York

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South

Carolina

MATT SALMON, Arizona

AMO HOUGHTON, New York

TOM CAMPBELL, California

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

KEVIN BRADY, Texas

RICHARD BURR, North Carolina

PAUL E. GILLMOR, Ohio

GEORGE P. RADANOVICH, California

JOHN COOKSEY, Louisiana

THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado

SAM GEJDENSON, Connecticut

TOM LANTOS, California

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American

Samoa

MATTHEW G. MARTINEZ, California

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey

ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio

CYNTHIA A. MCKINNEY, Georgia

ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida

PAT DANNER, Missouri

EARL F. HILLIARD, Alabama

BRAD SHERMAN, California

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida

STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey

JIM DAVIS, Florida

EARL POMEROY, North Dakota

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York

BARBARA LEE, California

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York

JOSEPH M. HOEFFEL, Pennsylvania

RICHARD J. GARON, Chief of Staff

KATHLEEN BERTELSEN MOAZED, Democratic Chief of Staff

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS AND HUMAN RIGHTS

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman

WILLIAM F. GOODLING, Pennsylvania

HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina

PETER T. KING, New York

MATT SALMON, Arizona

THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado

CYNTHIA A. MCKINNEY, Georgia

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American

Samoa

EARL F. HILLIARD, Alabama

BRAD SHERMAN, California

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York

GROVER JOSEPH REES, Subcommittee Staff Director

DOUGLAS C. ANDERSON, Counsel

GARY STEPHEN COX, Democratic Staff Director

NICOLLE A. SESTRIC, Staff Associate
(III)

C O N T E N T S

WITNESSES

Page

Hon. Harold Hongju Koh, Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of Democracy,

Human Rights, and Labor, United States Department of State ...................... 8

Theresa Loar, Director, President’s Interagency Council on Women, United

States Department of State ................................................................................. 13

Laura J. Lederer, Research Director and Project Manager, the Protection

Project, Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government ......................... 36

Gary A. Haugen, President and Chief Executive Officer, International Justice

Mission .................................................................................................................. 40

Anita Sharma Bhattarai, Trafficking Survivor, Nepal ......................................... 35

APPENDIX

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

of New Jersey, Chairman, Subcommittee on International Operations and

Human Rights ...................................................................................................... 56

Mr. Harold Hongju Koh .......................................................................................... 60

Ms. Theresa Loar ..................................................................................................... 72

Dr. Laura J. Lederer ............................................................................................... 87

Mr. Gary A. Haugen ................................................................................................ 92

Ms. Anita Sharma Bhattarai .................................................................................. 98

Additional material:

Additional comments submitted by Mr. Koh ......................................................... 103

Statement of Dr. Valora Washington, Executive Director, Unitarian Universalist Service Committee ..................................................................................... 104
(1)

TRAFFICKING OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN

THE INTERNATIONAL SEX TRADE

Tuesday, September 14, 1999

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL

OPERATIONS AND HUMAN RIGHTS, Committee on International Relations,

WASHINGTON D.C.

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 1:05 p.m. In Room

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

(Chairman of the Subcommittee) Presiding.

Mr. SMITH. Good afternoon, and thank you for coming to today’s

hearing. Today’s hearing is to investigate one of the modern world’s

most serious and most widespread human rights problems: The

trafficking of women and children for the international sex trade.

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

and/or fraud into the international commercial sex industry. Efforts

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

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

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

ago. Every day we read of news accounts of women and girls who

are abducted in places as diverse as Burma, Kosovo, and Vietnam,

and sold into sexual slavery in countries from Thailand to Israel,

from China to the United States.

Part of the problem is that current laws and law enforcement

strategies, in the United States as in other nations, often punish

the victims more severely than they punish the perpetrators. When

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

children, in the brothel are typically deported if they are not citizens of the country in which the establishment is located. Deportation is imposed without reference to whether their participation

was voluntary or involuntary and without reference to whether

they will face retribution or other serious harm upon return. This

not only inflicts further cruelty on the victims, but also leaves nobody to testify against the real criminals and frightens other victims from coming forward.

In order to reverse this cruel and ineffective approach, I, together

with my colleague Marcy Kaptur, my good friend from Georgia, Ms.

McKinney, and 25 other bipartisan cosponsors, have introduced

H.R. 1356, the Freedom from Sexual Trafficking Act. This legislation is designed to protect and assist the victims of sexual trafficking while inflicting severe and certain punishment on the per-
2

petrators. On August 4th, H.R. 1356 was marked up and reported

favorably by our Subcommittee and will be soon moving to the full

Committee.

The central principle behind the Freedom from Sexual Trafficking Act is that a person who knowingly operates an enterprise

that profits from sex acts involving persons who have been brought

across international boundaries for such purposes by fraud or force

should receive punishment commensurate with that given to those

who commit forcible rape. This would not only be just punishment,

but we believe also would be a powerful deterrent.

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

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

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

H.R. 1356 would also prohibit nonhumanitarian U.S. assistance

to governments that continue to be part of the problem rather than

part of the solution to forcible and fraudulent sexual trafficking,

unless this prohibition is waived by the President, and there is a

very generous waiver provided in the bill.

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

forcible and/or fraudulent sexual trafficking.

It also includes relief from deportation for victims, provided it is

established that they really were innocent victims, and that they

have not unreasonably refused to assist in the investigation and

prosecution of the perpetrators, and that they would face retribution or other hardship if removed from the United States.

The bill also makes clear that trafficking victims are eligible for

the Federal witness protection plan and provides them with a private right of action against those who have profited by the harm

that was done to them.

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

drafting and implementation of antitrafficking legislation.

H.R. 1356 has attracted widespread support and enthusiasm

from across the political spectrum, but it has also found its share

of critics. For example, the Administration and others contend that

it is wrong or counterproductive to impose sanctions or even threaten to do so against foreign governments that condone sex trafficking. But nobody really believes that we should never sanction

bad behavior by foreign governments. Rather, the question is how

bad the conduct has to be in order to merit the sanctions and

whether the sanctions are carefully tailored to deter the evils that

they address.

I would just note parenthetically, we were late in starting today

because there was a vote on the floor dealing with East Timor and

the fact that we are encouraging the President, and the language

is even weaker than I would like to see, to further distance ourselves with regard to our military cooperation with the Government

of Indonesia because of their ongoing, egregious problems with

their military and the use of torture by their military, which Cynthia and I and others on the Subcommittee have heard repeatedly

on hearings on that question. There are some times when behavior
3

crosses the line and action needs to be taken, and again, there is

a generous waiver contained within this legislation.

H.R. 1356 contains smart sanctions, not dumb ones. It would

give the President the opportunity but not the obligation to cut

U.S. taxpayer subsidies to governments that condone or support

sexual trafficking. There are no trade sanctions in this bill, only

limitations on foreign aid. Humanitarian aid is explicitly exempted,

and we have adopted a generous definition of humanitarian aid.

Finally, even this very limited sanction against offending governments may be waived by the national interest waiver by the President. Remember, the legislation also authorizes new foreign assistance to governments that are making efforts to punish perpetrators

and protect victims. So we provide both carrots and sticks, incentives and disincentives.

We believe this bill provides a more balanced, moderate and

flexible approach than a bill that would provide all carrots and no

sticks. We give the President all the tools that we hope will be necessary to stop this unspeakable exploitation of women and children,

not just some tools, and then it is up to the President to decide

which tools he wants to use in each case.

The Administration and some of its supporters also argue that

antitrafficking legislation should be designed to stop not only the

forcible and fraudulent trafficking of women for the international

sex trade, but also other forms of trafficking such as the transportation of workers for sweatshops or other substandard working conditions. I can tell you I sympathize very deeply on some of those

important points.

Our bill explicitly recognizes that international sexual trafficking

is not the only form of traffic in persons. Innocent people are lured,

pressured, and lied to every day all over the world in all kinds of

situations, and I take second place to no one in my commitment to

ending all labor practices that are coercive, deceptive, or otherwise

improper, or even when they involve labor that is not in and of

itself inherently degrading.

The problem with addressing all of these evils in one bill, the

idea that one size fits all, is that they involve wide range of different situations which may call for an equally broad range of solutions. So we decided to start by attacking the most brutal form of

trafficking, I believe, the use of force and deception in the systematic degradation of millions of women and children, and singling it

out for swift and certain punishment.

We believe that by focusing on this particularly egregious practice, the forcible or fraudulent trafficking of women and children

for commercial sex purposes, we can stop it sooner than if we had

tried to address the far broader range of evils. H.R. 1356 is far

tougher on the criminals and far more generous to victims than

would be appropriate if we were trying to legislate about working

conditions in legitimate industries rather than to punish rapists

and protect rape victims.

In comparison, even though I know the bill has been introduced,

it clearly shows our bill would provide for life imprisonment, which

makes it very clear that we are serious. Put these people away,

lock them up and throw the key away, seems to me the only way

to deal with the question of those who commit these heinous
4

crimes. I also believe that this legislation to end sexual trafficking

will also command a far broader consensus in Congress, among the

American people, and around the world, than legislation that

would address a much wider range of problems and then do a lot

less about them. If the Administration wants to get behind this legislation and then followup with legislation on related issues, I will

be there, willing to work with them.

But while we are working on shaping an approach to these other

problems and on building the necessary consensus for addressing

them, we must not delay even for a single day the effort to save

these millions of women and children who are forced every day to

submit to the most atrocious offenses against their persons and

against their dignity as human beings. Forcible and fraudulent

trafficking of women and children for the commercial sex trade is

a uniquely brutal practice. It is commercial rape, and it cries out

for its own comprehensive and immediate solution. We must act to

end it now, and I hope that we will have the support as we move

this through the House and the Senate.

[The statement of Mr. Smith appears in the appendix.]

Mr. SMITH. I would like to yield to my good friend Cynthia

McKinney, the Ranking Member of our Subcommittee.

Ms. MCKINNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, I would

like the thank you for your personal efforts to bring to the forefront

this issue of sexual trafficking, a practice that involves tens of

thousands of women all around the world. I join the Chairman in

his concern for this grave abuse of women and children that has

not received the attention it deserves by the Administration or the

international community. I truly wish to work with him on curtailing this outrageous activity. The Chairman and I can move this

issue to the forefront and work together to develop a viable bill

that can pass the Congress and get signed into law.

Women and children are forced into the illegal commercial sex

trade. Efforts to place limits on this barbarous practice, as Chairman Smith has so correctly pointed out, has not been successful.

This bill is not a perfect bill, but it can be made better as it works

its way through the Committee process. However, I do believe that

this bill is an important first step in the right direction. I would

like the Chairman to know that we are not that far apart on this

issue, and I would join him in cosponsoring this legislation.

I am deeply grateful for the testimony submitted by the witnesses today. In particular, Ms. Anita Bhattarai, a survivor of sexual trafficking from Nepal, is extremely courageous to step forward

today and tell us her heart-wrenching story. It personally pains me

to know that at least four other witnesses were scheduled to testify

today but at the last minute backed out. Who can blame them,

women who have been forcibly raped are forced to relive the tragedy in order to bring charges against their attackers? The embarrassment and humiliation never go away, even with the passage of

time. Therefore, Ms. Bhattarai, I thank you for being willing to

share your story with us today so that all the world may know we

must act so that your story is not repeated over and over and over

again.

Personally I would like to expand the scope of this bill. I have

procedural concerns that labor issues are not specifically addressed
5

in this bill. In certain countries it is a well-known practice to import laborers as servants. The master of the house then proceeds

to lift the passport from the employee’s possessions, pays them less

than the prevailing wage, and in many cases sexually exploits the

worker. While in theory this bill would cover this practice, I am not

so sure that these particular circumstances are fully addressed. Mr.

Chairman, we should have our staffs working together to see what

we can do on this one issue to try and broaden the scope of this

bill just a little bit.

H.R. 1238, the International Trafficking in Women and Child

Protection Act, introduced by Congresswoman Louise Slaughter, of

which I am also a cosponsor, addresses some of the concerns regarding slavery and sexual exploitation by employers. We have to

look at this legislation and try to see what we can do to address

the issue of sexual exploitation of workers by employers.

I don’t want to ignore the other victims of trafficking; however,

I am of like mind with the Chairman that we cannot develop a

broadly scoped bill addressing all issues of international human

trafficking that could realistically pass this Congress. H.R. 1356 is

a first step, and it is an important first step.

I want to work with the Chairman to protect the women and

children, victims of human sexual trafficking throughout the world.

The strengths of H.R. 1356 include a modification of U.S. law to

provide severe punishment, up to a life sentence, for persons convicted of sexual trafficking. It addresses the issue of transporting

persons across international borders for this practice. It addresses

the issue of engaging in the sale of a person for this practice as

well as addressing the enterprise of sexual trafficking itself.

On the other hand, my colleagues at the Department of State

have told me they oppose the creation of an office for the protection

of victims of trafficking. This office will file an annual report on foreign countries that fail to criminalize and appropriately punish

international sexual trafficking. While I have concerns about creating a separate office, I would like to ask the Department of State

officials how they can address our concerns without the creation of

a separate office.

I asked in my previous remarks of August 4th, if there is a creative way to increase our emphasis on this issue without creating

more bureaucracy, and I have not had an adequate response from

the Department of State on this question. In light of the nonresponse from DOS, perhaps there does need to be an approach

similar to the approach followed by our Chairman.

Further, the bill provides victim assistance and protection, provisions for grants to rehabilitation centers and grants to shelters. I

support these provisions. The bill limits the deportation of victims

to determine whether or not they were forced into sexual trafficking, and this bill clears the way for victims to participate in the

witness protection program as long as they cooperate with Federal

authorities to break up the organized sex trade rings. These are

good points in the legislation.

The Department of State is opposed to the sanctions provisions

in the bill. The argument is that it is counterproductive to impose

sanctions. In light of the sanctions against Iraq, I find this argument incredulous. The Secretary of State has said that the deaths
6

of 5,000 Iraqi children each month is a price that she is willing to

pay. For what? A nonexistent Iraqi policy? I think all arguments

put forward by the Department of State should be measured by

this statement by Secretary Albright. In light of the fact that right

now the U.S., Japan, and the IMF are arguing for economic pressures to be used against Indonesia, I would like to know what the

alternative measures being proposed by this State Department are

to eliminate this heinous practice. We should work to put an end

to the international exploitation of women and children.

The bill does provide the President with a waiver. The sanctions

in this bill do not kill women and children by denying them food

and medical aid as is the case with some of our other misguided

policy. This legislation, like the Chairman has mentioned, uses a

carrot-and-stick approach. We reward those who comply with accepted international standards, and we use very limited sanctions

against governments who do not comply.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, the Smith bill and the Slaughter

bill are not necessarily at odds with each other. I want to offer you

this opportunity for us to work together to produce a viable bill.

This cause is noble and just. I hope we can work with the Administration to address their concerns, and I have instructed my staff to

work closely with your staff on this very important international

issue.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The information referred to appears in the appendix.]

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, I say to my friend from Georgia, for your excellent statement and for your good, strong support

for this. One of the areas of bipartisanship that goes underreported

and underheralded is in the area of human rights. we have worked

with you and with your predecessor Tom Lantos, who also was

Ranking for a number of years and Chairman of this Committee

before me, in a very cooperative way, because we all believe in the

human dignity of people. So I want to thank you for your fine

statement.

The gentlelady from California, Ms. Lee.

Ms. LEE. Thank you very much, and I want to thank you and our

Ranking Member Ms. McKinney for your very stellar and very consistent work on behalf of human rights throughout the world. Let

me just say to you that this is an issue that we all have to address

and we all have to deal with. People in my district really don’t even

believe this takes place in the world right now. So these hearings

are very, very important to raise public awareness with regard to

the whole issue of the sexual trafficking and the abuses that

women and children in 1999 are subjected to throughout the world.

I just want to thank you for this bold action, for this bold piece

of legislation, and I look forward to the hearing.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Ms. Lee.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Faleomavaega.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank and commend you for not only calling this very important hearing, but also

introducing legislation that addresses this very serious matter. In

the years that I have served with you on this Committee, Mr.

Chairman, I certainly want to commend your leadership, and I say

outstanding leadership, in our Nation in leading the forefront, the
7

problem of human rights violations throughout the world, and I

think that this legislation is an excellent start. I am sure the concerns raised by our good friend, the gentlelady from Georgia will

be addressed accordingly, and there is a lot of time that we can do

this constructively.

If I might be so bold, Mr. Chairman, in not taking away the spirit of the hearing this afternoon is we are talking about in this legislation addressing the problems of sex for sale and women and children. I come away very concerned, and I certainly want to thank

you again.

Over the years we have been holding hearings about human

rights violations in this place called East Timor, and when we talk

about if there is none other in the times of war or whenever there

is a revolution, whenever there is a military takeover—which, by

the way, Mr. Chairman, that is exactly what happened. Twentyfive years ago the Indonesian military came over and massacred,

literally massacred, over 200,000 East Timorese men, women and

children before they were finally supposedly annexed by the Indonesian Government, and to this day not only does the United Nations not recognize this act by the Indonesian military, but our own

country never recognized this takeover that was done 25 years ago.

So all of the sudden it seems like, hey, what is happening there?

It has been there the last 25 years. We turned our backs on these

people, and all these years that we have neglected to face up to the

issue.

This is not an Asian issue, Mr. Chairman. It is a human. These

people are human beings. They may not be Europeans in Kosovo

or in other places in Europe, but they are human beings, and we

ought not to forget them.

Again, I commend you for this, and I look forward to hearing

from our good friend, the Assistant Secretary, and the associate

here, for this hearing this afternoon. Thank you again, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Faleomavaega. I would

like to introduce our very two distinguished panelists, and we

thank the Administration for making your time available to be

here.

First of all, I would like to introduce Ms. Theresa Loar, whom

I have known for 30 years. We have been good friends. We went

to high school together, and she now is in a very, very important

position as Senior Coordinator for International Women’s Issues at

the State Department, a position she assumed in July 1996. She

also serves as the Director of the President’s Interagency Council

on Women. Previously Ms. Loar served on the U.S. delegation to

the U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women, as well as in diplomatic posts in both Mexico and Korea.

I would also like to welcome a man whose reputation preceded

him for his work on human rights, Harold Koh. He was appointed

Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and

Labor in 1998. Before that appointment, Mr. Koh served as both

a professor of international law and as the Director of the Center

for International Human Rights at Yale Law School. Assistant Secretary Koh, who earned both his BA and law degrees from Harvard, has authored numerous articles on international law and
8

human rights. He is also a fellow Commissioner on the Commission

on Security Cooperation in Europe, and it is kind of nice because

very often he sits right up here and gets to quiz all the witnesses

as well, and does a great job. I am looking forward to working with

him on the upcoming Istanbul summit.

I would also like to note for the record that Anita Botti has done

great work on this issue as well and previously had testified before

the Helsinki Commission, She did a masterful job on the issue, and

we are grateful for her good work day to day on that issue.

Mr. SMITH. I am told that protocol suggests Secretary Koh goes

first, so I would like to yield the floor to him.

STATEMENTS OF HON. HAROLD HONGJU KOH, ASSISTANT

SECRETARY OF STATE, BUREAU OF DEMOCRACY, HUMAN

RIGHTS, AND LABOR, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF

STATE

Mr. KOH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, for holding today’s hearing on the worldwide problem of

trafficking of persons. You should be commended for shining a

spotlight on this important human rights issue. Hearings such as

this demonstrate the interest of the U.S. Government in combating

these egregious practices and send a clear signal to traffickers that

they will not be tolerated.

Mr. Chairman, this past July, as you know, the Parliamentary

Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe unanimously passed a resolution condemning sexual trafficking, a success for which you played a very large role, and I applaud you and your colleagues on the U.S. Delegation for your leadership in agreeing to this resolution which urges participating

States to punish traffickers even while raising public awareness of

the crime of trafficking.

Mr. Chairman, my friend and colleague Theresa Loar, Director

of the President’s Interagency Council on Women and Senior Coordinator for International Women’s Issues at the State Department,

has joined me here today to discuss how we can all work together

to address this crucial issue. By appearing together we send the

message that the entire Administration shares your determination

that we must stop those who profit from the tragedy of trafficking,

and we must help those who are its victims once again find dignity.

This is an issue that has touched my life personally and professionally, both in my work as a private human rights attorney and

now as Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and

Labor.

As you know, as a private refugee attorney I represented thousands of Haitians, Cubans, and Chinese citizens who took the small

boat seeking safe haven in the United States. Some of them no

doubt were victims of traffickers. I also was co-counsel in New York

in a well-publicized case involving a group of hearing-impaired

Mexican workers who were victims of a heartless trafficking

scheme that was designed to rob them of their money, livelihood

and, most important, their dignity.

Since coming to the State Department, I have worked to make

sure that the Administration addresses all forms of trafficking.

This past March I traveled to Chiang Mai, Thailand, with Sec-
9

retary of State Albright, where we visited the Hill Tribes Institute

which has worked diligently to educate indigenous people and to

create economic alternatives to the dangers of sex trafficking.

Mr. Chairman, some of the young girls in that institute were no

older than my daughter, who is only 13 years old. That experience

reminded me that trafficking hits us so hard because it so often involves children like our own. That so many around the world would

resort to the exploitation of innocence for personal and monetary

gain must be regarded as one of the most brutal forms of evil that

we confront today.

With these children in mind, I present my testimony with regard

to this trafficking issue. All too often we think of trafficking as a

faceless problem, a criminal problem, an economic problem, an immigration problem, a health problem, but let me speak about it not

as a multibillion dollar industry, although it is, nor as an immigration or health problem, although it is also that. Let me speak about

it from the perspective of a human rights lawyer who sees in trafficking the very antithesis of the Universal Declaration of Human

Rights.

I would argue that trafficking represents one of the most comprehensive challenges to human rights today, for it involves the

very denial of the humanity of its victims. Traffickers abuse virtually the entire spectrum of rights protected in the Universal Declaration. By their acts they deny that persons are born free and

equal in dignity and rights. They deny their victims freedom of

movement, freedom of association, and the most basic freedom to

have a childhood. Traffickers profit from arbitrary detention, slavery, rape, and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. They regularly violate any human right that gets in the way of a profit. Most

fundamentally, they do not respect any of these rights because they

view their victims as objects, chattel to be bought and sold as needed.

Trafficking is truly a global plague that may appear in Denver

as well as Delhi, in London as well as Lagos. It takes many forms,

from forced prostitution to bonded domestic servitude, from coerced

sweatshop work to the pressing into service of child soldiers. It involves women and children, yes, but also men, victims from every

walk of life, every culture, every religion.

Following my prepared testimony, Theresa Loar and I would be

happy to discuss particular examples of trafficking from numerous

countries around the world. In my capacity as the Assistant Secretary of State, we present annually country reports on human

rights practices, and in the report we presented this past February,

we identified at least 60 countries in which trafficking takes place.

This was a conservative estimate that represents nearly a third of

the countries in the world. But before turning to the specifics, let

me get to the broader scope and complexity of the problem.

Practices vary from region to region and according to type of trafficking, as the Chair has noted, but it is possible to make some

generalizations about the scope of the problem. Trafficking involves

a vicious cycle in which victims are forced or lured from their home

countries. They are shuttled across international borders and

enslaved, with human rights violations occurring every step of the

way. In source countries where trafficking originates, and this can
10

be in any part of the world, including the United States, victims

of trafficking can include men, women and children of every age

group, although a majority are women and girls under the age of

25. Some respond to employment agencies fronting for traffickers.

Some are sold to traffickers because their families can’t afford it.

A few are tricked into traveling with so-called family friends only

to discover that they have been kidnapped or ensnared into slavery. In almost every situation traffickers prey upon the hopes and

fears of their victims. They offer them shelter and sympathy in the

case of the runaway, a false way out of debt in the case of the poor,

and a false hope of a better life for those seeking transit abroad.

In many cases victims are sent to transit countries where traffickers make it clear that they have no choice but to accept prostitution, debt bondage or other forms of involuntary servitude.

Once the person is in the trafficker’s hands, the trafficker regularly

uses any and all means to ensure their cooperation, including

drugs, violence and sexual assault, and threats to the victims and

their families. If they have identity papers, the trafficker often

seizes or destroys them to ensure compliance, and once money has

been exchanged, victims are often told that the cost of transport is

greater than expected, and they will have to work for years or

months to pay the trafficker back.

Traffickers frequently move victims from safe house to safe

house, city to city, or country to country, and once victims arrive

in a receiving country, they are often kept in squalid conditions in

the state of virtual house arrest. In their world, violence, drugs,

and threats about the authorities are part of a brutal, daily routine, and long hours of forced servitude in a brothel as a prostitute,

at gunpoint as a child soldier or at a sewing machine as a sweatshop worker. What little compensation comes their way is usually

only a tiny percentage of their actual earnings, with the balance

claimed by the trafficker to cover so-called costs or to repay socalled loans.

In cases involving prostitution and pornography, victims are

forced to continue working regardless of disease, which means that

many work throughout pregnancies and despite having contracted

sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV. Indeed, the HIV crisis has only fueled the expansion of sex trafficking, with pimps

seeking increasingly younger girls and boys in an effort to market

them to customers as clean. Health care is nonexistent or provided

only by fellow victims, leaving most victims at high risk of further

health complications and ensuring that many children born to trafficking victims while in captivity will themselves be trafficked, usually through adoption rings, and thus ensuring that this vicious

cycle will continue.

With this background of this vicious cycle of trafficking sketched,

let me now turn to the issue of possible legislation, in particular,

H.R. 1356, the Freedom from Sexual Trafficking Act of 1999. Mr.

Chairman, we could not agree more with your statement before the

OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, it is time to aggressively attack

this contemporary manifestation of slavery, and there is no other

word for it. As my colleague Theresa Loar will testify, our Administration has taken a strong stand against trafficking in persons and

has involved many agencies in a cooperative effort to combat the
11

problem no matter where it may occur, but at the same time we

recognize that this Congress, like the administration, has focused

greater attention on this horrifying practice than any predecessor.

The Administration strongly supports the bill’s objective of combating trafficking and appreciates the efforts of Chairman Smith

and the other bill sponsors to try to craft legislation that reflects

our shared goals, preventing trafficking, prosecuting those who engage in these terrible crimes and protecting trafficking victims. We

are committed to working with you and other Members to fight

trafficking through a variety of means, and we believe that joint

Congressional-Administration attention will send a strong message

worldwide about the seriousness of the U.S. Government effort.

For that reason, we also agree on the need for statutory protection of aliens in the United States who are victims of trafficking

and in strengthening our own criminal laws to help bring traffickers to justice. We agree that reporting on all forms of trafficking of persons as a violation of international human rights is

crucial to determining the nature and extent of the problem. The

first step in deterring trafficking and bringing traffickers to justice

is to identify and break the vicious cycle I have described in countries of origin, transit countries and receiving countries.

At the same time, however, we do not believe in reinventing the

wheel. In our judgment new reporting requirements are unnecessary and would further burden the already overworked staff members of my bureau’s Office of Country Reports and Asylum Affairs,

who, after submitting to Congress in February a 5,500-page report,

filed an 1,100-page document on religious freedom just last week.

I would argue that the best framework within which the Administration can report on trafficking already exists in our annual

Country Report on Human Rights Practices, which is the principal

human rights document by which the government reports to Congress and this Committee on all human rights conditions worldwide. By using these existing, well-established and well-respected

reports as the method of choice to spotlight the trafficking issue as

an important human rights concern, we can ensure that reporting

on trafficking will not be marginalized, but rather, fully integrated

into our broader yearly human rights reporting.

To expand both the breadth and depth of our coverage in the

country reports, I am pleased to announce today that we have

made a commitment this year to add a new subsection on trafficking in each of the 194 country chapter reports in 1999 reports

under section 6, which is entitled ‘‘Worker Rights.’’

In the same vein, we believe the draft legislation best serves our

goal when it consolidates and strengthens existing response mechanisms rather than creates new cumbersome mechanisms in their

stead. The draft bills we have seen focus almost solely on trafficking in women and children for sexual purposes, but as I have

described, the phenomenon is much broader and is better described

as the problem of trafficking in persons.

Moreover, the draft bills choose to address the issue by imposing

new reporting requirements, by creating one or more new layers of

bureaucracy and creating mandatory sanctions requirements that

target government actors. Even private traffickers bear major responsibility for the problem where creation of economic alternatives
12

to trafficking, not punishment of State entities, is most likely to

provide relief for the victim.

Given the scope and magnitude of the problem, I fully understand the temptation to search for a new legislative approach or

mechanism to address these problems. The new reporting, new offices and new sanctions are not solutions in themselves, nor do we

think they would yield a quick fix for what is a massive and complex global problem. To address the problem effectively, we need to

focus on recurring features of the generic problem, to support existing response mechanisms, and then to do everything in our power

to break this vicious cycle of human violations that are occurring.

Mr. Chairman, we already have a human rights bureau with a

global mandate. As Theresa Loar will tell you, we already have the

President’s Interagency Council to help coordinate the Executive

Branch response. We already have human rights reporting on trafficking, which, as I have said, will be more thorough and comprehensive on this issue, from this year forward. We already have

a range of diplomatic tools at our disposal to address the issue, including essentially all of the sanctions discussed in the various

draft bills. Most importantly, we already have the political will to

address the question.

What we need is not new institutions and new bureaucratic requirements, but sufficient capacity for existing offices that already

recognize the problem and have a mandate to deal with it.

The draft bill from the House side appears to be modeled on the

International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, particularly its emphasis on mandatory sanctions. But for three important reasons we

believe that the Religious Freedom Act represents an inappropriate

paradigm for anti trafficking legislation. First, unlike religious persecution which tends to occur within a single country, trafficking

in persons represents a transnational problem involving the forced

movement of people across borders. As a result, mandatory sanctions targeted against any one country will not likely have the desired impact.

Second, targeted sanctions against specific states are far less effective when the prime moving force behind the problem are not

national government officials or policies, but nonstate actors. Traffickers, like their counterparts in international organized crime

and narcotics, avoid national criminal penalties by shifting their

base of operations across borders to reap the highest level of profit.

Trafficking tends to be a bottom-up, not a top-down, problem. The

root causes usually rest in private greed and economic and social

conditions, not government micromanagement.

When foreign government officials are involved or complicit in

trafficking, it is usually at the provincial and local level where the

blunt instrument of sanctions has decidingly less impact. Similarly,

unlike victims of religious persecution, victims of trafficking rarely

belong to organized groups and don’t enjoy the protection of established transnational institutions, like organized religion, who are

capable of speaking out on their behalf.

As the admirable NGO advocates who will testify later will tell

you, there is no corresponding private organization to support the

acts of victims of trafficking that can work together with the effect
13

of sanctions, and without such private institutional supports, the

sanctions are less likely to succeed.

Finally, because trafficking is a burgeoning problem, Mr. Chair,

as you know from your own work with the OSCE parliamentarians,

governments around the world are increasingly concerned about

the issue and starting to address it. A great many affected governments want to deter trafficking but lack the resources to do so. But

if we implement the legislation as proposed, almost all countries

could find themselves in default of some mandatory statutory requirement and, hence, be subject to mandatory sanctions.

A unilateral sanctions regime that targets even those countries

who are starting to address the issue could end up discouraging

rather than encouraging effective international cooperation and the

emerging international regime to address the problem. For example, mandatory sanctions could seriously undermine our efforts to

negotiate the Trafficking in Persons Protocol.

In sum, new legislation should not, in our view, focus on developing unnecessary new institutions or establishing onerous new requirements that address only the symptoms and pathology of the

problem. Instead, we hope the Congress and the Administration

can work together within the Department’s existing legislative

framework to find ways to address the root causes of the problem

and to break this vicious global cycle of trafficking.

We look forward to working with you and other Members of the

Committee to identify the most effective means and mechanisms to

strengthen our mutual commitment to break this vicious cycle.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would now like to turn the floor over

to my colleague and your old friend Theresa Loar, who has played

such a key role in facilitating the Administration’s response on this

important issue.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Secretary Koh, and I put you

down as undecided on sanctions, by the way.

Mr. SMITH. We have been joined by on the panel for the by Congressman Tom Tancredo, who has been a very active Member of

the Human Rights Subcommittee. Tom, do you have any opening?

Mr. TANCREDO. No statement. I will have questions when we get

to them.

Mr. SMITH. I would like to yield to my good friend Theresa Loar.

STATEMENT OF THERESA LOAR, DIRECTOR, PRESIDENT’S

INTERAGENCY COUNCIL ON WOMEN, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Ms. LOAR. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and Members of the

Committee. On a personal note, more than 25 years ago, when we

walked the halls of St. Cecilia’s Grammar School and St. Mary’s

High School as students together, I never could have imagined that

today I would have the privilege and the opportunity to testify in

the halls of Congress before my fellow classmate and friend, the

Honorable Chairman.

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, my colleague and

friend Harold Koh and I want to thank you for the invitation to

testify on the problem of trafficking in women and children around

the world and the implementation of the U.S. strategy on prevention, protection and prosecution. Of all the human rights abuses to
14

which the international community has turned its attention, the

trafficking of human beings, predominantly women and children, is

clearly one of the most egregious violations of our time. The President, the Secretary of State and the Attorney General have all

shown tremendous commitment to this issue, having made significant progress over the past year using this strategy.

Mr. Chairman, your efforts to focus attention on this important

issue are welcome. Your advocacy during international travel and

your consistent attention to the needs of victims will continue to be

crucial as we work together to accomplish our shared goals. We

look forward to continue working closely with Congress on legislation that will support and advance the U.S. policy framework. As

Director of the President’s Interagency Council on Women, I see

the Council’s work on trafficking as part of our government’s broader commitment to eliminate violence against women around the

world.

As senior coordinator for international women’s issues my work

on trafficking is a vital part of my mandate to promote women’s

human rights within U.S. foreign policy. We have been mobilizing

the Federal Government to combat trafficking. We coordinate the

efforts of various Federal agencies and several State Department

bureaus. We have focused on ways to institutionalize the treatment

of trafficking and U.S. Government initiatives.

Mr. Chairman, we gratefully acknowledge your efforts in meeting

with trafficking victims to deliver a strong message of U.S. support

and concern. Members of the Council Interagency Team and I have

also met face to face with trafficking victims from countries such

as Albanian, Ukraine, Nigeria, Mexico, and Thailand. These encounters, always heartbreaking and at times involving personal

risk to the trafficking victims, have only deepened our resolve to

use the full force of our government to combat this modern form

of slavery.

Today, Mr. Chairman, I would like to share with you information

about the nature and scope of trafficking, the three-part strategy

of prevention, protection and prosecution, and our work throughout

the Department of State and the U.S. Government, domestically

and internationally. I will also describe our partnership with the

NGO community.

Trafficking in human beings is a form of modern-day slavery. At

its core, the international trade in women and children is about

rape, abduction, coercion, violence and exploitation in the most reprehensible ways. Although this is sometimes characterized as a

women’s issue, it is, in fact, a global issue involving human rights,

economics, migration, transnational crime, labor, and public health.

It is estimated that there are over 1 million women and children

trafficked every year, over 50,000 into the United States.

Although this hearing focuses on the sex industry, it is clear that

this is merely one component of trafficking. Traffickers themselves

are often engaged in more than one kind of trade because they follow the profits. For example, we see cases where girls are lured

from villages in South Asia, and the traffickers force some of the

girls to work in domestic servitude or in carpet weaving, while others considered more attractive are culled out and sold to brothels.
15

These are some of the practical reasons why the United States did

not limit its efforts to one form of trafficking over another.

What is it that drives trafficking in women and children? Economic desperation. Children, and girls in particular, are pulled out

of school early because of financial hardship in a family. This enhances the likelihood they will fall into the hands of traffickers. In

many cases, victims desperate for work are lured into trafficking

schemes through false promises of employment as teachers, factory

workers, nannies, sales clerks. They are then forced into the sex industry or domestic servitude.

For the traffickers it is primarily about high profits and low risk.

Profits are enormous, generating billions of dollars annually. This

is now considered the third largest soft source of profits for organized crime, behind only drugs and guns.

We are implementing our comprehensive antitrafficking strategy

in the area of prevention, protection and assistance for victims, and

prosecution and enforcement against traffickers. Secretary of State

Madeleine Albright has made the issue of trafficking a priority. We

have seen how powerful it is to have the American Secretary of

State raise this issue with heads of government and her fellow foreign ministers. She has used her role as Chair of this Interagency

Council to mobilize a strong governmentwide response.

As a result of her meetings with several world leaders and in

several international arenas, we have developed concrete partnerships, advancing all three of our strategies, all three parts of our

strategies. In Ukraine, we have economical alternative programs

for victims. We have seen some results, and there is new legislation

that has been enacted. With Italy and the Holy See, we are learning from them about protection for victims. With Finland, we are

collaborating on prevention in the Baltics. The U.S. and the Philippines will launch a regional initiative in March 2000 in Manila.

We also have several multilateral initiatives. The U.S., led by the

State Department Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement and my colleague Jim Puleo, are leading U.N. Negotiations on a protocol as part of a transnational organized crime convention. This will be an international instrument of cooperation.

As my principal deputy, Anita Botti testified at your June Helsinki Commission hearing, the OSCE is proving to be an excellent

forum in which to address trafficking. Your leadership has helped

to put this issue high on the OSCE agenda.

In many countries, we are using law enforcement training to,

among other things, protect victims. I present to you today training

manuals and brochures that have been developed by the Department of State. There are other brochures as well and manuals that

have been developed by the Department of Justice.

Mr. Chairman, the issue of trafficking first came to my attention

through the advocacy of NGO’s in the United States and overseas

NGO’s, who have been strong advocates. They have courageously

convened forums and produced moving documentaries to tell the

stories. At the Vital Voices, Women in Democracy Conference in Vienna in July 1997, we met networks of NGO’s working under very

difficult circumstances in the former Soviet Union and here in the

United States. We heard from Ukrainian grandmothers who told us
16

in tears of their anguish when young women from their villages

were tricked into trafficking schemes.

I would like to affirm our intention to continue a close partnership with NGO’s as we move forward. Our partnership with the

NGO community over the past 2 years has been open and transparent. We conduct quarterly briefings at the State Department on

a range of issues, including trafficking.

My colleague Harold Koh has discussed our views on trafficking

in detail. I would like to add that the Administration is looking forward to working with Congress to put a piece of legislation that

will institutionalize all of our work in place.

We have aggressively led the U.S. Government response in combating trafficking and protecting its victims. Mr. Chairman, we

want to work with you and Members of the Committee to do more.

We must get the world’s attention to achieve a global consensus as

we head into the 21st century that trafficking, modern-day slavery,

is unacceptable.

Thank you.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Ms. Loar, for your excellent

statement and for the good work you do on behalf of those who are

abused in this fashion. I look forward to working with you and Secretary Koh and others within the Administration and my friends

on this panel.

Mr. SMITH. Just a few opening questions, and then I will yield

to my colleagues for any questions they may have.

If we look at the issue as Secretary Koh or you pointed out, prevention, prosecution, protection, using that as a backdrop as we

ought to, are we truly preventing, are we truly prosecuting to the

greatest extent possible? Are we providing protection for the victims?

When you look at the competing bills that are on the table, it

would seem to me that even a cursory look, but certainly a more

detailed look, would suggest that we are not doing all that we can,

and, just when you come to the sanctions that are contained in the

bills—and I would ask you if you could on the record or perhaps

get back to us, indicate whether or not the Administration would

support the life imprisonment that we are seeking in this. U.S. Attorneys, as we all know, all have prosecutorial discretion, and they

get to pick, to a very large extent, based on their mix of what they

feel ought to be done in their area, of course looking for advice and

guidance from headquarters, so to speak, as to what they ought to

be really focusing on.

We certainly made drugs in this Nation a high priority, and some

of the results, particularly in terms of interdiction, are very promising, but it is an ongoing problem. As you pointed out, Ms. Loar,

it is No. 3. I have heard No. 2. But wherever it is, it is really high

up in terms of the high profits, low risks about which you spoke

of.

If the Russian or the Ukrainian or any other Mafia and their

counterparts here in the U.S. feel that they are facing a potential

slap on the wrist that someone who is deceived into getting into a

sweatshop situation, which are horrific—and we have had hearings

here, we have had four on the whole issue of child labor and the

abuse. I have had five bills myself that I have introduced, one of
17

which passed the House. Regrettably it did not make it over on the

Senate side. We have worked to beef up the ILO contributions. So

I really believe that is an area for an all-out assault to try to mitigate that problem, if not eliminate it.

But when you get to this tidal wave—we are facing a hurricane

right now, and people are getting ready for a difficult situation. We

have a tidal wave that probably could not have been anticipated by

anyone in Russia or the Ukraine especially where these Mafiosos

have stepped in through intimidation, through high profits, and

they are just exploiting the daylights out of these young girls and

boys and young women, and it calls for an extraordinary response.

When we start getting convictions in my area, in your old area,

New York city, metropolitan New Jersey, Philadelphia and all of

the major centers for this exploitation, we will then begin to say

crime doesn’t pay. If we go with the Wellstone bill and Slaughter

bill, and we are talking about a maximum of 10 years, they will

look askance when they say this is not a priority with the U.S.

Government or with the Congress, which is why I think our central

core of this legislation is that we have got to throw the book at

them.

I would hope that if you would, if you could relay whether or not

you would support—as you know we have a tier each with fraud

or deception, but also with girls under the age of 14, it is assumed

that those who commit crimes against those women and force them

to be raped each and every day, they get life imprisonment or up

to life imprisonment, and for those 14, 18 they could get up to 15

years.

So you know, we do recognize for anyone, if there is a 13-yearold being—and as I think you said, Secretary Koh—they are increasingly being used because they might not have sexually transmitted diseases or AIDS. So they are of a higher premium. All the

more reason why our response has to be all the more severe in

terms of certain punishment.

When we start putting these people away, I think we are going

to put a real dent in these operations, and hopefully as we saw,

and Tom Tancredo helped out on this big time when we were in

St. Petersburg, hopefully we will also see the other Western powers

who are the destination points for these abused women, children,

they too will pick up the gauntlet and really run with it and the

baton.

Let me conclude and yield to you for an answer, that unless we

punish sex traffickers more than just a labor law violation, we will

not stop this. Again, this is no cast on the Clinton Administration

or any previous one. This is something that, again, I don’t think

anyone could have anticipated. All of us had extremely high hopes

for Russia which have not been realized and probably will not be

realized in the foreseeable future. So extraordinary crimes call for

extraordinary responses.

One final footnote. What got me the most, and I think got all of

us, and John Shadduck and others, Secretary Koh, your predecessor, the most about the killing and the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia was, one, the mass murders, but also the use of rape as a

means of statecraft, of trying to demoralize the ethnic Bosnians,

the orthodox—the Muslims, I should say, by raping and destroying.
18

Here we have it being done for profit, and, when we were in—and

Tom heard the lady from MiraMed, Dr. Engel, tell us that the average woman now fetches—and I hate that word, but that is the

word that was used—$24,000 in this process to get into an exploitation and rape in a brothel against her will, $24,000, and that is

just the beginning, and then she becomes a money marker for these

bums as time goes on.

Life imprisonment, does the Administration support that? Can

you support it?

Ms. LOAR. Mr. Chairman, let me say that we agree with you that

the bad guys are way ahead of this, way ahead of us because the

profits are so enormous, and we agree that penalties must be

strengthened to reflect the severity of the crime. This is part of our

Administration review of proposals on the best way to address this.

I can’t give you a definitive answer now, but this is under review.

Mr. SMITH. I do hope, because then the U.S. attorneys in any

subsequent Administration will have their marching orders, and

they also will self-select and will pick out those cases and go after

these people. It should not be left to the whim or caprice of the

U.S. Attorney who says, we are going to get 2 years out of this. Life

is for drugs, why don’t we do it?

Mr. KOH. Mr. Chairman, if I could address the underlying thrust

of the question, I think there are many other points that you made

just now both about the nature and the scope of the problem with

which we obviously agree. I think that we in the Administration

have been working hard on an approach that combines reporting,

prevention, prosecution, and protection. The big issue, should, from

our perspective, is not whether private traffickers get stiff sentences, which, of course, we think they should. We think you

should treat them as they are, as criminals. Nor do we deny that

this needs to be publicized and the facts need to be gotten out.

Also, we do believe that protection for those who have been the victims, particularly by the granting of special visas, is an appropriate

way to begin to address the protection problem.

The question, though, as Representative McKinney has pointed

out, is to what extent ought the problem can be addressed, by a

new layer to a bureaucracy that is already fragmented on the issue

of human rights, very strapped with regard to the work that it is

already doing and with the use of a mandatory sanctions regime.

With regard to governments, governments may not be the core factor or only one of many factors in this complex problem. Many of

them are working in a cooperative effort to try to address the problem through developing an emerging international regime.

Those are the issues on which we express hesitation. Although

we are well aware that the International Religious Freedom Act

combined elements, as I tried to define and set forth in our testimony, what may be an appropriate solution in one area may not

be an appropriate solution for a different kind of problem.

Mr. SMITH. Let me just ask you, Secretary Koh, you mentioned

being strapped. We are trying to beef up the number of people, personnel that would be deployed or designated to work under your

bureau. I do think if it is a matter of personnel, we need to be upping the ante in terms of more people so that this issue could be

prosecuted more effectively to help those women.
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In terms of the ‘‘mandatory sanctions’’, I think it should be underscored in the record that there is a very generous waiver. This

could be more closely compared to the International Narcotics Control Act of 1986, which may be a very difficult pill for the Administration to swallow each year, particularly vis-a-vis Mexico, but it

does at least get the attention of the governments in question.

Since it would apply to every government, those that are transiting

countries as well as those that are originating countries would all

be looked at under the same microscope. So in terms of just moving

operations, it is less likely if all countries are being looked at in

the same way, especially when we are in ascendancy mode with regard to the seriousness of this issue. It is bad and getting worse,

rather than the other way around. I think it calls for extraordinary

responses.

You did mention it often, the idea that these sanctions are mandatory. There is also this very generous national interest waiver,

and we are trying to provide several arrows in the quiver of the

Clinton Administration and any subsequent Administration, to say

the U.S. Government is so serious about this that when it comes

to nonhumanitarian aid, we want your attention. What are you

doing? These are your daughters.

When I was in Russia, I met and talked to the Duma speaker

and to the Ukrainians and others. They were in denial that this

is even happening in their own countries. I said, these are your

daughters, these are people that you should be putting sandbags

around, to protect them. They just dismissed it as, ‘‘Not here, certainly not to the extent that you are talking about.’’

So either there is complicity, or there is denial occurring there,

and one good way to get their attention is to say here are some

more arrows in your quiver, Mr. President there is an escape

hatch. You have all these things on the table. You can decide to

use them or not in order to get an effective outcome.

Mr. KOH. Mr. Chairman, I think my point with regard to our

human rights policy, is—and I have made this from the first time

I appeared before this Committee in January after the U.S.-China

human rights dialogue—we adopt an inside-outside approach,

which means we use all of the tools available, both diplomatic persuasion and various forms of external pressure, to try to bring

about improvement in human rights conditions. So certainly sanctions are part of that package of tools.

What we are saying here is we have those arrows in our quiver

already. Our need here is not so much for additional arrows that

on the one hand would be made mandatory and then waived in a

process that would consume a lot of bureaucratic energy. Our need

is for greater capacity for our existing mechanisms which are seizing the problem and focused on the issue. We are eager to work on

it. One of the worst-case scenarios we could envision would be a

whole new set of mandates unaccompanied by the resources. Then

we would have a situation in which we are doing all of our work

less well rather than bringing the kind of targeted approach to

bear that we know that we all want.

Ms. LOAR. Mr. Chairman, if I might take a look at the sanctions

issue from my personal experience in raising this with other governments and the experience of my boss Secretary Albright. I think
20

we have created an environment where countries are willing to

come forward and ask for help. I have seen this in a number of

countries where they clearly have this problem. They are ashamed

of it, and they are willing to acknowledge it, and this has started

some of the relationships we have that involves very in-depth programs of economic alternatives and training for the border police,

fraud training, and anticorruption training. What I have seen in

other experiences on other issues is that when a sanction regime

is in place, countries clam up. They do not want to work together.

They are afraid of being accused of something, and I have seen that

with Secretary Albright raising this, offering help in a way that

treats the countries as if they want the help, and then they do.

We have really made some progress on this. We obviously have

much more to go, much further to go, but it is more than the issue

of personnel. I think we also want resources to address this. We

have asked for 30 million more in INL training for narcotics and

law enforcement. We are looking at a number of prevention programs. Our concern is that a sanctions climate will back-pedal,

take us away from the environment where we can raise this in

OSEAN meetings and OECD meetings and OSCE meetings. The

model you are working toward and that you put in in OSCE is one

that encourages cooperation. The people have to open up for it and

have to say they want it, and I think we have that climate. If we

have been working on this for 10 years, then let us take a look to

see if sanctions are necessary, but at this point it is too new, and

it is too involving, I think, to lay these on at this point.

Mr. SMITH. Gary Haugen is going to be testifying, the president

of the International Justice Mission, and I would just like to read

one paragraph from his testimony and ask you to respond. He

points out on page 4, ‘‘As it turns out U.S. Policy toward a country

could have a powerful effect upon the priorities of a Nation’s most

senior authorities, the authorities who sit on top of local law enforcement’s chains of command. Here it must be observed that

these public officials will move an issue from the good idea column

into the urgent priority column only when they think something

bad will happen if they don’t. This is why senior government authorities may be pushed to the point of making forced prostitution

an urgent priority through a sense that something bad is going to

happen in their relationship with the U.S. Government if they

don’t.’’

Again, carrots and sticks.

He has certainly done yeoman’s work on this issue, as you well

know. Look at President Habibie. I mean, it was a nonstarter that

the international peacekeepers would be allowed, but when government-to-government, military-to-military was not just threatened

but was cutoff or suspended, it certainly got Wiranto’s and everyone’s attention in the chain of command.

We are talking about tools. They don’t have to be used, but they

are there to be used, and there is enough warning, enough of a shot

across the bow that they are there that you are less likely to use

them, I would submit, and I take your point. I am a great believer

in cooperation, in trying to persuade, but I can tell you both our

personnel in St. Petersburg talked about how they had met with

brick walls when raising this issue with the Russians, and the Rus-
21

sians themselves that we met with, Duma members, including the

speaker, were in denial or something worse when I raised it with

them and when members of our delegation raised it, and the

Ukrainians laughed. One of their delegation heads laughed and

said, ‘‘prostitutes,’’ as if to say ‘‘who cares about them.’’ Even if

they are it in voluntarily, we should care about it, but when it is

forced, and we are talking about rape now, I think it ought to be

at the highest priority. I yield.

Mr. KOH. Congressman, the question is what is the best approach given the resources we have. Here, obviously, our overriding

request is for full funding of the Department’s budget so that we

can address these questions and give them and other human rights

issues the attention they deserve. We are convinced that a trickle

down approach which imposes sanctions at the top that eventually

works down to local officials which then may or may not impact on

the incentives of private traffickers who are moving their operations across borders is not necessary the best way to go. It may

well be, and our view is that these sanctions are available. The information is available. The tools that you are proposing to give us

we believe that we already have, and the question is how do we

mobilize those resources best to approach the problem.

Our concern, and I think it is one that Representative McKinney

noted, is that the bureaucratic apparatus may end up blunting the

effectiveness of our approach, particularly when we are searching

for cooperation among countries who are serving as transit, receiving or source countries. Does unilateral sanctions being imposed

against any of those actually promote the cooperation we are trying

to develop?

Mr. SMITH. I thank you.

Ms. McKinney.

Ms. MCKINNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You can correct me

if I am wrong on this, but it seems interesting to me that the Assistant Secretary in his testimony talks about not having sufficient

capacity to absorb the additional requirements of this language,

but if I can recall correctly, we boosted funds for the Bureauin the

American Embassy Security Act, and the State Department fought

us each step of the way. So now my conclusion at that time was

that the area of jurisdiction of Assistant Secretary Koh was just

not important to this particular State Department. Now, without

this legislation, how can we be assured that this issue and issues

of democracy, human rights and labor issues in general will be an

important consideration in the formulation of U.S. foreign policy?

Mr. KOH. Representative McKinney, if I had drawn that conclusion, I wouldn’t be in this job anymore. My view is that these are

critical issues that are critically important to the Secretary who

has expressed her commitment both on human rights issues centrally and on trafficking issues.

I think you put it well when you said in your opening remarks

that this is an issue which involves human rights, democracy and

labor, and it ought to be addressed in the context of all of those

issues.

The question is raised by your inquiry is to what extent can

those parts of the U.S. Government that already have a mandate,

focus and an interest in the issue bring that energy to bear in the
22

way that we all like? Is creating yet another office, another layer

of bureaucracy, the best way to approach the question? Is that

going to give the kind of energy on the issue that we are all looking

for? Our view is that an approach that emphasizes protection, prevention and prosecution, that expands reporting and gives greater

support to existing resources and institutions is a better way to go.

Ms. MCKINNEY. It just seems interesting to me that the State

Department could fight us giving you more money, and then you

come here and say that you don’t have enough to meet these additional responsibilities. It just seems that there is a disconnect

there, and I cannot understand for the life of me why this State

Department would fight giving more money to your bureau, which

is doing very important work consistent with the values of the

American people.

I believe that takes us directly to Ms. Loar’s testimony where she

has indicated that there has been a lot of meetings going on. I

would like to know what the result of these meetings has been in

tangible proof that our legislative approach is incorrect.

Ms. LOAR. The meetings that have gone on, Congresswoman

McKinney, have really taken a look at how we work with other

governments, which I think was something you suggested we take

a look at, how we work in the international areas, how do we work

in our own government, and we have had some great successes.

Successes mean that governments are willing to take this on; it

means they are willing to work with us.

I use the example of the Government of Ukraine because it is an

area where so many young women are being tricked into trafficking

schemes and are being lured into leaving their countries because

of the economic situation there. Through a series of interventions—

you could call them meetings, but when Secretary Albright sits

down with the head of a government, they are really very important meetings. When Secretary Albright raised it with the Government of Ukraine, with Mr. Kuchma, within a couple of days we had

the Ambassador from Ukraine in my office, we had our embassy in

Ukraine working with the Foreign Ministry. We have seen legislation passed.

In some countries we have much stronger protection against victims. For example, we have seen this in Italy where the Italian

government is way ahead of us and has protections for victims that

we don’t have. When Secretary Albright raised that at a meeting

that she had, within weeks we had visits from the Italians sharing

with us what they are doing on victims. We are planning in the

next few weeks to send over a group of American NGO’s, and if

there are NGO’s you would like us to consider to part of this group,

we would welcome that, and I extend that to the Chairman as well.

We are sending over American NGO’s to Italy to learn how we can

as a government provide better protection for victims.

We are working with the Government of Italy. Another thing

that came out of a meeting we had, first Secretary Albright’s meetings and the rest of us who pick up her ideas and carry them forward, with the government of Italy was to work with the Italian

government on trafficking out of Nigeria. The Italian government

is very concerned about the number of Nigerian women and girls,

particularly young girls, who find their way through terrible means
23

into Italy. They are very concerned about that. They want to stop

it at the source. So our embassy in Nigeria is working with the

Italian Embassy in Nigeria to offer an information campaign to

warn off young women.

That is what we are doing with countries overseas. We have had

meetings throughout our government for the purposes of getting

our government to strengthen what we are doing. Our Justice Department is an enormous place, almost as big as the State Department, and the Justice Department in the areas of the criminal

area, in the Violence Against Women’s office and the Victim’s Protection Office, they are all working on this issue with us. That is

the way things work, and I do think that by raising the issue, by

having our Secretary of State bring it up in important meetings

around the world, we have seen some results, and there is a lot

more we want to do.

Ms. MCKINNEY. Thank you.

Ms. LOAR. May I also make a comment, Mr. Chairman, about

Congresswoman McKinney’s earlier concern about resources and

how we get this job done. I think our Secretary of State has an effective mechanism in place. We can never be satisfied with the

work that has been done, but in the two positions that exist at the

State Department—and we have a number of bureaus who are represented here and who are not here working on this, to really bring

the government along. My position as senior coordinator for international women’s issues was created by Congress to promote women’s human rights in foreign policy. That is a permanent position

that allows me to work within the State Department. The Interagency Council is a task force that gives me authority throughout

the government. So I don’t think it is a mechanism that if we

haven’t seen all the results we want, I don’t think it is for lack of

a good mechanism within our government. I think the bad guys are

moving at a very fast pace, and that is what we are trying to catch

up with.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, and thank you, Ms. McKinney.

Before yielding, we tried to double the amount of money. As a

matter of fact, our—both yours and mine, as chief cosponsor and

principal sponsor—bill is currently in conference. We would provide

$15 million earmarked for Secretary Koh’s bureau, which is a doubling of what resources are there this fiscal year, but still, it is only

one-half of a percent of the total State Department budget. So we

are trying to provide sufficient resources to you, and wherever the

glitch is, whether it be OMB or somewhere else, it is not here. In

this legislation we provide $1 million authorization for doing just

this very issue. So we are trying to match resources and authorize

sufficient resources.

Ms. MCKINNEY. Mr. Chairman, if you would yield. If I remember

correctly, the State Department incredibly came to me and said

that they would have a problem absorbing that much money.

Mr. SMITH. And they are still opposing it in conference.

Ms. MCKINNEY. It is absolutely ridiculous the position that the

State Department has.

Mr. KOH. Representative McKinney, The State Department’s position is that we would like our budget to be fully funded. That is

the position the President took before the VFW. It is a major issue
24

with regard to the conduct of our foreign policy. We are a country

which is involved around the world on almost every conceivable

issue. We are at this point an indispensable super power. The support that we all need from the Legislative Branche is to recognize

the importance of foreign policy, as this Committee does, and to try

to support the bureaucracies we have and help them to be as effective as possible in addressing we can across our legislative mandate.

Mr. SMITH. It is also a question, if the gentlelady would yield, of

allocation, and we do believe human rights is an allocation that

should be second to none.

I would like to yield to Mr. Tancredo.

Mr. TANCREDO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Loar, apparently from your discussion, Italy is a country that

we would not have to apply sanctions against if, in fact—even operating under the legislation that the Chairman has offered. Apparently, the kind of situation that exists there in terms of the government’s willingness to cooperate would certainly suggest that that

they would not be a candidate, Italy would not be a candidate.

However, there are a number of other countries, of course, that are

not looking at this issue in the same way and a number of other

nations where I believe there is complicity on the part of the government itself and the traffickers, because of the, first of all, great

amount of money that can be and is made in this particular activity.

I would ask you to be very specific and tell me what would you

do to stop the trafficking from Russia, I should say, and/or the

Ukraine. But let us just focus on Russia for the time being. Evidently since you say you had the opportunity to apply sanctions,

you have chosen not to pursue that route, and from listening to

what you said in terms of the way in which you would deal with

this issue sans sanctions, I must admit to you I don’t understand

how that would possibly work in a country where almost every

level of the government is actually participating in this, either directly, frankly, or indirectly, by suggesting that it is really not

much of an issue, it is sort of a cultural thing, and no big deal.

When you suggest that you need 10 years to see whether your

plan works, I would tell you that I am absolutely unwilling to wait

that long to determine the effectiveness of an operation that has

heretofore been fairly ineffective, especially when you think about

the phenomenon that we were told about, and only told about, I did

not observe this, of people who run orphanages in Russia who are

paid something like $12,000 and at that point turn over to these

traffickers children. They are told they are going on a field trip, to

McDonald’s or something, and a bus comes and picks them up. You

expect me to live with that thought for 10 years while we apply

this other way of handling it. I must tell you, ma’am, it just doesn’t

wash with me.

What would you do specifically to get Russia to turn around tomorrow?

Ms. LOAR. Mr. Congressman, obviously 10 years was something

off the top of my head. I don’t think any of us in this room should

sit by and watch this increased phenomenon of trafficking continue,

and we are not going to.
25

Now a couple of things I would like with the Committee related

to what we are doing with Russia. Russia is in many ways a very

big, complex, and from a U.S. foreign policy point of view, a sometimes frustrating country. We have, however, made some progress

through a program with the ABA, lawyers working in Russia.

There is legislation on trafficking that is ready to be introduced by

support of members of the Duma, obviously not the people you met

with when you were there. We would welcome the opportunity

when they are here in the United States on their next visit to give

you a chance to tell them of your support. We through our embassy

do that, but we would like to do that with our Members of Congress as well, to let them know there are Americans who are

watching this carefully, and those of you who are stepping forward

and being courageous, we are going to support you.

Now, we know that legislation is the first step. This is one of the

reasons we are here in this room today. The implementation will

be very important. We have as well through the U.N. worked the

protocol that I mentioned, which is part of the Transnational Crime

Convention, which will be an international instrument of cooperation, which is a very important part of it, especially when you are

looking at a country like Russia, the Russians themselves. This is

a completely different ministry and completely different part of the

government than the Duma members who are looking at this legislation and ready to sponsor it. They cosponsored this resolution at

the U.N. asking for the protocol.

There were some who wanted to lump together trafficking and

smuggling and various other issues, but the Russian members of

this U.N. delegation asked that they could cosponsor this resolution, and we have seen a willingness on different parts of the Russian Government to work on it.

It clearly is not enough, and it is something we need to do more

on, and we would welcome a way of doing that. We don’t think

sanctions are the way to do that at this point. We have worked

with, through our information agency and through other exchanges—we have bought to the U.S. judges and prosecutors and

nongovernment organizations all devoted to addressing trafficking.

We brought them to the United States. We have sent people over

to help them prosecute cases there. There are a lot of different layers and in different parts of the government, the judicial, the executive branch and the legislative branch, but it is clearly not

enough, and we don’t want to wait 10 years to see some results.

We want to move it on a much faster pace.

Mr. TANCREDO. I appreciate that, and I certainly hope that that

is the case. In a way it is a little difficult to also understand your

opposition to the sanctions aspect of the legislation when, as has

been stated here several times, there is nothing mandatory about

it. The President would be given the opportunity to provide waivers, and I don’t assume for a moment that just because we would

pass such legislation he would choose to begin adopting a provision

that he thinks or you think he already has, that is the ability to

apply sanctions, but it would certainly hopefully indicate the strong

position of the Congress of the United States if we were to have

that aspect as part of the bill.
26

It again goes back to the problem, I guess, that I raised with

Russia, and that is that even taking for granted that there are

members of the Duma who support the approach that you have

outlined, when the country is as fractured as this one is, and I

mean, it is hard to even describe a legislative branch or a judicial

branch, especially, in a country like Russia, it just doesn’t give me

any feeling of security that they would be able to implement something as a result of the actions taken by the small number of members of the Duma that might look good for the public consumption

but internally does nothing, especially when there are so many people on the take. It just seems like a more serious approach needs

to be undertaken, but I sincerely appreciate our observations.

Thank you.

Mr. KOH. Congressman, our overall approach on human rights

has been designed to use a combination of internal mechanisms of

persuasion coupled with external mechanisms of pressure, along

with international standards, to try to bring about internal change

that can lead to concrete means of addressing these problems within the countries that we deal with. The larger, more powerful countries are the ones on whom our sanctions have the least impact just

because they are much stronger and bigger.

The example of Ukraine which you have talked about is one in

which we are seeing some real results on this issue. The President

has developed an intergovernmental response to address the issue

with the Government of the Ukraine. The issue has been added to

the Gore-Kuchma enforcement working group. It has been a subject

of direct discussions between our Embassy and the Ministry of the

Interior. USAID has worked with the Government of the Ukraine

on anti-trafficking issuues. USIA has developed a whole series of

programs with the Ukraine, and what this has led to is that the

Ukraine Government has passed further legislation with regard to

domestic criminalization of sexual exploitation. In February

Ukraine announced a draft national plan that involved 20 Ministries and local governments, international organizations, donors

and local and foreign NGO’s.

We are pursuing these kinds of initiatives with a whole range of

countries, as we have discussed, and I think in the end it is a critical part of our overall human rights strategy. It means using external standards to lead to internal change that might lead to

meaningful attack on the problem by those countries that are either source countries, recipient countries or transit countries.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Tancredo.

Ms. Lee.

Ms. LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate hearing from

you both with regard to the Administration’s initiatives and strategies with regard to what you are doing now, but it seems to me

that the heat needs to be turned up. I want to ask you a couple

of questions.

First of all, how long has this country really known about sex

trafficking? Second, since this is a commercial activity, do we have

estimates of how much revenue these atrocities bring in? I mean,

is this a multimillion-dollar industry? Is it a multibillion-dollar industry?
27

Finally, let me just ask you about this whole certification issue,

because drug certification has been an effective tool in cracking

down on drug trafficking in some parts of the world, and I guess

I am wondering shouldn’t we be as tough on those private sector

individuals and those governments who condone these abuses and

exploitation of women and children as we are on the whole drug

trafficking issue?

Ms. LOAR. Congresswoman Lee, it is an incredibly lucrative

crimal activity. It is one of the things that through our new and

very effective information-gathering resources available to the government, we have been able to take a look at it. We estimate it as

billions of dollars in profit, which is why it is such a tough thing

to tackle, I am afraid.

As to how long our government knew about this, I was appointed

to this job in July 1996, and I was invited to a meeting in Moscow

that—this is one of the fora I mentioned took such courage to put

together—where I was invited. Our embassy had really pushed me

to come out there. They wanted me to meet with some Members,

including some Members of the government who were very low-key

about their interest and their willingness to look at this, but at

some NGO’s, some groups from throughout the former Soviet

Union, and that was in the fall.

I mentioned the Vital Voices, Women in Democracy Conference

in July 1997 in Austria where we had women leaders from Russia

and Ukraine and where we saw for the first time real networks

emerging in that part of the world, networks with people who are

working and NGO’s in protection areas in Ukraine and Russia. I

don’t think the enormity of it hit us until we heard more and more

from NGO groups in our meetings around the world, and we have

seen this in U.N. meetings.

I would say that our desire to take this on and to really get the

full force of our government on this came out of our meetings with

victims and hearing from people whose villages were wiped out because girls were being sold away.

Ms. LEE. It sounds like we have just had our head in the sand

on this.

Ms. LOAR. I will tell you, what we have seen is a big increase

after the fall of the former Soviet Union. It is something I think

we were all aware of and has been documented in South Asia and

Southeast Asia. I think it hit home when the numbers coming into

the United States really increased in the last few years and when

we saw more visible areas of criminal activity in the former Soviet

Union.

Ms. LEE. Mr. Chairman, may I ask one more question, please?

Let me ask you then, we have heard Nigeria, Italy, and the Soviet Union. What are, say, the top eight countries, the top source,

transit and receiving countries as you see them?

Ms. LOAR. Russia and Ukraine are certainly the top source countries, countries of origin from the former Soviet Union. I can’t name

the eight or in any particular order, but in South Asia a country

that that one of your witnesses is from today is one of the key

source countries as well, Nepal, as well as Pakistan. In Southeast

Asia, the areas of Burma and Thailand are also sending countries.

I think if you take a look at situations where there is economic des-
28

peration and deprivation, that is where you see families who are

desperate, and families who can’t keep their girls in school, and

families looking to send their children overseas or young women

looking to go overseas to work.

Ms. LEE. Maybe we ought to look at some conditions on IMF

funding.

Mr. KOH. Congresswoman, if I may chime in, I think as Chairman Smith pointed out in his statement before the OSCE in July,

a lot of the problem was exacerbated by the collapse of the Soviet

Union. Our bureau, the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and

Labor, started to report on trafficking as a distinctive human rights

phenomenon in 1993.

You asked a good question about the relationship between this

and narco-trafficking. We use a certification process for drugs, and

so why not on this as a way of turning up the heat. I think the

answer is simple, which is that what we are talking about here is

a regime of prevention and prosecution, but more fundamentally

the protection of individuals who are being trafficked.

In the drug context you have drugs which are growing in stationary places. They are not themselves being moved, and we are

not trying to provide them with any kinds of protection. But the

key to what we are trying to do with regard to trafficking of human

beings is to develop a protection regime, and particularly in situations in which people are traveling across borders and often

through a variety of means, which include fraud, et cetera. It is not

as simple as knowing that you are buying drugs and that is illegal.

What is happening here is a combination of incentives, tricks,

frauds, coercion. For that reason, as we have suggested, religious

freedom requires a certain kind of regulatory regime. The drug

process has had its own certification process which has evolved

over a period of 20 years. We think that the fight against trafficking should move toward an international protocol and an international regime. It deserves its own distinctive set of tools, which

is what we are already doing in the Administration approach to the

problem.

Ms. LOAR. If I might just add, Congresswoman Lee, just going

further on the point that I made earlier as to how we started looking at this. Women’s human rights were not always in the mainstream of U.S. foreign policy, and I don’t think the issue of trafficking—as it emerged, it came out of a time when we did have

leadership to take a look at this and did have leadership of Secretary Albright to figure out how it should be done. So it is not a

long-standing issue at this level and growing at this pace, but it

has come up at a time when we do have the leadership to address

it.

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Lee, thank you very much.

Mr. Faleomavaega.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I certainly want

to thank both the members of the panel for their very comprehensive statements this afternoon.

I would like to compliment Secretary Koh for being very diplomatic. I was going through your statement, but you did not leave

that one final statement to the effect of the Administration does

not support H.R. 1356. Am I correct on this, Secretary Koh?
29

Mr. KOH. Sorry, I didn’t hear you. I left it out of the statement,

or I left it out of what?

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. You were very nice about saying about you

have all the different institutional means to take care of whatever

problems that come about, especially as it relates to sex trafficking,

but I was hoping perhaps that you could be more specific and say

what exactly is the Administration’s position on H.R. 1356, which

is the Chairman’s bill, which I cosponsor, in addressing this very

specific issue, and I was wondering, has the Administration submitted an official response to the bill?

Mr. KOH. There are pieces of the bill, as I said, which provide

valuable additions to working on the problem, and other parts that

we think are either redundant of what exists or in some way counterproductive. As we frequently do, when the Administration approaches and various congressional approaches all address the

same issue We see it as an important opportunity to get together

with Congress, and try to work out issues on agreed-upon principles.

There are a variety of legislative proposals on the table, and as

you well know, the process of legislation is one which means drawing from them to achieve what we think is the best result to address the problem that we all agree ought to be addressed.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Secretary, I thank you very much. Now

I have a much clearer picture that we will be working together, because the concern that I have, and as I was asking my good friend,

legislative counsel here, do we have currently any U.S. laws in the

books that address this very issue of sex trafficking? If we do, my

question is, is it strong enough, is it too weak, do we need to beef

it up a little bit?

Ms. LOAR. There are a number of laws on the books that handle

different parts of trafficking. There isn’t anything that we think is

comprehensive enough or strong enough across the board to address this. It wasn’t a long-standing issue here in the United

States. It wasn’t a long-standing issue to the degree that it is now

internationally. So we do not think there are significant enough

pieces of legislation and laws that address this.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. I noticed in your statement, Ms. Loar, that

at minimal, that nearly or well over 1 million women and children

are affected by sex trafficking. Out of this, 50,000 of those women

and children are affected here in the United States. In doing so,

what does this give you? It gives me the impression that 950,000

women and children out in the world, we have got some very serious problems with foreign countries. Apparently, we are dealing

with 50,000 that come to our country, but what are we going to do

with the 950,000 women and children that are being affected in

other countries of the world?

I think this is the reason why we raised the question of sanctions. I duly understand and appreciate the fact that some of these

countries don’t have the resources, but if we don’t be very aggressive on this very issue, then what do we do, just let the 950,000

go?

Ms. LOAR. We are overwhelmed by the number, and we do think

it is a tragic number and a number that is increasing all the time.

But what we are doing is to work with those countries that are the
30

countries of source, the countries of origin, the countries of transit,

and in some cases, the countries come to us and ask for help. In

other cases, our Secretary raises it because she sees an opening,

she sees a willingness to take this on.

There are a number of countries where there this is a long-standing issue, but they have never had the modern tools of technology,

the Internet and open borders to facilitate this criminal activity. So

in some cases it has really crept up on countries. They have not

seen this coming, but when they do, in more cases than not, they

want to work with us, and they want our help.

The United Stated is not alone in caring about this issue and in

responding as a government at the very high level. We have partners in this in the Nordic countries, in the European Union. Serious funding countries with significant overseas assistance programs have come forward to work with us on this, and we are

going to continue to do that.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. I think the Chairman, as well as the

gentlelady from Georgia, raised this issue previously. I get the

strong impression from both of your testimonies that the Administration has the institutional means to do it, but at the same time

sounds like you don’t have the tools to do it with. You don’t have

the handles, you don’t have the bullets, no triggers to pull or not

enough resources. Am I getting a double signal here? Are you certain you have got the means to do the work? With all due respect,

my personal admiration for Secretary Koh is going to be in this position, come next year or some other time, maybe we won’t have

another Secretary Koh that is as aggressive and knowledgable

about human rights violation and issues. So where do we go from

there? That is the reason why this proposed bill, I think, has a lot

of merit, and I would certainly hope that our friends in the Administration would be supportive of this effort.

Mr. KOH. Congresswoman, before I was a bureaucrat I was a professor focusing on issues of international law and issues of international regime-building, which is the area that is the solution to

this problem. We have a transnational problem that has to be addressed by global cooperation, reinforced by treaties, protocols, national laws, changes of institutions, and by aggressive diplomacy,

as well as aggressive advocacy. It is that process of building that

global regime which is the process that we are trying to do now.

Our position is that we need more resources to help us with the

tools. The question is, does another layer of unilateral sanctions,

mandatory or waiverable, which would be used against those who

are trying to participate in the regime, serve as an additional tool

that we should use?

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. I know my time is running. Has the Administration taken any initiatives to call for an international convention of countries to agree on this very egregious—it is a multibillion-dollar industry. Has the Administration taken the initiative to

do this very thing that you are talking about?

Ms. LOAR. Yes.

Mr. KOH. There is a protocol.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Where are we at with this protocol at this

time?

Mr. KOH. We are working on the process of negotiating it.
31

Ms. LOAR. I would second what Assistant Secretary Koh has

said. The protocol is a very powerful instrument, and our chief negotiator is right here, Jim Puleo. He is dying to tell you the kind

of progress that has been made on that. It is a forum. The U.N.

Has taken this seriously. The United States is taking the lead on

this, but we had a lot of partners on this.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. How long have we doing this protocol proposal?

Ms. LOAR. How long has it been in negotiation? In January of

this year, the U.S. introduced it with Russia as cosponsor.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. So we just started this year then.

Ms. LOAR. Within this Transnational Crime Convention, which is

a particular instrument to look at how to combat crime internationally, the U.S. has decided to take a look at trafficking separately,

not to have it hidden within other areas or have it buried under

some other area.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. I think my question is specific. The protocol

is specifically of sex trafficking; am I correct?

Ms. LOAR. It is on trafficking in all its forms.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Can we just look at sex trafficking just on

its own, or do we have to put all other trafficking together?

Ms. LOAR. Our view is that it is very hard to separate one from

the other.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. My problem is that once we put them all

there together, then we find problems with priority. Then if you

have got 10 different trafficking issues, where does sex trafficking

come into focus, or does it focus at all?

Ms. LOAR. It does cover both. It does include that in it, Mr. Congressman.

I would just say going back to your issue of resources, as the lead

in the U.S. Government on this, I certainly would welcome more

resources to the issue of trafficking, but I don’t think that the fact

that this issue hasn’t been resolved around the world is from a lack

of commitment from this Administration. We have seen the increase in this as we learn more about the issue and get more estimates from our community and the government to provide this

kind of information to us. In 1995, we spent over $7 million around

the world. Next year we are moving it up to 20 million out of our

foreign assistance budget at the State Department. That doesn’t

count the work and the programs that come out of Department of

Labor and the Department of Justice and other communities within

the U.S. Government that spend very significant resources on this

issue, but we haven’t solved it, clearly.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. I note in your statement the three pillars of

U.S. policy on sexual trafficking on the question of prevention, the

question of prosecution and the question of protection. My question

is, what is the current status of our laws that addresses these

three specific issues domestically? Are our current laws strong

enough to take care of these three areas?

Ms. LOAR. No, they are not.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. That is one question. The second question

is—they are not? Thank you very much.

The second question is, in terms of prevention, prosecution and

protection, where is the Administration’s position in terms of our
32

external problems in dealing with those countries that either don’t

care at all, or if the proponents, they don’t have the resources, that

maybe we could help them, give them the resources?

Ms. LOAR. As far as our domestic legislation is strong enough, it

is not, and that is why we have worked—our Department of Justice——.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Could you please offer your recommendations on behalf of the Administration to our Chairman and see exactly how we can beef up our current laws so that we make sure

that these 50,000 victims, women and children, are going to be addressed aggressively by our policymakers as well as our prosecutors? Then maybe the other 950,000 women and children, we will

have to address that issue in some other way.

Ms. LOAR. We will continue do that.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Thank you.

Mr. KOH. Congressman, might I add that with regard to the

question of whether the laws strong enough to protect the victims,

that is where we favor visa relief for victims of trafficking. Are they

strong enough with regard to punishing private traffickers, we

agree that stiffer sanctions are appropriate.

Where we are disagreeing is with regard to the question of

whether a mandatory sanctions regime and a special office is the

best way to go. There are good things in this bill, and there are

things that are not so useful in terms of what we are trying to accomplish. We will submit comments for the record with regard to

the revised draft protocol. A convention for the suppression of traffic in persons was entered into force in 1951, but as the scale of

the problem has gotten much worse in the 1990’s, there has been

a new international treaty-making effort. The last negotiating session was just concluded on July 9, 1999. We will submit for the

record both the text of that protocol and a description of how that

process is moving.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Appreciate that.

[The information referred to appears in the appendix.]

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Chairman, I know my time is up, but

I do appreciate some of the things that we have taken in our dialogue, and I really do look forward to working together with the

Administration to resolve this. This isn’t just 10 years. This problem has been ongoing for the last hundred years, and I think it is

time we ought to take care of it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Hilliard.

Mr. HILLIARD. I have no questions.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you.

Just to conclude, unless any other Members have some final

questions, we could ask questions until the sun sets and still not

be done, and we will submit a number for the record, but I do have

a few follow-up questions I would just like to pose.

I would like to focus on the area of providing protection for the

women so they do not face immediate deportation, both for their

own benefit to avoid going back to a retribution situation, and also

so that they might then be available to become part of a prosecution or at least evidence gathering. The Wellstone bill, although it

tries to parrot us on some of the things, we all know the genesis

of it. We spread our bill around all over the Hill, and that bill came
33

up pretty much as a weakened version of our bill. It would only

provide a 3-month temporary residency type of deal for those

women, and it would seem to me, just standing in their shoes for

1 second, that if I am just looking at a 3-month stay, and maybe

it will be extended, maybe I can apply for asylum, maybe, I am

going to be very hard-pressed to say, I am going to now cooperate.

You already have a potential mistrust of authority figures to begin

with. They may wonder, for example why New York City police are

any different than the police in their own countries. They don’t

know who talk to who and where there might be collusion. So our

bill would provide a more durable protection for those women

where they could become permanent residents, and we would provide a mechanism for that.

Again, we are erring on the side of protection, rather than being

less than generous and skimping in what we provide for these

women. They have already been through hell and back. Why not

provide some safe haven?

Can the Administration support our language, or does it have a

recommendation that would perhaps be better? We would like to

strengthen it further if you have a way of doing that. I would yield

to either of our two distinguished witnesses.

Mr. KOH. We prefer to submit comments on the bill as a whole,

but I do think with regard to the protection regime, you make an

extremely good point. The case that I worked on as a private attorney regarding the hearing-impaired Mexican workers who gave testimony against the people who had trafficked them ended up with

them eventually getting immigration relief, but it was through a

process of recommendation through the Justice Department prosecutorial forces that went over to the INS . It may well be that a

scheme that relies on a legislative protection as well as what has

been called the T visa is a more appropriate means to deal with

that, as well as more fully elaborated means of protection. But the

focus on protection is an important one that I think we strongly

favor in all our approaches on the issue.

Ms. LOAR. Mr. Chairman, I have just confirmed that the Department of Justice does have its own language developing in areas of

protection. It is one of the areas that they have stepped forward on.

They are working on that.

Mr. SMITH. I hope they can provide that.

Ms. LOAR. We will provide information on that.

Mr. SMITH. As soon as possible if that can done. Maybe this

would be for the record, but we need to know to make an informed

decision and also to persuade our Members, House and Senate, as

to why this cries out for reform. The number of prosecutions, what

kind of prison sentences the international pimps are getting, if

there is any kind of guidance that has been provided to the U.S.

attorneys in terms of how prioritized this is in the arsenal or in the

list of bad behaviors that are out there, if you could provide us with

that. I am not sure if you have that now, but that would be very

helpful.

Ms. LOAR. We will provide that, and the Department of Justice

has done training manuals that our Interagency team has worked

very hard on to help prosecutors prosecute cases. So we will provide that for the record and followup.
34

Mr. SMITH. I appreciate that. We provided money in this for aid

for foreign shelters, also for domestic shelters, under the auspices

of HHS. We are not sure if $10 million is right. We are not sure

if $20 million is right. I always believe you need to justify need

with resources to marry up the two. Any insights you could provide

into what could be done with that money so it is used effectively,

again erring on the side of protecting the women, mostly women,

although there are some boys and men that are involved who are

abused, but most of these are women and young girls. I would be

glad to hear if you or my colleagues have any further comments on

that.

Again, I want to throw the book at all traffickers, but there are

gradations of egregious behavior, and rape is at the top. It seems

to me that the other aspects of going after the traffickers are fine,

so long as they are in addition to but not in lieu of these penalties

I have serious concerns about the Wellstone-Slaughter bill because

it is seen as being in place of. So in other words, no life imprisonment, up to a 10-year ceiling max per charge for those who commit

these crimes, and again, we will get fewer of those folks in the end,

and we will have less protection for the women.

Again, not to overstate, but Gary Haugen’s statement when he

talked about ‘‘good idea’’ versus ‘‘urgent priority’’ abroad, we all

know how that works. I have been in Congress 19 years. I know

when you get the attention and when you are just going through

talking points, and they are sitting there listening, and, it is not

as high of a priority that it could be possibly.

Again, not to belabor the point, but I think at least having the

possibility of sanctions looming would help—whether it be ‘‘good

cop, bad cop’’, phrase it any way you want, ‘‘Congress made me do

it.’’ It does give, I think, any Administration more clout rather than

less.

In terms of the office, and I said this yesterday to a group, and

I didn’t elaborate on it much, and I won’t now, but there are so

many different offices. We need a FEMA. We have got a hurricane

coming up our coast, FEMA goes into action. As Ms. Loar pointed

out so well, this is a relevantly recent explosion. Mr.

Faleomavaega, as you know, this was going on for how many years,

but now organized crime has said, hey, this is a major profit-maker

for us, and we can exploit the poverty of these young women to the

extreme, and then they are throwaways when they have been

abused in this fashion. So we need a FEMA office, so to speak, to

stop this rape. So I just encourage you to keep that in mind.

Mr. KOH. Congressman, we appreciate the authorization, but if

the appropriation doesn’t follow, we have the obligation to establish

and run new office and pay for it out of our present budget.

Mr. SMITH. I would also ask that the Administration then make

requests for it, like on the religious persecution bill. Mr. Wolf, who

was one of the prime originators of that legislation, and our Subcommittee, which took the lead in moving that legislation, were

very discouraged when the money wasn’t asked for. So it is a twoway street. I don’t blame you or Ms. Loar for some of this. I think

some of this is OMB. I am not sure where it happens, but we can

be team players on this, I think.
35

Ms. LOAR. We thank you for that spirit of cooperation. We need

that as we move ahead.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. Any further comments?

I want to thank our very two distinguished witnesses who are

spending their lives trying to do good for others, and I look forward

to working with you in the near future.

I would like to invite our second panel to the witness table, and

I would also like to remind our broadcast journalists in particular,

as we previously discussed, if they could be sure not to broadcast

identifiable images of Ms. Bhattarai, because she still faces some

dangers of retribution for her testimony. We would note for the

record, as I think one of my colleagues pointed out earlier, at least

one of our other witnesses or victims decided not to come out of

fear as well. So even at this point, we are still dealing with people

who are willing to come forward, but have second thoughts about

it, and take their names off the witness list because of that fear.

It just underscores what we are talking about.

I would like to begin by introducing our witnesses in the order

that they will testify. Ms. Anita Sharma Bhattarai is a survivor of

sexual trafficking. Drugged and abducted from her home in Nepal,

she was transported to a brothel in Bombay, India. Since her release, Ms. Bhattarai’s testimony has resulted in the release of six

other forced prostitutes and the incarceration of sex traffickers.

Second, we will be hearing from Laura Lederer, who is the Director of The Protection Project of the Women and Public Policy Program at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government. A

graduate of the University of Michigan and the University of San

Francisco Law School, she has worked and written on human

rights and exploitation issues for over 25 years and has provided

a tremendous wealth of information to this Subcommittee as well

as to the Commission on Security Cooperation in Europe, which I

also chair, on what is going on, and what the responses ought to

be to this rising tide of exploitation.

Finally, Gary Haugen is the President of the International Justice Mission, an international human rights agency that addresses

cases of human rights abuses referred by workers in faith-based

ministries around the world. An honors graduate of Harvard University and the University of Chicago Law School, Mr. Haugen previously served as a Senior Trial Attorney with the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department and as the officer in charge

of the U.N.’s genocide investigation in Rwanda.

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Bhattarai, if you could begin your testimony.

STATEMENT OF ANITA SHARMA BHATTARAI, TRAFFICKING

SURVIVOR, NEPAL

Ms. BHATTARAI. [The following testimony was delivered through

an interpreter.] My name is Anita Sharma Bhattarai. I am 28

years old, and I am from Nepal. One day I boarded the bus to go

to Daman where I had to collect some money, and I met one man

and woman who were on the bus and who also offered me a banana. After eating the banana, I felt very dizzy, and I told them,

and they gave me some medicine and water, and after taking that

medicine I became unconscious.
36

When I gained consciousness, I didn’t know where I was. There

were long buses—that she is referring to as trains—long buses, and

then I asked her where I was, and why I was brought there. Then

they told me not to make any sound, not to scream, because they

had strapped hashish, drugs, around my waist, so I couldn’t even

call the police or just shout for help because I was so scared. I

couldn’t return from there, and so I just listened to them, and he

told me—the man told me that we were going to Bombay, and that

would take about 5 days, and after reaching there he would sell the

hashish, and we would get $20,000 rupees each.

After reaching Bombay, one lady came and met us at the station.

The man told that lady to take me with her to her place, and that

man also assured me that he would come and pick me up at 4

o’clock in the evening, and so I went along with that lady, who was

called Renu Lama. So at Bombay I went with her to her house.

Upon reaching the house, I then realized that it was a brothel,

but later on in the evening, when men started coming in, I got to

know that it was a brothel, and they forced me into prostitution

after that, and on the 3rd day I had to take in my first client. I

wasn’t at all ready to do it, but that man stripped off my clothes,

and he also went and told the brothel owners that I wasn’t complying to his wishes. The brothel owners came and hit me with the

iron—metal rods and also slapped me, and so I had to entertain

him, but since I was aware of the diseases that the girls have been

telling me also in the brothel, so I also told him to put on condoms.

So that was the first time I was in prostitution, and after that I

had to take in like about 2 to 4 men per day.

I am telling the story in a very short way, but it will take a really long time if I have to go on and on. But from the day I entered

there, I just started thinking of running away from there, and 1

day I succeeded, and with the help of Bob, I have been able to also

come here and share my stories with you so that you could also

help other girls like me who are still in brothel. I am really proud

to see that I have been able to help about 7 to 8 girls with the help

of Bob from IJM.

Thank you.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you for your testimony and for your courage

and your willingness to relay your story to this Subcommittee and,

by extension, to the rest of the Congress. We are indebted to you,

and we will do everything we can, I can assure you, to try to stop

this horrible practice.

[The statement of Ms. Bhattarai appears in the appendix.]

Mr. SMITH. Dr. Lederer.

Ms. BHATTARAI. I am ever ready to help you to do anything if you

can help other girls.

Mr. SMITH. Dr. Lederer.

STATEMENT OF LAURA J. LEDERER, RESEARCH DIRECTOR

AND PROJECT MANAGER, THE PROTECTION PROJECT, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, KENNEDY SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT

Ms. LEDERER. Mr. Chairman, Members of the Subcommittee, it

is a pleasure to be here. I am Laura Lederer, Director of The Protection Project at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and I am happy to share some of our preliminary findings.
37

The purpose of The Protection Project is to build a comprehensive data base of laws and related materials on the commercial sexual exploitation of women and children. We are documenting the

laws on child prostitution, child pornography and prostitution and

surrounding activities, including pimping, pandering, procuring,

maintaining a brothel, corruption of a minor, forced prostitution,

trafficking, slave trade, kidnapping, rape and other laws in all 220

countries and territories worldwide.

We are also documenting the age of majority, the age of consent

to sexual relations, legal age for marriage and other ages relevant

to commercial sexual exploitation of women and children, and we

are examining the range of penalties, defenses to the charges, sentencing patterns, extraterritoriality and extradition treaties, law

enforcement capability, victim assistance programs that are government-mandated, and other related matters. The collection of the

data is taking place through a series of questionnaires, and the

preliminary data base will be complete by the end of this year.

I am going to talk a little bit about what trafficking is by telling

the stories of some women who have been trafficked. Trafficking is

a global human rights problem of which the majority of victims are

women and children. Let me illustrate what trafficking is by telling

you Lydia’s story, an amalgamation of several true stories of

women and girls who have been trafficked in the Eastern European

area in recent years. Lydia was 16 and hanging around with

friends on the streets, and here you can fill in the name of any of

the sender countries, the Ukraine, Russia, Romania, Lithuania,

Latvia, and the Czech Republic, when they were approached by an

older beautifully dressed woman who befriended them and told

them that they were so nice-looking that she could get them parttime jobs in modeling.

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

when dinner was over, she invited them home for a drink. Taking

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

drugged her, handed her and her friends over to another agent,

who drove them unconscious across the border into, and here you

can fill in the name of any of the receiver countries, Germany, the

Netherlands, Italy, the Middle East, even as far as Japan, Canada,

and the United States.

When Lydia awoke, she was alone. She was in a strange room

in a foreign country. Her friends were gone. A while later, a man

came into the room, and he told her that she now belonged to him.

I own you, he said. You are my property. You will work for me

until I say stop. Don’t try to leave. You have no papers, you have

no passport, you don’t speak the language. He told her if she tried

to escape, his men would come after her and beat her and bring

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

He told her that she owed his agency $35,000 of which she would

work off in a brothel by sexually servicing 10 to 20 men a day.

Stunned and angry and rebellious, Lydia refused. The man then

hit her, he beat her, he raped her. He sent friends in to gang rape

her. She was left in the room alone without food and water for 3

days. Frightened and broken, she succumbed, and for the next 6

months she was held in virtual confinement and forced to prostitute herself. She received no money. She had no hope of escape.
38

She was rescued when the brothel was raided by police. They arrested the young women and charged them with working without

a visa. They arrested the brothel manager and charged him with

procuration, but he was later released.

They did not attempt to arrest the brothel owners or to identify

the traffickers. The girls were interviewed, and those who were not

citizens of the country were charged as illegal aliens and transferred to a women’s prison where they awaited deportation. A medical examiner found that Lydia had several sexually transmitted

diseases. In addition, she was addicted to a potent form of cough

medicine. She was physically weak. She was spiritually broken.

There was no one to speak for Lydia. She feared the future because

she knew her keepers. They had networks, they had the power,

they had the resources to track her down, to kidnap her and bring

her back again. She knew they could hurt her family, and they had

an interest in doing so. Because unlike drugs where the product

can be sold only once, when you can modify a human being, she

can be sold over and over and over again. The risk is low, the potential profits are high, and girls like Lydia are a real target.

There was no one who seemed to care about Lydia’s life. The authorities didn’t have the resources or the interest in tracking down

the organizations of individuals in the trafficking chain, from the

woman who drugged Lydia to the agent who brought her across the

border, to the agent who broke her will, to the brothel managers

and brothel owners. In addition, some corrupt law enforcement officials were obviously involved because the process of getting Lydia

and her friends across the border and keeping the brothels running

involved payoffs to local visa officials, to police in the country of origin, to border patrols for both countries and local police in the destination country. Lydia is without protection. The traffickers have

bought theirs.

Now, take Lydia’s story and multiply it by hundreds of thousands, and you can get a picture of the scope of the problem.

UNICEF is estimating that 1 million children are forced into prostitution in Southeast Asia alone and another million worldwide. An

estimated 250,000 women and children in Russia, the Newly Independent States, Eastern Europe are trafficked into Western Europe, the Middle East, Japan, Canada and the United States each

year. An estimated 20,000 children from Central American countries such as Guatemala and El Salvador are being trafficked for

purposes of commercial sexual exploitation.

You have the figure from the Department of State of over 50,000

women are trafficked into the United States, and then there are

the countless thousands of women and children in Africa and Central and South America and other countries where we have very

little information on the scope of the problem.

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

courts in The Netherlands, 1 year, 1996, only four resulted in convictions. Thousands more have not been brought to the courts at

all. The accounts of arrest that police have made in North America

show that women are being sold for as much as 16,000 to brothel

owners. When the rescued women tell the stories of debt bondage

and sexual slavery in which they are forced to work off $10-, $20-

, or $30,000 debt bonds by servicing dozens of men a day, these
39

numbers and the accompanying accounts illustrate the trafficking

of women and children for the purposes of prostitution has become

a contemporary form of slavery, and the numbers may soon be on

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

The reason The Protection Project is documenting the laws of individual countries is because trafficking is international, but all of

the laws addressing the problem are national. There are virtually

no international laws with enforcement capability. The United Nations conventions, such as the Convention on the Rights of the

Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the other conventions, can play an

important role in setting international norms, but they do not have

any enforcement capability by themselves, even when the countries

adopt them into their Constitutions.

The countries have to draft and pass penal code statutes that

specifically address each of these commercial sexual exploitation

issues if they want their law enforcement people to have tools to

arrest, charge and prosecute traffickers. We have found that countries often tell us that they have adopted such and such convention, and so they have taken care of the problem, and they don’t

go the next step, which is to actually, draft and pass those statutes.

I don’t know that I need to go over these three P’s, the prevention, prosecution and protection. I do agree that those are three

necessary ways to attack the problem. I just want to say that if you

take any one alone, it is not going to work. So if you have lots and

lots of protection programs like Italy is doing, but you are not vigorously enforcing, you are not prosecuting, you are just doing a

mop-up job. So it has to be all three at once or it won’t work.

I will just conclude by saying that trafficking often originates in

countries with poverty and few opportunities for women and few

laws to prosecute traffickers, but that is not the only thing. It is

true that economic deprivation is part of it, but there is also a large

demand, and if there weren’t that demand, I think there wouldn’t

be as much of the kind of kidnapping and abduction and trickery

and deceit that we are seeing. We have to deal with that demand

issue as well as with the fact that, that the women and children

may feel like they need to do this, or that their parents may be

selling them into it. There are all those customers on that other

end there that are creating the need for the supply.

Based on our preliminary findings, we expect the trafficking will

continue to increase in the absence of specific enforceable laws

aimed at prevention, prosecution and protection. As someone who

has worked in this field for 20 years, it is exciting to see this Subcommittee’s work and leadership on this important issue, and I am

happy to see it recognized as a major human rights priority. It is

time to move beyond the conferences and the meetings and the

seminars and the expressions of shock to a coordinated effort to

criminalize the conduct of these interlocking rings of businessmen,

these modern mafias, these corrupt government officials.

We are the people who can help the young women and girls like

Lydia. We can draw attention to their plight. We can help nations

strengthen their laws and ultimately find the ways to prevent and

protect young women and children from commercial sexual exploitation.
40

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

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

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

American national interest. One of the hallmarks of the 21st century is going to be the emancipation of women worldwide, and the

issue of commercial sexual exploitation of women and children is

one of the last, unfortunately the last, even in the women’s movement the last, of the issues, but definitely not the least, to be examined by our society. So your efforts, Mr. Chairman and Subcommittee Members, will put America on the right side of history

as women gain power and dignity.

Thank you very much.

[The statement of Dr. Lederer appears in the appendix.]

Mr. SMITH. Dr. Lederer, thank you for your comprehensive testimony, but even more than that, for your daily commitment and the

information you provide. You not only have the right instincts, but

you also chronicle and systematically deal with the issues so that

it leaves very little room for making mistakes, and I think the

more information we have and the more we create real policy with

regard to prevention, prosecution, and protection, and doing all

three in tandem, which you have admonished this Committee to do,

the more apt we are to have real success at the end of the day. The

information that you have been giving to the Subcommittee and to

the Helsinki Commission for many, many months now has been of

tremendous worth, and I want to thank you publicly for that.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Haugen, I would like to ask you to present your

testimony.

STATEMENT OF GARY A. HAUGEN, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF

EXECUTIVE OFFICER, INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE MISSION

Mr. HAUGEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would indeed like to

thank you for inviting me to participate in this panel, but more

than that I would like to thank you first for inviting Anita to share

her story. I am sorry that other victims weren’t here. I am afraid

it is almost impossible for you as members of this panel to understand just how far away this room is from where women like Anita,

and children who are trafficked sexually into forced prostitution,

how incredibly distant and far this place is from the living hell

where they live every day, and there is no way for us to engage

this without understanding their story. I am very grateful for you

making that possible.

I believe the American people are compassionate people, and

they will hear Anita’s story, they will hear the story of those

950,000 others that you mentioned, Congressman, and over time,

it may not be today but tomorrow, sometime later, the American

people will hear the story, and they will respond. It would be wonderful if that began here today.

Let me just explain, I am serving with the International Justice

Mission as its director. International Justice Mission gets cases of

human rights abuses referred from faith-based ministries overseas.

Churches deploy tens of thousands of workers overseas to do humanitarian work and mission work, and they see abuses in the

field, and they turn to us to deal with them.
41

One of the things that they are increasingly burdened by is the

plague of forced child prostitution, forced prostitution that includes

the trafficking of victims across international borders. We are not

public policy experts. We are active in the field. We go into these

areas. We use criminal investigators to infiltrate the brothels. We

use surveillance equipment to detail where the children are being

held, and then we work with trusted police contacts in these countries to get the victims out, and Anita represents one of those wonderful stories that this is a life worth extending heroic efforts for

in order to give her a future.

I had not intended comment at all upon the Administration’s testimony today, but I did want to say one thing and that I believe

the power of words is overwhelming in these arenas, and I believe,

unless my hearing was off, that I think Assistant Secretary Koh

and Ms. Loar managed to get through their entire testimony without saying the word ‘‘sexual trafficking’’. It is hard and ugly to say

and to distinguish it because it is indeed about rape which, as a

former lawyer at the Department of Justice, we, understand rape

to be sexual intercourse without consent.

We have in criminal law the notion of assault, but we don’t consider it sufficient that we don’t also have a notion of sexual assault.

We have a notion of child abuse, but we also have a notion of child

sexual abuse. There is trafficking, but there is trafficking for sexual

purposes. Our agency has dealt in the South Asian subcontinent

where Anita comes from, and we have worked to release hundreds

of children from bonded slavery, but on top of the bonded slavery,

it is as if those children or women are then raped. That is the reality, I think, that Americans will be continually ready to need to

confront, and it would be wonderful for our leadership in Washington to take bold, courageous leadership in recognizing the facts.

Because one of the victims couldn’t be here today, I want just as

part of telling the story to just give you a few facts from her experience, a 17-year-old girl named Jayanthi from India, who was sold

into forced prostitution at the age of 14. She was drugged, abducted

off a train, sold into a brothel. She was held in a windowless room

for 3 days and beaten with iron rods, plastic pipe, and electrical

cords until she agreed to have sex, and then she proceeded to have

to have sex with about 20 customers a day over a 3-year period and

was forced to have three abortions over that time. Fortunately

through the work of our operatives we were able to identify where

she was, get her out of that brothel, and now she is receiving good

aftercare, but she is an emblem, I must tell you, of thousands and

thousands of women and children, which, if you cared to go with

us to any of these places in the world, we could purchase the opportunity to rape a woman or girl for you with a very small number

of dollars. The numbers are overwhelming and should be a matter

of urgent compassion of the American people.

What have we learned about the way this works from trying to

deal with it in the field? The international sexual trafficking is

driven by what is permitted within the country that allows forced

prostitution. The men who trafficked Anita into India, they weren’t

worried about whether or not there would be someone who would

buy her once she got there. They were motivated by a complete

sense of confidence that if they could get her into the country, there
42

would a flourishing business of forced prostitution that would willingly buy her. They wouldn’t receive her with a sense of, oh, my

goodness, don’t bring her, you forced her, we don’t know what to

do with her, we will get into big trouble if we do that. No. There

is an overwhelming sense that this is the way things operate, and

there are not very serious sanctions available.

We have learned, therefore, because international sexual trafficking is driven by the flourishing trade in forced prostitution, one

must do something about forced prostitution. Forced prostitution is

about coercion, and therefore, it can only be dealt with if we impact

law enforcement on the streets. It is amazing how impervious

brothel people are to international covenants, U.S. policy, everything else, unless it makes its way down to the street and affects

their conduct toward that brothel.

There are three things that impact law enforcement on the

street: political priorities of the people in the senior chain of command, because that works its way down to the street. But even if

that is a priority, you can’t do anything about it unless there is

clarity and comprehensiveness of law. So then you need clear and

comprehensive law. Third, you need resources and training so that

law enforcement on the street is effective.

We see law enforcement on the street regularly pick up their

bribes. You can set your watch by it. We know that police have to

bribe their way within a jurisdiction in order to be assigned to a

red light district because that is where they can make the most

money. We see police delivering food to the brothel so the brothel

keepers don’t have to let the children out or the kids out to get

food. There is in many situations tremendous complicity. So you

are not going to do anything about forced prostitution which provides the magnet for international sexual trafficking unless you affect law enforcement on the streets.

This is why it is, from the U.S. policy perspective, we believe, a

carrot-and-stick approach. These sticks do, in fact, affect what the

priorities are of the senior leadership. This shifting from the good

idea to an urgent priority is usually moved by a sense that something bad is going to happen. Then you can make an urgent priority, but if you don’t have clear law, and if you don’t have a supportive relationship with law enforcement that trains them and resources them, you will not be effective. That is why all the work

we have done overseas, we have done with positive law enforcement relationships, because we cannot get the children out of the

brothel without the man who brings the force of the State.

Finally, you need to provide a safe environment for those who

are trafficked. There are indeed a mind-numbing number of women

and children around the world who are sexually trafficked. I think

it was Stalin who said that the murder of a single person is a tragedy, but a million deaths is a statistic. I hope that the statistics

of the hundreds of thousands of women and children who are raped

for rent will not become blurred through us, and I hope that the

Committee hears Anita’s story, uncovers the other stories to be

told, and takes decisive action so that history will judge us well in

our response.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The statement of Mr. Haugen appears in the appendix.]
43

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Haugen, thank you very much for the truly lifesaving work that you and your organization do for people like

Anita. It certainly is inspiring to hear you speak and to know of

your work. Thank you for giving us some additional information

and a moral imperative to act upon to try to get not just this legislation, but any other legislative policies and fixes that could advance the cause here.

When we talk about prevention, prosecution and protection, obviously part of the protection side is healing both spiritually and bodily, mind and soul, and I think you know one of things that I or

the Administration asked was how much more money do we put

forward here. Whether it be made available to faith-based organizations or to others in a competitive grant situation, whatever, it

certainly seems to be a paltry sum compared to what the real need

is out there. This whole idea of the collusion of the police forces,

that whole culture has to change, and that is one reason why we

believe and why I read your quote to our two previous witnesses

to try to get a response in terms of ‘‘urgent priority’’ versus ‘‘good

idea’’.

We have got to get them to snap to and know that we are serious. There is a waiver provided for the President in the bill. It is

very generous waiver, but it gives him tools, we believe. If any of

you would like to comment.

One thing I do find disturbing in the Wellstone legislation, which

is, for want of a better word, a competing substitute to our bill, is

that it was written in a way to try to diminish the efficacy of our

bill, to do less and suggest that it is more because it covers a larger

area. But it seems to me, like you pointed out, Mr. Haugen, that

we are talking about rape, we are talking about a situation that

is bad and getting worse, and while we can approach and attack

all trafficking, it seems to me that this one is at the very top, and

should be, of any prioritization that we have.

I mean, this is mass rape. It was a war crime in Bosnia. It is

no less of a crime against humanity in New York City or Philadelphia or Washington, D.C. It is a crime against humanity and

against individual women like Anita who have to suffer its cruelty.

So perhaps all of you might want to comment on whether or not

we are proceeding down the right path by focusing on sexual trafficking. That is not to diminish the outrage that we all feel about

other kinds of trafficking. But again—like I said to Ms. Loar and

Secretary Koh—if it is offered in lieu of, and we get a substitute

with a 10-year ceiling in terms of punishment for perpetrators, that

is a weaker substitute. That is a dilution of our efforts, not a

strengthening.

Ms. LEDERER. I think I can speak safely for many women’s organizations when I say that they would believe that sex and labor

aren’t the same and can’t be equated. They need to be separated,

and if we deal with sexual trafficking and deal with labor trafficking, I think that is the right approach.

Mr. HAUGEN. Of course, again, from the perspective of operation

in the field, without real broader public policy expertise, we certainly do as law enforcement professionals treat crimes that involve

nonconsenting sexual activity as being a special and distinct crime.

Now, it seems to me a rhetorical trick to try to say that because
44

there are distinctive features to a certain kind of crime that it is

somehow unfair pleading to name those distinctives, treat them differently, focus upon them and deal with them; to suggest that

those who support that are somehow trying to diminish the pain

and suffering of those who suffer from different kinds of crimes.

It is hard for me to know why someone would even suggest that

we would want to treat specialized problems as if they did not have

distinctive mechanisms, as if they did not have distinctive outcomes, as if they did not have distinctive consequences.

As I mentioned, we work as an organization focused on problems

of abuse of child labor, and that is only one issue, and we have

seen hundreds and hundreds of children delivered from that, and

it is an incredible thing. To see, for instance, the millions of children who sit and roll beedie cigarettes or sit in some other menial

task, it is a crippling and horrible thing. But to not treat what

would happen if in that context they were also raped? In the context of their forced labor, to not treat that as a very serious problem and then also not to deal with the enormous sex trade problem—it is ugly to talk about, but there is an enormous trade in sex

in the world, and it has a huge monetary impact on people who

then will abduct, defraud, coerce other people to be sold into that

market. They are motivated by the power of the dollar, and the dynamics, I think, are worthy of focus.

Mr. SMITH. Let me ask, in your experience, is support by government officials in sending, receiving, and transit countries a major

part of the problem, and what can the U.S. do about such support?

Specifically, would you favor assistance to governments in efforts

to enact effective antitrafficking laws, punish traffickers, and protect victims, and would you also support reductions in U.S. and

other multilateral assistance to governments that refuse to do

these things, similar to what we tried to spell out in our legislation? What other measures might you suggest we undertake?

Ms. LEDERER. I can’t speak directly to any one specific bill or approach, but I can say that I think we need as strong and as effective mechanisms as we can possibly manage to deal with this, and

I do believe that removing aid can be—that a negative incentive is

an incentive; in other words, that if we removed certain aids, it can

be effective in getting the government’s attention.

Mr. HAUGEN. To elaborate, perhaps, on my earlier remarks, I believe it is an effective carrot-and-stick approach that the cop in the

street does significantly manifest what are the urgent priorities,

not the good ideas, of his senior commanders, but what are their

urgent priorities, and urgent prioritis are frequently the result of

what those senior political leaders think might happen to them if

they didn’t elevate the issue to the level that was necessary.

I was in South Africa in the mid-1980’s during the height of the

state of emergency in that country and saw the incredible brutal

oppression that took place in South Africa. Of course, in those days

the word also went up from different quarters generally about how

sanctions would have no effect; that, in fact, if we just appealed

only to the better angels of the nature of the leaders of South Africa, that things would change. It is difficult now to understand why

the people who understood the importance, not the exclusive importance of negative consequences, but at least the plausible helpful-
45

ness of negative consequences, can now deny that that is an important part of trying to seek change.

On the other hand, efforts that completely isolate relationships

with law enforcement, that do not assist them, that do not relate

well to them, that do not appreciate their good faith efforts and affirm them, then that is a bad course as well. You all are the experts on how to do that in a technical policy sense, but I do know

that what ends up working in the street is what matters to the

senior political authorities and what they are resourced to do.

Mr. SMITH. For the record, I supported sanctions against South

Africa. I was one of those few Republicans, only one on this Committee if my memory is correct, who supported them as a tangible

means to a good end, to get rid of apartheid. There were people

who made that very argument, but you don’t hear that argument

made now in retrospect. I think the prudent use of withholding

nonhumanitarian aid, and not even sanctions in the typical sense

that that word is used of proscribing trade or inhibiting trade—we

are just saying money we might otherwise give you, other than humanitarian aid, you are not going to get, or we may withhold some

or all of it. It seems to me it is a very modest way, so I appreciate

your point on that.

Let me just ask Dr. Lederer, you and The Protection Project have

compiled a data base with the laws of countries around the world

on sex trafficking and related issues. How would you characterize

progress so far in getting countries to notice this problem and to

take effective measures against it?

Ms. LEDERER. Mr. Chairman, can I just go back for 1 minute to

your previous question? Mr. Haugen has said that it is important

to help countries and give them the resources for law enforcement

and training the law enforcement.But even before that is the drafting of good laws, because if the good laws aren’t there, then the

good law enforcement can’t take place. What we have found as we

have collected these laws on sexual trafficking, trafficking in slave

trade, and kidnapping, is countries who often—even when they are

interested in improving their laws—look around quickly and say,

who can help us, who can help us, and they take whoever is the

closest who will give them some pro bono help. So you see a series

of laws have been cobbled together, a little bit from France, from

Germany, some help from Brazil and not necessarily a wellthought-through statute on trafficking.

The first thing that needs to happen is that countries that are

looking to improve and strengthen their laws need assistance in

that regard. That answers a little bit of this next question which

was—if you could repeat it.

Mr. SMITH. It had to do with how well other countries—you basically focused on how well are they in terms of drafting their policies. Are they in denial, are they accepting it? How far along are

they? Again, let me just add to that in terms of our own legislation.

Remembering the adage ‘‘know thyself’’, what have we done to fix

our own house? As the testimony indicated earlier, it isn’t firm. It

is in need of being fixed, and it seems to me we have a remedy that

at least gets very serious about it, but any recommendations you

might have in terms of how we could improve it would be appreciated.
46

Ms. LEDERER. We found that almost every country in the world

has some law that could be used to prosecute traffickers. Some of

them are very old. Some of them go back to the turn of the century

with the white slave trade and are related to that. Some are procuration laws from the 1950’s, and about 50—I would say 50 to 60

countries—have newer laws that have been drafted and passed in

the last 10 or so years that specifically address either sexual trafficking or trafficking generally.

I do think countries are beginning to be aware of the problem.

Certainly every country has heard from us many, many times. I

also think that there are countries that would prefer not to deal

with this. They know they have a problem, and they are not ready

to deal with it yet, and so they are, I wouldn’t say in denial, but

they are certainly not dealing with it and not cooperating. So I

hope that is helpful.

Mr. SMITH. Let me ask, Mr. Haugen: We have heard from NGO

working in Russia. As a matter of fact, we heard from them directly in meetings we had during the Parliamentary Assembly that

parliamentarians—and I saw this in terms of their denial themselves—are unwilling to recognize and address the issue. Has IJM

or have other NGO’s working in South Asia had similar experiences with governments and legislators in those countries?

Mr. HAUGEN. We have not had the opportunity to work directly

with legislators or the policymakers of those countries except to relate to the senior police command. We will go into a jurisdiction,

we will document where the children are being held and take that

information up to the senior level of command. At that level we almost always see a positive response to get those children assisted,

but for that to be an ongoing, urgent priority for them, they need

to know that they both have the support to do that, and they also

have the encouragement of their relationship with the United

States in that.

Mr. SMITH. What do our own Ambassadors, U.S. Ambassadors to

those countries, and other diplomatic personnel do to assist you

when you are seeking to get an outcome, to free women like Anita?

Mr. HAUGEN. To date we have had good relationships with U.S.

Embassies overseas that we apprise of what we are doing and get

a sense of the security situation from them. At this time it has not

been necessary to seek their intervention on forced prostitution

matters, although their help has greatly assisted for matters of illegal detention or some other human rights abuse. But I believe our

overseas embassies are eager to do something decisive about this,

but I think need to be empowered by the U.S. Congress and the

Administration to do what will be most effective.

Mr. SMITH. I appreciate that.

Let me ask one final question before yielding to my colleagues.

You heard the earlier conversations about what kind of protection

would be best for the victims themselves who are facing the high

probability of deportation. One effort endorsed by the Administration would be a 3-month temporary visa type of deal. My argument

is that that probably is not enough; why not go the max in terms

of providing protection with the possibility of permanent residency

here in the United States if certain very minimal factors are met?

Where would you come down in terms of that side of it? Do these
47

women actually go back to bad situations in countries like Ukraine

or Russia, or is that much overstated, or in Asia?

Mr. HAUGEN. I don’t know very much about what they go back

to in Russia or the Ukraine. I do know that certainly they go back

to situations in which there was a coercive force that was willing

to use violence in a criminal act, and so they go back to potential

vulnerability. But that is precisely what the traffickers continually

try to do is create a sense of fear not only from the traffickers, but

from these vague outside sources; that the trafficker actually becomes the protector because they place this victim in this environment which gives them a sense that there are these other forces

that are going to hurt them, and usually the trafficker points to the

foreign government that they have been introduced to to say, OK,

you are now in a foreign country, if you get caught by the police,

if you cry out, if you do anything, they will capture you, they will

imprison you, and believe me, already their notion of what law enforcement looks like can frequently be pretty brutal.

My perspective is that maximum effort must be extended to create for them a safe environment. If you are going to get them ever

to cooperate in prosecution, the amount of effort it takes to even

get someone like Anita here to tell her story, to let alone actually

then participate with the adversarial process of prosecution, that is

an enormous amount of demand of a human being. So my perspective, whatever is necessary to give them a sense of protected environment afterwards, I believe we should adjust our immigration

laws on the principle that this is what we would want to extend

as a safe place for our daughter if she were abducted, for our own

children, and that to me is sort of the master test.

If you come up with whatever your immigration law is, and then

you take it to the teenage girl you know best, and you get her

moral intuition as to whether or not that seems sufficiently generous and protective of a person who had been trafficked, then I

would be willing to go with that moral intuition.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you.

Dr. Lederer, if you could make available to us—I know it is not

finished—but whatever preliminary information that might be

helpful to the Subcommittee as we move this legislation forward,

especially as it relates to these other governments and their response to the problem in their own countries, whatever data you

can make available. I know end of the year is your deadline, I believe, or time line. It would be most helpful.

Mr. SMITH. Again, I would like to thank all three of our witnesses and especially Anita for her courage and willingness to be

here and to present us with the information, your story that you

have provided us. We are very, very grateful.

Mr. Faleomavaega.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I could offer

just a friendly recommendation, Mr. Chairman, the next time, my

deepest regret is that we should have had these panel of witnesses

to testify first before hearing from the Administration, for obvious

reasons. I cannot believe that the figures that the State Department and the Administration is playing with on this very important issue of sex trafficking is so disparate from what Dr. Lederer

has just shared with us. This is just abominable as far as I am con-
48

cerned. If they don’t even have the accurate figures, how can they

possibly declare a policy that is accurate and correct as far as from

our own policymaking apparatus if it is not there?

Mr. SMITH. Would the gentleman yield on that?

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. I yield.

Mr. SMITH. We have often asked the Administration to either

stay or allow witnesses, especially when they have personal stories

to tell, to go first. As a matter of protocol, they usually argue that

they would like to go first. But if you could join me and Mr. Hilliard as well in asking the Administration to perhaps reverse the

order. We have done that in the Veterans Committee on occasion,

when the veteran service organizations come first and the Administration last, and they hear things they might not otherwise hear

that are most helpful. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. I would say to the gentleman we are doing

it now for the Resources Committee; that we have had assistant

secretaries sitting there waiting until the ladies and the gentlemen

that we have invited to testify could be heard for their testimony

before hearing from government officials. I thank the gentleman for

sharing with me that similar concern.

I certainly want to thank Ms. Bhattarai for your courage just to

be here. This is not a very easy task for any woman under the circumstances that she has had to go through in her life.

Mr. Chairman, I submit I have a 13-year-old daughter, and I

wish that every parent, every father, every brother could have a

real sense of appreciation what women and children go through.

We are talking about rape and forced prostitution. As far as I am

concerned, they are the same thing. It is just another fancy word

or adjective saying sex trafficking. Forced prostitution, as far as I

am concerned, is rape, and that is exactly what happened to this

lovely lady, and I am just so sorry to hear that this is the kind of

testimony that Members of this Committee have had to hear the

reality of out there. This is not an academic exercise or theory.

This is reality out there, not just to 1 million women and children.

This is almost 4 million that are affected by this multibillion-dollar

sex, criminal offenses that are being committed by these pimps in

these foreign countries. This is just really, really beyond me, Mr.

Chairman. I am just very, very disappointed.

I think we have had enough meetings and conferences, as has

been stated earlier, by the Administration officials. I think we need

to put our foot down and come up with substance and not just a

lot of rhetoric and talk.

I noticed, too, Mr. Chairman, sex trafficking or forced prostitution is among the most industrialized countries of the world. You

don’t have to go to Nepal or India or other countries. It exists in

countries like Japan, the second most powerful economic power in

the world, and this goes on. It seems to me, Mr. Chairman, if there

are any protocols that will have any sense of substance, we ought

to deal with the industrialized countries that come out with a protocol to address this very specific issue.

I raised the question with the Administration about the protocol

because it has been worked upon for the past 9 months. The problem that I have with this proposal, Mr. Chairman, is sex trafficking

is only one out of perhaps seven or eight other forms of trafficking.
49

It seems to me when you get into that hodgepodge of other forms

of criminal act or actions, then I am afraid that it is going to be

based on a low priority, just as it is the implication that I gather

from the Administration’s past, not just this Administration, sex

trafficking is just not on the radar screen in the minds of policymakers.

To this end, Mr. Chairman, I commend you for calling this hearing, and I sincerely hope that we will proceed in getting the Committee not only to pass the bill that I heartily endorse, and I hope

to work closely with you to get this thing moving.

Just a couple of questions, if I may, on the issues that have been

raised by Dr. Lederer. I note here that 1 million children under

forced prostitution are in Southeast Asia alone. I am most surprised that the State Department did not even take any notation

of that fact. One million children worldwide are affected by this

alone. I mean, this is just unbelievable.

I want to thank both Dr. Lederer and Mr. Haugen. I want to

thank both of you for your most comprehensive statements to this

issue, and I really, really sincerely hope, Mr. Chairman, that we

move on this legislation because I think in my personal opinion

there has been a lot of rhetoric expressed, a lot of meetings, a lot

of conferences, but I think we haven’t addressed in actually putting

any teeth into the matter by saying enough is enough, not only because we get 50,000 in this forced prostitution here in our country,

but what about the other millions that are occurring in other countries of the world.

I cannot for one, Mr. Chairman, use poverty as a valid excuse for

allowing this to happen, I don’t care how poor a country is. I would

think that, as Ms. Bhattarai testified in her eloquent testimony, it

is just beyond me how strong the culture and the values that they

place, and where I come—if I catch that guy, I would castrate him

10 times. I am sure that even here in our own country, Mr. Chairman, this should not and will not be tolerated. Here again, I just

want to add my commendation to your leadership, Mr. Chairman,

and thank the members of the panel.

Mr. SMITH. There has been so little reporting and coverage on

this, but occasionally there is a breath of fresh air. Fox Files recently did a piece on what is happening in the Philippines, which

I remembered when you mentioned the million in that part of the

world. Mr. Cuomo did the narration and actually went out and

talked to some of the worst of the worst that were doing this, and

it just seems to me that we need more scrutiny like that show,

which I think was a real wake-up call to a lot of people, about what

is actually happening around the world, whether it be in Russia,

the Ukraine, or Asia, in India or Nepal or anywhere else.

This is an outrage. These are crimes against humanity and particularly crimes against women, and we need to give real tools to

our policymakers and our law enforcement people, and that is why

this legislation has to be passed sooner rather than later. Next

week would be none too soon, from my point of view. It is bipartisan, and I want to thank you, Mr. Faleomavaega, for being one

of the cosponsors of the bill.

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. I thank the members of the panel.

Mr. HILLIARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
50

Let me thank the witnesses for their testimony, especially the

young lady who has been through this situation. Up until today I

had not been a cosponsor of this bill that you have, Mr. Chairman,

but I just told my aide about a half an hour ago that he is to notify

the Committee that I wish to become a cosponsor, and I think we

have really got to move forward. This is a difficult situation. We

should have done something about this years ago.

I have a few technical questions I wanted to ask, and I guess,

Dr. Lederer, this probably would be for you and perhaps, Dr.

Haugen, I am not sure, but in your research, is there any country

that has a particular bill that is somewhat effective or that works

that you have seen?

Ms. LEDERER. We are still in the stages of gathering all the laws

and of sifting through them and analyzing them. In fact, that process, the analysis, has just begun. One of the purposes of gathering

the laws is to look at them and find the best of the best, and, from

the best of the best of those laws, to create some model legislation,

some international model legislation that could be used by countries that want to improve and strengthen their laws. That hasn’t

ever been attempted before. We do have model legislation in the

ABA nationally, but we believe that with this issue we can create

some model legislation that will be effective, on an international

level.

So to answer your question, it is a little too early, I think, to recognize any particular one, law or one statute in any particular

country, but we have noted that there are some very innovative

laws, and we are in the process of, setting those aside for their examination.

Mr. HILLIARD. Have you looked at the proposed legislation here

yet?

Ms. LEDERER. In the United States?

Mr. HILLIARD. Yes. The legislation.

Ms. LEDERER. I am aware of the Smith bill; is that what you are

asking?

Mr. HILLIARD. Yes.

Ms. LEDERER. Yes, absolutely.

Mr. HILLIARD. Will it also be taken into consideration as you

gather the laws?

Ms. LEDERER. Yes. In fact, all of the bills that have been introduced in the United States we have added, even though they

haven’t passed. We are doing that in other countries also, bills that

have been proposed that haven’t passed yet, that look very, very

good.

Mr. HILLIARD. I will await your results. It is something I think

we really need to look at and we need to consider, and we need to

make sure that we get a decent bill that will be effective the world

over.

Let me go back, sir, to one of the answers you gave the Chairperson when he was asking about the type of cooperation you have

gathered from our embassies abroad and our diplomats. Tell me,

have there been any countries now that have resisted your work

and your efforts in what you seek to do?

Mr. HAUGEN. I would say no, sir. In terms of our efforts to deal

with forced prostitution?
51

Mr. HILLIARD. Yes.

Mr. HAUGEN. No. Where we have done what is actually kind of

the street-level law enforcement investigative work, and then we

have taken that data up the chain of command, we have seen very,

very good response. It is a sign of hope on our part that these governments need to be encouraged in these worthy efforts. They need

to be supported in their law enforcement efforts, and there is ways

of bringing U.S. law enforcement alongside in areas of resourcing

and training that could be very effective.

Our organization employs people of criminal investigative and

law enforcement background. They work well and relate well with

law enforcement overseas. I believe rather than necessarily focusing on the terrible things that would be interrupted in terms of relationships, if you have any sort of negative consequences through

sanctions, that generates a lot of discussion, but not a tremendous

amount of light. But I do know that positive, cooperative relationships with law enforcement can make a difference, but that many

times those activities in the street are dictated by the most senior

priorities, and that is when the broader relationship with the U.S.

Government matters.

Mr. HILLIARD. Forced prostitution and forced rape is something

that really needs to be brought to the front burner now. The press

is very powerful. But you have got to have those that are interested

in keeping the subject alive, and you have to have those that will

continuously write about it, those that would have the talk shows

and the discussions about it, and it might not be a bad idea if there

is some type of bureau that would be set up to document the

abuses, to document those countries that are worse off than others,

and to document and follow this and continuously keep the public

informed about what is happening here. This is atrocious. We

should have done something about it years ago.

How prevalent is the sex trade here in this country?

Ms. LEDERER. I think your point about documenting is the exact

right point. We have so very little information on this subject in

this country and other countries, so very few facts, and we have no

mechanisms right now for gathering them. What we are doing now

is comparing apples and oranges. We have one NGO that says it

is this, and then in another country another NGO that may be collecting facts in a very different manner.

So you really cannot get a global perspective or even a perspective in any one country of what is going on. So you are right on

target, sir. We need more information. We do need a way of gathering, fact-finding and researching.

Mr. HILLIARD. I am sorry, before you answered I asked another

question, and excuse me, but is the sex trade prevalent here?

Ms. LEDERER. I think I am answering it by saying we don’t

know. We don’t know how prevalent it is.

Mr. HILLIARD. I have often read about, especially those persons

coming from Russia who are forced here into prostitution, plus

coming from other Third World countries. It is one of the things I

read about and put it aside, but you have really touched me today,

and I want to know now where we are and where we need to go.

Ms. LEDERER. I think I can say that the State Department does

say that is a conservative figure, that 50,000 is conservative. That
52

is one they felt comfortable with, which probably means it is more

than that.

Mr. HILLIARD. Is there anywhere in this country that you know

of, at any university or any public or nonprofit corporation, where

information is gathered and assimilated, dealt with in this area?

Ms. LEDERER. I can say that The Protection Project——.

Mr. HILLIARD. The only one basically that you know of?

Ms. LEDERER. That I know of, that is gathering in a methodologically sound way. We are asking every country the same set of questions, and we are also asking all the NGO’s in the various countries

the same set of questions so that when we get all of the information back, we will not have that apples and oranges situation. We

have got responses now from the 220 countries and territories,

from about 180 countries. So we are doing phenomenally well in

terms of the countries responding to us. Now it is a matter of taking and looking at that information and seeing what we have got.

Mr. HILLIARD. What about here in this country? From time to

time I read articles, stories, somewhat similar, not as brutal, about

people who have come here and who have to engage in prostitution,

forced prostitution, to pay for being here and to pay for their fear

coming here.

I would think that this is not just some individual act. I understand that there are certain type, mobster type criminal elements

involved. I would think that somewhere in this country there would

be something, some law enforcement agency that would keep this

type of information, or ought to be. Do you know of anyone here

in this country keeping that information?

Mr. HAUGEN. Just to respond, our focus is entirely upon international forced prostitution, but I would imagine that my former

colleagues at the Department of Justice and the FBI would have

some data on their view of the magnitude of the sexual trafficking

problem here in the United States. I am quite confident of that.

Mr. HILLIARD. My final question: Is there a list anywhere that

you have run across that shows in any detail those countries that

are worse off in terms of sexual trafficking?

Ms. LEDERER. I think Ms. Lord did touch on a number of the

countries. I know I don’t know of any lists. From the work we have

done, I believe that every country has a trafficking problem, and

it isn’t only 10 or 12 countries. We really do have to look at the

seriousness of commercial sexual exploitation in all its forms in

every country.

Mr. HILLIARD. When you start dealing with that list, there is no

country that is going to be want to be at the top. That is one weapon you may want to think of down the road. We used that during

the civil rights movement. No city, no government, no state wanted

to be at the top.

Ms. LEDERER. Good advice.

Mr. HAUGEN. The traditional human rights organizations have

done some work in trying to identify those countries that are egregious violators of sexual trafficking and have done a good job of

raising that. It raises the stakes considerably when that opinion of

a country is rendered by an official body of the U.S. Government.

Mr. HILLIARD. Yes, I would think so. Thank you very much for

your testimony.
53

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, and for cosponsoring the legislation. One of the reasons we are at logger heads with the Administration on the very office we hope to create is that the very reason

we heard in testimony today, the Administration is unable because

there is a dearth of data, to tell us who are the dirty dozen, or the

top 10 in terms of the offending countries. We have inadequate information and we need to hyper start this whole process. That is

what our legislation in part would seek to do. In addition to the

penalty side, it would also massively gather that information.

Like you said, it would take a model from civil rights, and begin

to say these are the worst offenders. If you want to get off that list,

there are things you can do. Stop exporting and exploiting your

women.

So the gentleman’s point is well taken, and we do cover that in

the legislation. So I thank the gentleman for that.

I want to thank our witnesses as well for your great work. Again,

Anita, thank you for your courage in coming forward. You have

done the cause of trying to stop this horrible practice a great service today. We are very, very grateful.

Thank you.

[Whereupon, at 4:07 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

(55)

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