Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS.
(a) SHORT TITLE.—This Act may be cited as the
‘‘Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000’’.
(b) TABLE OF CONTENTS.—The table of contents for
this Act is as follows:
Sec.
1. Short title; table of contents.
Sec.
2. Purposes and findings.
Sec.
3. Definitions.
Sec.
4. Annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.
Sec.
5. Interagency task force to monitor and combat trafficking.
Sec.
6. Prevention of trafficking.
Sec.
7. Protection and assistance for victims of trafficking.
Sec.
8. Minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking.
Sec.
9. Assistance to foreign countries to meet minimum standards.
Sec. 10. Actions against governments failing to meet minimum standards.
Sec. 11. Actions against significant traffickers.
Sec. 12. Strengthening protection and punishment of traffickers.
Sec. 13. Authorization of appropriations.
SEC. 2. PURPOSES AND FINDINGS.
(a) PURPOSES.—The purposes of this Act are to com-
bat trafficking in persons, a contemporary manifestation
of slavery whose victims are predominantly women and
children, to ensure just and effective punishment of traf-
fickers, and to protect their victims.
(b) FINDINGS.—The Congress finds that:
(1) Millions of people every year, primarily
women or children, are trafficked within or across
international borders. Approximately 50,000 women
and children are trafficked into the United States
each year.
(2) Many of these persons, of whom the over-
whelming majority are women and children, are traf-
ficked into the international sex trade, often by
means of force, fraud, or coercion. The sex industry
has rapidly expanded over the past several decades.
It involves sexual exploitation of persons, predomi-
nantly women and girls, within activities related to
prostitution, pornography, sex tourism, and other
commercial sexual services. The rapid expansion of
the sex industry and the low status of women in
many parts of the world have contributed to a bur-
geoning of the trafficking industry, of which sex
trafficking by force, fraud, and coercion is a major
component.
(3) Trafficking in persons is not limited to sex
trafficking, but often involves forced labor and other
violations 
of 
internationally 
recognized 
human
rights. The worldwide trafficking of persons is a
growing transnational crime, migration, economics,
labor, public health, and human rights problem that
is significant on nearly every continent.
(4) Traffickers primarily target women and
girls, who are disproportionately affected by poverty,
lack of access to education, chronic unemployment,
discrimination, and lack of viable economic opportu-
nities in countries of origin. Traffickers lure women
and girls into their networks through false promises
of good working conditions at relatively high pay as
nannies, maids, dancers, factory workers, restaurant
workers, sales clerks, or models. Traffickers also buy
girls from poor families and sell them into prostitu-
tion or into various types of forced or bonded labor.
(5) Traffickers often facilitate victims’ move-
ment from their home communities to unfamiliar
destinations, away from family and friends, religious
institutions, and other sources of protection and sup-
port, making the victims more vulnerable.
(6) Victims are often forced to engage in sex
acts or to perform labor or other services through
physical violence, including rape and other forms of
sexual abuse, torture, starvation, and imprisonment,
through threats of violence, and through other forms
of psychological abuse and coercion.
(7) Trafficking is perpetrated increasingly by
organized and sophisticated criminal enterprises.
Trafficking in persons is the fastest growing source
of profits for organized criminal enterprises world-
wide. Profits from the trafficking industry con-
tribute to the expansion of organized criminal activ-
ity in the United States and around the world. Traf-
ficking often is aided by official corruption in coun-
tries of origin, transit, and destination, thereby
threatening the rule of law.
(8) Traffickers often make representations to
their victims that physical harm may occur to them
or to others should the victim escape or attempt to
escape. Such representations can have the same co-
ercive effects on victims as specific threats to inflict
such harm.
(9) Sex trafficking, when it involves the invol-
untary participation of another person in sex acts by
means of fraud, force, or coercion, includes all the
elements of the crime of forcible rape, which is de-
fined by all legal systems as among the most serious
of all crimes.
(10) Sex trafficking also involves frequent and
serious violations of other laws, including labor and
immigration codes and laws against kidnapping,
slavery, false imprisonment, assault, battery, pan-
dering, fraud, and extortion.
(11) Women and children trafficked into the
sex industry are exposed to deadly diseases, includ-
ing HIV and AIDS. Trafficking victims are some-
times worked or physically brutalized to death.
(12) Trafficking in persons substantially affects
interstate and foreign commerce. The United States
must take action to eradicate the substantial bur-
dens on commerce that result from trafficking in
persons and to prevent the channels of commerce
from being used for immoral and injurious purposes.
(13) Trafficking of persons in all its forms is
an evil that calls for concerted and vigorous action
by countries of origin, transit countries, receiving
countries, and international organizations.
(14) Existing legislation and law enforcement in
the United States and in other nations around the
world have proved inadequate to deter trafficking
and to bring traffickers to justice, principally be-
cause such legislation and enforcement do not reflect
the gravity of the offenses involved. No comprehen-
sive law exists in the United States that penalizes
the range of offenses involved in the trafficking
scheme. Instead, even the most brutal instances of
forcible sex trafficking are often punished under
laws that also apply to far less serious offenses such
as consensual sexual activity and illegal immigration,
so that traffickers typically escape severe punish-
ment.
(15) In the United States, the seriousness of
the crime of trafficking in persons is not reflected in
current sentencing guidelines for component crimes
of the trafficking scheme, which results in weak pen-
alties for convicted traffickers. Adequate services
and facilities do not exist to meet the health care,
housing, education, and legal assistance needs for
the safe reintegration of domestic trafficking victims.
(16) In some countries, enforcement against
traffickers is also hindered by official indifference,
by corruption, and sometimes even by active official
participation in trafficking.
(17) Because existing laws and law enforcement
procedures often fail to make clear distinctions be-
tween victims of trafficking and persons who have
knowingly and willfully violated laws, and because
victims often do not have legal immigration status in
the countries into which they are trafficked, the vic-
tims are often punished more harshly than the traf-
fickers themselves.
(18) Because victims of trafficking are fre-
quently unfamiliar with the laws, cultures, and lan-
guages of the countries into which they have been
trafficked, and because they are often subjected to
coercion and intimidation including physical deten-
tion, debt bondage, fear of retribution, and fear of
forcible removal to countries in which they will face
retribution or other hardship, these victims often
find it difficult or impossible to report the crimes
committed against them or to assist in the investiga-
tion and prosecution of such crimes.
(19) The United States and the international
community are in agreement that trafficking in per-
sons often involves grave violations of human rights
and is a matter of pressing international concern.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the
Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slav-
ery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices
Similar to Slavery; the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights; the Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against
Women; the Convention Against Torture and Other
Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punish-
ment, and other relevant instruments condemn slav-
ery and involuntary servitude, violence against
women, and other components of the trafficking
scheme.
(20) One of the founding documents of the
United States, the Declaration of Independence, rec-
ognizes the inherent dignity and worth of all people.
It states that all men are created equal and that
they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable rights. The right to be free from slavery
and involuntary servitude is among those unalienable
rights. Acknowledging this fact, the United States
outlawed slavery and involuntary servitude in 1865,
recognizing them as evil institutions that must be
abolished. Current practices of sexual slavery and
trafficking of women and children are similarly ab-
horrent to the principles upon which our country
was founded.
(21) The Universal Declaration of Human
Rights recognizes the right to be free from slavery
and involuntary servitude, arbitrary detention, de-
grading or inhuman treatment, and arbitrary inter-
ference with privacy or the family, as well as the
right to protection by law against these abuses.
(22) The United Nations General Assembly has
passed three resolutions during the last 3 years (50/
167, 51/66, and 52/98) recognizing that the inter-
national traffic in women and girls, particularly for
purposes of forced prostitution, is a matter of press-
ing international concern involving numerous viola-
tions of fundamental human rights. The resolutions
call upon governments of receiving countries as well
as countries of origin to strengthen their laws
against such practices, to intensify their efforts to
enforce such laws, and to ensure the full protection,
treatment, and rehabilitation of women and children
who are victims of trafficking.
(23) The Final Report of the World Congress
against Sexual Exploitation of Children, held in
Stockholm, Sweden, in August 1996, recognized that
international sex trafficking is a principal cause of
increased exploitation and degradation of children.
(24) The Fourth World Conference on Women
(Beijing Conference) called on all governments to
take measures, including legislative measures, to
provide better protection of the rights of women and
girls who are victims of trafficking, to address the
root factors that put women and girls at risk to traf-
fickers, and to take measures to dismantle the na-
tional, regional, and international networks on traf-
ficking.
(25) In the 1991 Moscow Document of the Or-
ganization for Security and Co-operation in Europe,
participating states, including the United States,
agreed to seek to eliminate all forms of violence
against women, and all forms of traffic in women
and exploitation of prostitution of women including
by ensuring adequate legal prohibitions against such
acts and other appropriate measures.
(26) Numerous treaties to which the United
States is a party address government obligations to
combat trafficking, including such treaties as the
1956 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of
Slavery, the Slave Trade and Institutions and Prac-
tices Similar to Slavery, which calls for the complete
abolition of debt bondage and servile forms of mar-
riage, and the 1957 Abolition of Forced Labor Con-
vention, which undertakes to suppress and requires
signatories not to make use of any forced or compul-
sory labor.
(27) Trafficking in persons is a transnational
crime with national implications. In order to deter
international trafficking and to bring its perpetra-
tors to justice, nations including the United States
must recognize that trafficking is a serious offense
and must act on this recognition by prescribing ap-
propriate punishment, by giving the highest priority
to investigation and prosecution of trafficking of-
fenses, and by protecting rather than punishing the
victims of such offenses. The United States must
work bilaterally and multilaterally to abolish the
trafficking industry and take steps to promote and
facilitate cooperation among countries linked to-
gether by international trafficking routes. The
United States must also urge the international com-
munity to take strong action in multilateral fora to
engage recalcitrant countries in serious and sus-
tained efforts to eliminate trafficking and protect
trafficking victims.
SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.
For the purposes of this Act:
(1) ‘‘Sex trafficking’’ means the purchase, sale,
securing, recruitment, harboring, transportation,
transfer or receipt of a person for the purpose of a
commercial sex act.
(2) ‘‘Severe forms of trafficking in persons’’
means—
(A) sex trafficking in which either a com-
mercial sex act or any act or event contributing
to such act is effected or induced by force, coer-
cion, fraud, or deception, or in which the person
induced to perform such act has not attained
the age of 18 years; and
(B) the purchase, sale, securing, recruit-
ment, harboring, transportation, transfer or re-
ceipt of a person for the purpose of subjection
to involuntary servitude, peonage, or slavery or
slavery-like practices which is effected by force,
coercion, fraud, or deception.
(3) ‘‘Slavery-like practices’’ means inducement
of a person to perform labor or any other service or
act by force, by coercion, or by any scheme, plan, or
pattern to cause the person to believe that failure to
perform the work will result in the infliction of seri-
ous harm, debt bondage in which labor or services
are pledged for debt on terms calculated never to
allow full payment of the debt or otherwise amount-
ing to indentured servitude for life or for an indefi-
nite period, or subjection of the person to conditions
so harsh or degrading as to provide a clear indica-
tion that the person has been subjected to them by
force, fraud, or coercion.
(4) ‘‘Coercion’’ means the use of force, violence,
physical restraint, or acts or circumstances not nec-
essarily including physical force but calculated to
have the same effect, such as the credible threat of
force or of the infliction of serious harm.
(5) ‘‘Act of a severe form of trafficking in per-
sons’’ means any act at any point in the process of
a severe form of trafficking in persons, including any
act of recruitment, harboring, transport, transfer,
purchase, sale or receipt of a victim of such traf-
(A) any assistance under the Foreign As-
sistance Act of 1961 (including programs under
title IV of chapter 2 of part I of that Act, relat-
ing to the Overseas Private Investment Cor-
poration), other than—
(i) assistance under chapter 8 of part
I of that Act;
(ii) any other narcotics-related assist-
ance under part I of that Act or under
chapter 4 or 5 of part II of that Act, but
any such assistance provided under this
clause shall be subject to the prior notifica-
tion 
procedures 
applicable 
to
reprogrammings pursuant to section 634A
of that Act;
(iii) disaster relief assistance, includ-
ing any assistance under chapter 9 of part
I of that Act;
(iv) antiterrorism assistance under
chapter 8 of part II of that Act;
(v) assistance which involves the pro-
vision of food (including monetization of
food) or medicine;
(vi) assistance for refugees; and
(vii) humanitarian and other develop-
ment assistance in support of programs of
nongovernmental 
organizations 
under
chapters 1 and 10 of that Act;
(B) sales, or financing on any terms, under
the Arms Export Control Act, other than sales
or financing provided for narcotics-related pur-
poses following notification in accordance with
the prior notification procedures applicable to
reprogrammings pursuant to section 634A of
the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961; and
(C) financing under the Export-Import
Bank Act of 1945.
SEC. 4. ANNUAL COUNTRY REPORTS ON HUMAN RIGHTS
PRACTICES.
The Secretary of State, with the assistance of the As-
sistant Secretary of Democracy, Human Rights and
Labor, shall, as part of the annual Country Reports on
Human Rights Practices, include information to address
the status of trafficking in persons, including—
(1) a list of foreign countries that are countries
of origin, transit, or destination for a significant
number of victims of severe forms of trafficking;
(2) a description of the nature and extent of se-
vere forms of trafficking in persons in each country;
(3) an assessment of the efforts by the govern-
ments described in paragraph (1) to combat severe
forms of trafficking. Such an assessment shall
address—
(A) whether any governmental authorities
tolerate or are involved in such trafficking;
(B) which governmental authorities are in-
volved in activities to combat such trafficking;
(C) what steps the government has taken
against its officials who participate in, facili-
tate, or condone such trafficking;
(D) what steps the government has taken
to investigate and prosecute officials who par-
ticipate in or facilitate such trafficking;
(E) what steps the government has taken
to prohibit other individuals from participating
in such trafficking, including the investigation,
prosecution, and conviction of individuals in-
volved in severe forms of trafficking in persons,
the criminal and civil penalties for such traf-
ficking, and the efficacy of those penalties in
eliminating or reducing such trafficking;
(F) what steps the government has taken
to assist victims of such trafficking, including
efforts to prevent victims from being further
victimized by traffickers, government officials,
or others, grants of stays of deportation, and
provision of humanitarian relief, including pro-
vision of mental and physical health care and
shelter;
(G) whether the government—
(i) is cooperating with governments of
other countries to extradite traffickers
when requested;
(ii) is assisting in international inves-
tigations of transnational trafficking net-
works and in other co-operative efforts to
combat trafficking;
(iii) refrains from prosecuting victims
of severe forms of trafficking and from
other discriminatory treatment of such vic-
tims due to such victims having been traf-
ficked, or due to their having left or en-
tered the country illegally; and
(iv) recognizes the rights of victims
and ensures their access to justice.
(4) Information described in paragraph (2) and,
where appropriate, in paragraph (3) shall be in-
cluded in the annual Country Reports on Human
Rights Practices on a country-by-country basis.
(5) In addition to the information described in
this section, the Annual Country Reports on Human
Rights Practices may contain such other information
relating to trafficking in persons as the Secretary
determines to be appropriate.
SEC. 5. INTERAGENCY TASK FORCE TO MONITOR AND COM-
BAT TRAFFICKING.
(a) ESTABLISHMENT.—The President shall establish
an Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Traf-
ficking (in this section referred to as the ‘‘Task Force’’).
(b) APPOINTMENT.—The President shall appoint the
members of the Task Force, which shall include the Sec-
retary of State, the Director of the Agency for Inter-
national Development, the Attorney General, the Sec-
retary of Labor, the Secretary of Health and Human Serv-
ices, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and
such other officials as may be designated by the President.
(c) CHAIRMAN.—The Task Force shall be chaired by
the Secretary of State.
(d) SUPPORT FOR THE TASK FORCE.—The Secretary
of State is authorized to establish within the Department
of State an Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking,
which shall provide assistance to the Task Force. Any
such Office shall be administered by a Director. The Di-
rector shall have the primary responsibility for assisting