I
106TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION
H. R. 1238
To combat the crime of international trafficking and to protect the rights
of victims.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
MARCH 23, 1999
Ms. SLAUGHTER introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Com-
mittee on International Relations, and in addition to the Committee on
the Judiciary, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker,
in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the juris-
diction of the committee concerned
A BILL
To combat the crime of international trafficking and to
protect the rights of victims.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘International Traf-
ficking of Women and Children Victim Protection Act of
1999’’.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress makes the following findings:
(1) The worldwide trafficking of persons has a
disproportionate impact on women and girls and has
been and continues to be condemned by the inter-
national community as a violation of fundamental
human rights.
(2) The fastest growing international traf-
ficking business is the trade in women, whereby
women and girls seeking a better life, a good mar-
riage, or a lucrative job abroad, unexpectedly find
themselves in situations of forced prostitution,
sweatshop labor, exploitative domestic servitude, or
battering and extreme cruelty.
(3) Trafficked women and children, girls and
boys, are often subjected to rape and other forms of
sexual abuse by their traffickers and often held as
virtual prisoners by their exploiters, made to work in
slavery-like conditions, in debt bondage without pay
and against their will.
(4) The President, the First Lady, the Sec-
retary of State, the President’s Interagency Council
on Women, and the Agency for International Devel-
opment have all identified trafficking in women as a
significant problem.
(5) 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 in trafficking, to address the root factors that
put women and girls at risk to traffickers, and to
take measures to dismantle the national, regional,
and international networks on trafficking.
(6) The United Nations General Assembly, not-
ing its concern about the increasing number of
women and girls who are being victimized by traf-
fickers, passed a resolution in 1998 calling upon all
governments to criminalize trafficking in women and
girls in all its forms and to penalize all those offend-
ers involved, while ensuring that the victims of these
practices are not penalized.
(7) 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.
SEC. 3. PURPOSES.
The purposes of this Act are to condemn and combat
the international crime of trafficking in women and chil-
dren and to assist the victims of this crime by—
(1) setting a standard by which governments
are evaluated for their response to trafficking and
their treatment of victims;
(2) authorizing and funding an interagency task
force to carry out such evaluations and to issue an
annual report of its findings to include the identi-
fication of foreign governments that tolerate or par-
ticipate in trafficking and fail to cooperate with
international efforts to prosecute perpetrators;
(3) assisting trafficking victims in the United
States by providing humanitarian assistance and by
providing them temporary nonimmigrant status in
the United States;
(4) assisting trafficking victims abroad by pro-
viding humanitarian assistance; and
(5) denying certain forms of United States for-
eign assistance to those governments which tolerate
or participate in trafficking, abuse victims, and fail
to cooperate with international efforts to prosecute
perpetrators.
SEC. 4. DEFINITIONS.
In this Act:
(1) POLICE
ASSISTANCE.—The term ‘‘police
assistance’’—
(A) means—
(i) assistance of any kind, whether in
the form of grant, loan, training, or other-
wise, provided to or for foreign law en-
forcement officials, foreign customs offi-
cials, or foreign immigration officials;
(ii) government-to-government sales of
any item to or for foreign law enforcement
officials, foreign customs officials, or for-
eign immigration officials; and
(iii) any license for the export of an
item sold under contract to or for the offi-
cials described in clause (i); and
(B) does not include assistance furnished
under section 534 of the Foreign Assistance
Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2346c; relating to the
administration of justice) or any other assist-
ance under that Act to promote respect for
internationally recognized human rights.
(2) TRAFFICKING.—The term ‘‘trafficking’’
means the use of deception, coercion, debt bondage,
the threat of force, or the abuse of authority to re-
cruit, transport within or across borders, purchase,
sell, transfer, receive, or harbor a person for the
purpose of placing or holding such person, whether
for pay or not, in involuntary servitude, or slavery
or slavery-like conditions, or in forced, bonded, or
coerced labor.
(3) VICTIM OF TRAFFICKING.—The term ‘‘vic-
tim of trafficking’’ means any person subjected to
the treatment described in paragraph (2).
SEC. 5. INTER-AGENCY TASK FORCE TO MONITOR AND
COMBAT TRAFFICKING.
(a) ESTABLISHMENT.—
(1) IN GENERAL.—There is established within
the Department of State in the Office of the Sec-
retary of State an Inter-Agency Task Force to Mon-
itor and Combat Trafficking (in this section referred
to as the ‘‘Task Force’’). The Task Force shall be
co-chaired by the Assistant Secretary of State for
Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Affairs and
the Senior Coordinator on International Women’s
Issues, President’s Interagency Council on Women.
(2) APPOINTMENT
OF
MEMBERS.—The mem-
bers of the Task Force shall be appointed by the
Secretary of State. The Task Force shall consist of
no more than twelve members.
(3) COMPOSITION.—The Task Force shall in-
clude representatives from the—
(A) Violence Against Women Office, Office
of Justice Programs, Department of Justice;
(B) Office of Women in Development,
United States Agency for International Devel-
opment; and
(C) Bureau of International Narcotics and
Law Enforcement Affairs, Department of State.
(4) STAFF.—The Task Force shall be author-
ized to retain up to five staff members within the
Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor
Affairs, and the President’s Interagency Council on
Women to prepare the annual report described in
subsection (b) and to carry out additional tasks
which the Task Force may require. The Task Force
shall regularly hold meetings on its activities with
nongovernmental organizations.
(b) ANNUAL REPORT TO CONGRESS.—Not later than
March 1 of each year, the Secretary of State, with the
assistance of the Task Force, shall submit a report to Con-
gress describing the status of international trafficking,
including—
(1) a list of foreign states where trafficking
originates, passes through, or is a destination; and
(2) an assessment of the efforts by the govern-
ments described in paragraph (1) to combat traf-
ficking. Such an assessment shall address—
(A) whether any governmental authorities
tolerate or are involved in trafficking activities;
(B) which governmental authorities are in-
volved in anti-trafficking activities;
(C) what steps the government has taken
toward ending the participation of its officials
in trafficking;
(D) what steps the government has taken
to prosecute and investigate those officials
found to be involved in trafficking;
(E) what steps the government has taken
to prohibit other individuals from participating
in trafficking, including the investigation, pros-
ecution, and conviction of individuals involved
in trafficking, the criminal and civil penalties
for trafficking, and the efficacy of those pen-
alties on reducing or ending trafficking;
(F) what steps the government has taken
to assist trafficking victims, including efforts to
prevent victims from being further victimized by
police, traffickers, or others, grants of stays of
deportation, and provision of humanitarian re-
lief, including provision of mental and physical
health care and shelter;
(G) whether the government is cooperating
with governments of other countries to extradite
traffickers when requested;
(H) whether the government is assisting in
international investigations of transnational
trafficking networks; and
(I) whether the government—
(i) refrains from prosecuting traf-
ficking victims or refrains from other dis-
criminatory treatment towards trafficking
victims due to such victims having been
trafficked, or the nature of their work, or
their having left the country illegally; and
(ii) recognizes the rights of victims
and ensures their access to justice.
(c) REPORTING STANDARDS AND INVESTIGATIONS.—
(1) RESPONSIBILITY
OF
THE
SECRETARY
OF
STATE.—The Secretary of State shall ensure that
United States missions abroad maintain a consistent
reporting standard and thoroughly investigate re-
ports of trafficking.
(2) CONTACTS WITH NONGOVERNMENTAL OR-
GANIZATIONS.—In compiling data and assessing
trafficking for the Human Rights Report and the
Inter-Agency Task Force to Monitor and Combat
Trafficking Annual Report, United States mission
personnel shall seek out and maintain contacts with
human rights and other nongovernmental organiza-
tions, including receiving reports and updates from
such organizations, and, when appropriate, inves-
tigating such reports.
SEC. 6. INELIGIBILITY FOR POLICE ASSISTANCE.
(a) INELIGIBILITY.—Except as provided in sub-
section (b), any foreign government country identified in
the latest report submitted under section 5 as a govern-
ment that—
(1) has failed to take effective action towards
ending the participation of its officials in trafficking;
and
(2) has failed to investigate and prosecute
meaningfully those officials found to be involved in
trafficking,
shall not be eligible for police assistance.
(b) WAIVER OF INELIGIBILITY.—The President may
waive the application of subsection (a) to a foreign country
if the President determines and certifies to Congress that
the provision of police assistance to the country is in the
national interest of the United States.
SEC. 7. PROTECTION OF TRAFFICKING VICTIMS.
(a) NONIMMIGRANT CLASSIFICATION
FOR TRAF-
FICKING VICTIMS.—Section 101(a)(15) of the Immigra-
tion and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(15)) is
amended—
(1) by striking ‘‘or’’ at the end of subparagraph
(R);
(2) by striking the period at the end of sub-
paragraph (S) and inserting ‘‘; or’’; and
(3) by adding at the end the following new sub-
paragraph:
‘‘(T) an alien who the Attorney General
determines—
‘‘(i) is physically present in the
United States, and
‘‘(ii) is or has been a trafficking vic-
tim (as defined in section 4 of the Inter-
national Trafficking of Women and Chil-
dren Victim Protection Act of 1999),
for a stay of not to exceed 3 months in the
United States, except that any such alien who
has filed a petition seeking asylum or who is
pursuing civil or criminal action against traf-
fickers shall have the alien’s status extended
until the petition or litigation reaches its con-
clusion.’’.
(b) WAIVER OF GROUNDS FOR INELIGIBILITY FOR
ADMISSION.—Section 212(d) of the Immigration and Na-
tionality Act (8 U.S.C. 1182(d)) is amended—
(1) by inserting ‘‘(1)’’ after ‘‘(d)’’; and
(2) by adding at the end the following:
‘‘(2) The Attorney General shall, in the Attor-
ney General’s discretion, waive the application of
subsection (a) (other than paragraph (3)(E)) in the
case of a nonimmigrant described in section
101(a)(15)(T), if the Attorney General considers it
to be in the national interest to do so.’’.
(c) INVOLUNTARY SERVITUDE.—Section 1584 of title
18, United States Code, is amended—
(1) inserting ‘‘(a)’’ before ‘‘Whoever’’;
(2) by striking ‘‘or’’ after ‘‘servitude’’;
(3) by inserting ‘‘transfers, receives or harbors
any person into involuntary servitude, or’’ after
‘‘servitude,’’; and
(4) by adding at the end the following:
‘‘(b) In this section, the term ‘involuntary servitude’
includes trafficking, slavery-like practices in which persons
are forced into labor through non-physical means, such as
debt bondage, blackmail, fraud, deceit, isolation, and psy-
chological pressure.’’.