In the Senate of the United States,
July 27, 2000.
Resolved, That the bill from the House of Representa-
tives (H.R. 3244) entitled ‘‘An Act to combat trafficking of
persons, especially into the sex trade, slavery, and slavery-like
conditions, in the United States and countries around the
world through prevention, through prosecution and enforce-
ment against traffickers, and through protection and assist-
ance to victims of trafficking.’’, do pass with the following
AMENDMENT:
Strike out all after the enacting clause and insert:
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS.
(a) SHORT TITLE.—This Act may be cited as the
‘‘Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000’’.
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(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 traffickers in persons.
Sec. 12. Strengthening prosecution 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.—Congress finds that:
(1) As we begin the 21st century, the degrading
institution of slavery continues throughout the world.
Sex trafficking is a modern day form of slavery and
it is the largest manifestation of slavery today. Mil-
lions of people every year, primarily women and chil-
dren, 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 are trafficked into the
international sex trade, often by force, fraud, or coer-
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cion. The sex industry has rapidly expanded over the
past several decades. It involves sexual exploitation of
persons, predominantly women and girls, involving
activities related to prostitution, pornography, sex
tourism, and other commercial sexual services. The
low status of women in many parts of the world has
contributed to a burgeoning of the trafficking indus-
try.
(3) Trafficking in persons is not limited to the
sex industry. This growing transnational crime also
includes forced labor, and involves significant viola-
tions of minimal labor, public health, and human
rights standards worldwide.
(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 decent working conditions at relatively good pay as
nannies, maids, dancers, factory workers, restaurant
workers, sales clerks, or models. Traffickers also buy
children from poor families and sell them into pros-
titution or into various types of forced or bonded
labor.
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(5) Traffickers often transport victims from their
home communities to unfamiliar destinations, includ-
ing different countries away from family and friends,
religious institutions, and other sources of protection
and support, leaving the victims defenseless and vul-
nerable.
(6) Victims are often forced through physical vio-
lence to engage in sex acts or perform slavery-like
labor. Such force includes rape and other forms of
sexual abuse, torture, starvation, imprisonment,
threats, psychological abuse, and coercion.
(7) Traffickers often make representations to
their victims that physical harm may occur to them
or others should they escape or attempt to escape.
Such threats can have the same coercive effects on vic-
tims as actual infliction of harm.
(8) Trafficking in persons is increasingly per-
petrated by organized, sophisticated criminal enter-
prises. Such trafficking is the fastest growing source
of profits for organized criminal enterprises world-
wide. Profits from the trafficking industry contribute
to the expansion of organized crime in the United
States and worldwide. Trafficking often is aided by
official corruption in countries of origin, transit, and
destination, thereby threatening the rule of law.
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(14) Existing legislation and law enforcement in
the United States and other countries are inadequate
to deter trafficking and bring traffickers to justice,
failing to reflect the gravity of the offenses involved.
No comprehensive law exists in the United States that
penalizes the range of offenses involved in the traf-
ficking scheme. Instead, even the most brutal in-
stances of trafficking into the sex industry are often
punished under laws that also apply to lesser offenses
such as consensual sexual activity and illegal immi-
gration, so that traffickers typically escape deserved
punishment.
(15) In the United States, the seriousness of this
crime and its components are not reflected in current
sentencing guidelines, resulting in weak penalties for
convicted traffickers. Additionally, adequate services
and facilities do not exist to meet the needs of health
care, housing, education, and legal assistance, which
safely reintegrate trafficking victims into their home
countries.
(16) In some countries, enforcement against traf-
fickers is also hindered by official indifference, by cor-
ruption, and sometimes even by official participation
in trafficking.
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(17) Existing laws often fail to protect victims
of trafficking, and because victims are often illegal
immigrants in the destination country, they are re-
peatedly punished more harshly than the traffickers
themselves.
(18) Victims of severe forms of trafficking should
not be inappropriately incarcerated, fined, or other-
wise penalized solely for unlawful acts as a direct re-
sult of being trafficked, such as for having used false
documents, entering the country without documenta-
tion, or working without documentation.
(19) Victims of trafficking often find it difficult
or impossible to report the crimes committed against
them or to assist in the investigation and prosecution
of such crimes. This is because they are frequently un-
familiar with the laws, culture, and language of the
countries into which they are trafficked. Also, they are
often subjected to coercion, intimidation, physical de-
tention, debt bondage, and fear of forcible removal to
countries where they face hardship.
(20) The United States and the international
community agree that trafficking in persons involves
grave violations of human rights and is a matter of
pressing international concern. The international
community has repeatedly condemned slavery and in-
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voluntary servitude, violence against women, and
other elements of trafficking, through declarations,
treaties, United Nations resolutions and reports, in-
cluding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;
the 1956 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition
of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and
Practices Similar to Slavery; the 1957 Abolition of
Forced Labor Convention; 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; United Nations General Assembly Resolutions
50/167, 51/66, and 52/98; the Final Report of the
World Congress against Sexual Exploitation of Chil-
dren (Stockholm, 1996); the Fourth World Conference
on Women (Beijing, 1995); and the 1991 Moscow
Document of the Organization for Security and Co-
operation in Europe.
(21) Trafficking in persons is a transnational
crime with national implications. To deter inter-
national trafficking and bring its perpetrators to jus-
tice, nations including the United States must recog-
nize that trafficking is a serious offense. This is done
by prescribing appropriate punishment, giving pri-
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ority to the prosecution of trafficking offenses, and
protecting rather than punishing the victims of such
offenses. The United States must work bilaterally and
multilaterally to abolish the trafficking industry by
taking steps to promote cooperation among countries
linked together by international trafficking routes.
The United States must also urge the international
community to take strong action in multilateral fora
to engage recalcitrant countries in serious and sus-
tained efforts to eliminate trafficking and protect
trafficking victims.
(22) Trafficking in persons substantially affects
interstate and foreign commerce. Trafficking for such
purposes as involuntary servitude, peonage, and other
forms of forced labor has an impact on the nation-
wide employment network and labor market. Within
the context of slavery, servitude, and labor or services
which are obtained or maintained through coercive
conduct that amounts to a condition of servitude, vic-
tims are subjected to a range of violations.
(23) Involuntary servitude statutes are intended
to reach cases in which persons are held in a condi-
tion of servitude through nonviolent coercion. In
United States v. Kozminski, 487 U.S. 950 (1988), the
Supreme Court found that section 1584 of title 18,
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United States Code, should be narrowly interpreted,
absent a definition of involuntary servitude by Con-
gress. As a result, that section was interpreted to only
criminalize servitude coerced through force, threats of
force, or threats of legal coercion.
SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.
In this Act:
(1) 
APPROPRIATE
CONGRESSIONAL
COMMIT-
TEES.—The term ‘‘appropriate congressional commit-
tees’’ means the Committee on Foreign Relations and
the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate and the
Committee on International Relations and the Com-
mittee on the Judiciary of the House of Representa-
tives.
(2) COERCION.—The term ‘‘coercion’’ means—
(A) acts or circumstances not necessarily
including physical force but intended to have the
same effect; or
(B) any act, scheme, plan, or pattern in-
tended to cause a person to believe that failure
to perform an act will result in the infliction of
serious harm.
(3) COMMERCIAL SEX ACT.—The term ‘‘commer-
cial sex act’’ means any sex act whereby anything of
value is given to or received by any person.
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(4) DEBT BONDAGE.—The term ‘‘debt bondage’’
means the status or condition of a debtor arising from
a pledge by the debtor of his or her personal services
or of those of a person under his or her control as a
security for debt, if the value of those services as rea-
sonably assessed is not applied toward the liquidation
of the debt or the length and nature of those services
are not respectively limited and defined.
(5) INVOLUNTARY SERVITUDE.—The term ‘‘invol-
untary servitude’’ includes a condition of servitude
induced by means of—
(A) any act, scheme, plan, or pattern in-
tended to cause a person to believe that, if the
person did not enter into or continue in such
condition, that person or another person would
suffer serious harm or physical restraint, or
(B) the abuse or threatened abuse of the
legal process.
(6) MINIMUM STANDARDS FOR THE ELIMINATION
OF
TRAFFICKING.—The term ‘‘minimum standards
for the elimination of trafficking’’ means the stand-
ards set forth in section 8.
(7) SEVERE
FORMS
OF
TRAFFICKING
IN
PER-
SONS.—The term ‘‘severe forms of trafficking in per-
sons’’ means—
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(A) sex trafficking in which a commercial
sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or
in which the person induced to perform such act
has not attained 18 years of age; or
(B) the recruitment, harboring, transpor-
tation, provision, or obtaining of a person for
labor or services, through the use of force, fraud,
or coercion for the purpose of subjection to invol-
untary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slav-
ery.
(8) SEX
TRAFFICKING.—The term ‘‘sex traf-
ficking’’ means the recruitment, harboring, transpor-
tation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the
purpose of a commercial sex act.
(9) STATE.—The term ‘‘State’’ means any of the
fifty States of the United States, the District of Co-
lumbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Virgin
Islands, American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth
of the Northern Mariana Islands, and territories and
possessions of the United States.
(10) 
UNITED
STATES.—The 
term 
‘‘United
States’’ means the fifty States of the United States,
the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puer-
to Rico, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam,
the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands,
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and the territories and possessions of the United
States.
(11) VICTIM OF TRAFFICKING.—The term ‘‘vic-
tim of trafficking’’ means a person subjected to an act
or practice described in paragraph (7) or (8).
(12) VICTIM
OF
A
SEVERE
FORM
OF
TRAF-
FICKING.—The term ‘‘victim of a severe form of traf-
ficking’’ means a person subject to an act or practice
described in paragraph (7).
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 on the status of traf-
ficking in persons, including the following information:
(1) A description of the nature and extent of se-
vere forms of trafficking in persons in each country.
(2) 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;
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(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 partici-
pate 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 ef-
forts to prevent victims from being further vic-
timized by traffickers, government officials, or
others, grants of stays of deportation, and provi-
sion of humanitarian relief, including provision
of mental and physical health care and shelter;
(G) whether the government—
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(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 cooperative efforts to
combat trafficking;
(iii) refrains from prosecuting victims
of severe forms of trafficking and from other
discriminatory treatment of such victims
due to such victims having been trafficked,
or due to their having left or entered the
country illegally; and
(iv) recognizes the rights of victims
and ensures their access to justice.
(3) Information described in paragraph (2) and,
where appropriate, in paragraph (3) shall be included
in the annual Country Reports on Human Rights
Practices on a country-by-country basis.
(4) 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 de-
termines to be appropriate.
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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 Act 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 Administrator of the United States
Agency for International Development, the Attorney Gen-
eral, the Secretary of Labor, the Secretary of Health and
Human Services, the Director of Central Intelligence, 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 headed by a Director. The Director shall have
the primary responsibility for assisting the Secretary of
State in carrying out the purposes of this Act and may
have additional responsibilities as determined by the Sec-
retary. The Director shall consult with domestic, inter-
national nongovernmental organizations, and multilateral
organizations, including the Organization of American
States, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in