The Women's Freedom Network Newsletter March/April, 2001, Vol. 8, Number 2. International Sex Trafficking in Women: Progress Made, Challenges Still Ahead by Andrea M. Bertone

A t the outset of this year, a number of high profile prostitution rings have been cracked in the United States prostitution as a result of being trafficked or smuggled. In February 2001, a high profile sex trafficking ring was broken. It took authorities of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, in cooperation with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, two years to cap an investigation into a prostitution and immigrant smuggling case in San Francisco called "Operation Night Crawler."

In total 19 people were indicted. However, 12 alleged members of the ring were arrested during the weekend of February 10, 2001 for allegedly smuggling and trafficking women into the United States from Korea, Malaysia and Thailand and forcing them to work in low-profile brothels in California and other parts of the country. In addition, the ring allegedly imported illegal immigrant women from other parts of the United States, including Texas, Arizona, Minnesota, Louisiana and New York. The investigation revealed that the ring was managing brothels in more than 20 cities nationwide, including San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York. The brothels were typically operated out of single-family homes in suburban settings where they were less likely to arouse suspicion. Some of the women paid the ring's organizers $40,000 to be smuggled into the U.S., and were required to repay the debt to smugglers by working as prostitutes. ¹ As horrifying as this may sound, approximately 50,000 women are being brought into the United States every year from every corner of the globe in order to supply the multi-billion dollar sex industry.²

On November 8 & 9, 1999 the Women's Freedom Network hosted a one-day conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C on Sexual Trafficking. I presented my research at the conference where I attempted to use the tools of social science theory to understand why and how sexual trafficking is taking place at increasingly high levels all over the world. A little over a year later, I would now like to take the opportunity to look at some of the important progress policy makers, NGOs, and international organizations have made in terms of tackling the very complicated, and difficult problem of the international trafficking of girls and women for sexual exploitation.

The Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 ³ is a new United States federal law that provides instruments for prevention of trafficking, protection for the women and girls involved, and punishment of the traffickers. If implemented effectively, this law could have tremendous implications for curbing the growth of trafficking into the United States from all over the world.

Existing legislation and law enforcement in the United States and other countries previous to the passage of this bill into law were insufficient to deter trafficking and aid women who were trafficked. Federal prosecutors were forced to use laws such as the RICO Act (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) that were not originally intended to be used to deter trafficking.

What makes the Victims of Trafficking Act a powerful tool against trafficking is its commitment to cooperate with other governments, human rights organizations, and non-governmental organizations. The Act requires annual country reports on human rights practices, and calls for the creation of an interagency task force to monitor and combat trafficking. It requires the President of the United States to establish and carry out international initiatives to enhance economic opportunity for potential victims of trafficking such as creating programs which facilitate micro-credit lending and keeping children, especially in elementary and secondary schools. ⁴ Also, victims of trafficking in the United States are eligible for benefits and services, and they are certified to remain in the United States if they are willing to assist in the investigation and prosecution of severe forms of trafficking in person, and have made applications for visas; a new "T" Visa has been created for women who have been trafficked. Finally, and most interestingly, is the policy of the United States not to provide non-humanitarian , non-trade related foreign assistance to any government that does not comply with minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, and is not making significant efforts to bring itself into compliance with such standards.⁵

A second powerful legal instrument passed in the last year is the United Nations Convention on Transnational Crime. Although, as a piece of international law, it does not have strong enforcement mechanisms, this Convention has tremendous potential to build upon changing human-rights norms as they apply to migrants and women. Under the Convention there are three highly relevant protocols: against trafficking in women and children, firearms, and smuggling migrants. Most importantly, it makes a legal definitional distinction between smuggling and trafficking. The Convention recognizes that transnational organized crime, one of its many goals, is to facilitate recognition and understanding of the problem, and promote cooperation among sending, transit, and receiving states.⁶

Progress Made

The progress that has been made can be delineated in several ways. The first is that a distinction is being made in public discourse and laws between smuggling of migrants and trafficking in girls and women. Until about a year ago, these two words were being used interchangeably to describe the movement of people across international borders. However with greater attention to the issues, and by talking to the people who were moving or being moved, we understood that people moved for a variety of reasons. And in terms of prevention, protection, and prosecution, we needed a more nuanced comprehension of the phenomena.

The second is that non-governmental organizations all over the world have grown in their capacity to effect change for women by holding national, regional, and international conferences, lobbying national governments for stronger anti-trafficking laws, and implementing information campaigns to women in at-risk areas of the world.

Third, there is recognition that change will only take place through cooperation at many levels: individual, societal, national and international. Fourth, NGOs involved in lobbying the United States Congress to get the Victims of Trafficking Act passed had to convince members of Congress that women were being abused, victimized, and enslaved, otherwise, they would not have agreed to create another visa category for these women. In other words, they used a human rights argument to appeal to lawmakers and couched the issues in terms of a modem day slavery argument. The human rights regime is being altered through recognition that human rights means rights for women as well.

Challenges Still Ahead

There are still many challenges ahead for those who are committed to fighting to end what has been termed the modem day slavery. I identify six primary challenges to the efforts already made by states and NGOs. First, it is widely agreed that the contemporary sex trade has its roots in the international political economy of the capitalist, world market.⁷ Globalization and the international political market economy create the conditions for the commodification of all goods and services, including humans as sexual goods and services. Although the market is arguably a neutral domain, in the case of the sex trade, it has very unfortunate consequences for people.

Second, trans-border conflicts, failed states, and the fragmentation of states cause increased international insecurity of borders and local economies. This has proven to greatly facilitate the international sex trafficking of girls and women. The collapse of the Soviet Union, and the transition of Eastern Europe from Communism, have been the single most important facilitators in the late 20th century proliferation of the sex trade in the West.

Third, the break down of political, economic and social boundaries due to forces of globalization leads to the greater legal and illegal movement of people across borders. When states must deal with migration deemed illegal, it drains the resources of many countries, especially in the West. These states, instead of using their resources to identify and prosecute the traffickers, are treating the women, who are illegal aliens, as criminals.

Fourth, within the last ten years these criminal networks, some very large, some small scale, have claimed that the sex trade is emerging as the most lucrative first, because girls and women are renewable resources, and second because girls and women can be forced to flee from situations where raiding by enforcement officials is imminent. Money can be made from girls' and women's bodies for extended periods of time, and they can be resold multiple times within and across borders.

Fifth, the second-class status of women in many countries feeds a patriarchal world system that hungers for and sustains the international subculture of docile women from underdeveloped nations. The girls and women themselves, who are forced or lured into the sex trade, believe that few other employment choices are open to them. If trafficking in women is a supply and demand issue, then the demand is a problem that is not being addressed.

Finally, states can act as facilitators of the sex trade by either not attempting to pass laws outlawing trafficking in women, or by not trying to enforce laws already in place. Many times states are powerless to act against stronger sub-state forces such as mafia groups or transnational criminal networks. There are many institutional facilitators of trafficking such as corrupt law enforcement officials who frequent brothels containing trafficked females.

The problems surrounding the issue of trafficking in girls and women for sexual exploitation seem daunting. However, trafficking can be severely deterred if there is prolonged and committed cooperation among many levels of actors. These actors -individuals, NGOs, governments, Intergovernmental Organizations - possess powerful resources in tandem that are the only weapon against this egregious crime against humanity.

Endnotes

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1. Bill Wallace, "19 Indicted in Area-wide Prostitution, Smuggling Ring Allegedly Forced Asian Women into Brothels." San Francisco Chronicle, February 13, 2001.

2. "Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000," United States H.R. 3244, Sec. 102.

3. http://www.shusterman.com/hr3244.html

4. "Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000," United States H.R. 3244, Sec. 106.

5. "Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000," United States H.R. 3244, Sec. 110 (a).

6. http://www.undcp.org/palermo/sum1.html

7. See Enloe 1989; Pettiman 1996; Raghu 1997; Skrobanek, et al 1997.