The Women's Freedom Network Newsletter
July/August,
2002; Volume 9, No. 4
Combating International Sex Trafficking:
Progress Made, Challenges Still Ahead
by Andrea Bertone
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The Women's Freedom Network Newsletter Combating International Sex Trafficking: by Andrea Bertone |
| Approximately 50,000 women and children are being trafficked into the United States each year from every comer of the globe in order to supply the multi-billion dollar sex industry. |
In another more recent case in July 2002, FBI agents busted a nationwide bribery, money laundering and prostitution ring. Agents made 30 arrests in eight states, the culmination of a five-year investigation that began when owners of a massage parlor in Blount County, Tennessee allegedly tried to bribe public officials, including a judge. When federal authorities began looking into the parlors, they also found spas, modeling studios and hostess bars. Arrests were made in California, Tennessee, North Carolina, Texas, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio. The FBI said that the bar owners coordinated with a broker in Korea that would provide women with visas. If visas couldn't be arranged, the women were flown to Mexico, where another broker would drive them over the border. The women would repay the debts of their travel and living expenses by providing services, such as "dates" and sex, to customers of the club. (2)
The Problem
As horrifying as this may sound, it is estimated by the U.S. State Department that approximately 50,000 women and children are being trafficked into the United States each year from every comer of the globe in order to supply the multi-billion dollar sex industry. (3)
The accuracy of these statistics of women being trafficked must be questioned because there has been no systematic determination of the actual numbers of people trafficked into the U.S. every year. Moreover, the statistics that are available about the number of women and girls who are trafficked worldwide are equally problematic. The available numbers published range anywhere from 700,000 to four million, however, we need to stay wary of the numbers until better tools are found to measure such flows.
Sex tourism, mail order brides, prostitution in brothels, pornography, child prostitution and child pornography, Internet accessibility to pornography, militarized sexual service and trafficking in females (women and children) for sexual exploitation are examples of a hugely profitable business called the international sex trade. Trafficking in girls and women is a large subset of the international sex trade in which women are coerced, enslaved, kidnapped, tortured, and/or raped in order to sexually service men. (4)
Trafficking in girls and women for purposes of sexual exploitation can involve three different situations. First, the woman is aware before she travels that she will be involved in sexualized employment. Second, the woman thinks that she will be working in another service sector and agrees to migrate across an international border. Third, the woman is kidnapped and sold into prostitution, or forced marriage.
Trafficking is distinguished from smuggling of migrants because of the distinctive element of coercion involved in trafficking. A woman can be "smuggled" into a country by a third party, knowingly entering into a life of prostitution, or simply thinking that she will work as a waitress, dancer, maid, au pair. But, she then can be considered "trafficked" because her freedoms are removed by having her passport taken away from her and by being forced to sexually service men without getting paid for her work. Her conditions of bondage and slavery are usually unknown to her before she is smuggled and the acts of violence, rape, and coercion signify the offense of trafficking. Sometimes the woman is aware of the nature of the work at the point of leaving but on arrival finds herself in a situation where her fundamental human rights and freedoms are violated. (5) Women who are not aware that they will be entering a life of prostitution upon arrival in a different country, either because they were tricked into believing they would be entering another profession or because they were kidnapped, will be initiated into the life of prostitution by repeated rapes and beatings.
Those who are most often responsible for the trafficking and smuggling are transnational criminal networks. Some networks are very small, involving two or three people, other networks involve dozens of people who work for large transnational criminal organizations such as the Japanese Yakuza, the Chinese Triad, or the Italian, Albanian and Russian Mafias.
I would now like to take the opportunity to look at some of the important progress policy-makers, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and international organizations have made in terms of tackling the very complicated, and difficult problem of the international trafficking of women and girls for sexual exploitation.
The Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act
The Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) (6) is a new United States federal law which provides instruments for prevention of trafficking, protection for the women and girls involved, and punishment of the traffickers. If implemented effectively, the TVPA could have tremendous implications for curbing the growth of trafficking into the United States from all over the world. Previous legislation and law enforcement efforts in the United States 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) which was never intended to deter trafficking. What makes the TVPA a powerful tool against trafficking is its commitment to cooperate with other governments, human rights organizations, and non-governmental organizations.
TVPA has two prongs: international and domestic.
The first prong is the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons established by the Department of State in October 2001. This Office is responsible for releasing an annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report (7) on the anti-trafficking efforts (or lack thereof) of numerous countries. The report placed each of the countries that are included on the report into one of the three tiers mandated by the Act. This placement is based upon governments' efforts to combat trafficking. In accordance with the Act, countries whose governments fully comply with its minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking were placed in Tier 1. Countries whose governments do not fully comply with those standards were placed in Tier 2 if they are making "significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance" with the standards, or in Tier 3 if they are not. (8)
The State Department Trafficking Office is responsible for working with other countries, international organizations, and NGOs to encourage them to combat trafficking. TVPA also 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. (9) Finally, the teeth of the TVPA is the policy of the United States not to provide non-humanitarian, nontrade-related foreign assistance to any government which 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. (10) However, the TIP report has been criticized because of its cursory attention to an incomplete number of countries, as well as the possible application of "sanctions" to countries placed in Tier 3 which may exacerbate the problem of trafficking. (11) Another point of criticism is the fact that a country report of the United States has not been included in the TIP report.
The second prong monitors trafficking in persons into the United States. Victims of trafficking in the United States are eligible for public benefits and services similar to the rights of a legal alien. Moreover, if they are willing to assist in the investigation and prosecution of severe forms of trafficking in persons, they can apply for the new T-visa that has been created for women who are victims of severe forms of trafficking. The T-visa grants them certification to remain in the United States. Through the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, a Trafficking in Persons and Worker Exploitation Task Force has been created in order to prevent trafficking in persons and worker exploitation throughout the United States and to investigate and prosecute cases when such violations occur. (12) However, even though there have been arrests of traffickers, it is unclear to what extent the TVPA is acting as a deterrent. Complete information on arrests and prosecutions concerning trafficking in the United States is difficult to find.
United Nations Convention on Transnational Crime
A second powerful legal instrument passed in the last year is the United Nations Convention on Transnational Crime (Convention). Although, as an instrument 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: first, against trafficking in women and children, second, against trafficking in firearms, and third, against smuggling of migrants. Most importantly, it makes a legal, definitional distinction between smuggling and trafficking, which I mentioned earlier. One of the Convention's many goals is to facilitate recognition and understanding of the problem, and promote cooperation among sending, transit, and receiving states. (13)
Progress Made
The first aspect of the several forms of progress that has been made, is that a distinction is now being made in public discourse and laws, between smuggling of migrants and trafficking in girls and women. Until about two years 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 move for a variety of reasons. And in terms of prevention, protection, and prosecution, we needed a more nuanced comprehension of the phenomena.
Second, is that NGOs all over the world have expanded 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 of NGOs, international organizations, and governments at many levels: individual, societal, national and international.
Fourth, NGOs involved in lobbying the United States Congress to get the TVPA 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 issue in terms of modern day slavery. The human rights regime has been altered by recognizing that human rights means rights for women as well.
Challenges Still Ahead
There are many challenges still ahead for those who are committed to ending what has been termed "modern- day slavery." I identify six primary challenges to the efforts already made by NGOs, international organizations, and states.
First, it is widely agreed that the contemporary sex trade has its roots in the international political economy of the capitalist, world market. (14) 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 some 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 facilitate greatly the international sex trafficking of girls nad 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 and early 21st centuries' 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. Many states, instead of using their resources to identify and prosecute the traffickers, are treating the women, who most often are illegal aliens, as criminals.
Fourth, within the last ten years these criminal networks have claimed that the sex trade is emerging as the most lucrative enterprise because girls and women are "renewable resources," and girls and women can be forced to flee from situations where raiding by enforcement officials is imminent. Money can be made from girls' bodies 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 under-developed 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.
Last, states can act as facilitators of the sex trade either by 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 trans-national criminal networks. However, there are many institutional facilitators of trafficking such as corrupt law enforcement officials who frequent brothels containing trafficked females, and border guards who accept bribes for allowing people across a border without proper documentation. The role that state officials play in facilitating trafficking is strong proof that we cannot always blame "forces of globalization" for global trafficking.
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, NGO's governments, international organizations - possess powerful resources in tandem that are the only weapon for this egregious crime against humanity.
Bill Wallace. "19 Indicted in Area wide Prostitution, Smuggle Ring
Allegedly Forced Asian Women into Brothels." San Francisco Chronicle. 02-13-2001.