Read Holly Smith's article here:
http://www.commdiginews.com/life/survivors-offer-insight-to-federal-anti-trafficking-efforts-8865/
Showing posts with label Federal government of the United States. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Federal government of the United States. Show all posts
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Survivors offer insight to federal anti-trafficking efforts | Communities Digital News
Source: Communities Digital News
Read Holly Smith's article here:
http://www.commdiginews.com/life/survivors-offer-insight-to-federal-anti-trafficking-efforts-8865/
Read Holly Smith's article here:
http://www.commdiginews.com/life/survivors-offer-insight-to-federal-anti-trafficking-efforts-8865/
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Remarks at the President's Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons
Remarks
Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis, Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr., Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano
Jefferson Room
February 1, 2011
SECRETARY CLINTON: I think we’re going to try to get started because we have a quorum and we have others who will join us. And we have some new faces around the table for the first time, which is particularly gratifying. Bob, thank you for being here.
This is, as you probably saw on your schedules, the President’s Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking In Persons. This is mandated by the Congress because it is an issue of such great and grave importance that Congress wanted as many members of the Cabinet and the heads of agencies to come together to discuss it once a year. So I thank you for taking time out of what are amazingly busy schedules between national security issues and weather security issues to gather here. And I’m joined today by Under Secretary Maria Otero and Ambassador Luis CdeBaca. They are helping to lead our efforts here at the State Department and within the interagency process.
Very fittingly, we meet today on National Freedom Day to discuss the latest steps in a journey that our country has been taking for more than 150 years. On this day in 1865, President Lincoln signed the joint congressional resolution that became the 13th Amendment to the Constitution outlawing slavery. Yet modern slavery, often hidden and unrecognized, persists today on every continent and, most tragically, right here in the United States, despite being prohibited by both domestic legislation and international law.
Anywhere from 12 to 27 million people are currently held in forced labor, bonded labor, or forced prostitution. That’s equivalent to all the people who live in London at the low end and the combined populations of New York City, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. at the high end. The victims range from the men and women enslaved in fields, factories, and brothels to the girls and boys whose childhoods have been shattered and stolen, to the parents whose children have vanished. Whether they are far from home or in their own villages, they need and deserve our help and the help of the world.
Now, since we last met together last year, everyone around this table and our entire government has really achieved a great deal. We continue to strengthen our efforts. An obvious sign of our growth here today is that we are joined, for the first time, by the FBI, by the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of the Interior. Today, I hope we can hear how we will take this work to the next level, how we can ensure that trafficking is an issue we continue to address within our agencies and throughout our government, and I hope we’ll take on another important task – ending the practice of punishing the victims of human trafficking. For all the millions who are held in servitude, fewer than 50,000 have been officially identified as victims. Too many others are either ignored, or even worse, treated as criminals. So we need to do more to identify the true victims of human trafficking and help restore them to participation in our society.
I just want to kick off by describing several of our State Department initiatives. First and foremost, we will publish another edition of our annual Trafficking in Persons Report. Some countries have been downgraded and may be downgraded again automatically from Tier 2 Watch List to Tier 3, because they have not taken steps adequately to address trafficking. Now, this is an uncomfortable position for them to be in and for us. And as I travel around talking to heads of state and governments and ministers, they watch this very closely, and they often raise questions about their position on this list.
Now, last year, for the first time ever under my direction, we included the United States in this report. As President Obama has made clear, we want to be the best champion for our own ideals, and we want to live up to those ideals ourselves. And we know we can do more to diminish involuntary servitude and slavery in our own country.
Now, beyond this report, our Bureau of Diplomatic Security will establish an anti-trafficking unit to support its field offices which already participate in the 39 Department of Justice-funded anti-trafficking task forces nationwide. This new unit will centralize case referrals and command at headquarters and offer training to all agents, particularly on how to work with victims. We will also begin an annual briefing for visiting diplomats and their domestic workers as part of an ongoing effort we launched last year – thanks to Hilda and others for their help on this – to protect domestic workers brought here by diplomats and raise awareness within the diplomatic community. Whether they’re diplomats or national emissaries of whatever kind, we all must be accountable for the treatment of the people that we employ. We will also work with federal contractors to identify best practices for preventing trafficking, help them protect victims, and hold them accountable if they do not follow the federal government’s anti-trafficking policies.
And finally, we are working with many partners to develop a voluntary international code of conduct for private security service providers. Companies that sign the code commit to not engage in human trafficking and report allegations to competent authorities. To date, nearly 60 private security companies have signed the code, including many that contract with the U.S. Government.
Now, before we hear from a number of you about what your agencies are doing, I have a request. I would like to ask this group to task the Assistant Secretary Level Senior Policy Operating Group with developing an overarching victims services strategy. One of our continuing challenges is that we’ve not yet made the American public fully aware of the protections that are already available to victims who are United States citizens. And we need to maximize our resources by looking at other federal programs to serve all trafficking victims. A victims services strategy would do a great service to victims in our own country and set an example around the world.
So I would hope that the Senior Policy Operating Group would work together to hold a public meeting, to get the word out on the work we’re doing to interact with civil society groups, would inventory existing juvenile justice and child welfare programs that affect at-risk youth. That’s one of our biggest problems, is that an underage child gets picked up on the streets, there’s nowhere for that child to be held, so that young boy or girl is put into jail as opposed to a safe place.
We want to develop standards and training to ensure that children in prostitution are treated as victims, not criminals, and given the help they need, and determine whether having separate outreach and service programs for foreign and domestic victims is truly in their best interest. We have seen several legislative proposals to address these issues, and the Trafficking Act will be up for reauthorization in this Congress. But I think through greater interagency cooperation, we can make improvements and really set the agenda for, hopefully, the next decade, at least.
Now, I’d like to call on some of our colleagues to discuss some of the issues that they are dealing with, and I want to start with our Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, who has been a real champion of everything having to do with people in every setting, but in particular this area.
Hilda.
SECRETARY SOLIS: Thank you so much, Secretary Clinton. And I’m happy to join you with the Department of Labor to be a representative on the President’s Interagency Task Force on Trafficking in Persons. I’m firmly committed to supporting the mission of the task force, which includes our strong cooperation with my colleagues here today. This commitment builds upon the long history of the Department of Labor to protect and assist vulnerable workers. And I’m proud of the work the Department has done over the past year to help combat trafficking, both domestically and internationally. And I’m pleased that the DOL is a member of the Federal Enforcement Working Group spearheaded by Attorney General Holder. Through this effort, I am confident we will achieve the goals of assisting victims and dismantling trafficking organizations through high impact prosecutions.
This March is the one-year anniversary of the implementation of a new regulation for H2-A programs. Agricultural workers are a group most at risk of trafficking. These new regulations, reinstated, requires that employers provide documentation as a part of their application, strengthen transportation safety requirements, and prohibited foreign recruiters from charging workers certain fees. Employers who have committed violations can be banned from filing future applications of similar visas. This regulation has strengthened protections for non-immigrant agricultural workers as well as domestic agricultural workers.
And I announced that the Department of Labor will begin exercising its authority to certify applications for new visas. This will provide an avenue for immigrant victims desperate to escape an abusive situation and willing to cooperate with law enforcement. My staff is working hard to finalize those protocols now. Recognition and inclusion of anti-trafficking provisions in contracts and grants is also equally critical. That’s why, at the Department of Labor, we’re including and requiring our anti-trafficking federal acquisition regulation provisions in our contracts and grants. And while it’s not currently required, all of the Department’s international grants include anti-trafficking language, and we’ll further explore how to integrate such language into all of our grants.
Last December, our department released three new reports on child labor and forced labor. For the first time last year, our major report, the findings on the worst forms of child labor identified gaps in government efforts and included specific suggestions for each government that would address those problems. We believe this information will be useful for Congress, the executive branch agencies to consider when developing labor and trade policy.
And I’m also proud that in May of 2010, the Department entered into a revised agreement with the Mexican Embassy and the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs to ensure that Mexican workers in the United States are informed about their labor rights through their consular offices. This information can assist vulnerable workers, including persons who may have been trafficked. We are expanding the approach to now include more partnerships with embassies from Central America and the Caribbean. And on December 2nd, I met with several ambassadors from nine Central American and Caribbean countries who wanted to learn about the program. We are following up with those discussions now.
In conclusion, I would just say as a nation and as members of the global community, we reject the proposition that it is acceptable to pursue economic gain through force, fraud, and coercion of human beings. I’m delighted to be a part of this working group and also proud to represent our agency here today. Thank you so much, Secretary Clinton.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you so much, Hilda. Let me turn now to the Attorney General. Attorney General Holder, the Department of Justice has done a lot of good work on this. We appreciate it.
ATTORNEY GENERAL HOLDER: Well, I apologize to everyone for being late. Bob (inaudible) had given me a task that took a little longer than I anticipated. (Laughter.)
But thank you, Secretary Clinton. It’s an honor and a privilege to join my colleagues to mark the many breakthroughs that we’ve made over the past year and the momentum that we have generated for the year ahead in our fight to end human trafficking. Now this past year, and for the third year in a row, the Department of Justice has prosecuted more human trafficking cases than ever before. This modern day slavery is an affront to human dignity. And each and every case that we prosecute should send a powerful signal that human trafficking will not be tolerated in or by the United States.
Our prosecutions have been – have brought long overdue justice to victims from Nigeria, Togo, Ghana, the Philippines, Thailand, and Mexico, as well as from our own country. We have liberated adults, children, men and women exploited for sex and labor in virtually every corner of our nation. We have secured long sentences against individual traffickers and we have dismantled large transnational organized criminal enterprises that have exploited victims across the United States, depriving them of their freedom and of their dignity.
But we have more to do, and we have farther to go. On the 10th anniversary of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act last fall, I committed that the Justice Department would be launching a human trafficking enhanced enforcement initiative to take our counter-trafficking enforcement efforts to the next level by building on the most effective tool in our anti-trafficking arsenal: partnerships. Well, today, I am pleased to announce the launch of this initiative, which will streamline federal criminal investigations and prosecutions of human trafficking. The Departments of Homeland Security and Department of Labor have collaborated closely with the Justice Department in this historic effort, and I want to thank Secretaries Napolitano and Solis for their expertise and for their shared commitment.
Now, as part of this fight against human trafficking, specialized anti-trafficking coordination teams, known as ACT teams, will be convened in a number of pilot districts nationwide. Under the leadership of the highest-ranking federal law enforcement officials in the district, these teams will bring together federal agents and prosecutors across agency lines to combat human trafficking threats, dismantle human trafficking networks, and bring traffickers to justice. The launch of these ACT teams will enable us to leverage the assets and the expertise of each federal enforcement agency more effectively than ever before. But we will not rest until this unprecedented collaboration translates into the results that matter most, the liberation of victims and the prosecution of traffickers.
Now, we are all inspired by the courage of survivors who have escaped from bondage and energized by the strength of our partnerships. But above all, we are firm in our resolve to do more than ever before to end human trafficking. The efforts announced today and the work being undertaken across this government are an important step forward in winning this fight. Thank you very much.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you very much, Attorney General, for not only the work you’ve done but this new initiative.
Let me now turn to Secretary Napolitano. Obviously, the Department of Homeland Security plays an absolutely critical role in these efforts. Janet.
SECRETARY NAPOLITANO: Well, thank you. And thank you, Secretary, for hosting this meeting. We are, indeed, proud to play a strong role in combating human trafficking as demonstrated by ICE’s arrest last week at the JFK airport of a human trafficker who was one of its top ten most wanted persons. This past year, ICE, working with DOJ, initiated its highest ever number of cases with a nexus to human trafficking. Our success in combating human trafficking continues to be rooted in strong partnerships. This includes not only the partnership represented around this table today, but also state, local, tribal, international, nongovernmental, and private sector partners who see this problem every day on the ground.
Last year, the Department of Homeland Security launched a campaign to coordinate and enhance its anti-human trafficking efforts. It’s called the Blue Campaign. Under the Blue Campaign last year we provided new training for state and local law enforcement, offered new materials on how to assist victims, and conducted public awareness campaigns both in the United States and in Latin America.
Indeed, I was in Dallas yesterday to check out security for the Super Bowl, and between Dallas and Arlington, I saw at least two billboards advertising how to gain assistance under the Blue Campaign. So it is really rolling out everywhere.
This year, we’re also developing new public awareness materials and a new message to be played in DHS immigration offices and waiting rooms which informs potential victims that help is available. We’re expanding the campaign called No Te Enganas, or Don’t Be Fooled, in Central America and some United States cities to also raise awareness among potential victims.
We are developing comprehensive anti-human trafficking courses for our own personnel to address what role each and every DHS component agency plays in combating this scourge. And we are working with firefighters and first responders around the country who may come into contact with victims during their daily work.
As was indicated, we are working with a number of other agencies on joint initiatives including the anti-trafficking coordination teams the attorney general just announced and also initiatives with the Department of Labor. This is a fight that all of us around this table are committed to do. So I look forward to continuing on this work with my Cabinet colleagues and on all of our partners in order to combat this terrific problem.
Thank you, Madam Secretary.
This is, as you probably saw on your schedules, the President’s Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking In Persons. This is mandated by the Congress because it is an issue of such great and grave importance that Congress wanted as many members of the Cabinet and the heads of agencies to come together to discuss it once a year. So I thank you for taking time out of what are amazingly busy schedules between national security issues and weather security issues to gather here. And I’m joined today by Under Secretary Maria Otero and Ambassador Luis CdeBaca. They are helping to lead our efforts here at the State Department and within the interagency process.
Very fittingly, we meet today on National Freedom Day to discuss the latest steps in a journey that our country has been taking for more than 150 years. On this day in 1865, President Lincoln signed the joint congressional resolution that became the 13th Amendment to the Constitution outlawing slavery. Yet modern slavery, often hidden and unrecognized, persists today on every continent and, most tragically, right here in the United States, despite being prohibited by both domestic legislation and international law.
Anywhere from 12 to 27 million people are currently held in forced labor, bonded labor, or forced prostitution. That’s equivalent to all the people who live in London at the low end and the combined populations of New York City, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. at the high end. The victims range from the men and women enslaved in fields, factories, and brothels to the girls and boys whose childhoods have been shattered and stolen, to the parents whose children have vanished. Whether they are far from home or in their own villages, they need and deserve our help and the help of the world.
Now, since we last met together last year, everyone around this table and our entire government has really achieved a great deal. We continue to strengthen our efforts. An obvious sign of our growth here today is that we are joined, for the first time, by the FBI, by the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of the Interior. Today, I hope we can hear how we will take this work to the next level, how we can ensure that trafficking is an issue we continue to address within our agencies and throughout our government, and I hope we’ll take on another important task – ending the practice of punishing the victims of human trafficking. For all the millions who are held in servitude, fewer than 50,000 have been officially identified as victims. Too many others are either ignored, or even worse, treated as criminals. So we need to do more to identify the true victims of human trafficking and help restore them to participation in our society.
I just want to kick off by describing several of our State Department initiatives. First and foremost, we will publish another edition of our annual Trafficking in Persons Report. Some countries have been downgraded and may be downgraded again automatically from Tier 2 Watch List to Tier 3, because they have not taken steps adequately to address trafficking. Now, this is an uncomfortable position for them to be in and for us. And as I travel around talking to heads of state and governments and ministers, they watch this very closely, and they often raise questions about their position on this list.
Now, last year, for the first time ever under my direction, we included the United States in this report. As President Obama has made clear, we want to be the best champion for our own ideals, and we want to live up to those ideals ourselves. And we know we can do more to diminish involuntary servitude and slavery in our own country.
Now, beyond this report, our Bureau of Diplomatic Security will establish an anti-trafficking unit to support its field offices which already participate in the 39 Department of Justice-funded anti-trafficking task forces nationwide. This new unit will centralize case referrals and command at headquarters and offer training to all agents, particularly on how to work with victims. We will also begin an annual briefing for visiting diplomats and their domestic workers as part of an ongoing effort we launched last year – thanks to Hilda and others for their help on this – to protect domestic workers brought here by diplomats and raise awareness within the diplomatic community. Whether they’re diplomats or national emissaries of whatever kind, we all must be accountable for the treatment of the people that we employ. We will also work with federal contractors to identify best practices for preventing trafficking, help them protect victims, and hold them accountable if they do not follow the federal government’s anti-trafficking policies.
And finally, we are working with many partners to develop a voluntary international code of conduct for private security service providers. Companies that sign the code commit to not engage in human trafficking and report allegations to competent authorities. To date, nearly 60 private security companies have signed the code, including many that contract with the U.S. Government.
Now, before we hear from a number of you about what your agencies are doing, I have a request. I would like to ask this group to task the Assistant Secretary Level Senior Policy Operating Group with developing an overarching victims services strategy. One of our continuing challenges is that we’ve not yet made the American public fully aware of the protections that are already available to victims who are United States citizens. And we need to maximize our resources by looking at other federal programs to serve all trafficking victims. A victims services strategy would do a great service to victims in our own country and set an example around the world.
So I would hope that the Senior Policy Operating Group would work together to hold a public meeting, to get the word out on the work we’re doing to interact with civil society groups, would inventory existing juvenile justice and child welfare programs that affect at-risk youth. That’s one of our biggest problems, is that an underage child gets picked up on the streets, there’s nowhere for that child to be held, so that young boy or girl is put into jail as opposed to a safe place.
We want to develop standards and training to ensure that children in prostitution are treated as victims, not criminals, and given the help they need, and determine whether having separate outreach and service programs for foreign and domestic victims is truly in their best interest. We have seen several legislative proposals to address these issues, and the Trafficking Act will be up for reauthorization in this Congress. But I think through greater interagency cooperation, we can make improvements and really set the agenda for, hopefully, the next decade, at least.
Now, I’d like to call on some of our colleagues to discuss some of the issues that they are dealing with, and I want to start with our Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, who has been a real champion of everything having to do with people in every setting, but in particular this area.
Hilda.
SECRETARY SOLIS: Thank you so much, Secretary Clinton. And I’m happy to join you with the Department of Labor to be a representative on the President’s Interagency Task Force on Trafficking in Persons. I’m firmly committed to supporting the mission of the task force, which includes our strong cooperation with my colleagues here today. This commitment builds upon the long history of the Department of Labor to protect and assist vulnerable workers. And I’m proud of the work the Department has done over the past year to help combat trafficking, both domestically and internationally. And I’m pleased that the DOL is a member of the Federal Enforcement Working Group spearheaded by Attorney General Holder. Through this effort, I am confident we will achieve the goals of assisting victims and dismantling trafficking organizations through high impact prosecutions.
This March is the one-year anniversary of the implementation of a new regulation for H2-A programs. Agricultural workers are a group most at risk of trafficking. These new regulations, reinstated, requires that employers provide documentation as a part of their application, strengthen transportation safety requirements, and prohibited foreign recruiters from charging workers certain fees. Employers who have committed violations can be banned from filing future applications of similar visas. This regulation has strengthened protections for non-immigrant agricultural workers as well as domestic agricultural workers.
And I announced that the Department of Labor will begin exercising its authority to certify applications for new visas. This will provide an avenue for immigrant victims desperate to escape an abusive situation and willing to cooperate with law enforcement. My staff is working hard to finalize those protocols now. Recognition and inclusion of anti-trafficking provisions in contracts and grants is also equally critical. That’s why, at the Department of Labor, we’re including and requiring our anti-trafficking federal acquisition regulation provisions in our contracts and grants. And while it’s not currently required, all of the Department’s international grants include anti-trafficking language, and we’ll further explore how to integrate such language into all of our grants.
Last December, our department released three new reports on child labor and forced labor. For the first time last year, our major report, the findings on the worst forms of child labor identified gaps in government efforts and included specific suggestions for each government that would address those problems. We believe this information will be useful for Congress, the executive branch agencies to consider when developing labor and trade policy.
And I’m also proud that in May of 2010, the Department entered into a revised agreement with the Mexican Embassy and the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs to ensure that Mexican workers in the United States are informed about their labor rights through their consular offices. This information can assist vulnerable workers, including persons who may have been trafficked. We are expanding the approach to now include more partnerships with embassies from Central America and the Caribbean. And on December 2nd, I met with several ambassadors from nine Central American and Caribbean countries who wanted to learn about the program. We are following up with those discussions now.
In conclusion, I would just say as a nation and as members of the global community, we reject the proposition that it is acceptable to pursue economic gain through force, fraud, and coercion of human beings. I’m delighted to be a part of this working group and also proud to represent our agency here today. Thank you so much, Secretary Clinton.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you so much, Hilda. Let me turn now to the Attorney General. Attorney General Holder, the Department of Justice has done a lot of good work on this. We appreciate it.
ATTORNEY GENERAL HOLDER: Well, I apologize to everyone for being late. Bob (inaudible) had given me a task that took a little longer than I anticipated. (Laughter.)
But thank you, Secretary Clinton. It’s an honor and a privilege to join my colleagues to mark the many breakthroughs that we’ve made over the past year and the momentum that we have generated for the year ahead in our fight to end human trafficking. Now this past year, and for the third year in a row, the Department of Justice has prosecuted more human trafficking cases than ever before. This modern day slavery is an affront to human dignity. And each and every case that we prosecute should send a powerful signal that human trafficking will not be tolerated in or by the United States.
Our prosecutions have been – have brought long overdue justice to victims from Nigeria, Togo, Ghana, the Philippines, Thailand, and Mexico, as well as from our own country. We have liberated adults, children, men and women exploited for sex and labor in virtually every corner of our nation. We have secured long sentences against individual traffickers and we have dismantled large transnational organized criminal enterprises that have exploited victims across the United States, depriving them of their freedom and of their dignity.
But we have more to do, and we have farther to go. On the 10th anniversary of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act last fall, I committed that the Justice Department would be launching a human trafficking enhanced enforcement initiative to take our counter-trafficking enforcement efforts to the next level by building on the most effective tool in our anti-trafficking arsenal: partnerships. Well, today, I am pleased to announce the launch of this initiative, which will streamline federal criminal investigations and prosecutions of human trafficking. The Departments of Homeland Security and Department of Labor have collaborated closely with the Justice Department in this historic effort, and I want to thank Secretaries Napolitano and Solis for their expertise and for their shared commitment.
Now, as part of this fight against human trafficking, specialized anti-trafficking coordination teams, known as ACT teams, will be convened in a number of pilot districts nationwide. Under the leadership of the highest-ranking federal law enforcement officials in the district, these teams will bring together federal agents and prosecutors across agency lines to combat human trafficking threats, dismantle human trafficking networks, and bring traffickers to justice. The launch of these ACT teams will enable us to leverage the assets and the expertise of each federal enforcement agency more effectively than ever before. But we will not rest until this unprecedented collaboration translates into the results that matter most, the liberation of victims and the prosecution of traffickers.
Now, we are all inspired by the courage of survivors who have escaped from bondage and energized by the strength of our partnerships. But above all, we are firm in our resolve to do more than ever before to end human trafficking. The efforts announced today and the work being undertaken across this government are an important step forward in winning this fight. Thank you very much.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you very much, Attorney General, for not only the work you’ve done but this new initiative.
Let me now turn to Secretary Napolitano. Obviously, the Department of Homeland Security plays an absolutely critical role in these efforts. Janet.
SECRETARY NAPOLITANO: Well, thank you. And thank you, Secretary, for hosting this meeting. We are, indeed, proud to play a strong role in combating human trafficking as demonstrated by ICE’s arrest last week at the JFK airport of a human trafficker who was one of its top ten most wanted persons. This past year, ICE, working with DOJ, initiated its highest ever number of cases with a nexus to human trafficking. Our success in combating human trafficking continues to be rooted in strong partnerships. This includes not only the partnership represented around this table today, but also state, local, tribal, international, nongovernmental, and private sector partners who see this problem every day on the ground.
Last year, the Department of Homeland Security launched a campaign to coordinate and enhance its anti-human trafficking efforts. It’s called the Blue Campaign. Under the Blue Campaign last year we provided new training for state and local law enforcement, offered new materials on how to assist victims, and conducted public awareness campaigns both in the United States and in Latin America.
Indeed, I was in Dallas yesterday to check out security for the Super Bowl, and between Dallas and Arlington, I saw at least two billboards advertising how to gain assistance under the Blue Campaign. So it is really rolling out everywhere.
This year, we’re also developing new public awareness materials and a new message to be played in DHS immigration offices and waiting rooms which informs potential victims that help is available. We’re expanding the campaign called No Te Enganas, or Don’t Be Fooled, in Central America and some United States cities to also raise awareness among potential victims.
We are developing comprehensive anti-human trafficking courses for our own personnel to address what role each and every DHS component agency plays in combating this scourge. And we are working with firefighters and first responders around the country who may come into contact with victims during their daily work.
As was indicated, we are working with a number of other agencies on joint initiatives including the anti-trafficking coordination teams the attorney general just announced and also initiatives with the Department of Labor. This is a fight that all of us around this table are committed to do. So I look forward to continuing on this work with my Cabinet colleagues and on all of our partners in order to combat this terrific problem.
Thank you, Madam Secretary.
PRN: 2011/139
Source: Department of State
http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2011/02/155831.htm
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Friday, January 21, 2011
CBC News - British Columbia - Human trafficking plan needed: police chiefs
More funding and updated laws needed
Last Updated: Thursday, January 20, 2011 | 12:19 PM PT
CBC News
Abbotsford Police Chief Constable Bob Rich and other police chiefs want a national strategy on human trafficking. (Abbotsford Police website)B.C. police chiefs are pushing for a national strategy on human trafficking.
They want better programs created to help rescued victims and to prosecute traffickers.
The BC Association of Chiefs of Police is calling on the federal government to update laws and provide more funding for programs for victims.
Association spokesperson, Abbotsford Police Chief Constable Bob Rich, said the federal government is doing a good thing in allowing trafficking victims to remain in Canada to testify against traffickers, but more needs to be done.
"I am encouraging a more holistic approach where we actually really look after these people's needs because then the chances somebody will come forward as a whistleblower are greatly increased if they really know they're going to be treated fairly and well," Rich said.
Rich also said laws preventing convicted child sex offenders from freely traveling abroad should be vigorously enforced.
Human trafficking involves the illegal movement of people across international borders for the purpose of exploitation, usually in the form of forced labour, prostitution and other forms of servitude, and usually involves threats or the use of force.
According to the federal government, most human trafficking victims are women and children from Asia, who are often forced into the sex trade.
In 2007, B.C. established the Office to Combat Trafficking in Persons with the goal of developing and coordinating the province's strategy to address human trafficking.
Related articles
Monday, August 23, 2010
Ongoing Fight Against Modern Slavery
Image via WikipediaLuis CdeBaca
Ambassador-at-Large, Office To Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons
Ambassador-at-Large, Office To Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons
2010 National Conference of Child Abuse Professionals, Sponsored by the National District Attorneys Association
National Harbor, MD
August 23, 2010
Good morning. Thank you Mr. Heck for that kind introduction. I am pleased that you all decided to use the blue and gold on the NDAA banner instead of the Ohio State red and silver for your colors at the conference. It seems that when it comes to Big Ten football, it is often us versus everyone else.
I am delighted to be here at National Harbor with you during the National District Attorney Association’s National Conference of Child Abuse Professionals. National Harbor is such a beautiful place that if I had planned earlier, we would have sailed down from Washington. It is indeed a beautiful area.
I am here to talk about new ways of tackling an old crime. A crime from which we’ve largely hidden our gaze, even as we have been willing to confront once taboo issues of child abuse, domestic violence, and rape. A crime that has been euphemized in so many ways over the years – “peonage,” “servitude,” “human trafficking.” But no matter what we call it, what we are dealing with is modern slavery. That’s why it is fitting that this conference – this topic – is dealt with here, on land that was cleared and worked by people held in slavery. To free them took hundreds of years and millions of lives, placing us in debt. To deliver on a promise of freedom written in the blood of all who died in bondage.
The framers of the 13th Amendment realized that one could not end slavery merely by saying that it should be illegal and merely walking away, so in 1865 they wrote the Constitutional provision in a way that applies as much today as it did to those who suffered in the past.
In 2010, through its work on what we now call “human trafficking,” the Obama Administration is keeping the promise of the 13th Amendment, and I am going to put our activities in the context of your critical work against child abuse.
Sadly, slavery in America has always preyed on the most vulnerable people. Historically, it was people kidnapped from Africa and denied their legal person identity. But also Hispanics in the Southwest and African Americans in the South, held in debt bondage whether it was called peonage or sharecropping. Asian and European immigrants in the late 1800s, trapped in involuntary servitude through deception and false promises, often in high-volume brothels in which they were literally caged. Traffickers have an uncanny ability to find the most vulnerable, and exploit them in servitude.
And too often, both here and abroad, the most vulnerable are children: American children and foreign children alike. Offered for prostitution or preyed upon by those who they trust. And as you know, especially those of you who work with teenagers, some of these cases are very tough. They do not easily fit the stereotypes that would make this subject matter more comfortable.
It’s not the stereotype of the movie “Taken,” in which a privileged girl is flat-out kidnapped on a high-end vacation. Rather, we see immigrant kids who self-emancipated and emigrated hoping for a better life, or were lured here by men who claimed to love them. We see American girls with pimps who profess to give them a better life than the one they had at home.
And, when we find them, they don’t necessarily seem to want to be liberated. They may resist testifying against the person who we see as an abuser but who they might view with love or loyalty. And rather than showing appreciation for your help, they might respond by running off, self-medicating, or being “incorrigible.”
But we can’t give up. In the last decade, we have developed many new tools to help them, and to help you on the front lines.
The commitment that was made by the Clinton, Bush, and Obama Administrations to fight this scourge is only intensifying. Since 2000 – when we modernized our federal anti-slavery statutes through the Trafficking Victims Protection Act and achieved the adoption of an international anti-trafficking protocol at the United Nations – we have protected thousands of victims, prosecuted and jailed thousands of traffickers, and prevented this crime from occurring in the first place. Almost all states and territories have passed modern anti-trafficking laws, and training efforts are starting to pay off in arrests and prosecutions. Now almost all of these legal and policy tools helped drive these successes, we have more work ahead.
Each year, the State Department releases the Trafficking in Persons Report that provides a global assessment of the anti-trafficking efforts based on the minimum standards outlined by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. This year, under the leadership of Secretary Clinton, the Report for the first time diagnosed the United States’ efforts to meet the minimum standards and provided recommendations to strengthen our efforts, here at home.
This diagnosis is not meant to be a rebuke of the good work people are doing in the field, but a roadmap to guide our efforts throughout the United States. Secretary Clinton is committed to implementing ‘lead by example’ form of diplomacy. We have seen the Report drive progress worldwide, and we are working to drive even more progress here at home.
I would like to share just a couple of key recommendations from the Report with you this morning. As stated in the Report, the United States should “increase government efforts to identify and assist U.S. victims.” While our victim assistance efforts have improved greatly in the last decade, we must ask ourselves: can we do more?
Are we utilizing every tool at our disposal to ensure that we are in fact identifying these victims, treating them as victims, and providing the necessary rehabilitative services? Are we responding effectively and providing a safety net for the most vulnerable in society? Are U.S. citizens in prostitution, whether they are children or adults, being seen merely as criminals in need of a police response, or are jurisdictions recognizing that they have needs for restorative care, housing and appropriate placement, and life options? Do our assistance programs recognize that the trauma does not necessarily stop once the trafficked person turns 18?
Are vulnerable populations being screened for whether there is trafficking occurring, as is outlined in the TVPA? If people fall through the cracks, are there ways that they can wipe the slate clean, whether through diversion or re-entry programs? Do child protection authorities understand what human trafficking is, and see children as victims as opposed to delinquents? Are we cutting off demand by teaching men and boys about the harm that prostituted women and girls experience and their needs?
There are questions that in the mid-1980s, in the Story County Attorney’s Office – advanced for its time – we wouldn’t have known to ask. Instead, we’d have done cases as part of vice enforcement, not asking about the women and girls’ lives. Cutting-edge meant using civil tools to seize brothels or take the earnings away from the pimps, not going that extra step recognizing victimization.
Experts in the field have shared that child protective services and at-risk youth programs are positioned to identify and assist child-trafficking victims, whether they are foreign or American, whether they are found in sex or labor trafficking. We know that juvenile justice systems can also be harnessed to identify and assist rather than detain. Some jurisdictions have created diversion programs so that children found in prostitution receive shelter and services as opposed to convictions and jail. “Safe haven” laws are beginning to be passed to decriminalize children found in prostitution.
Another key recommendation from the Report is to “enhance federal government partnerships with state, local, and tribal agencies.” We have seen the success of the Amber Alert system, which helps track and recover missing children across state lines and within our communities. Mirroring that system of information-sharing and coordinated communication is vital to bolstering our efforts to ensure that children are safe from abuse and exploitation. Existing efforts against commercial sexual exploitation of children, as well as broader child protection infrastructures, should be linked up with federally-funded task forces to fight human trafficking in all of its forms.
While we only have time for a couple of key recommendations this morning, I would encourage you to read the Report and all of the recommendations online at state.gov/g/tip. They are set forth under the operating principles of the “3P” approach: Protection, Prevention, and Prosecution.
Whether you are a local prosecutor, a victim-service provider, or work to prevent this crime, all of you here today represent one of those “3Ps” in your profession. Your work together creates what Secretary Clinton has labeled the “4th P”: partnerships. Strengthening our partnerships is vital to our overall coordinated, victim-centered approach against trafficking, especially in our efforts to protect the world’s children.
I have set forth very quickly, and I apologize for that, a lot of policy efforts to combat trafficking this morning. So often, policy stakeholders become engrossed in the policies of the anti-trafficking effort, and lose sight of the people who suffer from this horrible crime.
I am reminded of one girl, 14 years of age, in particular from my time as a prosecutor, who was lured into prostitution by a man who spoke of love, glamour, and money. Held in service by other women whose loyalty wasn’t to each other, but to the pimp who controlled them, she was forced to “serve” client after client after client. I remember the shocking juxtaposition of the stuffed animals, the backpack with flowers, the notebook where she had to keep a log of clients and money earned, decorated with the hearts and flowers that a child would draw. But I also remember her once she got help, once she came to realize that she could trust us. Her backpack was then filled with magazines about movie stars and singers. She was like any other 14 year-old – grasping at adulthood but alternating between bravado and nervousness. Now her traffickers are in prison, and she is on a bright path. But that path will only be bright if she gets the support and services that the law promises. There is success when there is support.
I have been lucky to witness the transformation of victims to survivors. They can lead a life of their choosing. Some chose well, and some choose poorly, but it is their freedom for which we fight. This is the promise that this country made almost 150 years ago – the promise of liberty.
You continue this work today. In this room alone, you represent the best child protection professionals, law enforcement, and attorneys in the United States. I have seen how promising practices here at home become the international standard to which other countries aspire, which is why I challenge all of you to join us in spreading some core messages and practices about this ongoing fight:
Ongoing Fight Against Modern SlaveryI am delighted to be here at National Harbor with you during the National District Attorney Association’s National Conference of Child Abuse Professionals. National Harbor is such a beautiful place that if I had planned earlier, we would have sailed down from Washington. It is indeed a beautiful area.
I am here to talk about new ways of tackling an old crime. A crime from which we’ve largely hidden our gaze, even as we have been willing to confront once taboo issues of child abuse, domestic violence, and rape. A crime that has been euphemized in so many ways over the years – “peonage,” “servitude,” “human trafficking.” But no matter what we call it, what we are dealing with is modern slavery. That’s why it is fitting that this conference – this topic – is dealt with here, on land that was cleared and worked by people held in slavery. To free them took hundreds of years and millions of lives, placing us in debt. To deliver on a promise of freedom written in the blood of all who died in bondage.
The framers of the 13th Amendment realized that one could not end slavery merely by saying that it should be illegal and merely walking away, so in 1865 they wrote the Constitutional provision in a way that applies as much today as it did to those who suffered in the past.
In 2010, through its work on what we now call “human trafficking,” the Obama Administration is keeping the promise of the 13th Amendment, and I am going to put our activities in the context of your critical work against child abuse.
Sadly, slavery in America has always preyed on the most vulnerable people. Historically, it was people kidnapped from Africa and denied their legal person identity. But also Hispanics in the Southwest and African Americans in the South, held in debt bondage whether it was called peonage or sharecropping. Asian and European immigrants in the late 1800s, trapped in involuntary servitude through deception and false promises, often in high-volume brothels in which they were literally caged. Traffickers have an uncanny ability to find the most vulnerable, and exploit them in servitude.
And too often, both here and abroad, the most vulnerable are children: American children and foreign children alike. Offered for prostitution or preyed upon by those who they trust. And as you know, especially those of you who work with teenagers, some of these cases are very tough. They do not easily fit the stereotypes that would make this subject matter more comfortable.
It’s not the stereotype of the movie “Taken,” in which a privileged girl is flat-out kidnapped on a high-end vacation. Rather, we see immigrant kids who self-emancipated and emigrated hoping for a better life, or were lured here by men who claimed to love them. We see American girls with pimps who profess to give them a better life than the one they had at home.
And, when we find them, they don’t necessarily seem to want to be liberated. They may resist testifying against the person who we see as an abuser but who they might view with love or loyalty. And rather than showing appreciation for your help, they might respond by running off, self-medicating, or being “incorrigible.”
But we can’t give up. In the last decade, we have developed many new tools to help them, and to help you on the front lines.
The commitment that was made by the Clinton, Bush, and Obama Administrations to fight this scourge is only intensifying. Since 2000 – when we modernized our federal anti-slavery statutes through the Trafficking Victims Protection Act and achieved the adoption of an international anti-trafficking protocol at the United Nations – we have protected thousands of victims, prosecuted and jailed thousands of traffickers, and prevented this crime from occurring in the first place. Almost all states and territories have passed modern anti-trafficking laws, and training efforts are starting to pay off in arrests and prosecutions. Now almost all of these legal and policy tools helped drive these successes, we have more work ahead.
Each year, the State Department releases the Trafficking in Persons Report that provides a global assessment of the anti-trafficking efforts based on the minimum standards outlined by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. This year, under the leadership of Secretary Clinton, the Report for the first time diagnosed the United States’ efforts to meet the minimum standards and provided recommendations to strengthen our efforts, here at home.
This diagnosis is not meant to be a rebuke of the good work people are doing in the field, but a roadmap to guide our efforts throughout the United States. Secretary Clinton is committed to implementing ‘lead by example’ form of diplomacy. We have seen the Report drive progress worldwide, and we are working to drive even more progress here at home.
I would like to share just a couple of key recommendations from the Report with you this morning. As stated in the Report, the United States should “increase government efforts to identify and assist U.S. victims.” While our victim assistance efforts have improved greatly in the last decade, we must ask ourselves: can we do more?
Are we utilizing every tool at our disposal to ensure that we are in fact identifying these victims, treating them as victims, and providing the necessary rehabilitative services? Are we responding effectively and providing a safety net for the most vulnerable in society? Are U.S. citizens in prostitution, whether they are children or adults, being seen merely as criminals in need of a police response, or are jurisdictions recognizing that they have needs for restorative care, housing and appropriate placement, and life options? Do our assistance programs recognize that the trauma does not necessarily stop once the trafficked person turns 18?
Are vulnerable populations being screened for whether there is trafficking occurring, as is outlined in the TVPA? If people fall through the cracks, are there ways that they can wipe the slate clean, whether through diversion or re-entry programs? Do child protection authorities understand what human trafficking is, and see children as victims as opposed to delinquents? Are we cutting off demand by teaching men and boys about the harm that prostituted women and girls experience and their needs?
There are questions that in the mid-1980s, in the Story County Attorney’s Office – advanced for its time – we wouldn’t have known to ask. Instead, we’d have done cases as part of vice enforcement, not asking about the women and girls’ lives. Cutting-edge meant using civil tools to seize brothels or take the earnings away from the pimps, not going that extra step recognizing victimization.
Experts in the field have shared that child protective services and at-risk youth programs are positioned to identify and assist child-trafficking victims, whether they are foreign or American, whether they are found in sex or labor trafficking. We know that juvenile justice systems can also be harnessed to identify and assist rather than detain. Some jurisdictions have created diversion programs so that children found in prostitution receive shelter and services as opposed to convictions and jail. “Safe haven” laws are beginning to be passed to decriminalize children found in prostitution.
Another key recommendation from the Report is to “enhance federal government partnerships with state, local, and tribal agencies.” We have seen the success of the Amber Alert system, which helps track and recover missing children across state lines and within our communities. Mirroring that system of information-sharing and coordinated communication is vital to bolstering our efforts to ensure that children are safe from abuse and exploitation. Existing efforts against commercial sexual exploitation of children, as well as broader child protection infrastructures, should be linked up with federally-funded task forces to fight human trafficking in all of its forms.
While we only have time for a couple of key recommendations this morning, I would encourage you to read the Report and all of the recommendations online at state.gov/g/tip. They are set forth under the operating principles of the “3P” approach: Protection, Prevention, and Prosecution.
Whether you are a local prosecutor, a victim-service provider, or work to prevent this crime, all of you here today represent one of those “3Ps” in your profession. Your work together creates what Secretary Clinton has labeled the “4th P”: partnerships. Strengthening our partnerships is vital to our overall coordinated, victim-centered approach against trafficking, especially in our efforts to protect the world’s children.
I have set forth very quickly, and I apologize for that, a lot of policy efforts to combat trafficking this morning. So often, policy stakeholders become engrossed in the policies of the anti-trafficking effort, and lose sight of the people who suffer from this horrible crime.
I am reminded of one girl, 14 years of age, in particular from my time as a prosecutor, who was lured into prostitution by a man who spoke of love, glamour, and money. Held in service by other women whose loyalty wasn’t to each other, but to the pimp who controlled them, she was forced to “serve” client after client after client. I remember the shocking juxtaposition of the stuffed animals, the backpack with flowers, the notebook where she had to keep a log of clients and money earned, decorated with the hearts and flowers that a child would draw. But I also remember her once she got help, once she came to realize that she could trust us. Her backpack was then filled with magazines about movie stars and singers. She was like any other 14 year-old – grasping at adulthood but alternating between bravado and nervousness. Now her traffickers are in prison, and she is on a bright path. But that path will only be bright if she gets the support and services that the law promises. There is success when there is support.
I have been lucky to witness the transformation of victims to survivors. They can lead a life of their choosing. Some chose well, and some choose poorly, but it is their freedom for which we fight. This is the promise that this country made almost 150 years ago – the promise of liberty.
You continue this work today. In this room alone, you represent the best child protection professionals, law enforcement, and attorneys in the United States. I have seen how promising practices here at home become the international standard to which other countries aspire, which is why I challenge all of you to join us in spreading some core messages and practices about this ongoing fight:
- First, that we are here to assist all trafficked persons whom we encounter, be they U.S. Citizens or foreign-born; whether they are held in bondage for labor or for sex;
- That we will coordinate with the federal effort at the state and local level as well;
- That we will overcome barriers to identification and services, continuing a victim-centered approach and focusing our efforts on vulnerable populations, especially children;
- And that we keep our doors open to continue the discussion, even among groups who choose to work on varying aspects of the fight.
As we set forth to achieve these goals, let us not forget the children we have yet to encounter: the young girl being turned out in a truck stop or a brothel; the boy on the streets caught up in a begging or prostitution ring; the kids working in the fields; the child domestic servant who never gets to leave the house, and lives in the fear of the knock on the door at night.
It is for each of these children that we have to act with fierce urgency. It is for them that we should dare to pledge that every single child alive today can succeed, will succeed, in a world that sadly does not yet exist: a world without slavery.
Thank you.
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