The State Department’s TIP Office is
mandated to combat and eradicate human trafficking by focusing
worldwide attention on the international slave trade; assisting
countries to eliminate trafficking in persons; promoting regional
and bilateral cooperation; and supporting service providers and NGOs
active in trafficking prevention and victim protection efforts. The
TIP Office also assists foreign governments in drafting or
strengthening anti-trafficking laws and funds law enforcement and
victim assistance training to foreign governments to ensure
traffickers are fully investigated and prosecuted to final
conviction.
The TIP Office supported
more than 50 anti-trafficking programs abroad in fiscal year 2004.
The types of assistance offered included economic alternative
programs for vulnerable groups; education programs; training for
government officials and medical personnel; development or
improvement of anti-trafficking laws; provision of equipment for law
enforcement; establishment or renovation of shelters, crisis
centers, or safe houses for victims; support for voluntary and
humane return and reintegration assistance for victims; deterrence
projects to address the demand for sex trafficking; and support for
psychological, legal, medical and counseling services for victims
provided by NGOs, international organizations and governments.
Department of
State, Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM)
The State Department’s
Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) promotes orderly
and humane migration, protects the human rights of vulnerable
migrants, and provides assistance to migrants in need, especially
victims of trafficking in persons. The Bureau supports
anti-trafficking programs focusing on victim protection.
International
Grant Activity
The ideal way to combat
trafficking is to prevent the victimization of people in the first
place. Because the United States is a destination country for
trafficked people, prevention activities in which the U.S.
Government engages abroad are particularly important.
Through the State
Department, the Department of Labor’s Bureau of International Labor
Affairs, and the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S.
Government offers a substantial amount of international assistance
to help prevent trafficking in persons and to improve the treatment
of victims and the prosecution of traffickers abroad. The State
Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons
also is piloting programs to address the demand for victims of sex
trafficking in Mexico, India, Cambodia, Costa Rica, and Thailand.
In fiscal year 2004, the
U.S. Government supported approximately 251 international
anti-trafficking programs totaling $82 million* and benefiting more
than 86 countries. This amount reflects part of President Bush’s
anti-trafficking initiative announced at the United Nations General
Assembly in September 2003. The Government of the United States has
invested approximately $295 million in anti-trafficking efforts over
the last four fiscal years. These international programs run the
gamut from small projects to large multi-million-dollar projects to
develop comprehensive regional and national strategies to combat
trafficking, improve law enforcement capacity to arrest and
prosecute traffickers, enhance support to victims of trafficking,
and increase awareness of at-risk populations and policy makers to
trafficking.
Based on U.S. Government
findings over many years of international development work,
assistance that has had a positive impact on anti-trafficking
efforts includes: development or improvement of anti-trafficking
laws; provision of equipment for law enforcement; economic
alternative programs for vulnerable groups; education programs
addressing both the supply and demand sides of trafficking in
persons; training for government officials and medical personnel;
anti-corruption measures; establishment or renovation of shelters,
crisis centers, or safe-houses for victims; establishment of
hotlines, support for voluntary and humane return and reintegration
assistance for victims; and support for psychological, legal,
medical, and counseling services for victims provided by NGOs,
international organizations, and governments.
International
Engagement
The U.S. Government engages
internationally through cooperation with countries that support the
UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons,
Especially Women and Children, which supplements the UN Convention
Against Transnational and Organized Crime, adopted by the UN General
Assembly in November 2000. The United States signed the Convention
and Protocol in December 2000, and the President has submitted them
to the Senate for advice and consent to ratification.
Three other international
instruments that address the trafficking in children have been
adopted — ILO Convention 182 concerning the Prohibition and
Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child
Labor (which the United States ratified in February 1999); the
Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on
the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography
(which the United States ratified in December 2002); and the
Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on
the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict (which the United
States ratified in December 2002). The Department of Labor works
with the ILO to bring international attention to countries’
obligations under ILO Convention 150, the Abolition of Forced Labor,
as well.
Training of NGOs
NGOs have been vital to
the U.S. effort to identify and help trafficking victims as well as
to prosecute trafficking cases. The U.S. Government engages in
extensive outreach to NGOs, which are often the first point of
contact with trafficking victims. These contacts foster constructive
relationships with groups that receive and shelter trafficking
victims and are often in a position to encourage victims to come
forward and report abuse. Additionally, in those situations in which
law enforcement is actively involved in liberating victims from
servitude, some NGOs can provide safe houses for the victims.
U.S. Government personnel
have been working closely with NGOs across the country to train
service providers on the provisions of the TVPA. Through such
training, federal prosecutors, Federal Bureau of Investigation and
ICE agents, immigration officials and Health and Human Services’
personnel have learned about potential new cases, acquired NGO
assistance in procuring refuge and support for trafficking victims,
educated NGOs on the requirements for identifying a victim of a
severe form of trafficking, and trained service providers on the
roles they can play to contribute toward the success of a
trafficking investigation and prosecution.
Labor Programs
The Department of Labor’s
International Child Labor Program and the Office of Foreign
Relations supported a number of efforts in fiscal year 2004 through
nongovernmental and faith-based organizations, as well as the
International Labor Organization’s International Program on the
Elimination of Child Labor, that address trafficking in persons in
16 countries, either as the central focus of the project or a
component of a broader project. These projects provide reintegration
assistance to adult and child victims of trafficking for exploitive
work situations. Project support includes enrollment possibilities
in appropriate educational and vocational training programs, and
linking adults to legitimate work through partnerships with local
employers. Projects promote legislative and policy reform to address
trafficking in persons at the local, national, and regional levels.
Senior Policy
Operating Group on Trafficking in Persons
In February 2002, President Bush
established a Cabinet-level Interagency Task Force to Monitor and
Combat Trafficking in Persons. The task force is chaired by the
Secretary of State and includes the Attorney General, the Secretary
of Labor, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Secretary
of Homeland Security, the Director of Central Intelligence, the
Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and the
Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The Task Force’s
responsibilities include coordination and implementation of the
Administration’s anti-trafficking activities. In December 2003, the
Task Force approved the formal establishment of the Senior Policy
Operating Group on Trafficking in Persons (SPOG), chaired by the
director of the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat
Trafficking in Persons. The purpose of the SPOG is to bring together
senior policy officials from task force member agencies. This year
the SPOG was responsible for a number of interagency policy
developments including:
-
Coordination of U.S.
agency strategic plans to address trafficking in persons;
-
Development and
implementation of interagency grant policy and coordination
guidelines to help implement the National Security Presidential
Directive on trafficking in persons;
-
Coordination of public
outreach and research efforts, including bringing attention to the
dangers of trafficking in persons in South and Southeast Asia
following the tsunami disaster; and
-
Coordination of the
President’s $50 million anti-trafficking initiative.
