Groups Angry That Bush Only Hits Prostitution For Human Trafficking

by Ushani Agalawatta

"I am concerned about the focus of his statement at the UN because many governments collapse trafficking with prostitution, so that they are one and the same thing," said Ann Jordan, director of the Initiative Against Trafficking in Persons at the Washington-based International Human Rights Law Group.

"When he only talked about prostitution and women and children it made me wonder if this was the shift in emphasis? We have had big slavery cases in agriculture, domestic workers, factory work, begging in the street, selling trinkets in the street," she added in an interview with IPS.

But if Washington focuses solely on trafficking for sex purposes, "what we may have is disparate treatment of victims," Jordan added.

Within the United States, victims of trafficking are forced to work in prostitution, agriculture, domestic and child care industries and restaurant work. Others are forced into marriages or made to beg on street corners.

While trafficking into the United States involves predominantly women and girls, the agricultural laborers who are taken to Florida and other southern states are primarily males from Mexico, say non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

"Trafficking in the U.S. is a huge problem, something that is very much around us but we don't necessarily see it because nobody pays much attention or takes the time to ask difficult questions," said Jordan.

"We just think that (victims) are immigrants and of course they aren't going to be treated as well as everyone else."

In his speech to the opening session of the UN General Assembly last week, Bush said, "Each year, an estimated 800,000 to 900,000 human beings are bought, sold or forced across the world's borders This commerce in human life generates billions of dollars each year -- much of which is used to finance organized crime."

"There's a special evil in the abuse and exploitation of the most innocent and vulnerable. The victims of sex trade see little of life before they see the very worst of life," he added.

"Those who create these victims and profit from their suffering must be severely punished... And governments that tolerate this trade are tolerating a form of slavery."

Three days later, the UN treaty section announced that the Protocol on Trafficking in Persons had been ratified by 40 states, enough to give it the power of law, starting Dec. 25. The Protocol fights trafficking in persons, especially women and children, by, among other means, promoting cooperation among ratifying states.

"The ratification will be a boon to the global anti-trafficking movement that has been gaining momentum thanks to a greater awareness among the governments as well as the general public," said Namju Cho, advocacy coordinator of the Los Angeles-based Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CASTLA).

But, "ratification of a UN protocol is not enough to fight human trafficking both in and outside of the U.S.," she added.

"Better policies and procedures need to be in place. There needs to be more training of government officials and law enforcement officials. More resources need to be allocated to government and NGOs to fight this egregious human rights violation."

Washington has not ratified the protocol, which it signed in December 2000 under the previous Clinton administration.

"It is critical to have the U.S. government ratify the protocol as soon as possible, especially considering it is one of the biggest destination countries for trafficked persons in the world," Cho told IPS.

"The U.S. government demonstrated its commitment to combating human trafficking by introducing a comprehensive anti-trafficking law that both prosecutes traffickers and protects victims. It now has the opportunity to set another precedent to the world by ratifying this protocol."

The new U.S. laws include The Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 (TVP). According to the Justice Department, in 2001-2002 it laid 79 charges under the law, which led to 51 convictions. Of those, 38 cases involved abuse or sexual exploitation.

The Protect Act of 2003 makes it a crime for individuals to travel in or out of the United States for the purpose of sex tourism.

Last week, a federal grand jury indicted a 69-year-old U.S. military veteran on two counts of attempting to and engaging in illicit sexual conduct in Cambodia, under the Protect Act.

The 2003 U.S. State Department trafficking in persons report estimates 800,000-900,000 people are trafficked yearly across international borders worldwide, including 18,000-20,000 into the United States.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) quotes experts who estimate the numbers at 700,000-four million people trafficked annually worldwide, including 50,000 women and children alone into the United States.

According to Jordan, "This is an underground activity that is organized by criminal gangs. There really is no way to know the exact numbers."

"I do think that when people talk about millions they are not exaggerating, simply because most of the statistics that have been taken to date have only been focusing on prostitution," she added.

But Jordan argues that governments, including the United States, "don't want to look at the entire phenomenon."

"If they look at the larger numbers, then governments are going to have to say 'what is it about our immigration and economic policies that allows these people to be so vulnerable that they can be abused'?"

The problem in the United States is the lack of a free flow of labor, she says. The combination of a "demand for labor that Americans don't want to do" and the lack of means for legal immigration, means that "our immigration policies have created a category of non-persons who don't have many rights at all."