[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
THE TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS REPORT 2011: TRUTH, TRENDS, AND TIER
RANKINGS
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH,
AND HUMAN RIGHTS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
OCTOBER 27, 2011
__________
Serial No. 112-106
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
DAN BURTON, Indiana GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York
ELTON GALLEGLY, California ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
DANA ROHRABACHER, California Samoa
DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California BRAD SHERMAN, California
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
RON PAUL, Texas GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
MIKE PENCE, Indiana RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
JOE WILSON, South Carolina ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
CONNIE MACK, Florida GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas DENNIS CARDOZA, California
TED POE, Texas BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky
GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio ALLYSON SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania
BILL JOHNSON, Ohio CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
DAVID RIVERA, Florida FREDERICA WILSON, Florida
MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania KAREN BASS, California
TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina
ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York
RENEE ELLMERS, North Carolina
ROBERT TURNER, New York
Yleem D.S. Poblete, Staff Director
Richard J. Kessler, Democratic Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and Human Rights
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman
JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania KAREN BASS, California
ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
ROBERT TURNER, New York
C O N T E N T S
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Page
WITNESSES
The Honorable Luis CdeBaca, Ambassador-at-Large, Office to
Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, U.S. Department of
State.......................................................... 5
The Honorable Robert O. Blake, Assistant Secretary of State,
Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, U.S. Department of
State.......................................................... 14
Mr. Joseph Y. Yun, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State,
Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, U.S. Department of
State.......................................................... 22
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
The Honorable Luis CdeBaca: Prepared statement................... 8
The Honorable Robert O. Blake: Prepared statement................ 16
Mr. Joseph Y. Yun: Prepared statement............................ 24
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 58
Hearing minutes.................................................. 59
The Honorable Russ Carnahan, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Missouri: Prepared statement...................... 60
The Honorable Ann Marie Buerkle, a Representative in Congress
from the State of New York: Prepared statement................. 61
Questions submitted for the record by the Honorable Christopher
H. Smith, a Representative in Congress from the State of New
Jersey, and chairman, Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health,
and Human Rights............................................... 62
Questions submitted for the record by the Honorable Ann Marie
Buerkle, a Representative in Congress from the State of New
York........................................................... 65
THE TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS REPORT 2011: TRUTH, TRENDS, AND TIER
RANKINGS
----------
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2011
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health,
and Human Rights
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:08 p.m., in
room 2200, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H.
Smith (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Smith. The subcommittee will come to order. And good
afternoon to everybody. Welcome to this hearing to examine the
State Department's 2011 Trafficking in Persons Report. This
annual report to Congress was first mandated by legislation
that I sponsored, known as the Trafficking Victims Protection
Act of 2000.
In 1998--and I know Ambassador CdeBaca is very well aware
of this--when I first introduced the bill, the legislation was
met with a wall of skepticism and opposition, although we did
have some friends like the Ambassador. People both inside of
government and out thought the issue of human trafficking was
merely a solution in search of a problem. For most people at
that time, the term ``trafficking'' applied almost exclusively
to illegal drugs or weapons. Reports of vulnerable persons,
especially women and children, being reduced to commodities for
sale were often met with surprise, incredulity, or
indifference.
One major objection to the bill, especially from the
Clinton administration, was the naming and ranking of countries
based on compliance with the establishment of commonsense
minimum standards, clearly articulated prevention, protection,
and prosecution benchmarks, enforced by sanctions and penalties
against egregious violators.
Fortunately, reality won out over ignorance. Although it
took 2 years to overcome opponents and muster the votes for
passage, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act was finally
signed into law with strong bipartisan support. This support
from both sides of the aisle has continued through subsequent
reauthorizations, and has been essential in the ongoing
successes by the U.S. Government in combating modern-day
slavery both at home and abroad.
However, the battle is far from over. According to the
State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Human
Trafficking, created by the TVPA, more than 12 million people
worldwide are trafficking victims. Other estimates put the
number of victims as high as 27 million.
Today we know that human trafficking is the third most
lucrative criminal activity in the world. According to the
International Labor Organization, human traffickers make
profits in excess of $31 billion a year.
We are fortunate to have with us today three distinguished
State Department witnesses to examine both the substance and
the diplomatic activity that is behind the Trafficking in
Persons Report. The report, which is written by the TIP office,
headed by Ambassador Lou CdeBaca, summarizes the rankings and
performance of each country and provides detailed
recommendations as to how each country can improve its efforts.
But more than a source of comprehensive, concise knowledge
against human trafficking around the world, the TIP report has
been an incredibly effective diplomatic tool. The report has
been a catalyst for improvement, often dramatic improvements,
in efforts of governments to address human trafficking within
their borders and regions.
With a combination of encouragement, persuasion, and
sustained pressure via sanctions or the threat of sanctions
imposed by the U.S., countries around the world have created or
amended over 120 laws to combat human trafficking, and, in the
past 3 years alone, an estimated 113,000 victims have been
identified and assisted worldwide. Individuals within each
country can use the report to assess their government's
commitment and to lobby their government to take specific
measures.
The G/TIP Office also coordinates technical assistance and
aid for many of the countries wishing to improve their anti-
trafficking response. The result has been a worldwide anti-
trafficking surge, largely dependent on the credibility, the
accuracy, and faithful implementation of the report, including
the tier framework.
This afternoon, we will turn our attention to ensuring that
the report retains these essential attributes, and to assess
whether or not it is fulfilling its purpose.
In 2003, Congress added a special Watch List to the tier
rankings to allow countries an opportunity to address serious
shortcomings in their anti-trafficking efforts before being
placed in Tier III and subject to sanctions. When it became
apparent that this Tier II Watch List was becoming a permanent
parking lot for some countries, Congress added a requirement to
the 2008 reauthorization that the President either downgrade or
upgrade any country that had been on Tier II Watch List for 2
consecutive years.
Obviously, the direction in which the country is moved is
based on whether requisite measures were taken to meet the
minimum standards. The President can waive the requirements to
move a country off of the Tier II Watch List for up to 2 years
if the country has a plan to bring itself into compliance with
minimum standards, and designates sufficient resources to carry
it out. But this waiver should only be applied in the most
extreme cases, as countries have had since 2009 to undertake
this effort.
Consequently, it is with concern that I note the President
has determined 12 countries need yet another year on Tier II
Watch Lists. Some of these countries, notably China and Russia,
have been on the Watch List for 7 and 8 years respectively.
Uzbekistan has been on the list for 4 years.
I look forward to hearing, discussing with our witnesses
today, exactly why the administration is convinced these
countries need yet another year to get their acts together. I
also look forward to a serious discussion about the application
of sanctions.
The report shows that of the 23 countries on Tier III, the
full sanctions envisioned by the TVPA will be applied to only
three countries: Eritrea, Madagascar, and North Korea. Partial
sanctions will be imposed on seven countries, and 13 countries
will have no trafficking sanctions imposed whatsoever.
Some may argue that being on Tier III is punishment enough,
but Congress envisioned tangible repercussions for countries on
Tier III. Those who work on the front lines of human
trafficking know all too well that a law is useless and
diminished at the very least, unless faithfully implemented.
I look forward to discussing with our distinguished
witnesses today the accuracy of the tier rankings and the
importance of substantial follow-up actions.
I would like to now yield to my friend and colleague Mr.
Payne for any opening comments he may have.
Mr. Payne. Thank you. Let me start by commending
Congressman Smith for calling this important hearing on the
2011 Trafficking in Persons Report.
I want to thank our witnesses for agreeing to testify
before us today. On June 27, the State Department issued its
11th annual Report on Human Trafficking in Persons, TIP Report,
as mandated by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. Overall,
the 2011 report presents a sobering view of the state of U.S.
and international campaigns against human trafficking. It
describes the most common severe forms of human trafficking,
and identifies key emerging issues and trends.
Unfortunately, global progress has been mixed. For example,
in the past 2 years the average number of prosecutions of human
trafficking offenders has increased. However, if we look back
further we see that the total number of prosecutions have
declined.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today about
ways the international community can help developing countries
strengthen their judicial systems to better respond to this and
other criminal justice issues.
The report also reveals that we are failing to adequately
target each subset of TIP, particularly forced labor, which is
more than a common crime; it actually occurs much more than sex
trafficking, but only represents 10 percent of all
prosecutions.
I am looking forward to hearing the panel's thoughts on how
to better address this challenge of trafficking in the
workforce. I also hope the witnesses can highlight the unique
challenges facing many African and conflict-stricken countries
in addressing the issue of human trafficking.
According to the report, only two African nations, Nigeria
and Mauritius, are fully complying with the minimum standards
for combating human trafficking, therefore qualifying them as
Tier I. Ten African countries fall within Tier III, which makes
them subject to aid restrictions. In Africa, these potential
aid restrictions are cause for concern. Many countries on the
continent have been burdened by debilitating conflicts and
strife. Africa's conflicts have displaced citizens, traumatized
local communities, and it is often children who are
particularly vulnerable to exploitation.
In these conflict areas, where government control is often
limited, armed groups may abduct women and children for sexual
slavery, and also often recruit children for their ranks.
Limited income-earning opportunities in conflict zones also
contribute to these problems. Exploitation thrives under these
conditions. Overburdened governments, poor judicial systems,
and widespread poverty prevent adequate response to human
trafficking cases in many of the countries that I am referring
to. Yet some African nations are making progress on this front.
The U.N. Secretary General stated in his most recent global
report on children and armed conflict that, despite several
challenges, considerable progress was made by the Sudanese
People's Liberation Army, the SPLA, in implementing a plan to
remove child soldiers from its ranks. According to the 2011
report, Chad reportedly ended all child conscription into its
national army, and continued to engage in efforts to demobilize
remaining child soldiers from rebel forces.
Earlier this month, President Obama certified that Chad had
taken necessary steps to allow for its reinstatement of barred
assistance. While I agree that the United States and the
international community must hold states responsible for
implementing robust anti-trafficking initiatives, I am
concerned about the impact that withholding aid can have on
innocent civilians.
It is important that in our effort to end human trafficking
and persuade nations to fully engage in the global cause, we do
not inadvertently harm those we intend to protect and help. I
commend President Obama for his thoughtful understanding of
this very complex issue and for granting waivers where
appropriate.
As we move forward with our discussion today, let us not
forget the conditions that allow the horrific crimes of human
trafficking to exist. We should focus on ways to ensure that
our aid programs help strengthen the capacity of developing
countries to adequately protect their civilians and citizens.
Thank you again to our witnesses, and I look forward to
hearing your testimony. I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Ranking Member.
We are joined by Mr. Turner. Thank you for being here.
Mr. Turner. Thank you.
Mr. Smith. And I will put all of the extensive resumes of
our distinguished witnesses in the record, and just very
quickly summarize.
First, introducing Ambassador Luis CdeBaca, who is no
stranger to this subcommittee, who was appointed in 2009 as the
Director of the State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat
Trafficking in Persons, which assesses global trends, provides
training and technical assistance, and advocates for an end to
modern-day slavery. Ambassador CdeBaca formerly served as chief
counsel to the House Committee on the Judiciary, where his
portfolio included modern slavery issues among many other
things. He also served as a Federal prosecutor with the
Department of Justice, where he convicted dozens of abusive
pimps and employers, and helped to liberate hundreds of victims
from servitude. A very distinguished record.
We will then hear from Ambassador Robert Blake, who
currently serves as the Assistant Secretary of State in the
Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, a position he has
held since May 2009. He entered the Foreign Service in 1985,
and served at the American Embassies in Tunisia, Algeria,
Nigeria, and Egypt. He served as the deputy chief of mission at
the U.S. Mission in New Delhi, India, from 2003 to 2006. And
Ambassador Blake was our Ambassador to Sri Lanka and Maldives
from 2006 to 2009. He also held a number of positions at the
Department right here in Washington.
Then we will hear from Mr. Joseph Yun, who is currently
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of East
Asian and Pacific Affairs, a position he has held since August
2010. In this role, he is responsible for relations with
Southeast Asia and ASEAN affairs. He joined the Foreign Service
in 1985, and has served in numerous positions abroad, including
in South Korea, Thailand, France, Indonesia, and Hong Kong.
Ambassador CdeBaca, the floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE LUIS CDEBACA, AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE,
OFFICE TO MONITOR AND COMBAT TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Ambassador CdeBaca. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressman
Payne, Congressman Turner. Thank you to the subcommittee for
the opportunity to testify today. I have a more fulsome
statement that I would offer for the record. But before we
start, I would like to take a step back, if I may, to recognize
what you and your cosponsors of the original Trafficking
Victims Protection Act achieved in bringing that initial
skepticism that you perhaps mentioned to consensus.
Eleven years ago this afternoon in fact, on a similarly
rainy day in October, President Clinton recorded his radio
address to be broadcast on the morning of October 28, 2000, the
day that he signed that groundbreaking legislation into law to
fight what the President described that day as slavery, pure
and simple. As President Clinton pointed out, the TVPA was
groundbreaking in providing new tools both here at home and
abroad in increasing our assistance to other countries to help
them detect and punish this pernicious practice.
I would like to simply quote President Clinton, because his
words that evening are as applicable now as they were then. He
said, and I quote,
``I worked hard for these provisions. They build on
what we have been doing at home and abroad to address
this problem. We see in the success of this landmark
legislation once again that there is no real secret to
getting things done in Washington. When we put progress
over partisanship, we get results. When we work
together, we get results. Working hard, working
together through three Presidencies and various changes
in the Congress, together committed to ending modern
slavery.''
As you continue to deliberate this year's reauthorization
of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, hearings such as
this one are helpful opportunities to discuss the global fight.
And we are dedicated to working together with you to get those
types of results that President Clinton mentioned.
This week is also the 10th anniversary of the establishment
of the Trafficking in Persons Office at the State Department.
On October 22, 2001, the Office opened for business and has
never flagged in its resolve. A decade of leadership by my
predecessors, Ambassadors Nancy Ely-Raphel, John Miller, Mark
Lagon, but the fight is really the result of the expertise of
the G/TIP career staff, the civil servants, Foreign Service,
and contractors and their partners at Main State and at post.
Two of those experts, Amy O'Neill Richard and Carla Menares
Bury, have been in the Office since the beginning. And those
women are globally recognized leaders in the modern
abolitionist struggle, and I would like to note that we owe
them all a debt of gratitude for their decade in service in
this fight against modern slavery.
The most visible part of our work is the annual Trafficking
in Persons Report. And thorough and honest assessments are the
benchmark of the TIP report. We take into account information
from civil society groups, foreign governments, and our own
reporting officers at post who conduct on-the-ground research
throughout the year. The review process involves numerous State
Department offices so that the final product represents a
Department-wide consensus on how well various governments are
doing to handle this problem.
Accurate reporting is essential to the effectiveness of the
Trafficking in Persons Report as a diplomatic tool. And indeed,
governments often cite it as a factor prompting stronger action
in response to modern slavery. Sometimes those conversations
happen in public, more often in private, and sometimes a
government that criticizes the report, and perhaps even
mobilizes others in the regions or around the world against it,
quietly nonetheless takes steps to address the standards that
were set forth by Congress.
Regardless of the public response, we are going to work
hard with our counterparts to get results, just as was done in
the Clinton administration, just as was done in the Bush
administration. What the report tells us is that no country,
including the United States, is immune to this scourge, and
that no government, including the United States, is doing a
perfect job in combating it.
The two regions that we address today, East Asia and the
Pacific, and South and Central Asia, are hit particularly hard
by this crime. We always say that the fight against modern
slavery takes political will, and not just on the part of
governments overseas. Assistant Secretaries Bob Blake and Kurt
Campbell are showing that political will both individually and
within their chains of command. As a result, we have seen a
real institutionalizing of the anti-trafficking fight in these
regions, and a coming together around this sense of mission.
That means year-round engagement--not just the preparation of
the annual report, and for that I am personally grateful for
the leadership of Assistant Secretaries Campbell and Blake--
year-round engagement, partnership, and hard work, necessary to
move past this last decade of development in which laws and
structures have slowly come on line, and to move into what
Secretary Clinton calls a decade of delivery.
Because the number of successful prosecutions seems to have
leveled off a bit, because services for survivors continue to
be inadequate, and victim identification remains a challenge,
because structures and results are not the same thing. The
difference between the passage of a law and the effective
implementation of that law is political will. The reality is
that there are places where that political will is weak or
nonexistent, and in those places victims are most at risk.
As the report shows, some governments merely go through the
motions when it comes to fighting modern slavery, and some
governments, the Tier III countries, typically, do not do
anything at all. Every day, nongovernmental actors around the
world work to make up for that, despite the fact that these
governments are doing little or nothing. We support such groups
through our international programs and foreign assistance
funds. We know that it will never be possible to give every
organization the help that they want, but even the current
funding levels only average out to a little more than $0.72 per
victim per year, given the 27 million estimate worldwide. And
in many countries, if that little bit of American funding that
we were able to give were to disappear, those programs would
simply cease to exist. There would be no place for victims and
survivors to go.
It has been 149 years and 1 month since President Lincoln
made the promise of emancipation. It was 4 months ago that we
released the TIP report and that Secretary Clinton called for a
decade of delivery to make good on President Lincoln's promise
around the world.
If the U.S. Government is not able to stand with motivated
governments and the nongovernmentals that make a difference on
the ground providing victim services, training prosecutors, and
police officers, the decade of delivery is already in danger.
If the anti-trafficking movement loses steam in Washington and
the halls of Congress, we could lose that fight everywhere else
as well.
We cannot try to balance the budget on the backs of
trafficking victims. And if we do so, or try to do so with cuts
to an already tiny amount of money, we put at risk all of the
progress made over the last decade. Human trafficking is a
threat to our country and an offense to our most important
values. But more importantly, as Secretary Clinton has said,
fighting slavery is part of who we are as a Nation. For 149
years we have not only had a responsibility to act against this
crime, we have pledged ourselves to that responsibility. We
must not and will not shirk from that task. Thank you.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador.
[The prepared statement of Mr. CdeBaca follows:]
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Mr. Smith. Ambassador Blake.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ROBERT O. BLAKE, ASSISTANT SECRETARY
OF STATE, BUREAU OF SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIAN AFFAIRS, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Ambassador Blake. Mr. Chairman, Representative Payne,
Representative Turner, I welcome the opportunity to speak with
you today regarding trafficking in South and Central Asia. I am
honored to do so in the company of my colleagues, Ambassador
CdeBaca and Joe Yun. I have a longer statement that I will
submit for the record.
Mr. Smith. Without objection, that will be made part of the
record.
Ambassador Blake. Mr. Chairman, first of all let me say how
much I appreciate your leadership, the work of this
subcommittee, and the focus that you bring to the issue of
trafficking in persons. I have made it a personal priority to
address trafficking in persons in the SCA region in close
partnership with Ambassador CdeBaca. I have done so through
direct advocacy with governments, but also by visiting with the
many fine NGOs on the ground doing good work to combat
trafficking, and frequently recording short video interviews
with them that my staff posts on YouTube to publicize their
work and the scope of the challenges that they are dealing
with.
Mr. Chairman, I am proud to say that our engagement has
produced dividends and progress, but significant challenges
still remain. The Department upgraded four SCA countries this
year from Tier II Watch List to Tier II, India, Sri Lanka,
Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan. Three remain on the Watch List, but
we are making progress in all three, Bangladesh, Maldives, and
Uzbekistan. And only one country is on Tier III, Turkmenistan.
I would like to briefly touch on the situation in some of
the key countries where I have been personally engaged. First,
India. Mr. Chairman, I know you share our interest in seeing
continued progress in India on anti-trafficking efforts. The
Department's upgrade of India to Tier II this year was based on
the government's increased efforts to address the trafficking
problem, particularly bonded labor. Specifically, the
government increased law enforcement efforts through the
establishment of over 80 anti-human trafficking units. It
ratified the U.N. TIP protocol. It achieved landmark
convictions against bonded labor traffickers, with punishments
of significant prison sentences, and increased rescue and
rehabilitation efforts of thousands of trafficking victims in
many parts of India. This good work continues at both the state
and Federal levels.
Tajikistan is another country that has made commendable
progress against trafficking, and Secretary Clinton noted that
on her recent trip there last weekend. In 2011, Tajikistan was
upgraded to Tier II for addressing the use of forced labor in
its annual cotton harvest through efforts such as accrediting
and assisting NGOs to monitor the harvest. They also prosecuted
and convicted the first trafficking offenders under their new
anti-trafficking provision.
Kazakhstan also was elevated to Tier II this year. The
Kazakh Government increased law enforcement efforts against
human trafficking, it passed a law strengthening penalties for
convicted child sex trafficking offenders, and the Ministry of
Internal Affairs has drafted a law that allows trafficking
victims to have a legal advocate that expands the scope of
trafficking-related crimes and increases legal protections for
minors subject to forced labors.
Mr. Chairman, you asked about Uzbekistan. It presents a
mixed picture. The government has made good progress in
combating sex trafficking, but has been slow to address the use
of forced labor, particularly in the annual cotton harvest. In
March 2011, the Government of Uzbekistan created an interagency
working group tasked with ensuring compliance with all 13 ILO
conventions to which Uzbekistan is a party. Our Embassy in
Tashkent will be monitoring the Government of Uzbekistan's
actions to uphold these commitments, and I will continue to
engage the government to make progress on this important
priority.
Mr. Chairman, the trafficking report has been an impetus
for this change in all of our region, but it is only one of the
tools that we have at our disposal to influence the anti-
trafficking efforts of other countries.
Reports from international NGOs have sometimes been
instrumental in informing and compelling action on TIP. My
Bureau and Ambassador CdeBaca's team greatly value such input,
and we have tried hard to foster a cooperative relationship
with these institutions. We influence them and they influence
us by information sharing to make sure that our efforts are
complementary and that we make the most impact on the ground.
Governments remain extremely interested to know where they will
be ranked in the report when it comes out in June.
But I think that the work that we do to consistently engage
and influence people at every level of society is equally
significant. For example, the exchange programs and workshops
that we sponsor to train government officials in implementation
are critical to realizing the potential of the new laws being
passed. The training programs with police officers or border
guards to sensitize them about potential trafficking in persons
victims are also vital. So I want to assure you that we value
the resources that we are entrusted with by Congress, and we
work very closely with Ambassador CdeBaca and his staff to
implement the programs to make a positive and lasting impact.
In summary, Mr. Chairman, the SCA region is moving closer
to being compliant with internationally recognized anti-TIP
standards, but there is much more work to be done. This will
continue to be a personal priority for me and a priority for my
Bureau. So again, I thank you for this opportunity to address
this subcommittee, and I look forward to your questions.
Mr. Smith. Ambassador Blake, thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Blake follows:]
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Mr. Smith. Mr. Yun.
STATEMENT OF MR. JOSEPH Y. YUN, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY ASSISTANT
SECRETARY OF STATE, BUREAU OF EAST ASIAN AND PACIFIC AFFAIRS,
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Mr. Yun. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Payne, Representative
Turner, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you
today to testify on trafficking in persons in East Asia and the
Pacific region. I have submitted a statement for the record.
With your permission, I would like to make a few summary
remarks. First of all, regrets to convey from Assistant
Secretary Campbell. He wanted to be here, but he had to be
traveling at the last minute. So I think in fact as we are
speaking, he is landing in Dulles.
Human trafficking and modern slavery reaches into every
corner of the globe, but perhaps nowhere more so than in East
Asia and the Pacific. According to the International Labor
Organization, the incidence of forced labor and sex trafficking
is higher in the Asia-Pacific region than anywhere else in the
world. And according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and
Crimes, victims from Asia are trafficked to the widest range of
destinations around the globe.
In addition to being trafficked overseas, many victims are
trafficked within their own countries. In fact, the UNODC
reports that most trafficking is national, not international,
and is carried out by traffickers whose nationality is the same
as their victims, and within national borders.
While human trafficking remains widespread and serious, we
do believe that TVPA, our TIP report, and its associated
activities have been effective in fighting trafficking in
persons in East Asia and the Pacific.
There are several success stories I would like to share
with you. Taiwan is one example of how information in the TIP
report has led to real reform in many aspects of fighting TIP,
including implementation of stronger anti-trafficking laws,
better protection for victims, and increased prosecutions. In
2006, Taiwan was ranked in TIP report as Tier II Watch List,
was upgraded to Tier II in 2007, and in 2010 was upgraded again
to Tier I, where it remained this year.
The Philippines also has potential to serve as a model in
the region for its recent efforts to combat TIP. After 2
consecutive years as Tier II Watch List, and facing an
automatic downgrade, the Philippines was upgraded to Tier II in
2011. The number of prosecutions of traffickers in the
Philippines increased greatly in the last reporting cycle. And
the government has increased the resources it devotes to combat
trafficking, and has begun to identify and punish corrupt
officials linked to trafficking. The government has
acknowledged these efforts were linked to the threat of a
downgrade to Tier III in the TIP report.
Singapore is another example of a country in our region
that has potential, moving up from Tier II Watch List to Tier
II in 2011. Singapore has shown a markedly increased awareness
of TIP issues in the last year, and the government has formed
an interagency task force to address the issue. In 2011,
Singapore hosted a workshop for the ASEAN region on criminal
justice responses to trafficking in persons, which was attended
by Ambassador CdeBaca as well as other members of my Bureau.
And in April 2011, 6 members of Singapore's 20-person
interagency task force on TIP traveled to DC to meet myself,
Assistant Secretary Campbell, and my colleagues in Ambassador
CdeBaca's office. I will stress that it is not the report alone
that results in progress, but also the enormous amount of hours
spent in country by staff from our embassies and consulates
abroad, who engage year-round with the whole of government. Our
advocacy in Washington with those countries' ambassadors and
embassy teams has also made a difference.
Mr. Chairman, we are only too well aware the problem
remains. We have worked very closely with Ambassador CdeBaca,
who has made a number of trips over the last few months to our
region, and we remain committed to working with G/TIP office as
well as other international organizations fighting human
trafficking.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to answering any
questions you might have.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Yun, thank you very much for your testimony.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Yun follows:]
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Mr. Smith. Let me first begin with a general question. I
guess, Ambassador CdeBaca, you might be the one that might want
to answer this. What diplomatic efforts did the Department make
or undertake to ensure that countries knew that they would not
remain on the Watch List for 2 more years, as per the
trafficking reauthorization of 2008? And what was the reaction?
I mean, were each of those that were currently on watch
contacted and fully apprised of their potential downgrading?
Ambassador CdeBaca. Indeed. We did a number of steps, both
internally within the Department through all docs and messages
out to the field, but then also with that as a tasker for that
direct type of engagement. And we saw on the part of a number
of countries a recognition that this was kind of long overdue,
that countries had gotten perhaps a little comfortable on
there.
We saw a recognition on some other countries, especially
those such as Senegal or the Philippines or others who are MCC
countries, a recognition of what the prospect of a Tier III
downgrade might mean not just reputationally, but as far as
sanctions, and as far as some of the other assistance and aid
and work in the international monetary fora might have on those
countries. It was a bit of a wakeup call for some of our
partners. And we think that we have seen, as a result of the
Watch List designation, some real movement. There were a good
percentage of the Tier II Watch List countries moved up to Tier
II on the merits.
The waiver issue was never even something that had to be
faced because of the work that they had done. And this was not
1-year work, this was work that they had undertaken across
those 2 years. We felt that it was important to kick it in
after 2 years because of the notion that almost an ex post
facto type of situation, even though this isn't a domestic
criminal law, but the notion that countries should have fair
warning that 2 years on the Watch List would have that result.
We also made it very clear what countries would need to do to
get waivers. It wasn't a choice. It wasn't saying, you know,
you should choose the lesser of two evils, but with the
recognition that not every country would necessarily be able to
get up to Tier II on the merits, as you and others had
recognized in putting the waiver provision in. So there was
certainly increased diplomacy that was done at the bilateral
level by our ambassadors, by me at G/TIP, but also specific
engagement on the part of then-Under Secretary for Political
Affairs Burns, now Deputy Burns, and others, who looked at
those 37 countries as countries that needed very specific
interventions.
And we saw that from the willingness of Deputy Steinberg,
the willingness of Under Secretary Burns to have those
conversations was very important, we thought, in having these
countries move up and off the Watch List.
Mr. Smith. Thank you. Let me ask you with regards to South
Korea, you might recall that we initiated an effort back in
early 2002 to try to get a zero-tolerance policy and to do an
investigation among our military to see whether or not there
was complicity with regards to our deployments in South Korea,
and certainly in the former Yugoslavia. And the IG's report
from the Department of Defense was very, very damning. And it
did lead to Bush's zero-tolerance policy.
I and others have raised repeatedly the issue of the juicy
bars in South Korea. I am just wondering why that seems to have
been left out of the narrative for this year's report. Have
they disappeared? Has the issue largely been mitigated? Or are
those still a problem? And as you recall, many of the women who
were being exploited there were Filipino women. And I know the
Filipino Government took some very aggressive action. I wonder
if that has been sustained.
Mr. Yun. I think this issue, as you know, has been an
ongoing concern. And USFK in South Korea has made zero-
tolerance policy very effective. And my recollection is that I
don't think we can say juicy bars have disappeared 100 percent,
but the incidence of abuse that went on is much way down.
If you like, Mr. Chairman, we can get more background on
the statistics or data we have on that.
Mr. Smith. I appreciate that, because it does seem to
reemerge. I know that Stars and Stripes has done some very fine
reporting on that, as have others. But as soon as you think you
have it in hand, all of a sudden a new spate of this kind of
exploitation emerges. Did you want to touch on that?
Ambassador CdeBaca. Mr. Smith, I was in South Korea a
couple of months ago, and in fact went to USFK, and we went
through some of these issues directly. One of the things that I
was struck with personally was the juxtaposition of those
images that we are all familiar with from the undercover
reporting that was done by some U.S. reporters of not just our
servicemen in active brothels, active strip clubs, not even the
euphemism of the juicy bar, but then also the shore patrol type
of folks, who were supposed to be there making sure that there
wasn't anything untoward going on, telling the undercover
reporters how easy it was to go with prostitutes.
Those same street corners, those same neighborhoods that
were in that undercover reporting are now nonsexually-related
businesses, partially because of the zero-tolerance policy,
partially because of the fact there are more families being
posted to that area of Korea, and not as many young men by
themselves. I think all of it together paints a picture of
towns where there used to be nothing but red-light districts,
and now there are places where you can take your kids and can
get chicken fingers on the menu. I think that has a big effect.
And it is something that happens because USFK, because our
Embassy in Seoul, and all of us are not taking our eyes off the
ball. But that notion that it can come back if we do take our
eyes off the ball is well taken.
Mr. Smith. Thank you. As you know, according to section 110
of the TVPA, China and any other country can only remain on the
Watch List if it has a written plan to begin making significant
efforts to bring itself into compliance with the minimum
standards, and that the plan, if implemented, would constitute
making significant efforts, and the country is devoting
sufficient resources to implement that plan.
I am wondering with regards to China, what is China's plan?
If you could elaborate on what it is that they said they are
willing do. Are they doing it? As you know, and I have raised
this before, we just had a hearing, as you may know, in this
committee hearing room just a few weeks ago. We heard from
survivors, women, including Chai Ling, all of whom have
suffered the gross exploitation of a forced abortion. And the
direct consequences of the one-child-per-couple policy has been
the missing girls. And some estimates put it as high as 100
million. Nobody knows the exact number. It is generally
accepted that by 2020, 40 million, and maybe as many as 50
million, is the newest number we have heard, men will not be
able to find wives because they have been subjected to a sex
selection abortion.
So the magnet for human trafficking is in ascendancy in
China. And I hope any plan that they have submitted or
suggested that they will follow pursuant to our not putting
them on Tier III, which is where they belong in my opinion, you
know, really will take into account the horrific consequences
of the missing daughters, the missing girls in China.
In the report before this one, there was more attention, I
thought, paid to the component and the contributing actions of
the one-child-per-couple policy to trafficking. I think we are
going to see bride selling and, frankly, kidnapping, and
certainly force, fraud, and coercion used in a variety of ways
to bring women into China because of this huge gender
disparity. Of course India has one as well, which is egregious,
but China's is a direct result of a government policy.
So I am wondering if that is fully understood, is it being
conveyed to the Chinese how concerned we are about this
terrible and cruel experiment called the one-child-per-couple
policy that has rendered brothers and sisters illegal, but it
has made sisters scarce? If you could.
Ambassador CdeBaca. I think I will address, Mr. Smith, the
waiver issue as far as the plan was concerned. One of the
things that we saw from the Chinese this last year is that, of
course, there is the written action plan that they have. But
perhaps more so, there are a number of other instruments that
came out in the ranking period which we thought were very
interesting, and in fact were having an impact in a way that we
had never seen before from China.
For instance, there was the guidelines that were issued by
the Ministry of Public Security and the Supreme People's Court
on sentencing issues. This is, again, something that we had
seen in the report over the previous years where we had been
criticizing the low sentences, a number of guidelines going out
to the courts saying you need to bring up the sentencing on
this. The idea of better law enforcement. The commitments made
for guidelines for shelter staff, for protocols for working on
trafficking victims on relief and reintegration. And perhaps,
most importantly, a directive to the field that women who were
encountered in prostitution should not simply be seen as
criminals, but instead should be assumed to be victims of
trafficking at the outset of the investigation; that shifting
the burden away from the victim, and assuming that they are
somebody who needs help was a very positive step. It would be a
positive step no matter what country it was in. But especially
in the Chinese context, we thought that that was something that
was worth noting.
We look forward to working with the Chinese Government over
the coming months as they look to bring themselves into
compliance with the Palermo Protocols standards. As you know,
we have been consistently raising the problem of their
trafficking definition, which was so focused on child
abduction, doesn't necessarily track the Palermo Protocol.
In our conversations with the Chinese Government, it
appears that their academics and their legal technocrats are
doing the kind of work that is necessary to start teeing-up
legislative changes, and also to put together a new plan going
forward, a new 5-year plan.
I think Mr. Yun is going to address some of the other
concerns. But I will certainly say that as far as the family
issues that you raise, one of the things that I raise when I am
in China, and will continue to do so, is this concern that the
population planning policies of the Chinese Government is
having that contributory effect that you mentioned. And it is
twice mentioned in the report. We are not backing off on that
issue.
Mr. Yun. Mr. Chairman, if I can just expand a little on
Ambassador CdeBaca's remarks. The administration considers
China's coercive birth limitation policies a grave violation of
human rights, and has routinely expressed our opposition to
those policies both publicly and privately. The White House
issued a statement on August 23 articulating the
administration's strong opposition to all aspects of China's
coercive birth-limitation policies, including forced abortion
and sterilization. And thus, we at the Department continue to
monitor developments concerning this very important issue.
Promoting greater respect for human rights, including
reproductive rights, is one of our key foreign policy
objectives in China. And we will continue to urge the Chinese
Government to treat its people in accordance with established
international norms. Thank you.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Yun. Two final questions. I will
yield to my colleagues, and then I have a few additional, if
you would allow.
Deborah Cundy, you might recall, Ambassador CdeBaca,
testified about best practices. We met her, you and I, at a
conference in Rome. I thought her testimony when she appeared
here was extraordinary about best practices that her hotel
chain has undertaken. But there have been many reports that
indicate that American chain hotels in China as well as in
Mexico have been the locations of sex trafficking. And namely,
we are talking about the Hilton hotel chain. And I am wondering
what you were doing specifically to work with hotel chains,
including Hilton, to ensure that they are not complicit in
human trafficking. Are they working with law enforcement, for
example, to ensure that trafficking laws against complicit
hotels--I mean, are we taking a harder line on those that are
part of the problem?
Ambassador CdeBaca. There are several things that we are
doing on the hospitality front. First of all, it is in the
context of the overarching business approach where we, through
projects such as the slaveryfootprint.org Web site, where
everyone can go, and after taking a 15- to 20-minute survey on
what they own and what they buy can get at least a rough idea
of how many people who are held in modern slavery are impacting
their lives.
I took it, and I am ashamed to say that even though I do
this for a living, and have for a while, that according to the
economists at Berkeley and the others who did the algorithms
that support that application, that at a minimum I have got 84
people held in forced labor around the world who are
contributing to my lifestyle just on the basis of what I buy,
what I do, et cetera. And that is, as I said, not only somebody
who doesn't use commercial sex, but also fights slavery for a
living. And if that is my slavery footprint, we can only think
about what people who aren't asking these questions might be.
A hotel has a slavery footprint as well. And I think that
we have seen that leadership from the Carlson Company,
certainly through their properties, Radisson, Country Inn and
Suites, et cetera, but also we are seeing leadership in some
other ways from hotels. Marriott made the decision--evidently
they have a policy that they don't sign onto codes of conduct,
kind of a general company-wide--so when they looked at it they
said, you know, what we think that we can best do with our
properties is not only think about how to have an exploitation-
free hotel environment, but also to harness the power of the
trafficking victims and the survivors. And so we are happy to
say that the first projects in the Marriott family, and I think
Starwood is participating as well, to actually bring
trafficking survivors into the training programs there, in
Brazil, in Mexico, in Vietnam--we think that the best victim
protection is a job, a good job, a safe job. And hotels can be
the agents of that.
Hilton, in the wake of those scandals--unfortunately, it
often takes a scandal to wake up a country or a company as to
the fact that they need to deal with this in their own supply
chains--in the wake of that scandal has now signed onto the
code of conduct for the travel and tourism industry. And we
made it very clear to Hilton that one of the reasons why we
selected the Hilton in downtown Miami for our recent Western
Hemispheric Reporting Officers Conference, when we had a choice
of a number of properties to host that in, was in recognition
of the fact that they had done so.
We don't see this as necessarily tied to the Federal
Acquisitions Register or to our contracting in general. We
don't have a rule that says this is something that we always
have to do. But what we are certainly looking at is if there is
a Radisson, if there is a Hilton, if there is somebody that has
put their money where their mouth is as far as human
trafficking, then we as consumers individually, but also G/TIP
as an office, we should reward that type of behavior.
So that is the plug. If you see a T.G.I. Fridays, that is
Marilyn Carlson Nelson's company does that. We can't tell you
where to eat, but you should know that they are doing their
best to fight slavery.
Mr. Smith. I appreciate that. Just one question before I
yield to Mr. Payne.
With regards to Cuba, a Tier III country which was granted
a waiver on September 30 for cultural and educational
exchanges, my question is how does granting that waiver
actually promote democracy, rule of law, respect for human
rights?
And I would note parenthetically that I have tried, me
personally, to get a visa to go to Cuba, primarily to go to the
prisons and to try, if possible, to meet with the political
prisoners there, to meet with Fidel Castro to raise directly--
or his brother Raul--the issue of human rights, and
particularly the mistreatment, the torture, the degradation
that is suffered by political prisoners in Cuba. And there are
still hundreds of them. Some were recently let out including,
Dr. Oscar Biscet, who I frankly nominated for the Nobel Peace
Prize. He is an unbelievable man, a tremendous man. He is still
under what we would call house arrest, but at least he is out
of solitary and he is not being tortured per se. And I was
denied.
I tried to go with a cultural exchange group, because to
get into Cuba you need to be going with some group. You just
can't show up on your own. And I couldn't get a visa, still
can't get a visa to go to Cuba. And yet a waiver was granted,
and Frank Wolf joined me in that. He and I are trying still. We
have been in prisons in China, the Soviet Union, Romania, East
Bloc countries. I met with Xaxana Gusmao, when he was in--from
East Timor, who then obviously went on to become President--in
Indonesia. Yet we can't get into Cuba's prisons. And it is very
troubling especially, since that is what is permitted or
exempted in terms of sanctions. So a Member of Congress,
chairman of the Human Rights Committee for Congress, can't get
into Cuba, and yet that is waived. So if you could speak to
that, I would appreciate it.
Ambassador CdeBaca. Well, you are correct that it is
waived. It is the only thing that is waived for Cuba. We feel
that Cuba doesn't have a comprehensive strategy to address
this. It has little if no discernible anti-trafficking law
enforcement, victim care, trafficking prevention measures. You
know, most other countries, even that end up being on Tier III,
at least generally admit that there might be some trafficking
going on. We feel as though, on the trafficking specifically,
that just as we have been able to establish a dialogue with the
Government of Cuba on migration issues, that we need to be in
there trying to talk to them. Trying to talk to them can be
frustrating. It can mean not getting a visa at times. We don't
base our rankings of countries on whether Members of Congress,
or even me or my staff, can get a visa to go talk to them.
There have been other countries, other than Cuba, where we
haven't had the luck of getting that visa issued as we would
desire. But I think at the end of the day the calibration that
this administration has on Cuba is very much that if we can get
not only the formal dialogues with the government through--
especially on the migration dialogue, but also that notion of
some people-to-people work, getting the Cuban people to be able
to see what freedom looks like, to be able to see what that
example does, it will achieve great change on the island.
And so within the context of these particular sanctions,
which are just some of many against the regime and doing
business in Cuba, we felt that exempting out these cultural and
educational exchange programs was a way to continue those types
of relationships.
As you said, even during the depths of the Cold War, that
notion of educational exchange programs was one of the ways
that we were able to (A) keep the dialogue going, but (B) raise
up an entire generation of leaders who in the late 1980s and
early 1990s finally were able to achieve change behind the Iron
curtain. And we want to continue to be able to do that with
Cuba.
Mr. Smith. Okay. Mr. Payne.
Mr. Payne. Thank you very much. I just wonder if any one of
you would take on this question. Human trafficking is a broad
term that encapsulates a diverse group of crimes from debt
bondage to child sex trafficking. In your opinion--any one of
you could try to answer this--what are the main push-and-pull
factors driving international human trafficking? How do they
differ in your opinion by region and by type of trafficking?
And to what extent do current anti-trafficking programs address
such underlying factors or vulnerabilities? Do you see a big
difference as it relates around the world? Do you think there
is any sort of a cartel that communicates with each other in
different regions of the world? I just wonder if anyone might
take that general question.
Ambassador CdeBaca. I think I might tee it up. But I know
that my colleagues have thoughts on this because we have talked
about this over the last couple of years.
We are talking about two regions of the world that are both
source and destination regions. I sometimes--as I mentioned to
Assistant Secretary Blake, I am going to see some of his
clients when I am going to the Gulf States because there are so
many people from South and Central Asia who are there who are
vulnerable and often exploited. On the other hand, there are
people within South Asia who are going from one country to
another within South Asia or who are enslaved in their own
countries. The same I think is true in East Asia where we have
a lot of interregional trafficking that happens.
At the end of the day, poverty is very much a driver of
this but it is not necessarily the most abject of poverty. It
perhaps is the one step up on the developed rung, the person
who actually sees an opportunity to--having gone to school, now
having no opportunity to get a job in their home village or
their hometown says, Well, then I am going to have to go off
somewhere else. All too often, the person who can help them do
that is not an honest labor broker. It is somebody who is going
to charge a usurious recruiting fee and enforce that through
force, threats of force and threats of coercion.
So one of the things that we very much look at is the idea
that development could do something to stem the flow while
recognizing that there is some research out there now that is
showing that this is definitely a crime of opportunity. The
victims want opportunity. They are willing to put themselves in
harm's way to some degree. And the traffickers see the
opportunity to take advantage of them.
It manifests itself very differently in a number of these
different countries, though. Even in different parts of the
same country, you will have mainly sex trafficking in one part,
and, in another part, mainly agricultural trafficking. Which is
why I think that the work that we do at the embassies is so
important. We have to apply these minimum standards to the
regions and to the world, but we have to do it in the context
of each one of these countries. The difference between a
Senegal and a South Korea are very different based on where
they are and what they need, and we have to be able to tell the
difference as we are applying these minimum standards that you
have given us.
Ambassador Blake. Let me jump in and just add to what
Ambassador CdeBaca said. I think in the SCA region, you see
both a combination of push-and-pull factors, as you said, Mr.
Payne. In places like India and Nepal, trafficking is often a
function of poverty and poor education, where particularly
young women, but also young children, are very vulnerable to
seductive pitches from traffickers who promise a better life in
the city and then find themselves enslaved once they get there,
and in debt, bondage of some sort which they will never get out
of. So they are very, very vulnerable to those kinds of
pitches.
It is also a function of weak governmental institutions and
weak rule of law that is unable to deal with these kinds of
challenges. Frequently you find trafficking in countries where
there is a poor level or a low level of economic growth, in
places like Tajikstan where one-seventh of the country is
working outside of Tajikstan in Russia and in Kazakhstan
because there is no economic opportunity for them. So those
migrant workers are often very vulnerable in the countries in
which they work, as Ambassador CdeBaca said, not just in the
Gulf but in Russia and elsewhere.
Another serious problem almost throughout my region is
corruption where, again, those weak government institutions and
often poorly paid officials are very susceptible to corruption,
particularly by these organized criminal gangs and networks.
And so that is a very difficult problem for us to try to deal
with.
So our challenge is to both try to shine a light on these
practices, as I think this report does, but also work with the
many capable NGOs on the ground who are doing terrific work,
and then finally to engage the governments directly not only in
terms of advocacy, but in terms of the many important programs
that your committee helps to fund.
Mr. Yun. Mr. Chairman, of course I agree with everything
that has been said.
But an interesting aspect in my view is, clearly it is tied
to poverty and economy. Having said that, it is also clear that
in some cases, country and countries can make enormous progress
in very, very short time. And in my region, I would highlight
South Korea and Taiwan. So you need to ask, why is it that some
countries can make enormous progress in very short time?
Obviously the strength of the institution is one. And I would
say what I would loosely call ``freedom index'' is another one;
that is, the media as a watchdog, civil society, and of course
the willingness of lawmakers to look at their legislation, to
look at their laws and see what they can learn from elsewhere
and what will work for them. So it is entirely possible in my
view that in many countries, things can improve quite rapidly,
given opportunities.
Mr. Payne. Thank you. Kind of a similar question in that
vein, because I just wonder, how does the problem of--in your
opinion--human trafficking compare to other social economic
challenges facing governments that are not fully compliant with
the U.S. minimum requirements? Do you find that when human
trafficking is a problem, there are other similar problems?
And secondly, where does a sort of state corruption come
in? Officials in many instances, you have to work with
policing. And I think policing around the world, even sometimes
in our country, we see policing problems. Sometimes peaceful
demonstrations are disrupted and they become actually a police
riot.
There is some question of just what happened in San Diego a
night or so ago where people were relatively peaceful. A bottle
or two might have been thrown. But the reaction of a police
force here, even in our country--I just use that as an example
that policing is so important.
So the law enforcement agencies in countries where the
social economic issues--in some instances these law enforcement
people aren't even paid--not that that is an excuse for them to
therefore be corrupt--but are low paid and poorly trained. How
does that help them fit in?
Ambassador CdeBaca. Again, I think I will let my colleagues
discuss the particular ways that that manifests in these
regions. But I think on the overarching, I think we learned
that lesson in the United States prior to 1947. We may have
forgotten it, frankly. One of the things that was the major
civil rights achievement of the Roosevelt administration,
working with the NAACP litigators and others, was to break the
backs of the peonage and share-cropping system in the South,
and that didn't happen until 1947, allowing the space then to
move on from 13th Amendment jurisprudence to 14th and 15th
Amendment civil rights, housing, voting, all of the things that
we are familiar with from the 1950s and 1960s. But at the end
of the day, it was the sheriffs and it was the local justices
of the peace that were enforcing debt bondage in the American
South for three generations after slavery was officially
illegal. That is corruption at large, and it was systemic
corruption. And we see some places where that type of
corruption still exists.
But then we also see the individual corruption of a police
officer or their family who actually owns the brothels. It is
not just that the cops are going to these brothels, as the kind
of ``boys will be boys'' tolerance which we need to rout out,
but then it is also that they are individually profiting. Or we
see countries where, you know, the large landed interests don't
want to clean up some of the problems with forestation or
extractive industries because it is the senator's brothers or
cousins or whoever that own those plantations.
So we have to keep unpacking this corruption problem,
because I think that the easy corruption problem is to say it
is the fault of some low-level guy that is taking a bribe. We
have to not only look at that level, you have to go up that
other step, not blame the deputy, you have to go after the
sheriffs themselves.
Mr. Payne. That is excellent. Yes.
Ambassador Blake. Mr. Payne, I would say to answer your
first question, I think we do often see problems like
trafficking in persons, drug trafficking and others, coexisting
with each other. And again, they are a function of the fact
that these organized criminal groups are often involved in
these activities, find them very, very profitable.
But I think corruption is also a very, very significant
problem. And corruption often exists where you have, as I said,
poorly paid officials, poorly developed institutions, but also
it is a function of a lack of democracy in independent
democratic institutions, like a free press, like free NGOs,
such as Transparency International, that can bring to light
some of these things without fear of retribution.
It is a function of often lack of opposition parties in
many of these countries who, again, have an interest in
bringing these kinds of things to light. So there is a whole
series of things. And often we try to see these in a holistic
way as well and try to, again, not only address the problem
itself but--in my mind the most critical thing that we can do
in many of these countries is the work on rule of law because
that underlies everything else. And if you have a strong,
independent judiciary, you can get to the root of many of these
problems quite quickly.
Mr. Payne. Mr. Blake, I couldn't agree with you more. And I
do. In listening to my colleague, I was fortunate enough to get
in Cuba a number of years ago, and I thought it was my
responsibility to raise issues with Mr. Castro. Fidel Castro at
that time was the leader there. And I raised issues about, as a
matter of fact, the inequity of the blacks in Cuba. Much of it,
as I said, was because of remittances coming from the U.S. and
other places, and the ones who left were not the blacks that
were left behind. So there was a growing inequity among the
races. There is very little we can do about that.
But I also raised questions with some investors starting
hotels. There started to become a prostitution question. It
wasn't gigantic, but it was starting to raise its ugly head and
raise a question that once again the poor people are going to
be the ones--the minorities would end up in the position, by
virtue of their lack of equality financially, and that there
needs to be attention given to this, and this was not in the
right direction, and even raised a question of prisoners.
And as a matter of fact, another group went down after that
and instructed them to not only raise questions but sort of
talk to them about the fact that there should be--you need to
reconsider people who are in prison that should not be there
and who have not had a fair trial, which was raised by some
Members, some people. And that seemed to have had some positive
impact because we have seen--people shouldn't have been in
prison in the first place. But there have been some released.
So I feel that there needs to be a dialogue.
I went to Bahrain a couple of weeks ago. And although there
was only interest in, you know, me seeing the employment and
things that were going on well, I wanted to meet the 25 medical
people who were sentenced, and the government had all 25 of
them, doctors and medical people who have been charged with a
crime at a hospital which is just unheard of. There will be
another trial. It is a military trial. I think the pressure is
growing with how the Members pushed them to reconsider. So all
the folks will be retried. So I think it is a step in the right
direction.
We have a committee of inquiry that we would hope that
would come out. And they are not from that country, but from
outside the country. But people still have not been put back to
work. They were fired for protesting, and we said that this is
wrong. Labor unions have been discriminated against.
But I think that when you get an opportunity to go, we made
it pretty clear that these--and they met with these different
groups which are not on a regular program. But we insisted
before we went, we had to meet with them not only so that we
could make ourselves clear, but that these are things that have
to be turned around and that we insist that this injustice in
that kingdom end.
So I guess my point is that I find some value of going and
having conversations with some of the people that we don't
necessarily--don't want to go to dinner with necessarily, but
to try to convince them that policies need to be changed.
Ambassador CdeBaca. Mr. Payne, if I could, I think that
what we have seen is that if it is simply the trafficking
ambassador that goes out and raises this and then, you know,
comes back and works on the report, that those governments--the
ones who are friendly and want to fight on this with us, they
would have done that without a visit from me. The ones who are
not interested in working on human trafficking without some
cajoling--it is not just me going. When they hear it from Bob
Blake, when they hear it from Joe Yun and Kurt Campbell, when
they hear from you all when you are out on the road in the
Codels or when your staff has been out.
When I was on the Judiciary Committee staff, I was able to
go to a shelter in Cambodia with Sheri Rickert from the Foreign
Affairs Committee staff and some others, and being able to see
the victim practices there, but also having to have the
Cambodians know that Congress cared. It is a very different
message than simply, you know, a guy from a small office in the
State Department raising the issue of slavery in the modern
era.
So we join you in that notion that there is value and we
want to support, whether it is Codels, staff dels, traveling
with us will raise, I think, when we are out on the road, but
knowing that you are raising it as well makes a big difference.
Mr. Smith. Let me just ask a couple of final questions.
First, I am sure all three of you saw the New York Times
article, ``The other India: Where are the Children?'' on
October 12, just a week ago. And it makes the very disturbing
statement that between January 2008 and October 2010, 13,570
children were missing in Delhi alone. It says, ``Some of the
children who were eventually found spoke of being taken by
force or of being enticed with promises of food and clothes.
But they were then sold into various forms of slavery,
including domestic labor, beggary, agricultural labor or
commercial sex work.'' And the article also notes that ``A
provisional Indian census report released in 2010 estimated
that one in ten workers in India are children,'' and experts
say that these numbers are conservative.
I guess, Ambassador Blake, this might be directed to you,
as well as to all three of you, really. The upgrading of India
off the Watch List and not to Tier III but rather to Tier II--I
listened very carefully, I read it very carefully in the
report, but there is still I think some very disconcerting and
unanswered questions.
You say in your testimony, Ambassador CdeBaca, that sex
trafficking of women and children has not abated and may, in
fact, be increasing in places such as India. So it would
appear, according to your testimony, that it is at least as bad
and possibly getting worse.
About 10 years ago, I had several hearings on trafficking,
and we heard from the International Justice Mission, IJM. And
the testimony was focused on India, and Gary Haugen actually
brought a video and showed all of these young--some of them
were not even teenagers, they were so young--little girls that
were in a cellar who, when the police came--and the traffickers
were tipped off by the police, they went through some charade.
Afterwards the little girls were brought out of the hiding
place. Their eyes were all squinted because it was dark. And
you could see that these were tiny, little, at-risk little
girls who were being trafficked. And one of the things that
Gary Haugen made very clear in his testimony was, a point made
clearly was, it is the police.
And I have noticed, you know, if we are going to have a
problem anywhere, it is not often the President, the Prime
Minister. It is that point of contact at the police level,
which obviously is part of government, and therefore is subject
to the minimum standards.
This report, other reports that I have read on India, point
out that law enforcement still may be lax, still may be the
Achilles' heel in India. I was actually in Nigeria, in Abuja,
in a hotel after a full day of working on trafficking, when I
turned on CNN and there was a very, very fine report on CNN
International about India. And again, the police were tipped
off. They went through the charade of walking into the brothel
and the kids, some of them didn't get out quick enough, ran out
to the street. And he said, by the next day, they were all back
being sold and exploited, and the police were laughing about
it.
And I am wondering if that is still a problem, especially
since, as you pointed out, Ambassador CdeBaca, that sex
trafficking of women and children may not have abated and may,
in fact, be increasing in places such as India. Are we just
holding our breath with some hope here that India will get its
act together?
And I add into that the similar problem, but not apparently
government-sponsored, but like China where the one-child-per-
couple policy is a major push toward the elimination of the
girl child. But we had a press conference--again, right in this
room very recently--and it was focused on India and China, and
the bias against and prejudice against the birth of and the
lives of little girls. And again, most of the girls are
eliminated, destroyed by sex selection abortions. But many
others, particularly in India, are killed. As they are born,
their gender is discovered, and they are suffocated or killed
in some other way.
Again, one of our people at that press conference said the
most dangerous three words in that part of the world is ``It's
a girl.'' If it is a girl, she may be dead. Or if she gets to
be a little bit older, she may be exploited through
trafficking.
And again, with deep respect to Ambassador Blake and to all
of you, I would hope that unless there is--my hope is next time
around, India, if they have not made truly significant
progress--you know, when you say there are 80 units,
trafficking units, that is one out of every 14 million people.
Is that just something that has been put together to appease a
local political constituency or an international one? Or is
this an all-out effort to eradicate slavery? Because as
Ambassador CdeBaca said, it has not abated, and it may even be
getting worse.
Ambassador Blake. Mr. Chairman, that is a big question
about a big country. So let me try to tackle it, and then I
will ask Luis to chime in. First of all, let me just say that I
personally have been working on this issue about trafficking
persons in India for the last 8 years. I started out as deputy
chief of mission in 2003 and spent 3 years there. One of my
most important tasks then as deputy chief of missions was the
work on trafficking missions. I led our working group inside
the Embassy working on this, because I felt it was such an
important priority. And you are right, I remember going to
train stations and seeing traffickers waiting for young kids to
get off the trains from rural areas, because they were so poor
and so desperate, and these guys were predators waiting to
basically bring them into slavery.
And I was there with really dedicated NGOs who were there
to stop those guys and had, in fact, found partners in the
police to help them stop that. So even at that time, there were
some quite good efforts that we were supporting to stop those
kinds of practices.
At that time, too, Mr. Chairman, I think India often even
refused to admit these kinds of things even existed, and
certainly didn't want to acknowledge the scope and the scale of
the problem. I think we have come a long way since then, Mr.
Chairman, with due respect.
This year India was upgraded because they are making some
pretty significant efforts. I mentioned the 80 anti-human
trafficking units. What is significant about that is that now,
those are under the authority of the very powerful Ministry of
Home Affairs, which is their chief law enforcement branch that
is responsible for this. And the Minister himself has taken
direct responsibility for this issue which is very significant.
Before, it was the Ministry of Women and Child Affairs and
things like this; but the Ministry of Home Affairs was not
involved. So this, I think is quite significant.
Secondly, they say they have ratified the protocol. And
most importantly, as you said, Mr. Chairman, it is working with
the police and it is working with the courts, because that is
where the real action is going to be to stop these guys who are
engaged in the trafficking itself.
And in the past, India often used to arrest the victims.
They would go into a brothel, and they would arrest all the
girls and the people who had been trafficked, not the people
who were behind it. And, again, I think that is really changing
now.
I can just give you a few examples, if I could. We have
been working a lot in Mumbai. Mumbai is a real center for the
trafficking industry. And people come from as far away as
Bangladesh and Nepal and are trafficked into Mumbai. There is a
judge there by the name of Judge Swati Chauhan who has really
done some terrific, terrific work. Literally, her court has
taken over and cleared hundreds of sex trafficking cases and
issued rehabilitation orders for roughly 1,200 rescued women.
And what is important about this is that the Ministry of Home
Affairs has not only taken note of her efforts but has said, we
need--that they need to publicize those efforts and duplicate
those efforts all over India. So they are actually organizing
very soon a seminar of all these nodal units all around India
to come and hear about how she has done this and how she has
tackled this. And I think they are going to try to resource
this in an appropriate way.
They are also going to expand these anti-human trafficking
units. They have got 80 of them now, but I think they have
intentions over time to establish them in all 600 districts of
India, which is a big deal.
I want to say at the state level, there is a huge disparity
in India between some states that are doing very well and then
others aren't doing so well. And I think in a lot of the states
now where you do see quite significant trafficking like West
Bengal, like Maharastra which I mentioned, Karnatica, the
police are actively working not only on the sex trafficking
side but increasingly on the bonded labor side. And as Luis
will remember, back in 2003 to 2006, this wasn't even on their
radar. And now not only are they dealing with it, but they are
dealing on the law enforcement side and bringing these into the
court systems and prosecuting people.
Mr. Smith. Does that also include police who are complicit?
Were there any instances where the police were prosecuted?
Ambassador Blake. You know, I can't tell you for sure.
Mr. Smith. If you could check that.
Ambassador Blake. That is a very good question.
But the point I want to make is, do the problems still
exist? Of course they do. But I think what is really different
now is that there is a political will on the part not only of
the Federal Government but State government and, most
importantly, the law enforcement.
And to get back to Mr. Payne's question, I talked about the
rule of law. And what India does have going for it is an
independent rule of law, particularly a very strong Supreme
Court. I think that is the backbone of a lot of what happens in
India. And for that reason, you do have very strong NGOs, you
have very strong opposition parties, all of whom are more than
happy to highlight these problems and try to get them
addressed.
So there are still a lot of problems to be dealt with, but
I do believe that India is making progress in the right
direction.
Mr. Smith. I appreciate it. Mr. Ambassador.
Ambassador CdeBaca. I would second that. I think that one
of the things that was notable over the last couple of years
that we have seen from the Supreme Court is that it has begun
to do these inquiries into the different aspects of the anti-
trafficking fight, not just on the sex trafficking or the sex
trafficking of children, but looking at things as diverse as
these circus performers who are being enslaved.
We had a briefing from the Polaris Project the other day
about the HHS-funded hotline that they run here in the United
States. One of the trends that they saw was that they have
gotten I think 29 or 30 calls from people who are in carnivals
here in the United States who were trying to get help because
they had been harmed or trapped or stuff. And the Civil Rights
Division actually prosecuted cases of that ilk back in the
1970s. To suddenly see that the Supreme Court of India was
having hearings on the exploitation of these people and these
transient or itinerant circuses, I think it shows that there is
kind of a level of sophistication that is coming into some of
these institutions in India that we, frankly, had not seen 6 or
8 years ago. Obviously we do have a very large problem of human
trafficking in India. No one--the Indians or the Americans or
anybody else who looks at it--would say otherwise.
I think that one of the concerns that we have--and we have
mentioned this in my report last year--as far as the changing
nature of sex trafficking in India--as you mentioned, that is
in our testimony--is this notion that there seems to be a move
from the red-light districts to roadside prostitution, small
hotels and private apartments. That is problematic for a whole
host of reasons, in no small part because of the law
enforcement challenge. As law enforcement becomes more serious
about doing these cases, the law enforcement challenge goes up
very steeply when you don't have access to the people who you
are trying to save, the people you are trying to rescue. So we
we are looking at this. We are going to be continuing to be
raising that with our Indian counterparts.
But there are definitely things happening in India that I
think anyone looking at India, circa 2002-2003, it would be
mind-boggling to think that they are actually liberating people
from brick kilns, putting bonded labor bosses in jail. We need
to take that now, work in partnership with Indians as the two
largest common law--not just large democracies but common law--
countries and really take it to the next level.
Driving it out to the states is as important in India as it
is here in the United States. That is where law enforcement
gets done, and we want to work with our counterparts there to
make sure that that happens.
Mr. Smith. I appreciate it. I have two final questions. And
thank you for that explanation.
The first is with regards to Vietnam. And Ambassador
CdeBaca, we have talked about that many times, and I have
raised it, as have others, many times at hearings. The labor
trafficking issue, your view as to whether or not there really
is progress being made, especially since so many of the
allegations are against companies that are really state-run
companies. The Daewoosa case, still no payment as far as I know
of the $3.5 million. And I know you were involved with that
prosecution, the very first one, pursuant to the TVPA.
And then a second question, if you could maybe speak to a
good news issue and that would be, you know, Nigeria is now a
Tier I country. I have visited there. I mentioned that a moment
ago. I met with their TIP leaders and went to Lagos where
trafficking obviously was a problem. Many of those women, young
girls, were trafficked right into Europe, into Italy.
I will just tell a very, very quick story about a woman
named Elizabeth that I met in Rome who actually became pregnant
as a direct result of being trafficked and abused sexually. And
she made a statement I will never forget. This little 3-year-
old was running around at the shelter in Rome and she had been
trafficked for about 5 years, a terrible ordeal. I hope she
writes a book someday because it is a testimony to faith and
courage. But this young Nigerian woman said, ``The child saved
my life.'' And said, ``If it wasn't for this child, I probably
would have been a statistic''; you know, suicide or something
along those lines. You don't hear that kind of heroic love for
a child all that often, at least explained like that. But she
told how she went through the route out of Nigeria into Italy.
So the question is, Nigeria, they are Tier I. It is a good
news story, I think. They certainly have tried very hard. And
maybe you want to elaborate on that for the record, as well as
the Vietnam question.
Ambassador CdeBaca. Well, I will take the Vietnam, then. I
think that Mr. Yun can set the scene for us on Vietnam.
Nigeria is an interesting case because, of course, Nigeria
is not necessarily thought of on many law enforcement issues as
being on the cutting edge. It is not a country--unlike what we
have been testifying to today as far as transparency indices or
corruption indices or things--that always comes out on top. And
yet we have seen some very innovative anti-trafficking efforts
there that, as you say, when we looked at, over the last 2
years, the application of the facts and the minimum standards,
has come out as a Tier I.
You know, we don't go into these with a predetermined tier
ranking. We put the facts into the logs, like we have a big
machine, they all go together, and we turn the crank. And
suddenly a Nigeria comes out the other side with a Tier I label
on it. And I think it surprised a lot of people, frankly. Maybe
it even surprised the Nigerians themselves. But at the end of
the day, what they did was very innovative. Taking police,
prosecutors, and social workers and putting them in the same--
not just chain of command but putting them in the same office,
assigning them to cases simultaneously so that they knew that
they were going to be working together throughout, that is very
different than what most countries do.
Here in the United States, we have prosecutors assigned to
cases early on, and we have victim witness coordinators in most
of our law enforcement entities. But you know, there are very
few prosecutors that are older than me that came up in that
system. And thank God, as I age, most of the prosecutors
younger than me don't even know that there was a time when
there wasn't a victim witness coordinator in that prosecutor's
office fighting for the rights of the victim.
Nigeria seems to have taken that ethos and taken it to a
new level. And I think that that was perhaps one of the reasons
why we saw at the ASEAN prosecutors conference in Singapore
this summer that the cutting-edge prosecutors that were invited
to share their best practices with their ASEAN counterparts--
ASEAN looks to a couple of places that maybe people wouldn't be
surprised about, Sweden and the United States, but then they
also looked to Nigeria. So to the degree that we are seeing
African leadership that can be tapped into around the globe, I
think is a very, very positive thing for this fight against
human trafficking.
Now each year we are going to look at Nigeria. We don't--
Tier I is a responsibility, not a reprieve. And we hope that
Nigeria will continue to sharpen and continue to improve
because, like India, it is a country that has a big trafficking
problem. And even when they are doing well or they are doing a
good job of having these structures, they are having good
results, there is still a big, big trafficking problem with
Nigerians; as we saw in some of the Tunisian refugee camps and
Libya and other places, pimps who suddenly were in the camps
with the women that they had been trying to get across into
Europe. So this is a problem and it continues to be one.
But seeing the ASEAN region prosecutors react to their
Nigerian counterparts and seeing African leadership that way,
to me showed that we really are, after this decade of
development, we are on the precipice, I think, of some real
change here.
Mr. Yun. Thank you. Vietnam is a case we have expended a
great deal of efforts. Secretary Clinton was there twice over
the past 18 months, and I was with her on both occasions. And
in both meetings, the items that featured very prominently were
human rights and trafficking there, of course challenged on
both accounts, as well as freedom of religion. That remains an
issue.
Vietnam is designated as Tier II Watch List. But I do
believe they are undergoing changes both in the government and
in society where we are seeing signs, some concrete signs that
they are making some progress. Number one is that they now do
have a law, anti-trafficking law. And the question remains, how
is it going to be implemented? The law was only passed I think
maybe about 9 months ago. So we are keeping a very close eye on
that. And also there had been a number of criminal prosecutions
and convictions of sex traffickers. So we are encouraged by
that.
As you mentioned, labor trafficking remains an issue. And
again, we are somewhat happy that they now have a predeparture
training for overseas workers. So it is changing, and we do
hope it will change more rapidly, and we are expending a great
deal of bilateral efforts.
In fact, in about 2 weeks, we are going to hold an annual
human rights dialogue. On our side, it will be led by Assistant
Secretary Posner, and the Vietnamese will be here this year. So
next year we will go over there. So these dialogues and high-
level meetings have helped, but I understand your concerns.
Mr. Smith. I appreciate that.
Just before I yield to Mr. Payne, earlier today, Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton testified before the full Foreign
Affairs Committee. And while it was focused on Afghanistan and
Pakistan--and my and everyone else's questions were primarily
focused on that--I did ask her if she would pick up the phone
and call the Foreign Minister of China to inquire as to whether
or not Chen Guangcheng is dead or alive, or perhaps even dying.
There have been rumors, reports--we don't know if they are
true--he has been beaten savagely by the Chinese police, first
in prison and then under house arrest. And his crime, as we all
know, is that he pushed human rights. He is the blind activist
lawyer, and actually raised the case of forced abortion in
Linyi and took the women's side. And for that, he was singled
out for excessive brutality. Again, knowing that that issue of
human rights abuse leads directly into our reason for being
here this afternoon, human trafficking, it exacerbates it
significantly.
If you could take that back. She didn't answer the
question. We pretty much ran out of time. We didn't go back to
it later. But I think a phone call--I will be convening an
emergency hearing of the China Commission next week, and I hope
Ambassador Campbell can make it, as one of the members of the
executive branch who is on that. I am chairman of that
Commission. And it will be an emergency meeting focused on Chen
and his wife. Where are they? And whether or not they are dead
or alive, and what we are doing and what the West is doing,
what any country that cares about human rights is doing, vis-a-
vis Beijing, to raise his case because we think he may actually
be dead or bleeding as we meet. Please take that back.
Mr. Payne.
Mr. Payne. Just a quick question or two more. The chairman
raised Nigeria. And I was just going to--when I said I have a
couple of other questions, I didn't know he was going to raise
that. But I wanted to know what anyone--maybe you, Ambassador
CdeBaca, might tell us. What African countries have made the
most progress outside of Nigeria in confronting human
trafficking? And are there any best practices that can be
replicated?
And the other part of the question is that there are
regional groups, as you know, in Africa; SADC in the South and
IGAD in the East and ECOWAS in the West. Did you find it an
advantage, the AU, African Union, to work with the regional
groups to sort of find best practices, if there were some that
could then be introduced to them?
Ambassador CdeBaca. Well, exempting Nigeria from the
question is a little tougher because that is such an innovative
practice.
Let me say one last thing about Nigeria because there was
something that was done that the Netherlands and Nigeria
cooperated on, and that was bringing up some traditional
healers so that the victims in a case in the Netherlands would
be able to, in effect, have a counter put on to the Juju that
had then been put on them before they left home, which was as
powerful a form of coercion to them, based on their religious
and cultural practices, as were the threats of force and the
beatings that they were undergoing at the hands of their
traffickers. And that notion of that innovation of bringing in
a traditional healer in order to have a counterceremony for
those women was, I think, very forward-thinking. And it is the
kind of thing that you only get if you have those relationships
between the governments on these issues.
We have certainly seen on the part of Mauritius, a meeting
the minimum standards. But as far as the tiers are concerned,
that is really what we see in the Africa region. We would like
to see more on the mainland itself.
There is some, I think, hunger on the part of a number of
governments to work on this. We have seen, whether it is in
Malawi or in Benin, programs that are out there working with
especially the child victims. Much of the victim response in
Africa has been on child victims, and we want to encourage that
to continue but then also make sure that our African partners
recognize male victims and female victims who are adults, not
just the children.
Perhaps some of that is because of some of the good work we
have seen from UNICEF in the area. It is so dominant, then,
that a lot of countries respond on child issues first.
A success story of sorts is the rapid movement that we have
seen in Swaziland over the last 2 years. Swaziland, Tier III on
the report in 2009; since then, having raised up to Tier II.
Maybe because they were so late coming to the game, and they
came in as a Tier III country that denied there was
trafficking, didn't want to do anything on it, et cetera, when
the wake-up call happened, they put together an inter-
ministerial working group that had NGOs on the working group.
We don't even have that in the United States. So when they meet
under the auspices of the Prime Minister himself, when they
meet, the NGOs and the folks from the government are together
in the room. What we have seen is that it has got a level of
respect for each other that has been slow coming in many other
African countries. The NGOs feel like they can get a fair shake
from their government counterparts and the government
counterparts don't just look at the NGOs as potential rivals
for power or someone who could be a problem for them. And that
is something, again, that we would like to see.
Swaziland, obviously, has a very specific governing
structure. And in other countries that don't have a monarchy,
that have different types of governments, perhaps that couldn't
happen quite as quickly. But we have seen that as a real
positive.
I think that at the end of the day, what we have really
seen is it is that notion of political will. In Senegal, when
the government started focusing on child begging, and realizing
that the Koranic teachers were not a religious institution but
were cowards hiding behind the Koran as a way to lure the
children in so that they could do their begging all of the
time, taking advantage not only of the trust that the parents
had of these supposed religious figures, but also taking
advantage of the admonishment that the Koran has as far as
alms-giving and as far as the support that should be had for
such schools, perverting that in a way that is right out of
Dickens. These child begging rings have been plaguing that part
of Africa for quite a while.
And to start to see the governments in that part of Africa
recognize that it is not cultural, it is not just something
that is always going to happen, but it is criminals who are
taking advantage of children; I think that is a best practice
in and of itself, the recognition and then the political will
to do something about it.
It is not just an African thing. We have seen this in the
U.K. just in recent months, the liberation of Eastern European
children from begging rings. Obviously we see this in New Delhi
and in any major city, I think, in the region; and we see it
here in the United States. So this notion of the beggars is
something that we all share. But I think in Africa, the
countries rising up against it, as we are starting to see
happening, that is a great thing to see.
Mr. Payne. That is great.
Just, finally, we had a hearing with our committee, and
there was a young man who was blind. He was a slave, a Dinka
from South Sudan. And we know that that has been a problem of
Dinka children and Nuba childr0en, especially during the
conflicts. It was encouraged by the government of the North.
And I wonder if some of the conflicts where abduction is still
happening, and of course people are brought into indentured
servitude, have you seen that start to eliminate itself? Could
you give a short statement on that?
Ambassador CdeBaca. Well, sadly, the conflict, because it
is the enemy of rule of law, it creates the ultimate zone
impunity where the traffickers operate. Conflict does seem to
be followed very closely by this, especially in Africa. And
unfortunately, it is not only the slavery that comes in its
wake, whether it is the villages being emptied out for the men
to work as porters as the army moves around, for the women to
cook, clean, and be used as, frankly, sex slaves, but also for
the children to work in artisanal mines, whether it is gold or
the rare minerals that we use in our cell phones and other
things. But also that notion of conscripting, flat-out
stealing, frankly, combatants. And so this notion of the child
soldiers being, in effect, both victim and perpetrator at the
same time, I think, is one of the tragedies of the region.
What we have seen is that a number of countries have taken
steps. With the good work of UNICEF and the work that we have
been doing and others, we have seen a difference in Chad, for
instance, as far as the demobilization of child soldiers. What
we would like to see more in countries around the world is not
simply demobilization and giving some type of safety to the
child soldiers who you capture from the people that are
fighting against you, but then also countries looking at their
own troops and making sure that they are scrubbing them
accordingly.
So while the trend seems to be improving a bit, we need to
keep our eye on the ball as far as the child soldier issues.
And while my office is not the lead on child soldiers in the
State Department--that is the Bureau of Democracy Rights and
Labor--we certainly look at it each year in the trafficking
report because we know that slavery--whether it is the women
that were held as sex slaves during the Balkan conflict in
Europe, whether it is the folks who are currently held in
Africa or in other parts of the world, this follows conflict
wherever it goes.
Mr. Payne. Thank you very much. I yield back.
Mr. Smith. I will follow up in terms of things looking
into. On July 22, I chaired a hearing of the Helsinki
Commission on the egregious practice in Egypt of abducting,
kidnapping young Coptic Christian girls, apparently by the
thousands each year, who are then held and forced into Islam
and then given at age 18 to a man, and now they are Islamic.
The women who testified, we had several, three people
testified--was Michele Clark, who both, Ambassador CdeBaca, you
and I know very well as number two for trafficking at the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, very
reputable. She is a professor at George Washington University.
And she said it is not a matter of allegations anymore. She has
actually done the reporting herself and will be doing more
reporting on this. But it seems to be a human rights and, I
would say, a trafficking issue, certainly something that rises
to the level of needing to be combated very aggressively.
And I am wondering if it is something you have looked into.
We gave the information to our new Ambassador before she was
deployed to Cairo, and the hope is that she will really raise
it. But I can't imagine what it must be like for a parent,
especially for the young girl--but for a parent and her entire
family to have first the child abducted and then put into a
situation of bondage, if you will, and then perhaps abused in
numerous ways, and at the appropriate age, age 18, given as
some kind of gift by shadow slavery to someone as a wife. And
again, Michele Clark has true credentials in the human
trafficking area. And she says we are missing it. So if you
could speak to that, number one.
And secondly, Uzbekistan, again, putting on my Helsinki
hat. Every year, the cotton crop is picked by large numbers of
young children who are brought out of school, and it is child
labor at its worst. And yet for 4 years, Uzbekistan has been on
the Tier II Watch List. It seems to me they should have dropped
to Tier III. Your views.
Ambassador CdeBaca. I think I will do Egypt, and then we
can go to the northeast with Assistant Secretary Blake who is
fresh off the plane from Uzbekistan.
Mr. Smith, we will definitely look into the new allegations
that you mention. We certainly looked through the earlier
report that CSI did that I think that Professor Clark had been
involved with. It sounds like there may be some new
information, and we would very much like to look at that. This
is an area that we like to look at.
We also, of course, look at Muslim girls being sold for
marriage and other things, whether it is through the temporary
marriages to--what basically can only be described as sex
stores.
Mr. Smith. But as Michele Clark said--let me interrupt you
briefly--from certain jaundiced view on the part of some, they
get two things out of it. They get a wife who then they give
out like she is some kind of property or commodity. And
secondly, they Islamasize--and to me, that is--you know, if
somebody decides to be Muslim, Christian, whatever their faith
may be, and that is what freedom of conscience is all about,
but to do it through coercion is a horrific human rights abuse.
I am sorry to interrupt.
Ambassador CdeBaca. No. I was just saying that we would
very much look forward to seeing the results of any new
reporting, any new evidence. It is something that we take
seriously. And we also continue to take seriously the promises
of the new government in Egypt that has assured us that they
will enforce and continue to implement the national plan of
action for combating trafficking of persons which was announced
in December of last year, which was just a few weeks before the
events of the Arab Spring happened.
Despite the fact that there has been a lot of leadership by
then-First Lady Suzanne Mubarak on getting that national plan
of action in place and equally, obviously, the Mubarak family
is no longer in the position that they were, we have heard from
the current government that this is something that they want to
continue because they realize that this protects Egyptians,
whether Egyptian children or Egyptian adults.
So as we continue to work with them on how they are going
to implement that action plan, how they are going to bring it
to life? We will want to make sure that all of these
allegations about forced marriage, whether of Muslim or
Christians, are addressed. And we will continue to look at
this. And like I said, we would be happy to look at whatever
new evidence that Michele or others might have.
Mr. Smith. I appreciate that.
Ambassador Blake. On Uzbekistan, Mr. Chairman, again, this
is another country I worked hard on. And to answer your
question, you know, we granted a waiver and kept Uzbekistan on
the Watch List this year, because in March of this year they
decided to create an interagency working group that was tasked
with ensuring compliance with all 13 of the ILO conventions to
which Uzbekistan is a party. That working group in turn has
created an action plan to, again, ensure compliance.
This year, the government permitted UNICEF to assess child
labor in all 12 regions of Uzbekistan. And, you know, just as
importantly I think, Uzbek officials tell us now that they are
making a real effort for the first time to try to end the use
of children under the age of 16 in the harvest, and to actually
punish those who are violating the law. So the harvest is
ongoing right now, Mr. Chairman, as you probably know. But from
initial reports that we have received from independent sources
and from our own Embassy, they tell us that in fact there has
been a reduced incidence this year of forced child labor in
Uzbekistan, and fewer schools have been closed as a result of
that. But the forced adult labor continues, and in fact may
even be increasing to compensate for the child labor part of
it.
So, you know, obviously we are going to have to withhold
judgment until the end of the season and see how it goes. But,
you know, I think we have the government's attention. And you
know, they are now committed to this, where they have an action
plan, they have submitted something on paper.
And, you know, this year we are going to seek, I would say,
three things: First, we are going to try to seek action to end
the use of forced adult and child labor, full stop.
Secondly, we are going to try to urge them to investigate
and prosecute officials who are suspected of being complicit in
trafficking. Again, I think there is no stronger signal than
putting people like that in jail. And that is going to serve as
a powerful deterrent to others.
And then, third, we want to focus on trying to encourage
them to allow forced labor experts, particularly the ILO in
there. UNICEF is doing these assessments now, but it is really
not their job. And they themselves are the first to say that
they encourage the government to do this. So we are going to be
working both with the ILO and with the government to try to
bring them together and achieve not only implementation of
these conventions, but also ILO presence on the ground to kind
of verify that.
Mr. Smith. I appreciate that. Thank you. Is there
anything--and I appreciate your work. You don't look jet-lagged
at all. Is there anything else any of you would like to add
before we conclude the hearing? Any country you would like to
highlight that perhaps Mr. Payne, Mr. Turner, and I have not
brought up?
Well, I want to thank you so much. We will have some
written questions.
I won't keep you any longer. And I do very much appreciate
your work. We all do. The subcommittee respects the hard work
that you expend every day on behalf of the victims. So thank
you so very much. The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:07 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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