30 May 2003
U.S. Official Says No Country Immune from Sex Trafficking
(Consciousness on trafficking awakening around world) (7970) A U.S. official says the United States intends to take the lead in the war against sex trafficking, which he called a demeaning form of slavery that cripples thousands of bodies and souls every year. John Miller, senior advisor to the Secretary of State on Trafficking in Persons, made his remarks at a press briefing May 29. Miller said that it is the desire of President Bush that the United States take the lead in fighting this scourge by working with other governments and improving U.S. performance. "This is a problem that is starting to seep into the public consciousness around the world," he said. "The problem, the challenge, is huge. But I think many citizens in this country ... [and] in other countries, are just beginning to become aware of how widespread this modern day slavery phenomenon is." Miller added that no part of the world is immune from sex trafficking and sex slavery, with countries in Asia or Africa or Latin America or even Europe the source countries from which victims come, and countries in the Western Hemisphere and Western Europe the targets where victims are sent and trafficked. "It is hard to find a country or a continent that is immune," he said. "And some of the poorest countries in the world ... have taken the most significant steps" against sex trafficking. Miller said that the annual report on international compliance with the U.S. Victims of Violence and Trafficking Protection Act of 2000, to be issued on June 11, will result in U.S. sanctions against offending countries for the first time, and it will also highlight successful actions taken by countries to prevent sex trafficking. "The report that we will issue will have ... no-cost or low-cost practices that have been successful that countries have tried," he said. "And we're going to praise countries for doing this. ... We want to engage and praise the successes." The May 29 briefing was held for the release of a summary report on a February conference in which delegates from more than 100 countries gathered in Washington to exchange ideas on fighting the growing international crime of sex trafficking. Following is the transcript of the press briefing: (begin transcript) U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE Office of the Spokesman May 29, 2003 ON-THE-RECORD BRIEFING John Miller, Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State on Trafficking in Persons, and Linda Smith, Representing the War Against Trafficking Alliance, on the Release of Conference Document, "Pathbreaking Strategies in the Global Fight Against Sex Trafficking" Department of State Washington, D.C. MR. MILLER: My office in the State Department deals with all forms of modern day slavery, but there is no more demeaning form of slavery than sex slavery. It extends into almost every country in the world. It is a multi-billion dollar a year business. It is a form of slavery most linked to organized crime. Most important, it cripples every year thousands and thousands of bodies and souls. That is why this past winter, at the request of Congress, and pursuant to President Bush's directive that all U.S. Government agencies make the fight to abolish modern day slavery a high priority, delegates from more than 115 countries, including the United States, gathered here in Washington, D.C., to exchange ideas on how to fight this scourge. The delegates came at the invitation of the War Against Trafficking Alliance, four nongovernmental organizations -- Shared Hope, the Salvation Army, the Protection Project and the International Justice Mission -- and the State Department's Office to Combat Trafficking in Persons. The delegates were chosen based on their achievements out in the field in the war against sex trafficking. There were ministers and shelter volunteers, police chiefs and parish priests. Some of the delegates had never been to a conference or out of their countries. The report we are releasing today from this conference includes speeches given to the conference by Attorney General Ashcroft, Deputy Health and Human Services Director Claude Allen, the Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden, the Vice President of Colombia, and many others. Just as important, the report contains the ideas of over 400 individuals with experience in fighting the sex slave trade. These ideas came from the delegates. They do not necessarily, obviously, reflect the views or policies of any government, including our own. Because of the sensitivity of the subject, the names of the delegates making the suggestions are not listed. What are some of these ideas? They run the gamut: Assembling voluntary data on minors traveling abroad; setting up publicized contact points in source, transit and destination countries for emergencies; shifting the punishment emphasis from victims to so-called customers; publicizing the prosecution of traffickers to encourage the identification of other traffickers; having women and children victims tell their own stories in schools; setting up regional e-mail groups for people engaged in this fight to communicate ideas. The delegates who came for the conference will take these ideas and others back to their homelands for discussion. They will also take back the knowledge that they are not alone, that there are many other fighters and resources in this war to abolish sex trafficking that they can call on. I now want to turn the podium over to the woman who, along with Congressman Frank Wolf, inspired this conference. Linda Smith, after serving in the United States Congress, went off to do something about sex slavery. She founded Shared Hope, and for the last five years has set up and operated shelters to rehabilitate children that have fallen victim to prostitution in India, in Nepal and in Jamaica. She has been a true leader in the fight to abolish sex slavery. Representing the War Against Trafficking Alliance, one of the sponsors of the conference, Linda Smith. MS. SMITH: Well, I would like to begin this morning by speaking about the Alliance and introducing some of the Alliance. The Alliance was formed in the early part of 2001. After a lot of the information about American trafficking came out, we found that there were at least 50,000 people a year trafficked into America. And from the very countries where I was working to restore little girls and young women were coming some of the same women all the way into America, sometimes via Jamaica, sometimes via Fiji, sometimes Malaysia, sometimes many countries. And with the new administration saying this was a strong policy, some of us went to them and went to John Ashcroft and said, "You know, we need some help." They were already engaged, very, very engaged, and John Ashcroft said, "I am going to fight this," and did hire more people and got behind the 2000 act that had just passed. And yet, we knew we had to do better, so we formed the World Alliance and we housed it at Johns Hopkins University and started meeting there. The leaders of that Alliance -- two of them are here, Dr. Mohamed Mattar, and he is probably the foremost expert in the law on slavery around the world, and they have the best database on trafficking cases. If you'd need anything, they've got it. And Dr. Mattar is here and he will answer questions after we have formal comments. Michele Clark is his co-director, and she speaks on trafficking worldwide and helps run that very growing organization. The War Against Trafficking Alliance decided, though, that we were being outgunned. There was hardly any way to organize against the traffickers the way we were doing it. We needed to get the people who were separate together. As I traveled the world, I started developing networks, and one of the networks I'll talk about today has recently rescued a little girl that I gave you the picture of. We called her "the little girl in red" for a long time because, about five months ago, I had her in my arms and had to leave her country and leave her where she was because she ended up having someone that says he was her father and he would bring her out at night and sell her. Well, we don't think that's the case. And I can't speak about all of her history right now, but what we have now is an alliance in that region. We started safe houses in the major cities in India. Those safe houses are where the women and children can be taken, or they can flee. We have negotiators of nationals in different countries that go in and that determine what is wrong with the girls. We've established ways to get into where they are, usually giving them medical care. We find that the johns, the traffickers, the bad guys, don't want to give medical care to our women and children, so we'll move mobile medical systems into places, and as we deal with the care we will then find ways to help the girls. This little girl is eight-years-old, we think by her medical. We call her "the girl in red." I do have her name now, and we do have her. When I took her picture, though, I brought it home with me. I didn't have her. For five months, we sent people in to give her medical care, food, and we figured out what was happening with her. She is now in protective custody. We'll be moving her into a private school very, very soon. If we didn't have the network in place, though, it wouldn't have worked. And so what the Alliance decided what we had to do is bring all those people that were working in the other countries to a safe place, bring them to America. And we needed a place where this administration could publicly speak this strong policy, also. Well, it took about two years, and September 11th was in the middle of it, and that kind of disrupted a few things. But we'd started identifying those doers around the world. Not the talkers that go to events, but doers: those that fight along the borders of countries for women being taken across the borders -- nine-year-olds they call women. Like on the border of Nepal and India, there's two women that we support that ride motorcycles up into the country so that they can identify traffic patterns, and then they'll go tell the mommies, "When you sell your daughter to the factory, she's not going there. She's going to a major brothel." So the Alliance put together this summit. We brought the people, but we could not have done it without a group of people. Something has happened in the State Department, I think, that is very, very unique. There has been a passion for this issue growing up in agencies and different people in different agencies working on this. Some of you might even have covered this issue before. And they're in the State Department, they're in USAID, they're in Foreign Service. They started coming together under the new trafficking office. They started asking to be dispatched to the trafficking office. And what we now have in the Trafficking in Persons office is one of the most dynamic teams that I've ever worked with. Now, being in government for many years, state and federal government, and being a member of Congress, that's quite a thing to say. Normally, I'm not really pleased with what government does. But these people will work around the clock when it comes time for the annual report, when it came time to working on the summit, and they helped us get people out of countries like Renu. I was going around the clock trying to bring one of the ladies out of the country, and Robert, who is here, who organized this, started spending hours helping me. This little girl -- I called her "little girl" -- was 15, actually turned 14, just turned 15, after she put in the brothel, was sold by her family in lieu of dowry. They didn't want to do that. They didn't want to spend the money on her. She was educated, which was unusual. She spoke English. She's raw, a little rough. But she knew math and she was sold. About four years ago, we developed a strategy to relieve her of that liberty -- or of that bondage, and got her out and ended up flying her back to her home country. And we were going to bring her from Nepal to be one of the delegates for the world summit. She got stuck in the country. And do you know why? She'd been in prostitution. Now, she was forced into prostitution, and that's one of the issues that we are dealing with and that the Alliance is dealing with and that the summit dealt with. We did get her in. And this team put on the summit. This team helped put together this document. And it is making it so that the World Alliance has made a decision, and Shared Hope International's board has made a decision, to back the funding for all the translations of this document into all UN languages -- Hindi, possibly several other languages -- and to take it out with the State Department working with us and carrying the Alliance around the world to be able to go in and help before the Renu get sold, before "the little girl in red's" father, who isn't really her father, by the way -- he just says that -- is able to use her any longer. I'm not going to go much longer. I do want to tell you, though, that there's a lot of good information in Johns Hopkins' research, if you need research. We have B roll of some of the women who were coming that's in process for you, if you would like that. Ghanga testified several times, for the first time out of her country, she came to America --- Renu -- and we would like to make that available to you. You that came this morning, thank you. This is an issue many don't want to talk about, but if we don't talk about it, it can't change. And the very nature of what we're doing as a World Trafficking Alliance in cooperation with the summit is shining light on this worldwide, going in where the traffickers are and working smarter so that we can get between them and our little girls, like "the little girl in red." MR. MILLER: Why don't we take any questions that you have on this conference or the report. And there are others here that I think can help answer the questions. Mohamed, Michele, Elizabeth, why don't you come up here and sit at the table? Mohamed and Michele, on behalf of the Trafficking Alliance, worked hard on this summit. Elizabeth was the State Department leader in putting this conference together. Any questions? Sure, go ahead. QUESTION: My name is Ruben Barrera. I'm with the Mexican News Agency Notimex. Excuse me. I have a question. You say that the names of the delegates who made this recommendation didn't appear in the report because you say it's a very sensitive matter. Could you clarify that? I mean, if there is any fear that these people will be a target of some kind of retribution from this group, or what exactly was the reason? MR. MILLER: The panels -- the speeches given by the speakers identified before, were all public. The panels, in order to encourage discussion by the delegates, were private. And one of the conditions on which the delegates spoke was that they knew that any idea they suggested could be taken down, but they would not necessarily be identified. I think that was their wish and that's the way we set it up. QUESTION: I have another question. The fact that this set of recommendations were made by the group of civilians, not government representatives, is that not a recognition in some way that the governments -- I mean, they don't care, really, you know, about what's going on -- in this matter? And I will go further. How can you expect to gain the support of the governments to fight this kind of crime when, I mean, there are several countries, especially I can think about Latin America, where prostitution, in some way, if it's not legal, it's tolerate. So, I mean, I see that you're going to have a really hard task trying to convince this government that, you know, working against or fighting this crime is really necessary. MR. MILLER: Did you want to comment? Or I -- I'll make a comment, then I think Linda will. This is a problem that is starting to seep into the public consciousness around the world. The problem, the challenge, is huge. But I think many citizens in this country, the United States, in other countries, are just beginning to become aware of how widespread this modern day slavery phenomenon is. I think the same is true for governments. It is the desire of the President and the Secretary of State that the United States take the lead, do what it can to publicize this challenge, to work with governments, to improve our own performance. There is no question that your comment is correct -- that governments around the world need to do more. Some governments are doing more. I think more and more governments are recognizing the issue. There is much, much more to be done. Linda, did you want to comment, or Mohamed? MR. MATTAR: Well, I just want to add that this is -- A PARTICIPANT: Don't forget to identify yourself. MR. MATTAR: Mohamed Mattar. I'm the co-director of the Protection Project. To my right is Michele Clark, the other co-director of the Project. QUESTION: How do you spell it? MR. MILLER: They want the spelling of your name. MR. MATTAR: Okay. M-a-t-t-a-r. That's my last name. Mohamed is M-o-h-a-m-e-d. I just want to support what you just said with some qualifications. Sometimes, NGOs take the lead and sometimes governments lack the political will to recognize trafficking in persons as a human rights violation. And this is really one of the purposes of that conference which we put together: to get governments to recognize the problem as a human rights violation. And this is one of the policy premises behind the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, that the United States monitors the status of severe form of trafficking in different countries around the world. So the idea here is to get governments to do something about the problem. The idea here is to initiate some kind of change in the behavior of the government. And we do that by addressing the problem directly and telling government they have to do something about it. How should governments do that? Well, the Act talks about several standards, which governments should meet to change their behavior and do something about trafficking in persons. One of the most important aspects of the Act is to get governments to recognize trafficking as a crime. And you mentioned prostitution. There's a distinction here between trafficking and prostitution because the U.S. policy is to go after trafficking whether for the purpose of prostitution or for the purpose of forced labor, as well. So we tell governments, "Go ahead. Recognize trafficking as a crime. Go ahead and recognize trafficking as a serious crime. Go ahead and provide some kind of assistance to victims of trafficking. Go ahead and cooperate with governments in the region." You mentioned Latin America, for example. To do something about the problem in Latin America, we need cooperation among different countries in the region itself. So, to me, there is a change in the U.S. policy starting October 28, 2000, and that change is, simply stated, recognizing trafficking in persons as a foreign policy objective -- that, for the first time, and recognizing trafficking in persons as a human rights violation for the first time. So things are moving, and that was really one of the purpose of putting the conference together. MS. PRYOR: I'm Elizabeth Pryor with the State Department, and I'm the person who coordinated the conference. I just wanted to clarify one point. The people who were participating in the conference were a mixture of people from nongovernmental organizations or people outside the government and government officials. In fact, it was about 40 percent government officials, or people connected with the government in some way, such as judges or police chiefs, and so on. So our thought in putting together this mix of people was, in fact, to do just what you were suggesting, which was not only to raise the recognition with the governments of how serious the problem was by having them here from people who were actually out in the field working on this problem, but also giving them some ideas and tools to work with as they try to make some headway against a problem that is very, very tough to solve. MS. SMITH: I'd like to make a comment that I think is really relevant right now because you know, the June 11th TIP report is coming up, and it is analysis of the countries' progress. There's going to be, you know, strife around it. Nobody wants to be looked at or reported on. But the very fact that we're looking at this as a human rights violation and we're reporting on it in America with the State Department -- I guess the Secretary will be bringing that out about the 11th, or in a couple of weeks -- shines light on the problem. When I started working in the brothels in Asia, oh, five years ago -- I was still in Congress -- it was just not talked about. It wasn't even an issue. Now, I can go in and diplomatically put things together with NGOs and government officials, and they at least know the issue. We've made a decision that because of that, raising the bar, I guess you could say, shining light on the issue, that the War Against Trafficking Alliance will spend a year taking this report out. And we put the money and the effort into the translations -- they're being translated here at the State Department -- to literally keep the light on it, not to ever let it drop. The Trafficking in Persons report, will bring it up for a while. They'll whine. Some of them will like it, you know. But it will bring it up. Sanctions is a minor issue, as far as I'm concerned. Sanctions is just something that the President can do, and some countries are a little afraid of it. But what I'm finding when I talk with the diplomats is they don't even want to be reported on. Don't even look at us. So the very fact that we're looking at it, we're going in, we're reporting, we're including their people, is shining light on this. And I see this, the report coming up, as positive in that -- I guess you would say context. I have a feeling there will be some people that don't like parts of it and people that like other parts. And, to me, it's not totally irrelevant, but the very fact that it's coming out shows America's strong position and shines a light into places where there's only been darkness. QUESTION: My name is Gregorio Meraz. I am correspondent from Televiso News Network from Mexico. I want to ask you, how important is the trafficking of women and children coming out from Mexico? And in the other hand, who are the main people, customers, of this illegal industry that is taking advantage of the situation? MR. MILLER: Well, there's no question that Mexico is a source country and the United States is a destination country for trafficking victims. We're going to be commenting in more detail on that in the next few weeks when we put out our report. Some of the victims are forced labor victims. Some of the victims are sex trafficking victims. And the United States has to step up its efforts in this regard, in not only working with Mexico but our own law enforcement and our own prosecutions. I think that's about all I can say at the moment. There will be more later. QUESTION: What about the people who is taking advantage of this terrible (inaudible)? MR. MILLER: Well, the law that Congress passed in the year 2000 makes this a very, very serious crime in the United States. I mean you can get a sentence of 20 years and you can -- and the prosecutions have started. In fact, in this report, I believe Attorney General Ashcroft, in his remarks to the delegates, talked about the tripling of prosecutions this past year to get the message out to the traffickers. You take a situation like Mexico and the United States, you have to work at it both ends. We talk about the Three P's -- prevention, prosecution and protection. Prevention involves education of potential victims. That probably can take place best in the source countries. Prosecution may take place in the source country, but more likely it's going to take place in the countries where the victims arrive. And then, of course, there is protection. Once there have been prosecutions and victims have been identified, how do we treat the victims? Do we just punish the victims or do we treat them with respect? Do we try to rehabilitate them? Do we see that if they eventually are repatriated that they are not just met by traffickers at the border and recycled? So this is not an easy issue and there's many areas where governments have to work and where citizen groups can be supportive. This -- what's happened here -- this conference, as Linda suggested, the inspiration for this conference came from nongovernmental organizations, some of them faith-based organizations. There are many organizations, many church groups now, that are getting more and more involved in this issue. I've got to tell you, in the United States, I think a couple of years -- but maybe even today, if you said, "Oh, there's a slavery challenge. We have an office in the State Department. We've got other government agencies fighting slavery." I think the response might be, "Slavery? I thought slavery was abolished after the Civil War." Well, that's a typical reaction. I've heard that. And yes, slavery based on color was abolished in this country after the Civil War. We are dealing around the world with many different kinds of slavery today. We're talking -- this conference focused on what you could argue is the most heinous form of slavery, sex slavery. There is forced labor slavery. There is military impressment of juveniles slavery. There is slavery relating to camel jockeys. There are so many. It's a major challenge. QUESTION: I wanted to ask two questions, the first one being the social economical aspect of, you know, children in trafficking. Is there some kind of incentive for Third World countries, if you can still call them Third World countries, that if they cooperate with the United States or the United Nations that they get awarded (a)? And (b), I don't know, maybe it's in here, but I haven't heard you people talk about the financial aspect of the story. Is there anything in the U.S. budget right now that is aimed at working on this issue? And (b), is the United States working with the United Nations or UNICEF or whichever organization to deal with this issue? Thank you. MR. MILLER: We are working with other international organizations -- UNICEF, the International Organization of Migration. I think one of the best things we can do is publicize the issue, and not just the inadequacies the failures, but also the successes. The report that's going to come out in several weeks issued by the Secretary is not only going to comment on what's going on in many different countries, and the report coming out by the Justice Department in the next month or two is going to comment on what's going on in the United States. But not only are you going to have that commentary, the report that we will issue will have practices, many of them no-cost or low-cost practices that have been successful that countries have tried. And we're going to praise countries for doing this. So I think that's part of this. This is not just all negative. We want to engage and praise the successes. Now getting to the other part of your question, various agencies in the United States Government over the last year or two have been given funds. I think if you look at all the agencies -- USAID, the State Department, the Justice Department, the Labor Department, Health and Human Services -- there's probably approximately in the neighborhood of $70 million that is available for grants either within the United States or, in the case of USAID and the State Department abroad, to work on prevention and prosecution, law enforcement and protection. So that that is a growing part of this fight. MR. MATTAR: I just want to emphasize what Congressman Miller just said, that the U.S. policy really calls for constructive engagement and constructive engagement comes before sanctions. If you take a look at the Act and analyze the sanctions under the Act, first of all, the Act called for a grace period of three years so countries can take their time (inaudible) -- changed the policies when it comes to trafficking in persons; and then secondly, the sanctions are not mandatory in nature. They are discretionary in nature. They don't have to be imposed, but they can be imposed. The Act emphasized constructive engagement in several ways. As you just mentioned, there are several programs, conducted by different agencies in the United States, and doing several things. The Act talks mainly about doing three things: one, assisting foreign governments to draft anti-trafficking legislation because legislation is an important tool to combat trafficking. And then secondly, as Congressman Miller just mentioned, the issue of prevention. The U.S. go into countries and help countries with education, educating potential victims of trafficking, providing financial aid in several ways to combat the problem. And then thirdly, the Act also calls for training, prosecutors and law enforcement officials in foreign countries. When you look at the last two years or three years, you will really find that the United States did a lot in many countries under their policy of constructive engagement. MR. MILLER: But there's more to do. MS. SMITH: That's right. MR. MILLER: A lot more. Yes. QUESTION: Nestor Ikeda, and I am a reporter for Latin America for AP. And if you were to set priorities among the regions in the world for the State Department to focus its attention on this problem, where in the world would you start? MR. MILLER: That is something I've been pondering over the last several weeks as we've been preparing this report. And here is the amazing or shocking fact: when you talk about sex trafficking and sex-slavery, there is no part of the world that is immune. You can talk about countries in Asia or Africa or Latin America or even Europe that are source countries from which victims come. But you can talk about countries in the Western Hemisphere, in Western Europe, where the victims go and are trafficked. It is hard to find a country or a continent that is immune. And some of the poorest countries in the world, the last year we're finding, have taken the most significant steps. And so it is not a simple -- one cannot just make a simple analysis and say, "This continent is bad, and this country is good." For example, you take the issue of sex tourism that is linked to trafficking in many ways: there are less developed countries that have had sex tourism, for lack of a better word, "facilities." Okay? And they have to do things about it. But where do the tourists come from? They come from the wealthier, so-called "developed" nations. So this problem reaches everywhere. Every country has to make efforts, every country can do more. Did somebody else want to comment on that? MS. SMITH: Well, I think another issue, other than the money -- there was an issue of where do the resources come from and what do they get from America? What we've discovered, I think, in the Alliance and the Alliance members is that there's often things out there that aren't connected. And people are doing things and they don't know about the people around them. So once we connect people in "sending" and "receiving" countries, we find that we can coordinate in a way that's more economical. Case in point: One group was dealing in one of the areas around one of the countries. Well, I will say it. It was in Nepal. And we found out that they were dealing in these regions where we were working. It just took us, this would be Shared Hope International, coming alongside and saying, "Okay, what we will do is every mother who puts a uniform on her little girl, gets her to school instead of selling her -- they would identify the families -- we will give them so many pounds of rice and beans and so much." There was an incentive for the mother, actually, to keep the child in the home. And we'd helped the family and we didn't have to separate it. Well, a group was already there, already doing something, and it was a matter of them understanding that some of the girls that were disappearing were actually being trafficked into cities 1,000 to 1,500 miles away. So the information and the groups were connected in a way that we didn't really need much more money. We just needed to find a way to get to -- you know, to get to the victims and stop the traffickers. So I think it's a smarter way of acting, not saying, "Americans give people more money," it's saying, "Okay, the AIDS money is coming, $2 billion next year. What is the primary way of spreading AIDS? Trafficking. You sell a girl 14 times or 40 times a day, she's going to get AIDS, but everybody else is going to get AIDS, too. And think of the multiplier factor. So this administration is thinking smart. And a lot of the advocates have asked for trafficking to be a part of the overall effort in fighting AIDS: address trafficking. And so smarter is what we're looking to and I commend the administration, especially the Trafficking in Person Office, for really thinking broader, not narrow, but broader. QUESTION: Just to prevent the use of drugs among children, in this particular case wouldn't it be necessary also to launch a campaign to enforce, to increase the penalty to peoples that is paying to have sex with these real victims? MR. MILLER: Well, one of the -- MS. SMITH: Most countries are. MR. MILLER: Yeah, one of the suggestions made at this conference was a shifting of the emphasis and punishment from victims to not just the traffickers, but the customers. And the law that Congress -- that the United States Congress passed in 2000 also reflects that shift in emphasis that the law calls for victims to be treated humanely, that the answer to this problem is not just to lock up the victims. In fact, not "just," that is not an answer in our opinion. So yes. That's something that I think many of the delegates at this conference and in our office, as well, thinks deserves attention. MS. SMITH: We have seen some and, please -- we have seen some fairly good campaigns. And that's what we really liked at the summit. We found out things that were good that were happening that we can replicate other places: some good ad campaigns in different countries targeted toward the parents in the communities, some flyers, some radio that talks just about the issues of how they're recruiting your children and bringing up that issue. And also, we've seen some law changes and some proposed law changes that say, "If you're the user of that child, you're as guilty as the person that sold the child or is selling the child or the woman," because really you are. If you're using someone and you don't know much about them, you're making it possible for them to be used, so there are a lot of us in the movement that believe very strongly that the penalties for the users have to be strong, advertised, and those that abuse need to be publicized because I think most of them wouldn't want their wives and their mothers to know. MR. MATTAR: And it is the U.S. law to punish the U.S. citizen or resident who traveled abroad with the intent to engage into a illicit sexual activity with a child. That is a 1994 Sex Tourism Act and it calls for the severe punishment in cases of even the intent to engage in sex with a child. That law will be changed. The 2002 Sex Tourism Prohibition Improvement Act calls for such a punishment in any case where the U.S. is traveling, like you just mentioned, to have sex with a child in another country. So that is a good law. It calls for the extraterritorial application of the U.S. law abroad. And we encouraged that, of course. MR. MILLER: Okay. Is -- yeah? QUESTION: Nestor Ikeda from AP again. In one of the most discussed issues during the conference was the creation of a database of information on traffickers. Does the State Department have that line for creating that international database? MR. MILLER: We don't now, but we will be looking into that. That is something that I am hopeful that we can help along. I think there's several kinds of databases, though, here. There's the law enforcement database, where you're trying to get a prosecutorial agencies and police to exchange information. And I think that's something that -- that the U.S. Government -- should be looked at. That falls more in the domain of the Justice Department. I think also, however, there's another kind of database, where you provide a vehicle where people that are out in the field fighting slavery can get ideas, can exchange information. That kind of database, I want our office to look at setting up this coming year. MR. MATTAR: Plus the exchange of information between and among NGOs, I mean, that is really an important aspect of exchanging information because you need that, not only on the governmental level, but among NGOs. And that's what we do at the Protection Project. We have good contacts with other NGOs in several of, you know, foreign countries because one of the problems with trafficking is really lack of information. You mentioned economic aspect, even social aspects. It's very hard to really provide any statistics when it comes to many aspects of trafficking and that's what we try to do -- you know, incorporation with NGOs. MR. MILLER: Okay. Let's take another question. QUESTION: Could you comment about -- on the U.S.-European Union cooperation on this aspect because, as you know, a lot of the new member states have a serious problem with -- be it prostitution or sex trafficking, so if you could comment on that. I think from what we read, also, when President Bush heads there he was going to push his AIDS initiative. And as a Congresswoman, you said AIDS and sex trafficking go hand to hand, so if you can comment on that please. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Well, I don't have any specific comment on what the European Union is doing. They have -- their members have certainly discussed this issue. They have established some common policies. We are trying to engage in, not only with the European Union, but OSCE, the United Nations, other organizations on this issue, but I will just give you my personal reaction. International organizations can get together and they can set up policies and draft resolutions. But I believe that if we're really going to make progress, if we're really going to make progress, it's more than international organizations passing resolutions. Individual countries have to take specific steps on the ground in prevention and protection and prosecution. That's where the progress must be made. We have -- there's nothing against resolutions and international organizations, but I think we've reached the point in this effort where we've had quite a few resolutions and what we now need is action. MS. SMITH: When we prepared for the summit, Dr. Mattar looked at all of the outcome -- I'm going to say, not -- well, just about all of the events that have been held on trafficking and the outcome documents of major events -- the statements from governing bodies, whether it be inter-country or country. And we looked at all of them. They had, all of them, recommendations. And it was clear they were on shelves and a lot of the recommendations not happening. So, in the preparation, our goal was to get the people that were making it happen on the ground put them together and come out with something to go out; and then put pressure on these countries that had already said -- and these groups of countries that, "We think this is slavery," or, "This is rape of a child," or these are the different statements made and say, "Okay, you know it. You've been writing on it. You have statements on it. Now do something about it. In fact, we're here to help you." And what we'll be doing as we go out to these different regions of the country with this report is taking it as recommendations and start connecting the dots and working with them. But definitely, our belief in organizing the summit was very well summarized by Elizabeth one day. "There's just enough reports," I think is how she said it -- something to that extent, "There's just enough reports. Now we need to do something." And then she said, "Let's find the doors." And we spent days and days and days of going through people's applications to figure out who was really doing and who was talking. And we eliminated about ten talkers to every one doer, and then put together this document because we just had so many resolutions. And I agree it's time for action. MR. MILLER: Yeah, Linda mentioned earlier, I think it's so important, she mentioned specific victims that she has worked with. It is so easy to forget the victims, to get so involved in laws, which are necessary, programs, but I think all government officials and all citizens have to really understand the human face of this. Our office, every week, gets new stories. The stories have a pattern -- the pattern's similar, the details differ. The pattern is that a woman or a child is lured from a country with a promise of a job in a restaurant, taken to another country, passport seized, beaten, raped, shuffled from brothel to brothel servicing 10, 20 men a day. This goes on. This took place. This came out in my home city of Seattle last fall, just this kind of operation. We hear these stories all the time. Mercy, the girl from Nigeria trafficked to Italy, passport seized, beaten, raped, put in brothels, with the help of a church escapes, tells her story to human rights groups. A couple of weeks later, in retribution, her sister is killed in Florence. I mean these stories are day after day after day. I think everybody here at this table is hearing these stories and if government officials around the world read these stories, talk with these victims, if citizens around the world understand this, then I think we're going to get a lot more action. MR. MATTAR: You mention European Union and European Union policy on trafficking is reflected in the July 2002 Directive on Prevention of Trafficking. What the directive does, it calls upon European countries to harmonize their laws when it comes to trafficking. And believe it or not, the United States is helping several of European countries to change their laws so they can be in compliance with the rules of the 2002 Directive. Of course, the idea is not to create a new form of law in Europe, but the idea here is to have harmony among the laws as much as possible. And the U.S. initiated several programs, working with several European countries to harmonize -- to change the laws so they can comply with the directive. QUESTION: And that's an EU directive or is that (inaudible)? MR. MATTAR: Some of the countries will be countries joining the EU in the coming five-six years and some of the countries are members of the European Union, so both. Even Russia -- the U.S. helped Russia with the new trafficking bill. QUESTION: Was this a U.S. directive or it's EU directive? That's where I got lost before. MS. DOBRIANSKY: Is it a U.S. or an EU Directive? MR. MATTAR: No, it is the European Union Directive. MR. MILLER: There are efforts, I should have mentioned, efforts that we have participated in not just in Europe, in southeastern Europe where we've helped to support an organization called SECI which the countries -- where the countries in southeastern Europe are getting together and combining law enforcement and looking at harmonizing laws. We're trying to encourage similar actions in Southeast Asia. All of this can be helpful. MS. SMITH: There's something that Dr. Mattar didn't mention that problem would be a good point for you to know. There's a model law on the State Department site now that -- surely not every state is the same, not every country is the same, but there is a model law, I think it's on the State Department now, it's supposed to be there, and the Justice Department. And it's to give them a guideline, at least an idea -- Dr. Mattar was a part of that and different people at the State Department. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, also, we've been talking with them about going out to the training sessions that we'll hold as a follow up to this summit, taking this document, and one of the strongest that we found the countries wanted was training for their judges, their prosecutors in the laws they had and an understanding of how to strengthen their laws, so our goal will be, as a follow-up, to take that out and to use the State Department guidelines for law and to say, "We don't have all the answers, but here is an idea we can help you with." MR. MILLER: I think we'll; at that point, we'll give you the last word. If people want to talk further with individuals they can, but I think we'll call the formal part of this proceedings to a halt and I think just express our appreciation for the over 400 individuals who came and spoke for themselves as individuals, gave their own thoughts, not the thoughts of their governments, and I think, made a contribution to getting some action on this challenge. Thank you all for coming. We appreciate it. (end transcript) (Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
