Attorneys General Unite against Human Trafficking

Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna, the 2011-2012 President of the National Association of Attorneys General, has chosen human trafficking as the focus of his presidential initiative. This will involve the formation of a Presidential Leadership Council consisting of 10 Attorneys General, with the support of all 50 states Attorneys General.

“Pillars of Hope: Attorneys General Unite against Human Trafficking” is built upon the following four pillars: 1) increased coordination of victim services, 2) improved methods of compiling data on state level human trafficking cases, 3) stronger laws to prosecute traffickers, and 4) increased public awareness.

This will result in major increases in political will for fighting human trafficking systemically across all 50 states. Having a major law enforcement figure like the Attorney General in each state use his/her political leverage to support passage of certain laws and to implement laws is an opportunity to increase prosecutions of traffickers and johns, and to go after certain human trafficking networks.

The NAAG President’s Initiative will also enable the anti-trafficking movement to improve police training efforts, to support research and data collection efforts, and provide increased victim care – which are just a few of the other potential results.

Polaris Project and Microsoft Lexis Nexis is working together as key advisors to the NAAG.

Child Prostitution Bill in Atlanta

State Sen. Renee Unterman, a Republican from Buford, just issued this angry statement:

“I have worked tirelessly for years to protect the children of Georgia from predatory and despicable acts of sexual exploitation and prostitution. I’m severely disappointed and personally insulted that conservative groups I have worked with and supported have chosen to misrepresent all the work I have put into protecting Georgia’s children.

The bill (SB 304) would prohibit girls and boys under the age of 16 from being charged with prostitution. Instead, they would be shifted to treatment or counseling.

“These bills will take away police powers to investigate a crime,” the video says — a claim that Unterman and others strongly dispute.

On the other hand, it’s hard to charge a 15-year-old with prostitution when 16 is the legal age of sexual consent in Georgia.
(Atlanta Constitutional Blog http://blogs.ajc.com)

What we do not realize is this bill is essential for stopping human trafficking. Many of these prostitutes are either runaways or children without homes who have been caught up in the world of prostitution against their will by pimps, and others.

The problem that we face with human trafficking is the misconception that prostitution is not a form of human trafficking. For this reason, we need to bring more awareness to the community, and urge our senators to pass these bills that will shift the focus to the predators and not the victims.

Appellate Court Opinions

• • Attached are two Appellate Court opinions issued within the last week in forced labor cases from two different Circuit Courts: the Seventh Circuit (authority over Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana), and the Sixth Circuit (authority over Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee).  These opinions are binding on trial courts in their own Circuits, and very influential across the Nation.  Both cases were prosecuted in the trial courts by the US Department of Justice working with our law enforcement and NGO partners, and the appeals were handled by the Department’s Civil Rights Division. In the Seventh Circuit opinion, US v. Calimlim, the Court affirmed the convictions of two wealthy doctors for holding their domestic servant in forced labor.  In doing so, the Court found that “abuse of the law” by threatening deportation is a method of violating the forced labor statute, even where deportation would be legally permissible. The Court finds that the following was sufficient evidence to uphold a forced labor conviction:
     
    “The evidence showed that the Calimlims intentionally manipulated the situation so that [the victim] would feel compelled to remain. They kept her passport, never admitted that they too were violating the [immigration] law, and never offered to try to regularize her presence in the United States. Their vague warnings that someone might report [the victim to deportation authorities] and their false statements that they were the only ones who lawfully could employ her could reasonably be viewed as a scheme to make her believe that she or her family would be harmed if she tried to leave. That is all the jury needed to convict.”
    The Court also made several other findings, including that the defendants had received too light of a prison sentence.

     

    At trial, the defendants were originally ordered to pay over $900,000 in restitution and sentenced to 4 years in prison.  We will be seeking re-sentencing of the defendants soon.In the Sixth Circuit Opinion,
     
    US v. Djoumessi, the court similarly upheld the conviction of a man who used sexual assaults and beatings to force a young girl into domestic servitude.

     

    After chronicling the physical, sexual, and psychological abuse the defendants exacted on the young girl, the Court finds that the evidence was sufficient to uphold a conviction even where there was evidence that:
     
     

     

  • Her standard of living was higher in the US than in her home country.
  • The Court also held that the federal Department of Justice could prosecute the defendant for forced labor (and secure $100,000 in restitution) even though the state government had previously convicted him for raping the young girl. 

  Some moving quotes from the Sixth Circuit judges:

  “[The victim’s] special vulnerabilities complete this grim picture. Just fourteen years old

  when the Djoumessis brought her to the United States, she was here illegally, she had no money or other means of support and she had no substantial contact with anyone other than these modern-day Thénardiers. These realities made her more susceptible to the Djoumessis’ threats of imprisonment and deportation, even if such a threat made to an adult citizen of normal intelligence might be too implausible to produce involuntary servitude.” 
   
  “ A slave master cannot escape the clutches of [the law] by contending that he subjected the servant to slightly less wretched conditions than she would have experienced elsewhere. Involuntary servitude is a fixed prohibition, not a relative one.

   

  It thus sweeps up all forced labor, even when the victim is freed from the bondages of one bad relationship and placed in another.” 
   
  “When parents explicitly renounce their parental relationship­ by selling a child into slavery or abandoning [her] to involuntary servitude­

   

  parental consent cannot provide a subsequent defense for the [trafficker] .  A parental consent defense is particularly inappropriate on the facts of this case because [the victim’s parents] abdicated any semblance of  parental supervision and control.” 

  Both of these decisions show that the litigation of forced labor cases, and all Human Trafficking cases, extends beyond the investigation and trial itself.  These are very important decisions that will guide investigators, prosecutors, and courts across the Nation.Robert Moossy

   

  Director, Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit Civil Rights Division, Criminal Section U.S. Department of Justice

   

  Director, Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit Civil Rights Division, Criminal Section U.S. Department of Justice

   djoumessi-opinion2

   calimlim-7th-cir1

 

THE HOUSE AND SENATE ANTI-TRAFFICKING BILLS

H.R. 3887	S. 3061	Significance
The House bill maintains the critical distinction between commercial sex acts and the performance of “labor or services.”  (Sec. 221)	Adopting the views and definitions of the Department of Justice, the Senate bill explicitly defines prostitution as a form of “labor or services.”  (Sec. 222)	Symbolically significant and revealing of many of its key policy choices, the Senate bill treats prostitution as “sex work” rather than the destructive and enslaved life it is for the overwhelming majority of sex trafficked persons.
The House bill codifies decisions of the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 9th and 10th Circuits that authorize the conviction of sex traffickers of minors on a per se basis, without proof that the trafficker knew that the trafficked person was a minor.  (Sec. 221)	The Senate bill moderately softens the minority positions of the 7th, 8th and 11th Circuits by permitting the conviction of sex-traffickers of minors who “recklessly disregard” the ages of the persons they trafficked.  (Sec. 222)	The Senate provision rejects the clear majority view of the Federal Courts, will place a highly difficult burden of proof on the prosecution of sex traffickers of minors, will significantly protect traffickers claiming not to know the ages of the persons they trafficked, and will greatly facilitate the continued sex trafficking of minors.
The House bill amends current law criminalizing the sex trafficking of illegal aliens on a per se basis by eliminating the law’s further proof requirement that the traffickers caused the illegal aliens to come to the U.S. to engage in prostitution.  (Sec. 223)	The Senate bill excludes this provision.	The Senate provision will place a highly difficult burden of proof on the prosecution of sex traffickers of illegal aliens and will greatly facilitate the continued sex trafficking of illegal aliens – a matter of particular importance in eliminating the brutal, mafia-controlled “massage parlors” that now operate in most major U.S. cities.
The House bill requires DOJ to rapidly complete the study of the unlawful domestic commercial sex industry authorized by the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2005, which the Department has not conducted.  (Sec. 232)	The Senate bill authorizes funding for the study but excludes the mandate that the study be completed.	This Senate bill fails to ensure the completion of a study vitally needed to gain an understanding of the economics of the U.S. sex trafficking “industry” and the nature of its operators, victims and customers, and vitally needed as a tool to assess the records of government agencies in eliminating unlawful sex trafficking.

 

H.R. 3887	S. 3061	Significance
The House bill ensures that trafficked persons are eligible for Victims of Crime Act [“VOCA”] funds.  (Sec. 214)	The Senate bill excludes this provision.	The Senate provision permits continued State denial of VOCA support to sex-trafficked victims if, as uniformly occurs, they have been convicted of prostitution-related offenses.
The House bill amends Federal law criminalizing all acts of sex trafficking of persons above the age of 18 by substituting an “in or affecting interstate commerce” jurisdictional proof requirement for the present requirement that such traffickers be proven to engage in transporting trafficked persons across State lines.  The House bill treats acts of trafficker fraud, force or coercion as grounds for enhanced punishment, not as a baseline proof requirement for conviction.  (Sec. 221)	The Senate bill excludes the House provision.	The Senate bill significantly restricts the Federal prosecution of sex traffickers of persons above the age of 18 to fraud, force or coercion cases.  This policy makes such traffickers ordinary “employers” largely unaffected by the law until their “workers” complain of and can prove victimization by trafficker acts of fraud, force or coercion. Given the difficulty and resource intensity of such cases, the Senate bill will severely limit Federal prosecutions of traffickers, including those who routinely commit acts of fraud, force or coercion, and may in fact increase the measure of fraud, force or coercion practiced against sex trafficked persons.
The House bill requires remediation of a broadly promoted, broadly adopted DOJ Model Law that makes proof of fraud, force or coercion an essential element for State law convictions of sex traffickers of persons above the age of 18.  The House bill further requires DOJ to draft a new Model Law that treats all acts of trafficker fraud, force or coercion as grounds for enhanced punishment, not as a baseline proof requirement for conviction, and requires DOJ to report to Congress on its progress in promoting the adoption of the new Model Law. (Sec. 224)	The Senate bill excludes this provision.	The House provision is needed to undo the effects of a DOJ Model Law that has often been treated as an effective repeal of existing, State laws that criminalize acts of sex trafficking without proof of trafficker fraud, force or coercion.  No Federalism-based argument can be made for the Senate bill’s failure to mandate remediation of the DOJ Model Law.  Failure to adopt the House provision will cause continued State law enforcement patterns of arresting and convicting persons engaged in prostitution while failing to prosecute their  unlawful traffickers or johns.

 

H.R. 3887	S.3061	Significance
The House bill has no comparable provision.	The Senate bill requires the pre-trial detention of traffickers and adds Federal obstruction of justice, financial benefit and conspiracy crimes to existing laws involving slavery and trafficking.   (Sec. 222)	The Senate provisions enhance the ability to prosecute traffickers under Federal law but do not address the underlying problems of proving trafficker force, fraud or coercion or the minor age or illegal alien status of sex trafficked person now required in many prosecutions.
The House bill requires that a presently authorized nationwide annual law enforcement conference on trafficking should be jointly conducted by the State  Department Trafficking in Persons [“TIP”] office and Department of Justice, and requires the conference to promote laws making acts of sex trafficker fraud, force or coercion grounds for enhanced punishment rather than baseline requirements for conviction.   (Sec. 232)	The Senate bill excludes this provision.	The Senate bill’s elimination of the House provision further supports the policy that converts many sex traffickers into ordinary “employers” largely unaffected by the law until their “workers” complain of and can prove victimization by acts of fraud, force or coercion.  The Senate provision will enhance continuance of the widespread practice of arresting and convicting persons engaged in prostitution while failing to prosecute their traffickers or johns.  It will also reduce the TIP office’s critical role in coordinating the Federal government’s overall anti-trafficking initiative.
The House bill includes a maximum sentence of 30 years for promoting sex tourism with minors, and authorizes the TIP office to work with the airline and tourism industries to help eliminate sex tourism. (Sec. 102 and 221)	The Senate bill excludes the House provisions and adds a provision barring sex tour operator prosecutions where the tours promote commercial sex acts that, although criminal in the U.S. residence of the tour participants, are lawful in the tour destination countries.  (Sec. 222)	The Senate provision fails to increase the punishment for promoting sex tourism involving minors, and frees sex-tour operators from prosecution even though they promote activities which are criminal under U.S. law.

 

H.R. 3887	S.3061	Significance
The House bill assigns sex trafficking and sex tourism cases to DOJ’s Criminal Division, and forced labor cases to the Civil Rights Division.  It makes the FBI’s “Innocence Lost” task forces responsible for investigating sexually exploited adults and minors.  (Sec. 234)	The Senate bill excludes this provision.	The House bill corrects problems created within DOJ caused by divided responsibility given to different DOJ component units for the investigation and prosecution of sex trafficking crimes.  This division makes accountability for policy and performance difficult and often impossible.
The House bill creates a framework for regulating foreign labor contractors.  (Sec. 202)	The Senate bill excludes this provision.	The Senate bill creates no process to protect vulnerable workers from being sex trafficked or made subject to forced labor when recruited from abroad by labor contractors or traffickers.
The House bill subjects all countries to review in the annual Trafficking in Persons report.  (Sec. 106)	The Senate bill excludes this provision.	The Senate bill rejects the view that trafficking is a concern in all countries, and ensures that “numbers game” exercises will be imposed on the TIP office that will oblige it to show that a “measurable number” of persons have been trafficked in a country before being able to evaluate the country in its annual report.
The House bill specifies that suspended sentences to convicted traffickers will not be deemed to comply with the TVPA minimum performance standard requiring countries to prosecute and punish their traffickers.   (Sec. 106)	The Senate bill allows the State Department to consider suspended sentences on a “case-by-case basis.”  (Sec.105)	The Senate bill changes the House provision from a mandatory to a discretionary standard, and maintains a present enforcement gap that allows trafficking-complicit countries to issue suspended sentences to convicted traffickers in order to avoid serious trafficking policy reform and effective TIP office review.
The House bill gives heightened significance to the TVPA minimum standard requiring countries to reduce demand for commercial sex and international sex tourism.  (Sec. 106)	The Senate bill excludes this provision.	The Senate bill reduces the significance of reducing demand for commercial sex as a means of combating sex trafficking, and weakens the government’s ability to eliminate international sex tourism.

 

H.R. 3887	S.3061	Significance
The House bill makes the TIP office Director solely responsible for State Department-controlled anti-trafficking programs.  (Sec. 102)	The Senate bill requires the “concurrence” of the TIP Director in managing these programs.  (Sec. 102)	The Senate bill will facilitate gridlock rather than accountability in the State Department’s anti-trafficking programs, and will facilitate efforts to marginalize the TIP office.
The House bill grants the TIP office administrative control over its anti-trafficking grants.  (Sec. 102)	The Senate bill excludes this provision.	The Senate provision will ensure continuance of now common delays of nine months and more between the dates that grant award decisions are made by the TIP office and the dates that its grants are awarded.  The Senate bill will facilitate efforts to limit the authority and marginalize the role of the TIP office.
The House bill has no comparable provision.	The Senate bill requires the appointment of panels to evaluate all TIP office anti-trafficking grants.  (Sec. 104)	The Senate provision further subjects the TIP office to review, supervision and bureaucratic control, and fails to recognize the critical need to permit the small, highly performing TIP office to exercise greater rather than less authority, and to be more rather than less accountable for its performance.
The House bill has no comparable provision.	The Senate bill requires grant applicants to certify that they have been trained in and collaborate with organizations whose mission is focused on victims of trafficking crimes involving proven fraud, force or coercion.  (Sec. 104)	The Senate provision minimizes the importance of serving victims of sex trafficking under circumstances where, as is the case in the U.S. and throughout the world, proof of trafficker fraud, force or coercion is difficult and often impossible to obtain.
The House bill includes a Sense of Congress provision to locate the TIP office at State Department headquarters in a space that “reflects the importance of the implementation of the Act and the broad and historic mission of the Office to end modern-day slavery.”  (Sec. 102)	The Senate bill excludes this provision.	The Senate bill will facilitate the marginalization of the TIP office and send a signal within the State Department and to foreign diplomats and others that trafficking issues are of lesser priority significance in the conduct of U.S. human rights and foreign policy.
H.R. 3887	S.3061	Significance
The House bill suspends for two years the issuance of special visas for domestic workers for the diplomatic personnel of all embassies or missions whenever their personnel have trafficked or exploited such workers.  The Secretary is authorized to waive the suspensions, but only after making a formal finding that the embassy or mission has taken steps to prevent future abuses, and submitting the finding to Congress.  (Sec. 110)	The Senate provision also authorizes such suspensions but requires no report or findings and gives the Secretary of State broader discretion to waive the suspensions.  (Sec. 203)	The Senate bill will facilitate the continuance of presently widespread domestic worker abuse by many foreign diplomats, doing so by holding embassies and missions less accountable for monitoring and preventing the abuse and by giving the Secretary of State greater latitude in excusing it.
The House bill has no comparable provision.	The Senate provision requires written employment contracts for domestic workers admitted under special diplomatic visas, and permits such visa holders to work in the U.S. for periods sufficient to allow their contract or U.S. employment law-based complaints to be resolved.  (Sec. 203)	The Senate bill expands legal protections available to special visa holders by facilitating the filing of visa holder legal complaints involving either contract or U.S. employment law violations.
The House bill has no comparable provision.	The Senate bill waives the filing fees for T Visa, U Visa and VAWA Self-Petitions.	The Senate provision enhances the protections available to victims of international trafficking and other forms of violence against women in the United States.
The House bill has no comparable provision.	The Senate bill requires an audit of overseas Defense contractors and subcontractors where evidence of unlawful trafficking exists.  (Sec. 232)	This Senate provision will help prevent unlawful trafficking by overseas Defense contractors.

 

H.R. 3887	S.3061	Significance
The House bill creates an annual presidential award for American and foreign leaders who have notably contributed to the elimination human trafficking.  (Sec.109)	The Senate bill also does so and names the award the “Paul D. Wellstone Presidential Award.”  (Sec. 108)	The Senate bill appropriately recognizes the historic role of Paul Wellstone in passing the Trafficking Victims Protection Act but fails to recognize the equal contribution of Sheila Wellstone to the Act’s passage; the award should be named the “Paul and Sheila Wellstone Presidential Award.”

Judges Briefed on Trafficking

BAHRAIN’s judges and lawyers have received training paid for by the US to help tackle problems related to human trafficking, it has emerged.

The US has offered to help pay for capacity building, training and awareness campaigns to help both government and non-government organisations combat the problem.

“US officials continually stress with (Bahrain) government officials at all levels the country’s responsibilities for combating trafficking in persons, including engaging with it to promote enforcement of its new anti-trafficking legislation,” the US State Department said.

The measures were listed in the department’s annual Country Reports on Advancing Freedom and Democracy.

“The US funds training for law enforcement officials, lawyers and judges to enhance implementation of laws to combat trafficking,” it said.

“As part of awareness-building campaigns, US officials have shown films that highlight the problem of trafficking and followed these screenings with discussions to define and discuss trafficking.”

The US also pledged to support Bahrain’s efforts improve the political environment and broaden political participation.

“The US government works toward broadening political participation and strengthening the rule of law with the aim of achieving greater trust and co-operation among citizens, civil society and the government,” it said.

“To that end, the US continues to encourage the government’s adoption of greater transparency in its policies when it deals with its population and with the international community.

“US officials maintain close relationships with political and civil societies that are willing to engage with them.

“This dialogue enables the US to assess the views of the societies, NGOs and other advocates of reform when establishing priorities.

“Through assistance and other programmes, the US government provides training to the government and civil societies in support of political reform.”

The US added that it continues to support activities that improve the political environment and broaden political participation.

It said that it supports the country’s efforts to build an experienced, effective, and accountable parliament.

The country said it seeks through a variety of means to help Bahrain broaden political participation and improve human rights.

“The US government focuses on civic education as a key to long-term consolidation of democracy in the country,” it said.

“One US-funded civic education programme trains teachers on a curriculum focused on the value of participation in the community and government, individual responsibility, and collective problem solving. In January the programme trained 56 teachers in a two-day workshop.”

The US Department of State submits the report on 106 “non-democratic and democratic transition countries” to Congress, detailing its efforts to promote democracy and human rights.

Gulf Daily News

Lack of evidence sees eight accused walk free

 A 17-year-old girl was allegedly allured and later abducted from the slums at Deonar by three women
A sessions court on Wednesday acquitted eight persons, including three women in a trafficking case. A 17-year-old girl was allegedly allured and later abducted from the slums at Deonar by three women who stayed in the neighbourhood.

According to the prosecution, accused Prachi —Raju Kale, Durga Somnath Tupe and Alka Jadhav— approached the girl promising her a job and the girl was ready to take up the same.

As Prachi was close to the victim’s family, the victim apparently believed her and stepped out of her house without letting her parents know about it.

Later, the girl was taken to a hotel at Patan in north Gujarat, where the hotel owner, manager and four customers allegedly raped her at different instances.

Other accused, including the hotel owner, manager and three regular customers at the Gokul Palace hotel in Gujarat. She was later taken to another hotel in Gujarat where she was allegedly gang raped.

All accused were booked under the section 376 of the Indian Penal code for rape, kidnap, and wrongful confinement and under several sections of the Prevention of Immoral Trafficking Act (PITA). However, the prosecution could not prove its case as the medical evidence did not support.

The girl who was rescued and sent to a rehabilitation centre in Mumbai, did not wish to go back to her parents, neither did her parents show any willingness to accept the girl back. “Under the section 13 of PITA when an accused is booked, it is mandatory for the State to appoint an investigating officer not below the rank of an inspector. But, here no such appointment was made,” said Abdul Wahab Khan who appeared the accused.

Observing that no proper evidence was collected by the police and lack of medical evidence, Ad hoc additional sessions judge A J Agarwal acquitted all eight accused for lack of evidence

http://www.expressindia.com