To combat trafficking of persons, especially into the sex trade, slavery, and slavery-like conditions, in the United States and countries around the world through prevention, through prosecution and enforcement against traffickers, and through protection and assistance to victims of trafficking.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

November 8, 1999

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey (for himself. Mr. Gejdenson. Ms. Kaptur. Ms Slaughter. Mr. Lantos. Ms. McKinney, Mr King, Mr. Wolf. and Mr. Cooksey) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on

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A BILL

To combat trafficking of persons, especially into the sex trade, slavery, and slavery-like conditions in the United States and countries around the world through prevention, through prosecution and enforcement against traffickers, and through protection and assistance to victims of trafficking. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

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SECTION. 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS.

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(a) SHORT TITLE- This Act may be cited as the `Trafficking Victims

5 Protection Act of 1999'.

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(b) TABLE OF CONTENTS- The table of contents for this Act is as

follows:

Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents.

Sec. 2. Purposes and findings.

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Sec. 4. Annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.

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Sec. 5. Interagency task force to monitor and combat trafficking.

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Sec. 7. Protection and assistance for victims of trafficking.

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Sec. 8. Minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking.

Sec. 9. Assistance to foreign countries to meet minimum standards.

Sec. 10. Actions against govemments failing to meet minimum standards.

Sec. 11. Actions against significant traffickers.

Sec. 12. Strengthening prosecution and punishment of traffickers.

Sec. 13. Authorization of Appropriations.

SEC. 2. PURPOSES AND FINDINGS.

(a) PURPOSES- The purposes of this Act are to combat trafficking in persons, a contemporary manifestation of slavery whose victims are predominantly women and children, to ensure just and effective punishment of traffickers, and to protect their victims.

(b) FINDINGS- The Congress finds that:

(1) Millions of people every year, primarily women or children, are trafficked within or across international borders. Approximately 50,000 women and children are trafficked into the United States each

(2) Many of these persons, of whom the overwhelming majority are women and children, are trafficked into the international sex

trade, often by means of force, fraud, or coercion. The sex industry has rapidly expanded over the past several decades. It involves sexual exploitation of persons, predominantly women and girls, within activities related to prostitution, pornography, sex tourism, and other commercial sexual services. The rapid expansion of the sex industry and the low status of women in many parts of the world have contributed to a burgeoning of the trafficking industry, of which sex trafficking by force, fraud, and coercion is a major component.

(3) Trafficking in persons is not limited to sex trafficking, but often involves forced labor and other violations of internationally recognized human rights. The worldwide trafficking of persons is a growing transnational crime, migration, economics, labor, public health, and human rights problem that is significant on nearly every continent.

(4) Traffickers primarily target women and girls, who are disproportionately affected by poverty, lack of access to education, chronic unemployment, discrimination, and lack of viable economic opportunities ir. countries of origin. Traffickers lure women and girls into their networks through false promises of good working conditions at relatively high pay as nannies, maids, dancers, factory workers, restaurant workers, sales clerks, or models. Traffickers also buy girls

from poor families and sell them into prostitution or into various types of forced or bonded labor.

(5) Traffickers often facilitate victims' movement from their home communities to unfamiliar destinations, away from family and friends,

religious institutions, and other sources of protection and support, making the victims more vulnerable.

(6) Victims are often forced to engage in sex acts or to perform labor or other services through physical violence, including rape and

other forms of sexual abuse, torture, starvation, and imprisonment, through threats of violence, and through other forms of psychological abuse and coercion.

(7) Trafficking is perpetrated increasingly by organized and sophisticated criminal enterprises. Trafficking in persons is the fastest growing source of profits for organized criminal enterprises worldwide. Profits from the trafficking industry contribute to the expansion of organized criminal activity in the United States and around the world. Trafficking often is aided by official corruption in countries of origin, transit, and destination, thereby threatening the rule of law.

(8) Traffickers often make representations to their victims that physical harm may occur to them or to others should the victim escape or attempt to escape. Such representations can have the same coercive effects on victims as specific threats to inflict such harm.

(9) Sex trafficking, when it involves the involuntary participation of another person in sex acts by means of fraud, force, or coercion, includes all the elements of the crime of forcible rape, which is defined by all legal systems as among the most serious of all crimes.

(10) Sex trafficking also involves frequent and serious violations

of other laws, including labor and immigration codes and laws against

kidnapping, slavery, false imprisonment, assault, battery, pandering,

fraud, and extortion.

(11) Women and children trafficked into the sex industry are exposed to deadly diseases, including HIV and AIDS. Trafficking victims are sometimes worked or physically brutalized to death. (12) Trafficking in persons substantially affects interstate and foreign commerce. The United States must take action to eradicate the substantial burdens on commerce that result from trafficking in persons and to prevent the channels of commerce from being used for immoral and injurious purposes.

(13)Trafficking of persons in all its forms is an evil that calls for concerted and vigorous action by countries of origin, transit countries, receiving countries, and international organizations.

(14) Existing legislation and law enforcement in the United States and in other nations around the world have proved inadequate to deter trafficking and to bring traffickers to justice, principally because such legislation and enforcement do not reflect the gravity of the offenses involved. No comprehensive law exists in the United States that penalizes the range of offenses involved in the trafficking scheme. Instead, even the most brutal instances of forcible sex trafficking are often punished under laws that also apply to far less serious offenses such as consensual sexual activity and illegal immigration, so that traffickers typically escape severe punishment.