(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.

(15) In the United States, the seriousness of the crime of trafficking in persons is not reflected in current sentencing guidelines for component crimes of the trafficking scheme, which results in weak penalties for convicted traffickers. Adequate services and facilities do not exist to meet the health care, housing, education, and legal assistance needs for the safe reintegration of domestic trafficking victims.

(16) In some countries, enforcement against traffickers is also hindered by official indifference, by corruption, and sometimes even by active official participation in trafficking.

(17) Because existing laws and law enforcement procedures often fail to make clear distinctions between victims of trafficking and persons who have knowingly and wilfully violated laws, and because victims often do not have legal immigration status in the countries into which they are trafficked, the victims are often punished more harshly than the traffickers themselves.

(18) Because victims of trafficking are frequently unfamiliar with the laws, cultures, and languages of the countries into which they have been trafficked, and because they are often subjected to coercion and intimidation including physical detention, debt bondage, fear of retribution, and fear of forcible removal to countries in which they will face retribution or other hardship, these victims often find it difficult or impossible to report the crimes committed against them or to assist in the investigation and prosecution of such crimes.

(19) The United States and the international community are in agreement that trafficking in persons often involves grave violations of

i

human rights and is a matter of pressing international concem. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women; the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and other relevant instruments condemn slavery and involuntary servitude, violence against women, and other components of the trafficking scheme.

(20) The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes the right to be free from slavery and involuntary servitude, arbitrary detention, degrading or inhuman treatment, and arbitrary interference with privacy or the family, as well as the right to protection by law against these abuses.

(21) The United Nations General Assembly has passed three resolutions during the last three years (50/167, 51/66, and 52/98) recognizing that the international traffic in women and girls, particularly for purposes of forced prostitution, is a matter of pressing international concern involving numerous violations of fundamental human rights. The resolutions call upon governments of receiving countries as well as countries of origin to strengthen their laws against such practices, to intensify their efforts to enforce such laws, and to

ensure the full protection, treatment, and rehabilitation of women and

children who are victims of trafficking.

(22) The Final Report of the World Congress against Sexual Exploitation of Children, held in Stockholm, Sweden in August 1996, recognized that international sex trafficking is a principal cause of increased exploitation and degradation of children.

(23) The Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing Conference) called on all governments to take measures, including legislative measures, to provide better protection of the rights of women and girls who are victims of trafficking, to address the root factors that put women and girls at risk to traffickers, and to take measures to dismantle the national, regional, and international networks on trafficking.

(24) In the 1991 Moscow Document of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, participating states including the United States agreed to "seek to eliminate all forms of violence against women, and all forms of traffic in women and exploitation of prostitution of women including by ensuring adequate legal prohibitions against such acts and other appropriate measures."

(25) Numerous treaties to which the United States is a party address government obligations to combat trafficking, including such treaties as the 1956 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery, which calls for the complete abolition of debt bondage and servile forms of marriage, and the 1957 Abolition of Forced Labor

Convention, which undertakes to suppress and requires signatories not to make use of any forced or compulsory labor.

(26) Trafficking in persons is a transnational crime with national implications. In order to deter international trafficking and to bring its

perpetrators to justice, nations including the United States must recognize that trafficking is a serious offense and must act on this recognition by prescribing appropriate punishment, by giving the highest priority to investigation and prosecution of trafficking offenses, and by protecting rather than punishing the victims of such offenses. The United States must work bilaterally and multilaterally to abolish the trafficking industry and take steps to promote and facilitate cooperation among countries linked together by international trafficking routes. The United States must also urge the international community to take strong action in multilateral fora to engage recalcitrant countries in serious and sustained efforts to eliminate

trafficking and protect trafficking victims.

SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.

For the purposes of this Act:

(1) "Sex trafficking" means the purchase, sale, recruitment, harboring, transportation, transfer or receipt of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act.

(2) "Severe forms of trafficking in persons" means-

(a) sex trafficking in which either a commercial sex act or any act or event contributing to such act is effected or induced

by force, coercion, fraud, or deception, or in which the person

induced to perform such act has not attained the age of 18 years.

and