Inspection of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons

With strong Congressional and Administration backing, the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (G/TIP) has forcefully and successfully ensured that efforts to monitor and combat trafficking are an important Department goal. Furthermore, G/TIP’s annual assessment and ranking of foreign nations’ anti-trafficking performance, and the threat of sanctions for countries that fail to meet minimal standards, is a useful vehicle to prod delinquent governments.

G/TIP’s aggressive fight against trafficking has from the start been contentious, but working relations with the regional bureaus are much improved and procedures are in place to resolve most major policy differences without involving the Secretary or Deputy Secretary. Although the fight against trafficking for sexual purposes has dominated G/TIP’s agenda, the office also gives appropriate attention to the trafficking involved in such areas as child labor, bonded labor, and involuntary servitude.

G/TIP should prioritize its many activities, for example, by annually preparing a more strategic Bureau Performance Plan. G/TIP’s current staffing level is appropriate, but adding additional Foreign Service personnel would facilitate relations with the Department’s geographic bureaus and embassies, whose cooperation is crucial to G/TIP’s success in the field.

In addition, G/TIP’s grants management and evaluation needs to be tightened, especially as G/TIP seeks to involve smaller, less experienced community and faith-based nongovernmental organizations in anti-trafficking activities.

The centerpiece of G/TIP’s work is the Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons Report to Congress, which assesses the actions countries have taken to prevent trafficking, prosecute traffickers, and protect trafficking victims. Countries that fail to comply with the minimal anti-trafficking standards of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, or fail to make significant efforts to comply, face sanctions such as the withholding of nonhumanitarian and nontrade-related assistance. The United States could also vote to deny a nation World Bank and International Monetary Fund assistance. The determination of which countries do not meet the standards and what sanctions, if any, should be applied is a source of contention between G/TIP and the Department’s regional bureaus and embassies.

Background

In addition to its work on the report to Congress, G/TIP’s major responsibilities include providing staff support for the President’s Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking, coordinating the Department’s anti-trafficking assistance to foreign governments, and helping expand interagency procedures and undertaking research on domestic and international trafficking.

The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act provided for a Senior Policy Operating Group (SPOG) to coordinate federal international anti-trafficking activities. The director of G/TIP chairs the SPOG. Senior representatives of ten agencies attend the quarterly SPOG meetings. To promote coherency among the agencies’ anti-trafficking grant programs, SPOG reviews their proposed antitrafficking grants. In FY2004, there were about 300 grants, worth more than $82 million.

Inaugurated in October 2001 with a staff of five, G/TIP is still developing its staff and office structures. It now has 24 Department employees, plus several contract employees and interns. The office’s director is a former member of Congress who holds the rank of Ambassador and reports to the Under Secretary for Global Affairs, with whom he has a close working relationship. The Under Secretary is kept fully informed of G/TIP’s activities and engages on trafficking issues when appropriate or requested. In practice, G/TIP largely operates as an autonomous unit of the Department with strong Congressional interest and support.