State Department Releases 2009 Human Trafficking Report, Links Between Prior Gender-Based Violence and Increased Vulnerability to Exploitation
“Women still comprise the majority of the world’s poor, unfed, and unschooled. They are still subjected to rape as a tactic of war and exploited by traffickers globally in a billion dollar criminal business.”
Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the 2009 Trafficking in Persons Report on June 16, 2009. Mandated by Congress annually, the report on 175 nations is the most comprehensive worldwide report on the efforts of governments to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons on three fronts: protection of victims, prosecution of offenders, and effective prevention of human trafficking.
For the first time this year, the report included a special topic area on the link between various forms of human trafficking and intimate partner and gender-based violence:
Domestic Violence and Human Trafficking
The low status of women in some societies, insufficient access to education, limitations on legal rights, and other forms of discrimination are recognized as “push factors” that combine with other situational problems such as conflict, civil instability, or an economic crisis to prompt young women to leave their communities. In many communities and cultures, violence against women is all too common, and laws intended to protect women are inadequate or not enforced. In addition to physical attacks and injuries, women who are victims of spouse or intimate partner abuse are often subjected by the abuser to constant berating, severe psychological abuse, and excessive levels of control over nearly every aspect of daily life. A history of domestic violence (spouse or intimate partner abuse) represents an added risk factor that may cause a victim to feel an urgent need to escape and leave her home and community to survive – and thus her vulnerability to exploitation is heightened.
Research has shown a clear link between sex trafficking and both pre-trafficking domestic violence and trafficking-related gender-based violence. Cathy Zimmerman, a noted authority on victim trauma, identified domestic and sexual violence as a key “push” factor that makes a woman vulnerable to trafficking. Almost 70 percent of adult female trafficking victims using services at an assistance program in London reported having experienced violence before being exploited in the destination setting.
Though the link between domestic violence and sex trafficking is well-documented, the responses to each crime must be distinct. Victims of domestic violence and victims of sex trafficking suffer different traumas and require different therapies. Zimmerman’s research found that victims of sex trafficking often suffer symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder that take up to 90 days to alleviate; this is not as prevalent in victims of domestic violence. Sometimes there is an added cultural obstacle to caring for both types of victims in the same facility: in some socially conservative populations, victims of domestic violence resent the perceived stigma of prostitution attached to the victims of sex trafficking with whom they are cohabitating.
Like human trafficking, global recognition of domestic violence as a crime is growing. Services for victims are insufficient but increasing in most countries. In countries where resources are limited programs established to assist victims of domestic violence have been tapped in emergencies to shelter victims of human trafficking. But assisting victims of these two crimes in one setting is very challenging. It should only be attempted when the facility can provide a safe and supportive environment and when staff are properly trained to understand the safety, legal, medical, mental health, social, and cultural needs of the victims.
To read the entire report, visit the State Department’s website: www.state.gov/g/tip
Department of Justice Releases Annual Report on U.S. Government Efforts to Fight Human Trafficking
In tandem with the Department of State Trafficking in Persons report, Attorney General Eric Holder submitted to Congress a comprehensive Assessment of U.S. Government Activities to Combat Trafficking in Persons in Fiscal Year 2008. The report details activities of U.S. Government departments and agencies providing trafficking victims with a range of social services, both directly and through grantees; investigations and prosecutions of trafficking cases; and training, outreach, and assistance to domestic and international law enforcement and non-government organizations.
The 2008 Assessment made eight recommendations for improving the nation’s response to curbing human trafficking and responding to victims and the June 2009 assessment includes detailed measures taken by U.S. government agencies to meet these recommendations. This year, the Report makes several additional recommendations for U.S. government agencies in order to effectively rescue victims and alleviate the problem of human trafficking both in the United States and abroad.
Read the Attorney General’s entire report: http://www.usdoj.gov/whatwedo/agr-report-fy2008.pdf |
