<DOC> [110 Senate Hearings] [From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access] [DOCID: f:37695.wais] S. Hrg. 110-142 LEGAL OPTIONS TO STOP HUMAN TRAFFICKING ======================================================================= HEARING before the SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE LAW of the COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION __________ MARCH 26, 2007 __________ Serial No. J-110-24 __________ Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 37-695 PDF WASHINGTON DC: 2007 --------------------------------------------------------------------- For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866)512-1800 DC area (202)512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2250 Mail Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402-0001 COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont, Chairman EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah HERB KOHL, Wisconsin CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California JON KYL, Arizona RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois JOHN CORNYN, Texas BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island TOM COBURN, Oklahoma Bruce A. Cohen, Chief Counsel and Staff Director Michael O'Neill, Republican Chief Counsel and Staff Director ------ Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois, Chairman EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts TOM COBURN, Oklahoma JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware JON KYL, Arizona RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland JOHN CORNYN, Texas SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas Joseph Zogby, Chief Counsel Mary Harned, Republican Chief Counsel C O N T E N T S ---------- STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS Page Durbin, Hon. Richard J., a U.S. Senator from the State of Illinois....................................................... 1 prepared statement........................................... 68 WITNESSES Becker, Grace Chung, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C........ 4 Burkhalter, Holly J., Vice President for Government Relations, International Justice Mission, Washington, D.C................. 11 Kaufka, Katherine, Supervising Attorney, Counter-Trafficking Services Program, National Immigrant Justice Center, Chicago, Illlinois...................................................... 5 Vandenberg, Martina E., Attorney, Jenner & Block, LLP, Washington, D.C................................................ 8 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Responses of Grace Chung Becker to questions submitted by Senator Durbin......................................................... 31 SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD American Civil Liberties Union, Women's Rights Project and Washington Legislative Office, statement....................... 38 Becker, Grace Chung, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., statement...................................................... 44 Burkhalter, Holly J., Vice President for Government Relations, International Justice Mission, Washington, D.C., statement..... 57 Department of Justice, Inspector General, Arlington, Virginia, memorandum..................................................... 65 Kaufka, Katherine, Supervising Attorney, Counter-Trafficking Services Program, National Immigrant Justice Center, Chicago, Illinois, statement............................................ 71 Vandenberg, Martina E., Attorney, Jenner & Block, LLP, Washington, D.C., statement.................................... 75 LEGAL OPTIONS TO STOP HUMAN TRAFFICKING ---------- MONDAY, MARCH 26, 2007 U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law, Washington, DC The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 3:02 p.m., in room SD-226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Richard J. Durbin, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding. OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD J. DURBIN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS Chairman Durbin. Good afternoon. The meeting of the Human Rights and Law Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee will come to order. Unfortunately, my Ranking Member, Senator Coburn, had alerted me in advance that he had a difficult day and wasn't sure he could make it back today. He is completely interested in this subject and I know will follow through his staff and otherwise on the findings of this hearing, and I'm sure other members of the Subcommittee will as well. But he has, from my point of view, an excused absence because of scheduling, which happens to us from time to time. This is the first time in the history of the Senate that we have created a Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law. I think it's crucial at this point in time. Repressive regimes that violate human rights create fertile breeding for terrorism, war, poverty, and exploitation. Our Nation and our world will never be fully secure as long as fundamental human rights are not honored. Our first hearing was just last month. We addressed the issue of genocide and the rule of law, focusing on the mass killings and genocide in Darfur. I'm proud to say that, as a result of that hearing, we've introduced bipartisan legislation to promote divestment in Sudan and to expand the reach of U.S. law so that we can prosecute non-U.S. nationals who are in this country for crimes of genocide they committed abroad. We will continue to try to make this a Subcommittee that focuses on legislation, not just lamentations. Today we're going to take up a topic which may be as old as mankind. From the beginning of time there has been evidence of exploitation and slavery. We haven't been spared in our generation. At today's hearing, we will consider the issue of human trafficking. Few issues in the world today raise as many human rights implications as this insidious practice. It's estimated that one million people are trafficked across international borders each year, pressed into labor, servitude, or commercial sex by the use of force, fraud, and coercion. Human trafficking represents commerce in human misery. As an introduction to today's hearing, I would like to show a very brief video on human trafficking. It begins with a short public service announcement put together by the United Nations to help raise awareness of the issue. The second part of the video is an interview with a trafficking victim from Cambodia. The purpose of these videos is to put a human face on the issue that we will talk about today. [Whereupon, a video was played.] Chairman Durbin. Former General Secretary Kofi Annan has said: ``The world is now wrestling with a new form of slavery, trafficking in human beings, in which many vulnerable people are virtually abandoned by legal and social systems into a sordid realm of exploitation and abuse.'' If there's any silver lining to this problem, it's that the world is now beginning to open its eyes. There are 117 signatories to the United Nations' trafficking protocol, and many of these countries have passed tough anti-trafficking laws in the past few years. The United States passed its first major anti-trafficking law in 2000. We cannot discuss this issue in the U.S. Senate without mentioning the visionary leadership of the late Senator Paul Wellstone. Senator Wellstone called the trafficking of human beings ``one of the most horrendous human rights violations of our time.'' On the day Congress passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act on October 11, 2000, Senator Wellstone went to the floor of the Senate. He was very happy that day, and you could tell when Paul Wellstone was happy. He praised his lead co-sponsor, Senator Sam Brownback, who has been a great champion of human rights for years. Senator Wellstone praised the broad coalition of groups that came together for the bill: human rights groups, women's rights, evangelical and Jewish groups, and members of the Clinton administration. This is what Paul said: ``I believe with passage of this legislation...we are lighting a candle. We are lighting a candle for these women and girls and sometimes men forced into forced labor.... This is the beginning of an international effort to go after this trafficking, to go after this major, god-awful human rights abuse.'' Senator Wellstone's commitment to stopping human trafficking and other human rights abuses stands as one of his most enduring legacies, despite his untimely passing a little over 4 years ago. The candle Senator Wellstone lit nearly 7 years ago is burning bright and we rekindle it today. Thanks to the passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 and the legal tools that Senator Wellstone gave us, we have made progress. The State Department, under the leadership of my friend and former colleague in the House, John Miller, pushed recalcitrant countries around the globe to pass anti-trafficking laws and to help victims. John called and regretted that he couldn't be with us today, but he's here in spirit. Of course, human trafficking is not just happening in far-off lands, it's happening right here in the United States. The Department of Justice has done an admirable job of investigating and prosecuting trafficking cases. These cases are often very difficult to bring because trafficking victims are isolated, trapped, and frightened. If victims are able to break free, they are often reluctant to talk to law enforcement out of fear of deportation, arrest, or prison. For this reason, the role of victim and legal service providers is especially important in this fight against human trafficking. Organizations like the National Immigrant Justice Center in Chicago, which I am honored to represent, are trusted sources of aid for trafficking victims. These groups work closely with prosecutors to gain the trust of victims and make the case. At today's hearing we will ask, 7 years after the passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, what progress has the U.S. Government made in combatting human trafficking in the United States and overseas? What are we doing right, and what can we do better? What aspects of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act and its 2003 and 2005 reauthorizations, should be changed or strengthened? Should Congress amend the law to make it easier and quicker for trafficking victims in the U.S. and their family members to receive a ``T visa'' and other government benefits? We're also going to ask some hard questions. Why hasn't the United States done more to punish U.S. contractors in Iraq and other foreign countries who engage in human trafficking? How can we hold foreign diplomats in the United States responsible for trafficking when we're up against diplomatic immunity? I intend to introduce legislation that will address some of the problems after we've talked about them at this hearing and I've discussed them with my colleagues. Several parts of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act are set to expire at the end of this year, so this is a good time to look carefully at this law and figure out what we need to do to further the fight against human trafficking. At this point in time we're going to turn to our distinguished panel of witnesses and ask each of them to make an opening statement of about 5 minutes. Their complete written testimony I commend to all who are here, because each one of them has taken the time to write a very good and probing statement about this issue. Will the witnesses, at this point, please stand and raise their right hands to be sworn? [Whereupon, the witnesses were duly sworn.] Chairman Durbin. Let the record reflect that all four witnesses have replied in the affirmative. The first witness is Grace Chung Becker. Thank you, Ms. Becker, for being here. She represents the Department of Justice. She's a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division and helps supervise the Division's human trafficking prosecutions. Before that, she worked at the Defense Department as Associate Deputy General Counsel. Before that, she worked right here, probably in this room, at the Senate Judiciary Committee. She was counsel to then- Chairman Senator Orrin Hatch in the 108th Congress. She served as a law clerk to two Federal judges here in Washington, and is a graduate of an outstanding law school, Georgetown, and the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Finance. Ms. Becker? STATEMENT OF GRACE CHUNG BECKER, DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL, CIVIL RIGHTS DIVISION, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, WASHINGTON, D.C. Ms. Becker. Thank you very much, Senator Durbin. Good afternoon, Chairman Durbin. It's an honor and privilege to appear before the Committee today. For decades, the Civil Rights Division has been charged with enforcing statutes prohibiting slavery, involuntary servitude, and peonage. Human trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery that touches virtually every community in America, urban or rural, affluent neighborhoods, as well as poor communities. This is a crime that can occur anywhere, anytime, and against any vulnerable victim. Traffickers prey on U.S. citizens as well as foreigners. They use force, fraud or coercion against prostitutes, domestic servants, factory machinists, and migrant farm laborers. Victims have included college students coerced into commercial sex in Atlanta, homeless men forced to work as farm laborers in Florida, and individuals with hearing impairments forced to peddle sign language cards in the New York City subways. Human trafficking is a priority for the President and the Attorney General and I am pleased to report that the Civil Rights Division has adopted an aggressive strategy to fight this invidious crime. The Attorney General recently announced the formation of a Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit in the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division. The unit consists of an elite group of expert prosecutors who will provide investigative and prosecutorial assistance, as well as coordination. This unit is necessary because we're seeing more complex cases involving multiple jurisdictions, multiple law enforcement agencies, and financial or organized crimes. The unit also serves as a resource for training, outreach, and policy development. The unit works closely with prosecutors within the section, as well as with U.S. Attorneys' Offices, and Human Trafficking Task Forces around the country. These task forces reflect the Civil Rights Division's victim-centered approach. They are comprised of members from Federal, State, and local law enforcement, and they also include representatives from non-governmental organizations who provide much-needed services to restore the victims of this terrible crime. We work together to ensure that the victim's safety and housing needs are taken care of, to see that their medical and psychiatric needs are also taken care of, and for our foreign victims, to cooperate in normalizing their immigration status. This victim-centered approach works. In conjunction with U.S. Attorneys' Offices around the country, the Civil Rights Division has increased by 600 percent the number of human trafficking cases filed in court in the last 6 years. From 2001 till today, we've initiated about 725 investigations. Last year, we received one of the highest sentences ever in a sex trafficking case for two of our lead defendants: 50 years of imprisonment. We also received one of the highest orders of restitution, over $900,000, for a labor trafficking prosecution in Milwaukee. Let me just give you one example. The victim in this case was just 9 years old--that's the same age as my daughter--when her parents were sold into servitude in Egypt. When she was 12, she was brought to the United States and forced to work as a domestic servant in Orange County, California. She was forced to cook for a family of seven, clean the entire house, and baby-sit the younger children. Meanwhile, the young girl could only eat leftovers and was forced to live in the squalor of the garage. The defendants controlled the child, who could not speak English, by taking her passport, assaulting her, forbidding her to make friends or to go to school. The defendants also threatened to report her older sister to the police in Egypt for previously stealing from the defendants if the victim ever tried to leave their employ. The defendants are now in prison and will likely be deported to Egypt after serving their sentence. They've paid $78,000 in restitution. By contrast, the victim is now studying in high school and can use her restitution money to achieve her dreams of going to college. But there is much more work to be done, and that is why I support the President's request for an additional $1.7 million for the Civil Rights Division. As the Civil Rights Division turns 50 years old, it remains committed to supporting the values of our Nation, including the liberty promised by the Thirteenth Amendment of our Constitution. Thank you. Chairman Durbin. Thank you very much. [The prepared statement of Ms. Becker appears as a submission for the record.] Chairman Durbin. We will now hear from Katherine Kaufka. She works in Chicago at the National Immigrant Justice Center. She's the supervising attorney for Counter-Trafficking Services, and she's worked with many victims in Illinois and across the country. She's a member of the Chicago Task Force on Human Trafficking and the Freedom Network USA, which is an important national network of service providers and attorneys who work with victims. Ms. Kaufka has written articles about trafficking victims' services and has helped trained Federal prosecutors. She is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin Law School and the University of Michigan. Ms. Kaufka? STATEMENT OF KATHERINE KAUFKA, SUPERVISING ATTORNEY, COUNTER- TRAFFICKING SERVICES PROGRAM, NATIONAL IMMIGRANT JUSTICE CENTER, HEARTLAND ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN NEEDS & HUMAN RIGHTS, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS Ms. Kaufka. Thank you, Chairman Durbin. Thank you for the privilege of testifying today on behalf of survivors of human trafficking who are victims of some of the most horrific human rights violations that we see today. I have represented dozens of trafficking victims at the National Immigrant Justice Center, a leading national advocate for the protection of human rights of non-citizens. Current anti-trafficking laws help victims every day, and we are grateful to Members of Congress for their critical support of these statutes. Nonetheless, the laws can be improved. In my testimony today I will address three areas of the law that fail to provide adequate protections for human trafficking victims. First, providing greater protections for victims and their families is critical. Second, the laws must ensure that victims who make an effort to cooperate with law enforcement are adequately protected. Third, we must recongnize the importance of responding to the special needs of children who are victims of human trafficking. Approximately 15,000 to 18,000 men, women, and children are trafficked to the United States every year. However, since the passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act over 6 years ago, almost 400 cases have been prosecuted on human trafficking charges and approximately 1,500 trafficking visas have been issued. While it was the intent of the statute to punish traffickers and protect victims, these statistics show that we have failed to fulfill our goals. We believe that a principal cause of this failure is that the burdens placed upon victims are simply too high. The first area I would like to discuss is the need to provide greater protection to trafficking victims and their families. Many victims are intimidated by the traffickers with threats against the safety and livelihood of immediate family. The victim's fear of harm to his or her family often prevents the victim from reporting the trafficking crime to authorities. One client that we represent, whom I will call Anuja, was trafficked to a suburb of Chicago from a small Indian village when she was about 11 years old. She was forced to cook, clean, and take care of two small boys around the clock. Four years later, she managed to escape. Anuja was interviewed by law enforcement, but she was reluctant at first to tell her full story because she was afraid that the traffickers would hurt her little sisters in India, a threat that they had made to her many times. Anuja would have been better able to assist law enforcement if she knew her family was safe and if they could have supported her during the prosecution of her abusers in the United States. We recommend that victims of trafficking who cooperate with law enforcement have the option to be united with family to support them through the legal process. If those family members reside outside the United States, they should be allowed to enter the United States temporarily to aid the prosecution's efforts. This change to the law will not only enhance victim protection, it would lead to more successful prosecution of criminal traffickers. The second issue that I want to address is the need to ensure full protection for victims who make an effort to assist law enforcement. Under current law, if authorities fail to respond or open an investigation, the trafficking victim who reported the crime will have no further opportunity to assist authorities and access protection. We represent a woman, Padma, and her two daughters who were brought from India to Countryside, Illinois in 1998 and forced to work at a restaurant. Padma and her daughters escaped in 2001 and lived in hiding for years. They were too frightened to seek assistance until 2005, when a women's shelter referred them to the National Immigrant Justice Center. Once she learned she could play a role in her case, Padma wanted justice for her family. We immediately reported the crimes to the Department of Justice and to the Chicago FBI office. However, it took Federal authorities a year to interview Padma and, consequently, it took a year for Padma and her daughters to be legally recognized as victims and to receive the protections and services that they needed. Padma's earlier attempts to cooperate with law enforcement were not enough for her to be recognized as a victim under the law. We recommend that the survivor of human trafficking who makes a good-faith attempt to cooperate with law enforcement should be eligible for a trafficking visa. Where the victim tries to assist but law enforcement takes no action, the victim should not be denied protection. Finally, I want to speak about the need to enhance protection for victims of human trafficking who are unaccompanied children. These are, indeed, the most vulnerable of our victim population. Unfortunately, all too often authorities fail to recognize potential trafficking victims and treat children as alleged criminals. A client from El Salvador, whom I will call Sonia, was just 15 years old when Federal agents discovered her in a brothel. She was interrogated for hours. Sonia was ashamed and fearful of both the traffickers and the Federal agents, so she said that at first nothing happened when she was in the brothel. Sonia was held in custody in Chicago and immediately placed in deportation proceedings. Sonia's case demonstrates the great sensitivity that must be applied to cases involving children. We recommend that whenever authorities encounter a child in an environment that involves forced labor or commercial sex, officials should assume that the child is a victim of trafficking. At that point they should immediately refer the child to the Department of Health and Human Services for appropriate services and counsel. Let me sum up by reiterating the three critical improvements we recommend that you make to the current law. Providing protection not only to victims but also to their immediate family members will help these victims better assist law enforcement in prosecuting the traffickers. We must offer protection to victims who make a good-faith attempt to aid authorities in the investigation and prosecution of human trafficking cases. To deny these victims protection is unjust. Finally, potential child trafficking victims must be immediately referred to the Department of Health and Human Services, provided appropriate services and guaranteed access to legal counsel. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak. I would be happy to answer any questions. [The prepared statement of Ms. Kaufka appears as a submission for the record.] Chairman Durbin. Ms. Martina Vandenberg is an attorney in the Washington, DC office of the law firm of Jenner & Block. Last year, Ms. Vandenberg was the recipient of her law firm's Pro Bono Award for her legal representation of trafficking victims, and her advocacy to end impunity for U.S. contractors who engage in human trafficking while serving with U.N. peacekeeping missions abroad. Ms. Vandenberg previously worked as the European researcher at Human Rights Watch, where she conducted extensive research and wrote reports on human trafficking in Bosnia, Herzegovina, Russia, Uzbekistan, and Kosovo. Ms. Vandenberg has taught at American University and has spoken nationally and internationally on women's human rights issues and human trafficking. She is a graduate of Columbia Law School, Pomona College, and Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes scholar. Ms. Vandenberg? STATEMENT OF MARTINA E. VANDENBERG, ATTORNEY, JENNER & BLOCK, LLP WASHINGTON, D.C. Ms. Vandenberg. Thank you, Senator Durbin. It's an honor to testify before you today on a grave, grave violation of human rights, trafficking in persons. Over the past decade, Congress, the executive branch, and the non-governmental community, we've worked together to develop innovative criminal and civil remedies for traffickers--to bring traffickers to justice. But these gaps-- gaps still do exist, and traffickers continue to operate with impunity, violating the human rights of trafficking victims every day. I'd like to focus briefly this afternoon on three concrete trafficking cases that illustrate these gaps. I'll begin with the human rights norms, the substantive international law on trafficking, and then turn to case studies, one in Iraq, one in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and one in our own backyard just outside Washington, D.C. Trafficking in persons is a gruesome human rights violation, trapping men, women, and children in debt bondage, forced labor, and forced prostitution. Article 3(a) of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, defines trafficking as the recruitment, transportation, harboring, and receipt of persons by threat or use of force, or any other means, for the purpose of exploitation. Research by Human Rights Watch and other human rights organizations has shown historically that States have treated victims of trafficking as illegal migrants, as criminals, or both, generally detaining them, prosecuting them, and then summarily deporting them. And while we do see some progress toward more victim and rights-focused policies, there's still much to be done. On August 19, 2004, insurgents kidnapped 12 Nepalese men traveling on the road from Amman to Baghdad. All 12 were later executed. A Chicago Tribune reporter, Cam Simpson, launched a 6-month investigation into the events leading up to their abduction and deaths. The Chicago Tribune series, ``Pipeline to Peril,'' and I have a copy for you today, uncovered a trafficking network that stretched from the remote mountains of Kathmandu to U.S. military bases in Iraq. The chain began with recruiters in the men's villages who promised the men lucrative jobs in five-star hotels in Amman, Jordan. In exchange, they demanded enormous sums for up-front payments. Their families, desperate for the sons to find jobs abroad, took out loans, mortgaged the family farms, and paid interest rates of up to 36 percent per month. But the men, upon arriving in Jordan, instead of the luxury hotel jobs that they had expected, found that they were on their way to Iraq. They were stripped of their passports and held in apartments. They were passed from recruiter, to trafficker, to trafficker, and finally sent on the road to Iraq to serve at a U.S. military base for a subcontractor. Insurgents killed the Nepalese workers before they actually arrived at the U.S. base. The Department of Defense Office of Inspector General launched an investigation. But, troublingly, that investigation concluded that while it would appear that some foreign-based companies are using false pretenses to provide laborers to Halliburton subcontractors in Iraq, none of the allegations are against U.S. persons or U.S. contractors. There's no indication that the Inspector General actually delved into the issue of criminal complicity, or even criminal conspiracy, by U.S. persons or contractors. Indeed, there is no hint of any investigation into the involvement by any of these U.S. contractors. Instead, there's a conflation of criminal and civil law principles, a finding that there are ``no privities of contact between DoD and the foreign companies allegedly guilty of these trafficking practices, and therefore that the U.S. had no jurisdiction over the persons or the offenses.'' But that's simply incorrect as a matter of law. Under the Military Extra-territorial Jurisdiction Act of 2000, the U.S. Government does have criminal jurisdiction over those who commit a crime, a felony that would be punished in the United States by up to a year, including trafficking crimes. The investigation also uncovered other troubling practices. Contractors routinely took and held the passports of third country nationals working on U.S. bases, forced them to live in substandard housing, and provided them with little decent food. Then General Casey issued an order demanding that contractors return the passports of third country nationals. Unfortunately Colonel Boyles, who was tasked with enforcing that order, testified before Congress in June 2006 that it was like pulling teeth to get the contractors to comply. So the bottom line is impunity, but that is just really business as usual. I would like to skip now to the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is, perhaps, the poster child for impunity for defense contractors. Trafficking victims in Bosnia and Herzegovina, from Moldova, Ukraine, and other countries of the former Soviet Union had no idea that they would be trafficked into forced prostitution to serve trucker drivers, as well as peacekeepers, in Bosnia. In a 3-year investigation that I conducted for Human Rights Watch, researchers uncovered at least eight cases of U.S. personnel who allegedly purchased--purchased--trafficked women and girls as chattel. They purchased both their persons and their passports from local brothel owners. As in Iraq, the Department of Defense Inspector General confirmed that the allegations of trafficking were credible. In fact, their final report states ``the evidence suggests that DoD contractor employees may have more than a limited role in human trafficking, but we were unable to gather more evidence of it precisely because there are no requirements and no procedures in place compelling contractors to gather such information regarding their employees, or to report it to U.S. military authorities.'' That remains the case now years down the road. I'd like to now turn, briefly, to a domestic case. Recently, the ACLU filed a case against a Kuwaiti military attache here working in Washington, DC for trafficking three Indian women he enslaved in his home, according to the complaint. The ACLU has provided a written statement today, and I commend it to you. Diplomats who traffic their victims to the United States under the cover of special visas also engage in slavery and they do so with near impunity. The bottom line is that trafficking victims, whether trafficked by diplomats or by regular U.S. citizens, need attorneys. By our count, only 20 cases nationwide have been brought under 18 U.S.C. 1595, which is the civil remedy created by the TPRA of 2003. Sadly, people trafficked by diplomats into the United States cannot use that as a remedy because those cases are routinely dismissed on the basis of diplomatic immunity. So let me just close by asking what is to be done, because I think that is the fundamental question that you posed at the beginning of the hearing, Senator Durbin. I have a series of detailed recommendations in my written testimony, but I'd just like to highlight a few this afternoon. I'm eager to work with you and your staff to implement the recommendations in full. First, we recommend that thorough investigations and, where appropriate, indictments, be done for trafficking for forced labor or forced prostitution by contractors and military personnel serving abroad. We believe that the T visa system should be amended to permit victims of trafficking who are the victims of contractors abroad to come to the United States to testify and to have access to T visa status with the hope of being able to adjust to regular immigration status. We'd like to see senior leadership in the Department of Defense assigned to combat trafficking, and we'd like to see a line item in the budget dedicated to trafficking in persons as well. We'd also like to call for an investigation of a lack of compensation for the executed Nepalese victims of trafficking under the Defense Base Act. Although they were killed several years ago, their families still have not been able to access any funds from the U.S. Government. I'll end there this afternoon, but I'd like to, again, thank you for inviting me to testify. I'd be happy to answer any questions that you might have. Chairman Durbin. Thank you. And without objection, the statement from the American Civil Liberties Union Women's Rights Project will be made part of the record. Our last witness is Holly Burkhalter, the vice president of Government Relations at the International Justice Mission, a human rights organization that helps rescue trafficking victims overseas. Before joining IJM, Ms. Burkhalter was the U.S. policy director of Physicians for Human Rights, and before that, Advocacy Director at Human Rights Watch. At the beginning of her career she worked on Capitol Hill for Senator Tom Harkin, and for the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Human Rights and International Organizations. She is a frequent witness before Congress. We are happy to have her today. A widely published author on human rights issues, graduate of Iowa State University. Now I see the Harkin connection. Ms. Burkhalter. Yes. Chairman Durbin. Ms. Burkhalter? STATEMENT OF HOLLY J. BURKHALTER, VICE PRESIDENT FOR GOVERNMENT RELATIONS, INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE MISSION, WASHINGTON, D.C. Ms. Burkhalter. It works out that way, though the record should probably be corrected. I worked for Tom when he was in the House, which just goes to show that they were employing child labor on congressional staff in those days. [Laughter.] Thank you, Chairman Durbin. It's an honor to be here with my friends who are really the acknowledged experts on these matters in the United States. I'm honored to be associated with their testimony, as well as present my own. I don't know if you knew this, but 200 years ago yesterday, on March 25, 1807, the abolition of slavery in the British Empire was enacted into law. It was basically signed into law by the king. The only way you could have come closer to commemorate that occasion was to have your hearing on Sunday, and I appreciate the fact that you did not. But here we are, 200 years later, to work on completing the great work that your political ancestor, the great parliamentarian, William Wilberforce, began. William Wilberforce--reminding me of Senator Proxmire a little bit-- introduced the anti-slavery bill every year for 16 years until it was finally passed into law and enacted 200 years ago. Now, the man who really is dear to my heart was Thomas Clarkson, who is the father, as far as I'm concerned, of modern human rights NGO activism. It was his indefatigable campaigning throughout Europe and the United Kingdom that educated ordinary citizens about the great crime against humanity that was slavery. By the way, he had the task of distilling 2 years of hearings, over 3,500 pages of hearings, into a short account that would be accessible to members of parliament. I am feeling kinship with the man as I sit here, because I have a lot to say, now, and have about 2 minutes to say it. But I want to bring your attention, on behalf of IJM--and in so doing thank my colleague, Kelly Carter, who is a legal intern with IJM helping me to prepare this testimony--to the legal tools that are already in our grasp, as is fitting on the 200th anniversary of a very important law that was exacted. I will discuss the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, that we've already discussed today, also the U.S. Trade Act with regard to preferences under the Generalized System of Preferences, and as well as make mention of the Millennium Challenge Account. All three are legal tools that are important instruments for ending modern day slavery. It is not so much the words of the law that need to be changed, although I do hear some of the recommendations. Rather, we need to see full and unvarnished implementation of the law that we already have. Let me start with TVPA. In my 25 years in the human rights field, I think it's probably the most effective human rights law, of many that have been enacted, that condition U.S. foreign assistance on the performance of governments that would be beneficiaries. I think the most important reason why is that the law does not require governments to end all crime within their borders. That is not the standard. They do not put forward an unattainable standard, nor do they require that poverty be eradicated in every country in the world where there's a trafficking program. The requirement is that there be a good-faith effort to end trafficking. For my money, a good-faith effort can actually be measured. It can be monitored, measured, and quantified in the form of, how is the government responding to the criminals who engage in the crime of trafficking? Trafficking is a different kind of crime than other crimes which my organization works on. We're a service organization which has field operations in 13 countries. We have all kinds of human rights cases, a lot of rape cases, a lot of common sexual violence against women and girls and boys, we do a lot of police abuse cases. But this crime is different. This is an economic crime. It is a crime where there are clear victims and there are clear perpetrators. The perpetrators are getting rich off of it. Thus, a deterrence that could be measured in the form of number of prosecutions and number of people that actually go to jail. They don't just get a hand-slap, they go to jail, and they would include officials that are colluding or turning a blind eye. And because it is an economic crime, the prosecutions have a disproportionate impact. Let me explain. If we were to deter rape and sexual violence in countries where it's just really epidemic, it's going to take a lot of prosecutions to kind of change the tolerance of that crime that is not economically motivated, for the most part. And we're seeking to do that in countries where that's the bulk of our case work, Guatemala, Uganda, Kenya, and elsewhere. But in the crime of trafficking in human beings, a couple of prosecutions really have a disproportionate impact. And that's why trying to assess government's alacrity in dealing with this stain upon the national honor can be measured, and should be measured, by the number of people that they're going after and the jail time that they get. I don't really see that happening. Countries that don't want to provide information don't provide information. We don't have any way to judge them. But it seems to me, if they want to continue to be in good standing under the minimum requirements in our law, they ought to be held to account in that regard and we ought to do something about that. Accordingly, we need more sort of political support to link the two pieces of work in the GTIP office at the State Department, the piece of work that is the reports, that are excellent, getting better every year, and then the piece of work that is the diplomatic recommendations, the foreign aid assessments, et cetera. Let me turn, now, to the Trade Act. Interestingly, a piece of legislation that I am proud to say I did a little work on back in 1988, which is the labor rights and worker rights conditionality on trade benefits, (duty-free treatment for developing countries to bring their products into the United States.) The standards are written differently than the TVPA, but it's the same category of crimes. It's slavery. It's labor slavery, it's child prostitution, it's child labor, and it's debt bondage and forced and bonded labor, almost the exact same category of crimes as named in the TVPA. We're not seeing, at the present time, the real, extraordinarily useful tool of the USTR holding hearings on some well-known violators and on some extraordinarily important export products that have been tainted with child labor. We're not seeing that kind of scrutiny that would really be helpful. I don't mean to bring a negative tone to the hearing, but in looking at the latest report that's available from the USTR, a quick glance indicates that in 2005 there did not appear to be a single labor rights, or workers' rights, or any slavery case even taken up for review. The only cases taken up for review by the Trade Representative were those brought by economic interests in the United States. I'm not saying that was an inappropriate thing to do, I just think we need to have a little support-- bipartisan support for a thorough look at the conditions of worker rights, and particularly forced labor slavery and child prostitution in some of our major trading partners. I would love to see those benefits linked to the tier status that we already have in motion. The third--oh, my goodness. I'm way over time. But I want to just glancingly mention the Millemium Challenge Account, because it's a lot of money and it goes to countries that have been found to be good actors in terms of governance. It's an inspired and brilliant idea to use the good offices of the United States' foreign assistance in very large amounts to support reform. Good governance includes anti-corruption efforts. The linkage between government corruption and trafficking and slavery is like this: you cannot traffick in human beings without the government at least turning a blind eye. In that way it's different than, say, bringing heroin across borders. This is people we're talking about, live people, my size. We've had cases of little girls in prostitution that were delivered to the people that bought them by the police. We have, on undercover camera taken by our undercover operatives posing as customers--our guys will literally negotiate police protection, you know, with a high-ranking police officer so as to pretend to take this child out. We should look carefully at trafficking and the work that governments are doing, because there are some who are prosecuting these cases, and jail time is coming to pimps, and brothel owners, and prosecutors, and labor traffickers, et cetera. Look at that in the context of MCA and you've really got something to measure, and a darned incentive for governments to do well. Well, in closing, I would just say that--that writing the good law is just the first step. And making the law live for the people who need it the most is another matter. You know, the law that was enacted 200 years ago yesterday didn't actually start to have value and meaning in the lives of men, women and children who were chained aboard ships that were transiting the middle passage until the Government of Great Britain sent ships out to interdict them, literally. The difference between life and death and freedom and slavery was when someone actually sent a ship out there. And that didn't happen really effectively for many years. The law was the beginning. The work, the work to save human lives, is what followed. This hearing's a part of that, and I thank you very much. Sorry to go over time. [The prepared statement of Ms. Burkhalter appears as a submission for the record.] Chairman Durbin. Thank you very much. Let me acknowledge, also, the presence of Dr. Helga Konrad, whom I met earlier. Raise your hand. Thank you for joining us. She's the former Austrian Federal Minister for Women's Issues and served as a Special Representative on Combatting Trafficking in Human Beings at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe from 2004 to 2006. Thank you so much for joining us. My apologies, first, to the panel of witnesses for asking you to restrict your comments on this to five minutes. It's almost impossible. It reminds me of the time that I was invited to speak and the host said: ``Take the first 3 minutes to highlight your Congressional career.'' [Laughter.] And I said, ``three minutes? How can I do it in 3 minutes? '' He said, ``Speak slowly.'' [Laughter.] I know that each of you could have spoken a lot longer. And let's hope that during the questioning period, that we can get into a more in-depth discussion about some of the aspects that you raised. Before we get started, Ms. Becker, you made a distinction which I want to put on the record here between smuggling and trafficking, two different things. Because many of the things we've heard here suggests that people are being brought to the United States illegally and others not illegally. Could you make that distinction for the record? Ms. Becker. Yes, Senator. Human smuggling, as you know, is a crime that involves the deliberate evasion of immigration laws. In a human smuggling case, you have individuals who are actually moved across international borders. In contrast, human trafficking, despite what the name suggests, does not necessarily involve the movement of people across an international border, or even across State lines. Human trafficking is really about force, fraud or coercion, and that is the key element that describes human trafficking. Chairman Durbin. Thank you. Let's get into trafficking victims' services. I think that's come up several times. Ms. Kaufka recommended that trafficking victims be eligible for a T visa, Federal benefits, even if law enforcement declines to investigate or prosecute the case. Under current law, a victim can generally only receive Federal benefits if there's an ongoing investigation or prosecution. Ms. Becker, would this change in the law help you to have witnesses step forward and to prosecute cases of trafficking? Ms. Becker. Let me say at the outset, Senator, that we think the system currently is working and we are being able to find victims using our victim-centered approach. And just to clarify, under the TVPA and the regulations, victims of a severe form of trafficking who are willing to cooperate with law enforcement are entitled to: (1) assistance as ``potential victims'', in other words benefits even before they are certified by Health and Human Services; and, (2) benefits whether or not there is a prosecution. There are mechanisms in place to provide some services to these victims. In addition, Senator, the anecdote raised by Ms. Kaufka, which is a disturbing one about Padma, is, in the Justice Department's viewpoint, not a systemic problem. There may be individual instances where there has been delay, Senator, but that is certainly not how we train the thousands of Federal, State, and local law enforcement and NGOs. That is not the policy that we are pursuing at the Justice Department. Chairman Durbin. Ms. Kaufka, what is your response? Ms. Kaufka. It is correct that victims do have access to some services before they are formally recognized. ``Formally recognized'' means that they are given what is called ``continued presence'' or a T visa, which make victims eligible for public benefits, permission to work legally in this country, and legal status. These protections are not available to our clients before they can prove that they have cooperated in an investigation or prosecution of a case. There is limited funding available to victims to provide for emergency care: housing, food, shelter, and some mental health services. But that is temporary assistance and, in Padma's case, will expire after a certain period of time. Chairman Durbin. So while she was waiting, did you say a year? Ms. Kaufka. Yes. Chairman Durbin. From the time that she reported---- Ms. Kaufka. She was ineligible for public benefits, she had no health insurance, she was not given permission to work, and she had no legal status. Chairman Durbin. For a year? Ms. Kaufka. For a year, both she and her daughters. Chairman Durbin. Let me ask you about the family members. You make a good point, that if a victim feels that if their family members are going to be abused if they speak up, you say bring the family members, unite them, so that will help the prosecution in those cases. Ms. Kaufka. Correct. Chairman Durbin. Is that your experience? Ms. Kaufka. Yes. We had a very successful case that was prosecuted by the Department of Justice recently out of Milwaukee, with a client who was a victim of domestic servitude. She was trafficked and enslaved for 19 years. For almost two decades, she had not seen her family. Chairman Durbin. Nineteen years? Ms. Kaufka. Nineteen years. Correct. And there were some threats made to her family. The Department of Justice assisted in paroling her parents into the U.S. for the last few months of the investigation and trial. Her parents provided an immense amount of support to my client. She stated that she doesn't know if she would have been able to do it without her parents here, knowing that they were safe, and supporting her in the process. Chairman Durbin. Ms. Becker, what do you think about that suggestion? Ms. Becker. Senator, I think Ms. Kaufka mentioned the Calimlim case, which is one where we have been able to bring families, unite families, as the process is going on. I will say that we have also done something similar while a victim is--before the victim has gotten a T visa while they're still under continued presence. And also, under current law there is an opportunity for victims' families to be able to come to the United States as well an receive a derivative T visa. Chairman Durbin. They can come to the United States? Ms. Becker. Yes. You know, the visa program, of course, is administered by the Department of Homeland Secunty. The Justice Department's role is very limited. We investigate and prosecute these cases. We also, wherever we can, provide supporting documentation for the victim pursuant to their request for continued presence or for a T visa. Part of the T visa program provides that they are able to have an opportunity to request their family come over. Chairman Durbin. Ms. Kaufka, has that been your experience? Ms. Kaufka. It is true that, under the statute, individuals who are eligible for a T visa can also apply for derivative status for qualifying family members. However, that process, even the application for a T visa, often comes after the initial investigation and prosecution of the case, after a significant period of time. And in the examples that I provide in the written testimony and talked about today, often that support from family members needs to come sooner. Some individuals may not be eligible for derivative status. For example, in the Calimlim case, because the victim was not a minor, her parents were not eligible to receive derivative status. Therefore, at the conclusion of the case they did return home to the Philippines. But in the meantime, again, the family members provided a tremendous amount of support to her and assisted her in providing ongoing cooperation with law enforcement in the prosecution of the case. Chairman Durbin. I'd like to ask the panel, but start with Ms. Kaufka, how do you find these trafficking victims? Ms. Kaufka. About half of our cases come to our organization through service providers and half through law enforcement. We, as well as the other service providers we work with, provide ongoing training, often in collaboration with the Justice Department and other law enforcement agencies, to provide outreach. We offer training on the definitions of trafficking versus smuggling, and we educate groups on some of the issues that my colleagues on the panel have discussed. For example, in Padma's case, it was a women's shelter that we previously trained that recognized this was a trafficking case, versus a domestic violence case and referred the client to us. Chairman Durbin. I guess I'm a little stunned by the examples you're giving in Illinois. It just shows how naive I was going into this hearing that this is happening right in the State that I represent. Ms. Kaufka. Right. It's happening in Chicago, in the suburbs, and in small towns. Chairman Durbin. Yes. I assume that it's happening in many other places across the country as well. Ms. Kaufka. Correct. Chairman Durbin. What is the scope of this problem in Illinois, can you say? Ms. Kaufka. We at the National Immigrant Justice Center have represented over 70 international victims over the last 3 years. I don't think anyone can actually answer the question of how many victims there are. Victims of trafficking are not a self-identifying population. No one is raising their hand and saying, ``I'm a victim of slavery and trafficking,'' which is why I think it's very important for all of us that are here today to continue doing the work that we're doing. We must enhance victim protections and prosecute traffickers, and provide good training and outreach on the issue. Chairman Durbin. Ms. Becker, can you help me? I'm trying to figure out, if you're on the prosecutorial side of this thing and you want the cooperation of the victims, you need the cooperation of the victims for anything to go forward, and yet the victims may not be eligible for some benefits unless you have an ongoing investigation or prosecution. So would there-- would it make any sense to eliminate that requirement to provide some of these services and benefits? Ms. Becker. Well, Senator, to clarify, the Justice Department's role is to provide the supporting documentation, as I said, that the person--that the victim, No. 1, is a victim of a severe form of trafficking, and No. 2, is cooperative with reasonable requests by law enforcement during the course of the investigation. Even if the case is never prosecuted, that victim is still entitled to benefits and may apply for a T visa. A T visa is sought by the victim while continued presence is sought by law enforcement. Continued presence is one year in duration and a T visa is now 4 years in duration. Both are renewable. Chairman Durbin. Let me ask about one other aspect of the TVPA, and perhaps Ms. Burkhalter or Ms. Vandenberg can speak to it. The reauthorization in 2003 included a civil cause of action for trafficking victims to sue the perpetrators in U.S. courts. Since that time, over 1,000 victims have received T visas, but only a handful have brought civil lawsuits. Could anyone on the panel comment about why there have been so few civil lawsuits? Ms. Vandenberg. Senator Durbin, there is--there's an effort now to try and increase the civil legal resources available to trafficking victims, but I think it is clear that the service providers don't have adequate funding to provide the full panoply of legal services that the victims need. So while Katherine Kautha and her colleagues do an immense amount in assisting victims make it through the criminal process, holding their hands in some sense, there's not enough funding and not enough manpower or womanpower to actually take these cases all the way through civil cases. So many of the service providers now turn to lawyers at law firms and there's an effort nationwide to try and train pro bono attorneys to take these cases. But unfortunately that's not a panacea, because it still requires quite a lot of the service provider's time to supervise the outside attorneys and to make sure that they do the cases appropriately without retraumatizing the victims. Chairman Durbin. It sounds like there might be a question as to the status of the plaintiff during the pending civil lawsuit, whether they're going to be deported or face some question about whether they can remain in the United States. Ms. Vandenberg. That's absolutely the case. And in the trafficking victim cases that I have dealt with, defense attorneys have actually responded that our client has no standing because she has no immigration status. Chairman Durbin. Is the law clear on that issue? Ms. Vandenberg. I believe it is. I think that that's simply a red herring, but one that they throw out quite frequently. On the issue, though, of uncertainty on immigration status, I believe that it is still the case, and I would be interested to hear from the Justice Department whether it is still the case, I don't believe that the regulations have been issued yet to permit trafficking victims to adjust their status. So T visas only last for 3 years. So what happens to those victims after 3 years when they'd like to turn into permanent residents, but there aren't regulations appropriate to permit them to do so? Chairman Durbin. Ms. Becker, is that the case? Ms. Becker. Senator Durbin, I'm not familiar with the status--current status of the regulations. I think those may be under the jurisdiction of another Federal agency. Chairman Durbin. If you would help us make that a question on record and make it part of our proceedings. Let me speak about the issue of unaccompanied children, the most vulnerable victims. Ms. Kaufka has proposed that whenever a child is discovered to be a trafficking victim, law enforcement should promptly contact HHS in order to supply benefits and assistance. She talked about one of her clients, Sonia, 15 years old, trafficked into a brothel in the U.S. from El Salvador. When Sonia was rescued from the brothel, instead of receiving Federal assistance she was put into deportation proceedings. Ms. Kaufka, how long did it take for Sonia to be taken out of deportation and be referred to your office? Ms. Kaufka. The entire process took about six to 9 months. Chairman Durbin. What hoops did a child victim have to jump through before receiving eligibility for benefits? Ms. Kaufka. A number of hoops, actually, one even in identifying her as a victim of human trafficking while she was at a facility for unaccompanied minors and in deportation proceedings in addition to building trust with her to learn of her true circumstances. Second, we faced a hurdle in convincing the proper authorities that she was, indeed, a victim. When she was picked up by authorities, she did not explicitly say that things happened to her, although she was removed from a known brothel. In fact, the brothel owner was charged with harboring, and, I believe, other charges relating to prostitution. The respective authorities--I believe Department of Homeland Security--would not recognize her formally as a victim. We had to go through HHS, which in turn had to consult with the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security to issue her what's called an eligibility letter to make her eligible for services, including foster care. This process did not adress her legal immigration status. It's very complicated. She was finally able to access foster care and other services while we were working on her immigration status, specifically a T visa. Chairman Durbin. So here you have a frightened 15-year-old who has been enslaved in a brothel, finally comes forward to try to find some justice, and runs smack dab into three different Federal agencies, if not more, that are looking at her from different perspectives: the Department of Justice, as a witness in a prosecution; Health and Human Services as a child; and Homeland Security as someone who's here undocumented. Ms. Kaufka. Correct. Chairman Durbin. Do you have any recommendations on how we might have made life a little easier for Sonia? Ms. Kaufka. I think it would have helped to have an advocate there for her right away. This should be done whenever law enforcement encounters minors who may be potential victims of trafficking. In this case, I used a--what I think is an obvious example of a known brothel, a known pimp, and where a child is removed from that situation. However, I also work with a number of other children who came into contact with law enforcement authorities who did not recognize the potential trafficking situation and who, I believe, should have known better. These authorities didn't have the proper training to conduct a proper screening to distinguish the child as a victim of human trafficking versus the criminal activity that they child was subsequently charged with. I would recommend prouding an advocate or legal counsel there immediately in addition to a referral to the Department of Health and Human Services, which would be the appropriate agency to deal with children and make the proper referrals. Chairman Durbin. So there's no guardian-type person who steps into this situation currently under the law? Ms. Kaufka. Under the law right now, if there is a person believed to be an unaccompanied minor, the Office of Refugee Resettlement would takes custody or guardianship of the child, while the child is often placed in removal proceedings or is maybe seeking other types of legal immigration relief. Chairman Durbin. Let me move to this question of government contractors. Ms. Vandenberg, you raised that, I think, very effectively here. I couldn't help think about when I was reading, particularly the incident involving Bosnia. I couldn't help think about the current controversy going on in Japan, where Korean women are asking for an acknowledgement by the Japanese, that they were exploited during World War II for Japanese troops. It's obviously a very painful chapter in the history of both countries. But when you see these women, now very advanced in age, talking about their exploitation, it really touched me when you started talking about American contractors, paid for with American tax dollars, who are now being found, or being accused, of exploiting, in the case of Bosnia, women under like circumstances. Did that parallel strike you? Ms. Vandenberg. Well, ironically, the comfort women case is yet another case that was dismissed before the U.S. Federal courts when the comfort women tried to find a remedy in U.S. Federal court under the Alien Tort Statute. But the other parallel that you bring up is the victims. And I think it's very important to focus on the victims and on their human rights, and on the perspective that they bring to this. And I raise that because I found that the investigations conducted in Bosnia and Herzegovina completely ignored the victims. The perpetrators, the men who bought women from the brothels, most of them buying them from a brothel owner named Debeli, bought their passports, sometimes bought them together with weapons from the brothel owners. Those men said that they had ``rescued'' the women, that they had purchased them out of sexual slavery. No one bothered to actually interview the women. No one asked them whether they had simply traded one owner for another owner. And that is why it is so important--I'd like to echo the point that Ms. Kaufka just made about training. There is, I think ineffective training at this point among DoD investigators who are tasked with investigating these cases. They need to take more care to interview the victims and to discover the victims' perspectives. One woman who was released by a contractor just before he was repatriated to the United States on weapons charges, not because he had purchased her but because he had purchased a weapon alongside her, he was sent home to the United States. He released her and gave her back her passport before-- before he left. She wandered into a International Police Task Force station months later and said that she had lived with him like a prostitute and that she--that he had held her passport the entire time. So from her perspective, he was just another trafficker. And yet, I feel like the Department of Defense investigators were inclined to believe his story that he was a rescuer. Chairman Durbin. So the firearm violation, he was being held responsible on a criminal basis, but not for any violation relative to this woman? Ms. Vandenberg. Well, Senator Durbin, to say he was held responsible for a criminal violation would probably be an exaggeration. Chairman Durbin. Overstating. Ms. Vandenberg. Because there have been no prosecutions whatsoever. There have been no indictments. The Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act of 2000, already in effect for 7 years, has been used twice, and not once for a trafficking case, not once. Chairman Durbin. Ms. Becker, I'm going to ask you a question in a moment, but I want to recount what we've heard here from Ms. Vandenberg and others. In the 2005 reauthorization of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, jurisdiction was expanded to allow U.S. prosecutions of U.S. Government employees or contractors who engage in human trafficking abroad. But as Ms. Vandenberg's pointed out in her testimony, no one has been prosecuted. Now, this writer from the Chicago Tribune, Mr. Cam Simpson, wrote a series of articles in the Tribune about a trafficking network that stretched from Kathmandu in Nepal to U.S. military bases in Iraq. Others have written about a Defense Department contractor in Bosnia called DynCorp--I hope I pronounced that correctly-- which employed eight people who bought women from brothels in 1999 and 2000 and used them for sexual and domestic services, and there have been no prosecutions. Ms. Becker, you worked in the General Counsel's Office at the Defense Department before joining the Justice Department. Can you tell us why the U.S. Government hasn't done more to punish U.S. contractors in Iraq and other foreign countries who engage in human trafficking? Ms. Becker. Yes, Senator. While I was working at Department of Defense in the General Counsel's Office, I did not have responsibility for human trafficking, I had a different portfolio, so I cannot speak to the Department of Defense's actions in that regard. I can say that we do have a number of investigations involving government contractors in foreign countries. As you know, there is a 5-year statute of limitations for general crimes, including this one. But we are--I can't say anything beyond that, Senator, because I wouldn't want to jeopardize any potential prosecution. Chairman Durbin. I certainly don't want to jeopardize any pending prosecution, because there haven't been many. We hope that some will take place. I'll go back to a point made by Ms. Burkhalter. This is, by and large, an economic issue. It is much more than that, of course. It's a moral issue. But there's a lot of money involved in this. And if we start making it a costly undertaking, perhaps we can change the economics of it. In her testimony, Ms. Vandenberg proposed that victims trafficked by the United States' contractors or employees abroad be permitted to come to the U.S. to testify and receive victim benefits like the T visa. Under current law, they're not allowed to do so. Ms. Becker, do you think that the TVPA should be revised to permit these victims to come to our country? Ms. Becker. Thank you, Senator. That is a proposal that we recently received on Friday. I would--I would like the opportunity to give that request additional thought. Chairman Durbin. Would you get back to us on that? I'd like to know the position of the Department on that. Another proposal by Ms. Vandenberg is to require the Justice Department, in its congressionally mandated annual report on U.S. Government anti-trafficking activities, to include an evaluation of Defense Department efforts. I agree that would be valuable, and I would hope that the public could use it to gauge how much progress our Department of Defense is making in implementing its zero tolerance policy on trafficking. Ms. Becker, do you have any thoughts, or would you like to wait and make sure you officially state the Department position on requiring an annual Department of Justice report to include a section on the Department of Defense's anti-trafficking activities? Ms. Becker. Yes, Senator, that is obviously something that we'd want to consult with the Department of Defense with. Chairman Durbin. I hope you will. It is ironic that we are now policing our own departments of our government to see if they're doing everything they're supposed to do on anti- trafficking, but I think that point has been raised very effectively. Ms. Vandenberg, on that series that Mr. Simpson wrote, it involved, you said, Halliburton, or Kellogg, Brown & Root, one of the companies? Ms. Vandenberg. That was the prime contractor. Yes, Senator. But the actual allegations that Mr. Simpson made had to do with subcontractors who were below at several tiers. Chairman Durbin. And that is, I think, where it gets complicated legally. Ms. Vandenberg. Well, it gets complicated, but not as a matter of criminal prosecution. It's complicated in terms of sorting out the relationships and who was employing whom, but under MEJA, subcontractors in any tier are also covered. Chairman Durbin. The acknowledgement by our military in Iraq that these contractors had to give back the passports of those working for them seems to be an indication they realized there's a problem. Ms. Vandenberg. I believe so. And yet, it's troubling that the Department of Defense Inspector General's report seemed limited, and the investigations seemed limited, to these 12 men and whether there was criminal responsibility for these 12 men, because in the course of their investigation they interviewed hundreds of third country nationals and didn't find a basis for any criminal prosecution on the facts that they uncovered relating to all of these other third country nationals, even though they discovered widespread abuses, including seizing of passports. Chairman Durbin. Another issue which was raised here and I think I'd like to speak to, is this whole question of human trafficking right here in the Nation's Capital, or nearby, by foreign diplomats. This issue was discussed in an article entitled ``The Slaves in Our Midst'' by Colbert King in the Washington Post, National Public Radio has reported on a lawsuit recently filed here in Washington, alleging a Kuwaiti military attache forced three women from India to serve as domestic employees and child care providers against their will. They worked more than 15 hours a day, earning less than 60 cents an hour. One of the women said she was struck in the head by the diplomat's wife, once with a wooden box and another time with a package of frozen chicken. Regardless of the merits of the suit, it's likely to be dismissed on diplomatic immunity grounds, as have other similar cases. According to the NPR story, there have been more than 40 instances of domestic servitude involving diplomats, but no convictions. One proposal to address this problem has been made by John Miller, who, I mentioned earlier, worked at the State Department in the anti-trafficking office. He's proposed the State Department rescind the 2,000 personal servant visas it issues each year. He argues that foreign diplomats serving in the United States should hire Americans for their domestic work. Mr. King argued in his article that the State Department should stop recommending immunity for diplomats in lawsuits brought by domestic servants. He said the State Department should define domestic service as part of the professional and commercial activity exception to diplomatic immunity under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. This might lead Federal judges to dismiss fewer lawsuits. Ms. Becker, Ms. Vandenberg, what are your thoughts on these proposals? Ms. Becker. Senator, with respect to the--to the diplomatic immunity, that is a State Department issue. Certainly I can tell you with respect to diplomatic immunity--the Justice Department cannot prosecute somebody who has diplomatic immunity. That being said, the Justice Department has brought cases involving diplomats, where diplomatic immunity has not been an issue. For example, in the District of Massachusetts, we recently brought a case involving a foreign national from Saudi Arabia who had a domestic labor trafficking case there, and that matter was resolved through a guilty plea. Chairman Durbin. What do you think, Ms. Vandenberg? Ms. Vandenberg. As I recommended in my testimony--in my written testimony, I would say that there needs to be a GAO study on this issue, and I say that for two reasons. There is a core group of lawyers and civil attorneys who try to bring cases for victims of trafficking and find their efforts thwarted by the State Department, unfortunately. Those--those advocates have called the State Department and tried to get the State Department to respond, and unfortunately those advocates have also called--we have also called law enforcement and law enforcement does not always respond because they hear the word ``diplomat'' and go running for cover. So it's--it's an enormous problem. It is an area of tremendous impunity. I think it unlikely, based on the filing that the Department of State just made in the Gonzales case, the case that Colby King wrote about, the Department of Justice has recommended that that case, which is a worker exploitation and not a trafficking case, be dismissed on grounds of diplomatic immunity. I would ask that the Department of Justice be far more aggressive in trying to get waivers of diplomatic immunity and prosecute these cases because it is absolutely shameful that slavery is occurring in the United States and in Washington, DC in the suburbs, slavery that we wouldn't tolerate if it were being done by American citizens. Chairman Durbin. I'm going to pursue that GAO report that you've recommended. I also have to say that we have a jurisdictional issue between committees, and I'm going to ask Joe Biden of the Foreign Affairs Committee about the policy aspects, because whatever we do to diplomats here, we can expect to be done to us overseas, so we have to follow through and find out what impact that might have. Certainly I'm not suggesting any American diplomat is involved in trafficking, but if you restrict whom they can employ in an embassy, we should expect to run into the same restrictions in terms of our own employment standards abroad. Ms. Vandenberg. And Senator Durbin, we lawyers who are working on behalf of victims trafficked by diplomats are very sensitive to that point of view, which has been raised by the Department of State. And we're actually trying to work creatively at this point, both with the Department of Justice and with the Department of State, to try and find remedies that are perhaps unconventional or would provide some sort of justice for these victims without--without running flat into the issue of immunity. Chairman Durbin. I'd like to ask the panel to consider another issue which came up in the hearing we had earlier on genocide. It's, I guess, euphemistically known as the ``safe haven'' issue. We have a dual standard when it comes to the people we prosecute for wrongdoing, those who've committed crimes overseas. If a person has been guilty of torture, material support for terrorism, terrorism financing, the taking of hostages, and many other Federal crimes, we allow for the extraterritorial jurisdiction of the United States. In other words, that person does not have to be a citizen of the United States, nor does he have to have committed that crime here in the United States. The fact that he would set foot on American soil makes him subject to prosecution. We use the example of Chucky Taylor of Liberia, who decided, after being guilty of torture in his own country, to come here and use some of his ill-gotten gains to buy a nice house in Florida. Well, he's now facing prosecution for it. We found that when it came to genocide, that those who were engaged in genocide in Sudan could travel with impunity to the United States. There was no extraterritorial jurisdiction. Now I'd like to ask all of the members of the panel who would like to comment whether they believe that the TVPA should be revised so that non-U.S. citizens who engage in human trafficking abroad can be prosecuted if they come to the United States. Should the United States' law be changed to create extraterritorial jurisdiction in the area of human trafficking? Ms. Vandenberg. I'd like to address that, briefly, by talking about one change in the law that we succeeded in making in 2005, which was essentially an extension of MEJA so that we could prosecute employees of other agencies. MEJA only covered, at that stage, Department of Defense and those with a nexus to the Department of Defense. We found that contractors from the Department of State were also accused of allegedly buying women from the brothels. So the TVPRA of 2005 does expand that jurisdiction. The question of whether jurisdiction should be expanded to cover everyone, frankly, I haven't considered it and I'd want more time to think about it, if we could get back to you on that. I think the community of non-governmental organizations would like to consider that as an option, certainly. Chairman Durbin. All right. Any other comments? Ms. Burkhalter? Ms. Burkhalter. IJM only works on victim relief and perpetrator accountability abroad. We don't do domestic cases. But in my many, many, many years in Human Rights Watch and Physicians For Human Rights, I dealt with the issue of genocide a lot. I remember having--during the Rwanda genocide, serving papers, since I was not the lawyer in the case--wasn't a lawyer at all, as a matter of fact--to one of the militia leaders at the height of the genocide, Jean Bosco Barayagwiza, who was later indicted by the tribunal, and serving him his papers on a class action lawsuit we did on behalf of a bunch of Tutsis in the United States who lost their entire families. But on the question of extraterritorial jurisdiction, on our kinds of cases we do a lot of American and European pedophile cases against local kids in the countries where we work. We've done some of these cases in Asia, and some in Latin America. The PROTECT Act, of course, has been great, and that's a fairly new legal tool in the hands of human rights activists which allows Americans engaged in crimes abroad to be prosecuted back home. We just--you're not talking about that, I know. But it is a useful thing. We just worked on a case this fall of Terry Smith, who is an American pedophile who was also violating young kids and offering 13-year-old kids in Cambodia, which our undercover operators discovered, got our contacts in the Cambodian police to pick him up. They did a great job of it. But he later managed to get out of jail on alleged health grounds. Our investigators, working through Interpol, learned that he was wanted on charges of abusing children in the United States in the State of Oregon and he--when he decided to leave Cambodia after his short stint in jail, Federal marshalls, in cooperation with the Cambodian authorities, were there to pick him up. He's now facing trial in the United States. Chairman Durbin. But the case that I'm talking about--I hate to interrupt you. Ms. Burkhalter. I'm sorry. Chairman Durbin. But what I'm going after is this. Let's assume we have a notorious trafficker from a foreign country who has never been alleged to have done anything in the United States. Ms. Burkhalter. Right. Chairman Durbin. No trafficking in the United States, no violation of law in the United States, but is well known to have been a trafficker, perhaps prosecuted for it, in a foreign country, who now, because of this economic crime, is very wealthy and decides he wants to live in the United States. Ms. Burkhalter. Right. Well, I can't speak for IJM, so I'll speak personally. Chairman Durbin. Can we---- Ms. Burkhalter. I think there---- Chairman Durbin. If I might finish. Ms. Burkhalter. I think there ought to be universal jurisdiction for crimes against humanity, and I think trafficking and slavery are crimes against humanity. Chairman Durbin. Well, I think that's where I'm going, too. To think that the United States could somehow be a safe haven for that individual to live the rest of their natural lives in luxury because of their ill-gotten gains doesn't seem consistent with the treaties we entered. Ms. Burkhalter. Well, and you mentioned the--you mentioned the fact that torture is a crime for which there is universal jurisdiction. And in our experience, there has never been a slavery case or a trafficking case that does not involve constant violent abuse and torture of the victims. Chairman Durbin. So there might be another angle. Ms. Vandenberg. Senator Durbin, if I might just add something. At this point, the record of prosecutions, based on investigations conducted abroad--again, using the contractor example--is not good. And so I would reiterate, if you move in the general direction of universal jurisdiction, there needs to be some facility, some vehicle, to bring witnesses and victims to the United States so that they can testify. Ms. Burkhalter. And there need to be resources to investigate those crimes abroad. Chairman Durbin. Ms. Becker, would you like to comment on this? Ms. Becker. Yes, just a couple of comments, Senator. First, you know, we currently have cases where we do have victims and witnesses abroad, and we have worked with OIA, International Affairs in the Criminal Division, in order to get MLATs and use other mechanisms such as an S visa in order to get the witnesses that we need to come to the United States to testify in particular cases. I also wanted to mention, in the case that you had described, Senator, there may be current options as well in order to ensure that a non-U.S. citizen who engaged in human trafficking abroad does not find the United States to be a safe haven. For example, if the country where that person is originally from has a law against human trafficking and we have an extradition treaty, we could, of course, extradite that individual to the foreign country. Chairman Durbin. Let me ask you, Ms. Becker. Are you familiar with the GAO report of July, 2006 relating to our prosecution of U.S. trafficking overseas? Ms. Becker. I am aware that the GAO issued a report. I am only vaguely familiar with the specifics of it. Chairman Durbin. I'm going to ask you if you'll ask the Department to respond to this question then, and I won't ask you at this moment. This is the report, which I'm sure is easily available. But the report concluded, ``More than 5 years after the passage of the landmark antitrafficking law, the U.S. Government has not developed a coordinated strategy to combat trafficking in persons abroad, as called for in a Presidential directive, or evaluated its programs to determine whether projects are achieving the desired outcomes.'' I'd appreciate it very much if you could ask the Department if they would respond to this report, which was released a year ago. But I'd like to have an official response, if we could, to that as well. The TVPA requires the State Department to issue an annual report that ranks countries around the world as to their anti- trafficking activities. And I'm going to ask all the panelists, how effective has the annual Trafficking in Persons office report been in holding foreign countries accountable in the fight against human trafficking? Has the U.S. Government imposed sanctions on any countries for their failure to make adequate progress? If anybody knows. Ms. Burkhalter. Well, the--what we have found in some of the countries where we work is that the threat of sanctions for countries that are on tier three has been extremely useful, particularly for countries that are--really desire U.S. foreign assistance. And when a block of U.S. foreign aid, non-humanitarian aid, is potentially at risk, combined with good, strong, solid private diplomacy with a good Ambassadorial presence and staffed there, it can be very useful. My colleague and boss, Sharon Cohen says, and not meaning to make light of it, that the best time to be a victim of trafficking is in the period leading up to June when the report is being compiled, because in some countries where, you know, you're demanding--particularly the statistics on prosecutions, local prosecutions--because you don't get deterrence of the crime unless you get prosecutions--that literally, all of a sudden, will have--we work with local law enforcement. We aren't local law enforcement, but we work with them, imperfect and badly trained and under-resourced as they sometimes are. There are police of good will everywhere. And all of a sudden our effort, will get a little boost when our local diplomats, those of good will who take this very seriously indeed in many embassies around the world, come around asking for information. I'm not going to speak about any specific countries. We're operational, and I would not embarrass those officials and leaders of good will who make it possible to bring cases. But I would--I would speak to you privately and your staff privately about places where a bit more candor would be much appreciated. Chairman Durbin. Well, since you feel a little uncomfortable in reading the names of the countries, I'll just go ahead and read them. They are tier three countries in the June, 2006 Trafficking in Persons report from the Department of State. The countries are: Belize, Burma, Cuba, Iran, Laos, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe. And because I don't want to put you in an indelicate position here, I don't know if you know how many of these countries receive Generalized System of Preferences, GSP, trade benefits. Ms. Burkhalter. I've actually got the list here, if you give me a second. Maybe others would like to respond. Let's take a look at GSP. Chairman Durbin. If anybody else would like to comment. Ms. Vandenberg. I can't answer that specific question, but while Ms. Burkhalter is looking I'd like to make two points about--about the TIP report every year. I would disagree slightly with Ms. Burkhalter that it's a great time to be a victim around the time that the stats are due, because prosecutions don't always operate in the best interests of victims. The victims who are forced to testify who don't receive witness protection, who don't receive any kind of benefits or protections from the State, when a State is fighting to gain prosecutions but at the expense of victims in order to stay off of tier three of the TIP report, then I think we have a real problem. And so there needs to be, I think, added emphasis on the services that are provided to victims in order to generate the kinds of prosecution statistics that countries like to brag about. The second issue is talking to nongovernmental organization leaders in countries like Bosnia. They find--and in Romania as well. They sometimes find that the lack of first tier status of their own country--their governments sometimes blame that on the nongovernmental organizations themselves. They see nongovernmental organizations as organizations that are airing the country's dirty laundry and putting the country's status at risk. So, there are two phenomena relating to nongovernment organizations that we've seen in the TIP report. One, is that NGO's are blamed when countries get a bad tier rating. The second, is that nongovernmental organizations are sometimes not fully credited. Sometimes States actually get the credit for the work that NGO's do rather than the nongovernmental organizations themselves getting credit for sometimes working in a hostile environment. Ms. Burkhalter. That's a good point. Chairman Durbin. Ms. Burkhalter? Ms. Burkhalter. She raises a good point, by the way, and I wouldn't disagree with it. I would also say that when you're working locally and you're trying to get perpetrator accountability so as to deter this crime, you are--you know, you're not working with the best police forces in the world. What we try to do at IJM is bring up standards and watch to protect both the victims and people who are collaterally affected, and it is kind of a building block thing. But I take both those points. I think they're very useful. I'm just quickly checking the eligibility. I only see, of those you named, Zimbabwe and Venezuela. Frankly, in both cases I'd be sort of surprised if too much were coming in duty-free. I'd have to--I'd have to go back. This is either the latest we could get--it's a February 2005 document, however. But the rest of the countries you named, if you don't mind me saying so, sort of look like the official enemies list. None of us would be eager to see Burma get anything, one might add; ditto, Cuba, and some of the other places. I just think there's been progress in this area, but this cannot look like the sort of friends and enemies of the United States club. It is important that there be an honest eye. I know that there's something of a diplomatic tussle over this every year because it is--it's difficult for other U.S. interests to hold friends accountable for egregious crimes. And I might add, the United States failing to clean its own house in this regard does not enhance our ability to be an upholder of these standards, but I do think we should do better. Chairman Durbin. One last point I'd like to ask you. You mentioned the Millennium Challenge accounts. Ms. Burkhalter. Yes. Chairman Durbin. So do we take this into account, how countries are doing when it comes to trafficking enforcement, their own laws? Ms. Burkhalter. You'd have to ask MCA administrators. I've not liaised with them yet, but I'm sure going to, because some of the countries where we work that are kind of threshold countries, that means they're almost eligible, and this is a wonderful time diplomatically to really bring them along because if they--in an accountable way. We lose cases every week, we and the prosecutors working with us, just lose cases--more cases because of corruption than any other factor, much more so than--to my knowledge than, lack of training, and all of the sort of economic factors. Lose more cases, and not just trafficking cases, though the corruption issue is much greater on trafficking because there's a lot of money involved. In a common rape case, for example, we see bribery sometimes. We'll lose a case, when some local official has been paid off, or asked to be paid off by the--by the family. But the real issue here is corruption in the trafficking cases. And again, there's tangible things to look at, keeping in mind Ms. Vandenberg's caveat in that regard. Chairman Durbin. Any points that anybody would like to raise before we close the hearing that you believe are still outstanding that we haven't touched on? Ms. Kaufka. I'd like to just followup on the earlier comments about expanding jurisdiction abroad. As a service provider, I would emphasize that if this is considered, we also should consider protections for victims here. At the National Immigrant Justice Center, for example, we see many women who have been trafficked abroad, for example, trafficked from Albania or Moldova into Italy or Greece. They flee because of the impunity that Ms. Vandenberg mentioned earlier, and because of the corruption within their own police force and governments. They are unable to return home based on threats to themselves, or to their family members, and they have no relief in the United States under the TVPA because the trafficking did not occur within the borders of the United States. So, I would consider either extending T visas to those individuals or expanding asylum law to include victims of trafficking as a particular social group. Chairman Durbin. I want to thank the panel. I'm trying to reflect on this issue, which I've tried to study closely for this hearing. It's clear that it's a relatively new law that we're dealing with here. It's a huge problem. It's a complex prosecution problem, trying to find a witness, trustworthy witness, that comes forward that can help you prosecute a case that could involve a court fight and a long period of time. I think, despite the statistic that Ms. Becker noted, that in 6 years our prosecutions are up 600 percent, that I think we all agree that we can do better, and we need to do better. Some of the suggestions made by Ms. Kaufka and others about how to make these prosecutions more effective by being more sensitive to the victims and their families, I think, is a point well taken and it's something that the law should recognize. But I return to a couple points here that still trouble me, the point made by Ms. Vandenberg about our government contractors and the fact that they are--they seem to be dealing with impunity in this field. I mean, that really reflects on us. If you're right, Ms. Burkhalter, that you can't find human trafficking abroad without government corruption, what does it say about us that we would have government contractors involved in some forms, directly or indirectly, of human trafficking and not prosecute those cases? Some other committee someplace else in the world could be holding a hearing today, saying, you know, it's probably a case of corruption in America that's led to this situation. I hope that's not the case, but I think we have to find a way to make sure that our contractors, these companies that our tax dollars sustain, are held accountable and understand the economics of their decision, if not the criminality of their decision. And, finally, I think that when we're dealing with these other countries around the world, we can do a lot better in being much more aggressive in trying to set standards when it comes to human trafficking, particularly in our bilateral relations with these countries so that they know we are extremely serious about this. I thank the panel. I thank all of you for being here today. I want to thank Mike Zubrensky on my staff for bringing this hearing together, and our staffers, Reema Dodin, Justin Steffen, and Joe DeMaria, to help prepare for this hearing. The record will be kept open for a week for those who want to submit written questions to the members of the panel, and for responses that we might have elicited by our questioning. I thank you all for being here today. The Subcommittee stands adjourned. 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