I. Introduction.
Good Evening.
Thank you Deborah for that introduction and for all that you
and your staff did to organize this event.
And, thank you all for coming here. As the Attorney General
often tells us: “Thank you for working.”
I see many investigators and prosecutors in the room. Thank
you for spending day in and day out on the rigors of investigations
and on the meticulous details that lead to successful prosecutions.
I see many community- and faith-based service providers here
also. Thank you as well for the dedication and commitment you
give to efforts to rescue and restore trafficking victims.
II. The Face of Modern-Day Slavery.
Let me spend a few moments describing what it is from which
we are rescuing these victims.
“Human Trafficking,” you have been told, involves the acquisition
or holding of human beings, through the use or threat of
force, fraud or coercion, typically for the purpose of sexual
exploitation or for forced labor, or both.
But this rather technical definition fails to capture the
depth of human suffering that lies at the root of this horrible
crime. Real life examples strike much closer to the heart.
When I think about human trafficking, I often think of the Cadena case,
which I briefly described in the video some of you saw earlier.
Some of you may have heard me talk about this before, but it
bears repeating.
There is a photograph that we have from that case. The photograph
shows a small room, the size of a twin bed. It is separated
from the rest of the house by a ragged blanket hung as a curtain.
A victim in the case - a young girl no more than the age of
14 - slept there.
This girl was smuggled into this country by men who no doubt
had promised her a better life. Instead, these criminals stripped
her of her freedom, of her dignity, of her innocence.
These criminals held this girl – a captive - in that small
room.
There in that room, she was forced to have sex with up to
30 men per day.
And afterwards, she was made to sleep in that very same bed.
And this happened every night.
Up to thirty rapes per day. Day, after day, after day.
This is a powerful image. But there's more.
By the bed is a small nightstand. The nightstand has two items.
One is a teddy bear. This was the girl's only possession.
She told us later that she kept it to remind her of her childhood.
She was barely 14 years old, but she recognized that her childhood
was lost.
The other item on the nightstand was a roll of paper towels,
the purpose of which is self-evident.
That is Human Trafficking. It is no less than modern-day slavery.
It is evil. It is hideous.
It is repugnant. It is depraved.
It is in direct opposition to everything our nation and
our laws represent. Our Constitution, provides in no uncertain
terms that: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude .
. . shall exist within the United States. . . .” Yet it
does.
President George W. Bush has made clear his commitment to
fight this evil. Before the United Nations, President Bush
called upon the world to:
show new energy in fighting back an old evil. Nearly two
centuries after the abolition of the transatlantic slave
trade, and more than a century after slavery was officially
ended in its last strongholds, the trade in human beings
for any purpose must not be allowed to thrive in our time.
Our Attorney General, likewise, has made a clear and unequivocal
commitment to combat human trafficking.
Human trafficking is an affront to human
dignity. The Department of Justice is determined not to stand
idly by while the toll in human suffering mounts. Human trafficking
victims often are too young, too frightened, too trapped
in their circumstances to speak for themselves.
Our job at the Department is “to be the victims' voice,
to lessen the suffering, to prosecute those who commit these
crimes to the fullest extent of the law.”
III. Prosecuting Traffickers.
And prosecuting those who commit these hideous crimes is precisely
what we have done, like no other time in our history.
President George W. Bush's administration has dedicated substantial
resources to the prosecutions of human traffickers. And results
have followed.
Since January 2001, the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights
Division, working with United States Attorneys' Offices, has charged
criminally 150 human traffickers. This is more than
triple the number charged over the prior three-year period.
These prosecutions have met with great success. We thus far
have achieved a 100% conviction rate – a
figure that stands as a testament to the work and expertise
of the men and women who investigate and prosecute trafficking
cases.
And, we expect the number of cases to increase. Currently,
we have 168 open investigations.
But while our prosecutions have tripled, we need to do more
. This is only the beginning. We need to develop a sustainable
teamwork to work together in the manner that is most productive
and efficient.
It is not only about prosecutions. It is about protection.
It is about prevention. That is precisely why we are here.
We are here because:
We have prosecuted over 150 traffickers ,
but we must prosecute more.
We have protected hundreds , but we must
protect and assist more.
We have made strides in prevention , but
we must prevent more.
President George W. Bush has asked us to be aggressive on
all fronts.
We - all of us in this room - are keenly aware that we cannot
wait for the trafficking victims to find us. To be aggressive,
w e must find them .
Trafficking victims are not likely to pick up the telephone
and call the FBI or the Department of Justice. Victims of trafficking
are fearful. They are disoriented. Victims are far from their
country. They are far from their family. They have no local
contacts or friends. Victims typically don't speak the language.
They are here without documentation. Victims are not going
to call us.
We must be proactive in seeking out both
the victims and the criminal enterprises that
victimize them. And once we rescue these victims, we must help
restore their life, their dignity, their sense of self-worth.
IV. Multi-Disciplinary Task Forces:
The Importance of Partnerships with
Local Law Enforcement
and Service Providers
That is why we have come together here in Tampa, and that
is why we are coming together in communities across our nation,
forming local Task Forces to fight human trafficking.
These Task Forces embody our multi-disciplinary, victim-centered
approach. Our Task Forces add to our Washington-based law enforcement
resources the intelligence and expertise
of local immigration agents,
of local law enforcement, and
of local community- and faith-based service
providers.
These Task Forces recognize that local authorities, often
more than federal officials, are in the best position to find
trafficking victims. These Task Forces, proceed from the knowledge
that local authorities, more then we, know where in their communities
trafficking takes place. They, more than we, are in a position
to encounter and identify trafficking victims in the field.
In a nutshell, our Task Forces take the battle into those
dark places where victims are exploited.
We already have established Task Forces in Tampa, Phoenix,
Philadelphia, Atlanta, and most recently, Northern Virginia.
By year's end we anticipate rolling out more than a dozen additional
Task Forces.
Let me focus a moment on local law enforcement. There is no
way I can over emphasize how critical the work of local law
enforcement is to our efforts. Local officials and local service
providers must be our partners in our efforts to find more
victims and prosecute more traffickers.
A great example of the fruits of our cooperative approach
is the Soto case, which was referred to in the
video. The Soto defendants held captive women as
young as 19. They were held at houses around the Rio Grande
Valley, forced to work as housekeepers by day, and raped
and beaten at night . During the ordeal, two of the women
were stripped, gang-raped, ordered killed, and then thrown
into a canal.
A local family found these two women in the ditch. That is
when local law enforcement stepped in. That is when training
kicked in. That is when our collaborative approach paid off.
Instead of finding “two undocumented individuals who did not
speak the language and who were prime candidates for deportation,” local
law enforcement recognized “two potential trafficking victims,
in need of assistance and health services.” This is a critical
distinction.
These victims led Investigator Mora to the safe house where
the other two victims were being kept. As you saw in the video,
when Investigator Mora found these women, he found them in
a state of fear personified.
These victims were so afraid that they did not even want to
admit that there was anything wrong, that any danger existed.
But Mora knew better, he did not just stop his investigation.
He was pro-active. He had been well trained. He continued to
question. Eventually, each victim broke down in tears, releasing
the anguish created by the repeated gang rapes and the beatings.
Prosecutors from the Civil Rights Division and the United
States Attorney's Office in the Southern District of Texas
secured convictions of all six defendants. Armando Soto received
10 years' imprisonment. Martin Cortez was sentenced to 14 years.
The ring leader, Juan Carlos Soto , was sentenced
to 20 years' incarceration.
These criminals will not be able to harm anyone again for
a long, long, time.
Even more importantly, these victims were rescued from a sub-human
existence in the vile trade of trafficking.
We should all thank local law enforcement, like the Hidalgo
County Sheriff's Office in South Texas, for their commitment
to our partnership.
V. Protecting Victims
Our prosecutors at the Department of Justice have an impressive
record of convictions on trafficking charges. But convictions
do not heal fully the pains and emotional scars inflicted on
these victims.
How can a girl that has been raped up to 30 times
per day fully recover?
These victims need our help. They need our protection. The
needs of the victim must take high priority. We work – and
must continue to work -- with service providers to ensure
that the victims of trafficking are kept safe. This is
the right thing to do, both morally, and from a law enforcement
perspective. By helping victims, we help them to help us
in our continuing prosecution efforts.
The rest of the story in the Soto case is that the
victims are now safe and receiving help from NGOs who are grantees
of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Justice
Department's Office for Victims of Crime. With the assistance
of the Justice Department's law enforcement certification,
they are all in the process of obtaining T-Visas.
And that truly is the rest, and most important part of the
story.
True rescue means providing victims with the assistance
they need to rebuild and recapture their lives. For this
reason, the Justice Department requires that each of our
prosecutors and investigators use what we call a victim-centered
approach.
Immediately after we uncover a trafficking crime, Department
of Justice victim-witness coordinators, like our own Lorna
Grenadier, help place the victims in a shelter. Lorna, thank
you very much for your work.
We work with the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services
to obtain Continued Presence and “T-Visas” for these victims.
As I alluded to earlier, a “T-Visa” permits victims to stay
in America and to apply for regular status.
We likewise work with the Department of Health and Human Services
to obtain additional services for these victims. We ensure
that these victims receive medical and dental care, screening
for STDs, and emergency food and shelter. And we help place
the victims with NGOs, funded in part by the federal government.
Our charge, given to us by President George W. Bush, is to
help these victims begin to rebuild their lives.
In short, it is the stated policy of the Department of Justice
that individuals who have been subjected to a severe form of
trafficking are victims in every
sense of the word. They are victims. And they must be treated
as such.
As the law makes clear, any trafficking victim who (1) is
willing to assist in the investigation and prosecution of severe
forms of trafficking, and (2) has either (a) been certified
by the Attorney General for continuing presence, or (b) has
made a bona fide application for a T-visa , will
qualify for refugee status, and obtain the benefits Congress
provided to them.
- - -
The Civil Rights Division's record of victim protection has
been strong.
To date, Division prosecutors have helped with the granting
of 490 requests for continued presence. We have also been instrumental
in assisting hundreds of victims obtain T-visas by providing
the required certification. Overall, the Civil Rights Division
and other law enforcement agencies have helped 584 trafficking
victims from 34 countries to secure refugee-type benefits under
the law.
And like I said earlier, while the Department's record is
strong, it is only a beginning.
To ensure that there is no slippage in our protection of victims,
the Civil Rights Division has established a strict policy that
if a Civil Rights Division attorney ever determines that a
victim should not be recommended for continued presence or
a T-Visa certification, that declination decision must be approved
by the Deputy Assistant Attorney General overseeing trafficking
matters.
Our goal is to work with our service-provider partners, to
best help our victims obtain the help they need, and the help
to which they are entitled by law.
We as law enforcement cannot succeed without the help of our
service providers. And I thank all our service providers for
the critical help they offer victims.
VI. Preventing Trafficking
Finally, we must also all work together to eradicate trafficking
in the long-run by dedicating efforts to prevention .
We must make the public aware that a modern-day slave trade
persists in our world. The Department of State works hard to
do this internationally.
Here, in the United States, the Department of Health and
Human Services has launched a public awareness campaign,
encouraging the public to recognize trafficking where it
exists. This campaign is titled “Look Beneath the Surface.”
We all need to “Look Beneath the Surface.” Americans need
to know that trafficking takes place here in our nation.
Conclusion
Allow me to close by returning to the challenge that President
George W. Bush laid before us.
We must, President Bush charged, “ show new energy in fighting
back an old evil.”
Over the next few days, you will hear how to do this from
experts in the field,
from NGOs,
from four Assistant Attorneys General,
from the Governor of the State of Florida,
from the Attorney General of the United States,
and of course,
from President George W. Bush himself.
President George W. Bush's leadership in eliminating human
trafficking has, as you heard today, brought about great results.
It is up to us to do more.
As President Bush told the United Nations, “the victims of
sex trade see so little of life before they see the very worst
of life – an underground of brutality and lonely fear.”
Return with me again, for a moment to that room, where that
girl, no older than 14, was raped up to 30 times per day. Where
she lived the very worst of life, day after day after day.
That is why we are here. To ensure that girls like her are
rescued, so that they never again have to return to that vile
underground.
Thank you all for coming, and thank you for your efforts
and your prayers.
________
* Assistant
Attorney General Acosta frequently departs from prepared
text.