In response to a failed effort by the US Department of State to encourage the government of Sudan to effectively address human trafficking, Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) urged the Administration to correct its policy. Last fall, a four month experiment began designed to improve Sudan’s ranking on the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) ratings from Tier 3 (the worst traffickers) to Tier 2. 

    That experiment ended in January 2006, but there are indications that the US Department of State may continue the experiment. In a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Smith called the experiment a failure and urged the Administration to return Sudan to Tier 3. Smith noted that the basis for elevating Sudan in the TIP rankings was its support for the Committee to Eliminate the Abduction of Women and Children (CEAWC). The next US State Department Trafficking in Persons report is due to be released in June.

    “When Ambassador John Miller, head of the Office of Trafficking in Persons gave a briefing this month on the TIP interim assessment, he acknowledged that the Government of Sudan had suspended its support for CEAWC,” said Smith, who has written three landmark US human trafficking laws. “This alone should demonstrate why the effort to gently encourage the Sudanese government to take action to redress its history of involvement in slavery has not succeeded.” 

    Smith met with the Director of CEAWC in August during a visit to Sudan, and was told that the organizational focus was on returning women who had been forced to become brides against their will to their families. 

    “While this is no doubt a serious problem, it is only part of the tragedy and does not deal satisfactorily with the thousands of people who have been sold into slavery in Sudan over the years,” said Smith, Chairman of the House Subcommittee that has oversight on Africa and Global Human Rights.

    Members of Congress and anti-slavery activists reacted strongly to the elevation of Sudan in the TIP rankings, despite the fact that Sudan was placed on a watch list and could potentially be dropped in rankings even between annual reports. While the Administration considered the elevation of Sudan’s ranking to be a useful means of coaxing positive action from a recalcitrant government, others felt the Government of Sudan continues to refuse to admit its involvement in or support for slavery and has no intention of undoing the terrible wrong done to so many of its own citizens with its cooperation.

    The complicity of the Sudanese government was confirmed during a March 13, 1996, hearing chaired by Rep. Smith. Then-Deputy Secretary of State for African Affairs William Twadell testified that the Government of Sudan’s campaign to subjugate its opposition in the South included the taking of slaves by its army or by forces under its control. 

    Over the past decade, I have convened several hearings examining the phenomenon of modern-day slavery in Sudan, and written three landmark laws on human trafficking,” said Smith. “In none of the testimony, including a hearing my current Subcommittee convened on November 1, 2005, has there been any evidence presented to demonstrate Sudanese government willingness to return those sold into slavery to their families – not even as part of a general repatriation of people forced from southern Sudan to their homes in this newly-semi-autonomous South.”

    Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Christian Solidarity and other organizations have investigated this situation thoroughly over the years. The Campaign of Conscience, organized by the Center for Religious Freedom at Freedom House, the National Urban League, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and other organizations have organized teach-ins, letter campaigns to our government and raised money to help the Sudanese people. Members of Congress, such as Congressman Smith and the February congressional delegation led by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, have visited Sudan in an effort to place U.S. policy on the right side of this issue. 

    “All these efforts do not prepare the American people or their representatives in Congress to accept the lack of effort by the Government of Sudan on the issue of freeing and repatriating people sold into slavery, and I call on the Administration to take this into account in its deliberations of the TIP rankings,” Smith said