Congressman Chris Smith, Vice Chairman of the House Committee on International Relations and the author of the first comprehensive U.S. law to address human trafficking, delivered the following remarks as the keynote speaker of the first International Conference on Trafficking, attended by delegates from more than 120 nations.  Following are Rep. Smith’s remarks: 

    It’s a distinct privilege to be invited to address this distinguished gathering of global leaders in the war on trafficking.  Members of this audience have done more than anyone to mitigate the suffering of trafficked persons.  On behalf of Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle and our families who are deeply concerned about the victims – thank you. 

    Ladies and Gentleman, human trafficking is an outrageous, cruel, dehumanizing modern manifestation of slavery. 

    It is hard to believe that in 2003, women, children and men are bought and sold as chattel every day into the U.S. and abroad.  Tragically, up to 4 million persons worldwide – mainly women and children –are trafficked.  Statistics of this loathsome business are difficult to garner, and many believe that the actual number of victims is much higher.  In India alone, over 2.3 million girls and women are believed to be working in the sex industry against their will at any given time and more than 200,000 persons are believed to be trafficked into, within, or through India each year.  As despicable as it sounds, some of the victims in India are actually ten years old or younger. 

    To illustrate the reality of this crisis right here in America, I’d like to highlight two trafficking cases from my home state of New Jersey.  One year ago, on February 22, 2002, five people in New Jersey were arrested and charged with enslaving four girls from Mexico.  Another individual was charged later.  The girls – aged 14 to 18 – were lured to the United States with promises of marriage and good paying jobs.  Once here, they were confined and forced to work in a brothel.  Their traffickers used threats of harm, force, and psychological coercion to keep them in their servitude -- you know the drill.  Thanks to the efforts of the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, Chris Christie, the six were found guilty and will be sentenced on April 15.   Pursuant to the penalties contained in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, five of the six face the possibility of life in prison and fines of $250,000. 

    Six months later, on August 28, 2002, three other people in New Jersey were arrested and charged with trafficking for forced labor.  These criminals victimized at least 30 Russian women.  When they arrived at JFK Airport in New York, the women's passports, visas, and return plane tickets were confiscated by the defendants, again -- you know the drill.  They were forced to work six days a week, 8 10 hours a day as nude dancers.  The women had to pay their traffickers $200 per day.  If they complained or could not make their payments, their families back home in Russia were threatened with serious injury or Russian mob retaliation.  A trial date will be set shortly for these exploiters.  These two cases, of course, are just the tip of an unseemly iceberg. 

    Ladies and Gentleman, this historic conference has brought together an unprecedented array of experts, from government, academia, religious institutions, and the non governmental sector.  It has generated thought provoking dialogue.  It has resulted in scores of new ideas.  And those ideas have been planted in the minds of the people most likely to bring them to fruition.  This conference has helped build new and strong bridges.  It has even shown us that in some cases the weapons we are using to fight the battle against slavery are not necessarily the most effective.  This conference has put new and better weapons in our arsenal. 

    I applaud the War Against Trafficking Alliance for having the vision that led to such an exceptional meeting.  And I also commend the State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons for skillfully and methodically organizing this conference in order to achieve this outcome.  Particular recognition should be given to Elizabeth Pryor and Courtney Weise for their daily diligence in bringing the vision and details of this conference to this conclusion. 

    I want to take a moment to recognize the Honorable Elena Mizulina, a member of the Russian Duma who is here with us this evening. Deputy Mizulina is a fellow member of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. Just this past week, Deputy Mizulina introduced into the Russian Parliament a comprehensive anti trafficking bill that she wrote and has championed.  

     In 1999, the same year I introduced the anti trafficking bill, I led a delegation to the annual meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's Parliamentary Assembly held in St. Petersburg, Russia. While in Russia, my wife Marie and I along with others in the delegation listened to numbing, heart-wrenching stories from young women who had been trafficked.  As with previous meeting with victims, we were stunned by the enormity of their pain.  They were the walking wounded yet somehow, the lucky ones because they had been rescued. 

    Inspired by the victims, we challenged the legislators from the countries of Europe and Eurasia to fight this horrific abuse.  To look askance or trivialize this exploitation, we argued, makes lawmakers and their governments unwitting accomplices in heinous crimes against women.  So the U.S. tried to lead not just in word but in deed as well.   

    In November 2000, the U.S. Congress passed, and the President signed, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act.  As a result of that sweeping law, the U.S. Government allocated $68.2 million last year to combat trafficking in human beings.  Before the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, U.S. Government agencies allocated few, if any, resources to this issue. 

    As you know the Act empowers prosecutors with the tools they need to crack down on traffickers.  In the past two years, the Department of Justice and U.S. Attorney's Offices have initiated prosecutions of 76 human traffickers—three times as many as in the two previous years.  Thirty three traffickers have been charged under the new statutes created by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act—meaning that the penalties they face are twice what they would have been if charged under previous laws.   

    At the end of 2002, the Justice Department had 125 open trafficking investigations – nearly twice as many as were open at the beginning of the year – all of this, despite a massive reallocation of funds and talent to the war on terrorism. 

    Under Attorney General Ashcroft's leadership, the Department of Justice now treats the fight against human trafficking as a top civil rights priority.  The Department's efforts are yielding results.  Just last Friday, a jury in Hawaii convicted the owner of the Daewoosa Samoa Ltd. garment factory of involuntary servitude.  The owner of Daewoosa enslaved more than 200 Chinese and Vietnamese workers in American Samoa.  This was the largest human trafficking case ever investigated by the FBI and prosecuted by the Department of Justice.  The owner of the Daewoosa company faces up to 20 years in prison on each of 11 counts of involuntary servitude plus additional time for money laundering, conspiracy and extortion.  The company also has been ordered by a court in American Samoa to pay $3.5 million to the Daewoosa workers.  

    You remember how it was just a few years ago  -- the victims of trafficking were often rounded up like cattle and deported, often right back into a vicious cycle of violence, exploitation, and despair.  Since passage of the Act, however, trafficked persons are now being treated as victims of a crime rather than as criminals. The Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Refugee Resettlement, has certified over 370 individuals as victims of trafficking.   

    This certification allows victims to receive federal and state benefits and services, including a work permit, housing, and medical care. 

    One of the most difficult legislative battles during consideration of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act was on the creation of the T visa.  This non immigrant visa allows victims of trafficking to remain in the United States rather than facing deportation to a place where their lives could be endangered by their traffickers.  Frankly though, more needs to be done to implement the T visa provisions.  I am disturbed by the slow pace of adjudication of T visa applications.  I am also troubled that in cases where a prosecution does not occur, victims of trafficking are having difficulty getting from law enforcement authorities the certifications they need to qualify for a T visa.  While it was the intent of the legislation that victims of trafficking should help in the investigation or prosecution of trafficking cases, there should be no doubt that the T visa was primarily intended as a humanitarian tool to facilitate the rehabilitation of trafficking survivors.  If our law enforcement authorities have not yet gotten this message, then it is high time that they do. 

    Since passage of the Act, some governments have begun to address trafficking for the first time.  Many were motivated by their placement on the Department of State's annual Trafficking in Persons report.  (Amazingly, naming egregious violators almost killed the legislation because it was considered undiplomatic to name names.  This too, like the T-Visa battle, took months to win in Congress).  In part, because of this report, I believe legislative reforms are being enacted.   

    Of the 89 countries reported in the State Department's report, the records of 71 nations do not yet satisfy even minimal standards in the fight against trafficking.  Nineteen of those countries cannot even be said to be making significant efforts.  Nations with poor records, however, should be put on notice, that if they do not reform immediately and comprehensively, and thus earn the dubious distinction of being a Tier 3 country, they will be subject to sanctions, including the denial of non-humanitarian US foreign aid, this year.  On this issue the United States speaks with the same voice to its friends, like Bosnia, Greece, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey as well as those with whom we have bad diplomatic relations like Belarus, Burma, Iran, and Sudan. 

    Clearly there is still much work to be done by lawmakers, by government authorities, by civil society, by our faith communities, and by all men and women of good will.  As we do our work, we must constantly bear in mind the lives that have been shattered by the horrors of trafficking – the abuse of slavery – which will require a lifetime of healing. 

    I would like to briefly highlight a few areas where I hope to see further action in the very near term.   

    First, let's continue to enact and reform the laws necessary to break the cycle of human trafficking.  Addressing the legal deficiencies in the U.S. Code took an enormous investment of political will, a careful examination of our laws on the books, and dogged determination to craft legal tools for the prosecution of traffickers and the protection of victims. (And we're not done yet) Each and every government and parliament is responsible for ensuring that trafficking in human beings is recognized as a criminal offense with penalties reflecting the grievous nature of the offense.  Once enacted, consistent implementation of the law must be a priority for law enforcement authorities, prosecutors, judges, and parliaments with oversight responsibilities. 

    Of equal importance, let’s focus greater efforts to promote victim protection and later reintegration into their communities, or resettlement. The needs of trafficking survivors do not end when they are freed in a police raid.  This concept has not yet fully caught on.  Authorities have the responsibility for the safety and basic needs of victims, including food, clothing, medical attention, shelter, and safe repatriation if that is what is warranted.  Ideally law enforcement authorities can partner with non governmental organizations in providing for the special needs of victims.  The sheer numbers of victims and the depth of their wounds – physical, psychological and emotional – clamor for more and more well trained, experienced counselors who are equipped to offer the hope of healing. 

    Let’s focus more attention on the human rights violations that make women more prone to consider migration and thus become potential prey for traffickers.  Specifically, I’m talking about violence against women which is ignored by legal systems and downplayed by law enforcement authorities.  Unredressed domestic violence and rape contributes to a woman's sense of desperation.  I'm also talking about the poverty of opportunity that comes from unchallenged discrimination in educational systems or the marketplace and, thus, contributes to women's economic distress.  These and other violations of the human rights of women can result in more women being victimized through trafficking.  The solution?  Reforms like equal access to the classroom, micro credit loans, and equal pay for equal work. 

    Let’s insist that government and law enforcement authorities address the official corruption – at the highest and lowest levels – that allows trafficking to flourish.  Police raids of trafficking establishments are rendered useless when local police officers tip off the owners that a raid is imminent.  Prosecute and jail the bad cop on the take.  Likewise, in many countries, backlogged courts and local corruption render prosecutorial efforts ineffective.   

    At its core, human trafficking is a gross violation of human rights.  Cracking down on trafficking of human beings deprives transnational criminals of a key source of revenue.  The fight against trafficking strengthens the rule of law, protects basic human rights, and liberates human beings from slavery and brutal exploitation.   

    Let us call on our political leaders, civic leaders, spiritual leaders and others to denounce trafficking as the insidious evil that it is – an evil that destroys human dignity and reduces human life to a replaceable commodity.   

    Let us all work together to make this the decade in which we abolish slavery from the face of the earth.