The Blog

Thai Government Hires Washington Lobbyists to Avoid Downgrade in the 2014 Trafficking in Persons Report

The US recently launched its 13th Annual Trafficking in Persons Report. According to project member Ann Gallagher, its influence is still “undeniable.” One of the reasons is that while governments may distrust the report and question its findings, they dread a negative assessment. For example, Thailand recently drew attention by retaining expensive Washington lobbyists in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to avoid a downgrade in this year’s TiP report. The Royal Thai embassy in Washington, DC even went so far as to issue a press release disagreeing with the State Department’s decision to downgrade it to the lowest ranking—instead highlighting the government’s “significant advances in prevention and suppression of human trafficking.” For more background and analysis read Ann Gallagher’s article “The Trafficking Watchlist May be Flawed, but it’s the Best Measure We Have” here.

Check Out New Scholarship in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science

Two roundtable members, Denise Brennan and Dina Francesca Haynes, recently published articles in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (May 2014) edited by Ronald Weitzer and Sheldon X. Zhang. See the full Table of Contents for  additional scholarship on recent empirical research on human trafficking.

Trafficking, Scandal, and Abuse of Migrant Workers in Argentina and the United States by Denise Brennan (Abstract)

This article examines the varied consequences that the label “trafficked” holds for migrants and for the organizations that assist them. In the case of migrants from the Dominican Republic to Argentina, threat of U.S. economic sanctions prompted the two governments to document incidents of trafficking by labeling all forms of migrant labor exploitation as trafficking. Collapsing a range of coerced and noncoerced labor experiences under one label has muddied the definition of trafficking. In contrast, U.S. trafficking policy systematically ignores significant exploitation of labor migrants, in part because of the volatile politics of immigration in the United States, and because of the conflation of sex trafficking with trafficking. The article uses these two examples of the effects of labeling exploited workers as trafficking victims to draw attention to the politicization of the term “trafficking.

The Celebritization of Human Trafficking by Dina Francesca Haynes (Abstract)

Human trafficking, and especially sex trafficking, is not only susceptible to alluring and sensational narratives, it also plays into the celebrity-as-rescuer ideal that receives considerable attention from the media, the public, and policy-makers. While some celebrities develop enough expertise to speak with authority on the topic, many others are neither knowledgeable nor accurate in their efforts to champion antitrafficking causes. Prominent policy-makers allow celebrity activists to influence their opinions and even consult with them for advice regarding public policies. Emblematic of larger, fundamental problems with the dominant discourse, funding allocations, and legislation in current antitrafficking initiatives in the United States and elsewhere, celebrity activism is not significantly advancing the eradication of human trafficking and may even be doing harm by diverting attention from aspects of the problem and solution that sorely require attention.

Life Interrupted: Trafficking into Forced Labor in the United States

Life Interrupted: Trafficking into Forced Lab or in the United States is a newly released book by Denise Brennan, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology at Georgetown University.  Life Interrupted follows the lives of survivors of trafficking in the United States.  It documents the ordinary tasks of settling into a new country after extraordinary abuse.  At once scholarly and accessible, her book links these firsthand accounts to global economic inequities and under-regulated and unprotected workplaces that routinely exploit migrant laborers in the United States.  Brennan contends that today’s punitive immigration policies undermine efforts to fight trafficking. Life Interrupted is a riveting account of life in and after trafficking and a forceful call for meaningful immigration and labor reform. All royalties from this book will be donated to the nonprofit Survivor Leadership Training Fund administered through the Freedom Network.

Think Again: Prostitution

Project member Aziza Ahmed has penned a terrific piece in the latest issue of Foreign Policy:  “Think Again: Prostitution — Why zero tolerance makes for bad policy on world’s oldest profession.”   You can view the article online here.

Trust Women Conference

Two of our Project members – Anne Gallagher and Martina Vandenberg – recently participated in the annual Trust Women conference.  The text of Anne Gallagher’s keynote address, entitled “Human Trafficking: From outrage to action” can be found here.

Trafficking Infrastructure Grows: New York’s Statewide Initiative

In the past month, the State of New York has introduced 11 new Human Trafficking Intervention Courts (including Buffalo and Rochester, near where I live in upstate NY). According to the New York Times, the new courts are modeled after three pilot projects that had been established earlier in New York City, and the “initiative is believed to be the first of its kind in the nation.”

The NY law resembles the federal U.S. law in targeting force, fraud and coercion (what the national law dubs “severe forms” of trafficking). Included in its list of punishable offenses is withholding of a passport or other identity document.

The initiative follows criticism of the weak implementation of NY’s 2007 antitrafficking law. As of 2009, there had been one conviction. This seems to be reflected in anti-trafficking more generally: as of 2009 there had been 196 cases under the federal law, by contrast with the  estimate of 14,000+ trafficked persons annually into the US given by the State Department.

Anti-trafficking advocates argue that low conviction rates reflect a lack of training and understanding among conventional police forces, perhaps coupled with chauvinistic prejudice. Critics suggest that the mismatch may have more to do with the flawed and overblown data supporting the annual estimates. (The “Data Matters” section of this website contains some further discussion.)

The law, which focuses on sex trafficking (labor trafficking is also included albeit as a lesser offense), provides those charged with prostitution with a way out of direct criminal prosecution — the law reframes who is a victim versus a perpetrator – although, since prosecutions often seek testimony from trafficking victims, involvement with the criminal justice system may continue in some form. Questions around implementation will include:  what proportion of prosecutions will look at labor trafficking rather than sex trafficking? how well will victims fare following identification by the criminal justice system? what proportion of resources will be spent on victim assistance versus criminal prosecution?

Trafficking Infrastructure Grows: New York’s Statewide Initiative

In the past month, the State of New York has introduced 11 new Human Trafficking Intervention Courts (including Buffalo and Rochester, near where I live in upstate NY). According to the New York Times, the new courts are modeled after three pilot projects that had been established earlier in New York City, and the “initiative is believed to be the first of its kind in the nation.”

The NY law resembles the federal U.S. law in targeting force, fraud and coercion (what the national law dubs “severe forms” of trafficking). Included in its list of punishable offenses is withholding of a passport or other identity document.

The initiative follows criticism of the weak implementation of NY’s 2007 antitrafficking law. As of 2009, there had been one conviction. This seems to be reflected in anti-trafficking more generally: as of 2009 there had been 196 cases under the federal law, by contrast with the  estimate of 14,000+ trafficked persons annually into the US given by the State Department.

Anti-trafficking advocates argue that low conviction rates reflect a lack of training and understanding among conventional police forces, perhaps coupled with chauvinistic prejudice. Critics suggest that the mismatch may have more to do with the flawed and overblown data supporting the annual estimates. (The “Data Matters” section of this website contains some further discussion.)

The law, which focuses on sex trafficking (labor trafficking is also included albeit as a lesser offense), provides those charged with prostitution with a way out of direct criminal prosecution — the law reframes who is a victim versus a perpetrator – although, since prosecutions often seek testimony from trafficking victims, involvement with the criminal justice system may continue in some form. Questions around implementation will include:  what proportion of prosecutions will look at labor trafficking rather than sex trafficking? how well will victims fare following identification by the criminal justice system? what proportion of resources will be spent on victim assistance versus criminal prosecution?

The International Law of Human Exploitation: Convergence or Confusion?

Marking the seventh annual EU Anti-Trafficking Day and the launch of Switzerland’s first annual Anti-Human Trafficking Week, earlier today, the UN Special Rapporteur on Trafficking and the UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery hosted a panel discussion/debate to discuss the state of international law related to trafficking in persons and various forms of human exploitation, including slavery, servitude, forced labour, and debt bondage.  Project Participant Anne Gallagher participated in this discussion, adding much-needed conceptual and definitional clarity  — at a time when the tendency now is to simply conflate all of these practices under the label of “slavery.”

On that note, Walk Free has just released its inaugural Global Slavery Index — you can view it here.

Forced Into Prostitution — and Denied a Lifeline, by Florrie Burke

This article was cross-posted from the Huffington Post.

I’m an advocate for victims of human trafficking, and I’ve witnessed a lot of pain and suffering. But I’ll never forget the day I met two teenage girls at a District Attorney’s office the day after they escaped a brothel. As the girls sat there clutching the teddy bears that are usually given to children, they told me they had been forced to have sex with multiple men without condoms. One of the girls described a painful, burning vaginal infection that became so severe that the trafficker took her to the clinic. While she was there, she and her friend made an escape plan. When they returned the following day for follow up they ran out of the building and asked for help from a passer-by, who took them to the police.

Thankfully, this girl had a treatable infection. But many sex trafficking victims are not so lucky.

That’s why New York lawmakers should ban condoms as evidence of all prostitution-related crimes, including trafficking, in the 2013 legislative session.

As a founder and coordinator of the Freedom Network, a national network of more than 30 anti-trafficking organizations, I know that it is not uncommon for traffickers to restrict or deny their victims access to condoms and basic reproductive health services as a form of manipulation and control.

However, in New York and other parts of the United States, traffickers have an additional reason to deny their victims access to condoms. Condoms found at a location where people have been coerced into the sex trade may be used by prosecutors as evidence to support felony trafficking charges. This means that traffickers may have an especially strong incentive to forbid their victims from carrying condoms, to ban them from locations where exploitation is occurring, and to make it nearly impossible to use them. The consequences for those forced into the sex trade are severe–unwanted pregnancy often followed by forced abortion, and irreparable damage to their reproductive health from HIV and sexually transmitted infections.

A bill in the New York legislature, S1379/A2736, could help change this situation. This bill should prohibit prosecutors from using possession of condoms as evidence to support prostitution-related charges, including trafficking.

Some may argue that prosecutors need every tool at their disposal to find traffickers and hold them accountable.

But allowing condoms to continue to be used as evidence in trafficking cases would be detrimental to the health of the very people we are trying to help.

Much of the media spotlight on the bill has focused on the use of condoms as evidence for street-based prostitution and loitering charges. Clearly these practices fly in the face of common sense, turning an effective public health measure to prevent HIV into contraband, and leaving New Yorkers wondering if there is a “legal limit” to the number of condoms a person may carry.

But this bill would also protect the health and the lives of trafficking victims. In situations in which women and girls, as well as men and boys, are coerced into the sex trade, ending the use of condoms as evidence could give them some ability to negotiate for their own sexual safety. In reality, a condom may be the one protection a victim of trafficking has from a trafficker’s assault on her or his human rights, autonomy, and body.

Research by Human Rights Watch in San Francisco demonstrated how trafficking enforcement efforts targeted at brothels and massage parlors made business owners reluctant to keep condoms on the premises. Even legal businesses–bars and nightclubs–refused to accept condoms from outreach workers for fear of being shut down as houses of prostitution. Those who continued to accept condoms concealed them in ways that made them useless or dangerous. An outreach worker in San Francisco, for example, reported seeing unwrapped condoms stored in an empty bleach container at a massage parlor.

Whether the evidence is two condoms found in the purse of a woman walking in Coney Island or a box of condoms recovered from a massage parlor during a raid, the public health consequences are the same. When condoms are considered evidence of intent to engage in a criminal act, those who need them most, whether they are involved in the sex trade by choice or by coercion, or merely profiled as being engaged in prostitution, will fear carrying them. Even more disturbing, they may be denied access to them by those who control their work.

As an outspoken anti-trafficking advocate for nearly two decades, I support the toughest prosecution of traffickers. But prosecutors can and should make their cases without using condoms as evidence. And policymakers shouldn’t leave trafficking victims out of the solution. Their lives depend on it.

Florrie Burke is the Chair Emeritus of the Freedom Network and serves as an expert witness in human trafficking prosecutions. In 2013, she received the inaugural Presidential Award for Extraordinary Efforts to Combat Trafficking in Persons.

Call for Papers: Following the Money: Spending on Anti-Trafficking, Anti-Trafficking Review, Special Issue

Issue 3 to be published in 2014

Deadline for Submission: 15 December 2013

Anti-trafficking funding and work has mushroomed since the 1990s. Lacking is analysis of those anti-trafficking funds – where they come from, who they go to, what they are meant to do, what they actually achieve, and indeed whether they are needed.

Donors, organisations and trafficked persons’ priorities are not always aligned when it comes to how to spend money. In a first indication of a global mismatch between donors and organisations, AWID’s ‘Where’s the Money for Women’s Rights?’ survey of over 1000 women’s rights organisations shows that donors prioritise anti-trafficking (placing it in their top 10 list of priority issues to fund) more than women’s organisations (who do not see anti-trafficking among top 10 priority issues). Trafficked persons may or may not benefit from money flows aimed in their direction, or indeed may suffer as a result of anti-trafficking spending. Many organisations specifically dedicated to anti-trafficking think donors do not prioritise this issue enough. Others feel anti-trafficking funds, especially for more surface-level awareness campaigns, divert attention and money away from substantial human rights work on issues concerning workers, migrants, woman and children.

Of course, politics behind anti-trafficking money abound, and recipient organisations wonder whether they should take ‘tied’ funds, funds with restrictions or ‘dirty’ money that, for instance, may have originated from the profits of a company that employs workers in exploitative conditions. HIV/AIDS organisations struggle to decide whether to take up funds from a donor that mandates they stop handing out condoms. In recent years governments have rushed to spend money on a range of poorly designed initiatives in the hope of moving out of a low ranking in the US government’s yearly Trafficking in Persons Report.

The Anti-Trafficking Review calls for papers for a Special Issue ‘Following the Money: Spending on Anti-Trafficking’. This issue will present well-researched articles that analyze the funding landscape. The journal is interested in what kinds of organisations and work have been raised up by anti-trafficking funding and what work has been sidelined or excluded as a result. The journal is interested in studies of money trails that reveal how anti-trafficking money has changed the world for the better or for worse.

Papers may address:

• Total amounts allocated by government and private donors since the beginning of 2001, including any identifiable shifts in the geographical areas to which money has been allocated or the purpose of funding;
• Investments made by donors during the first decade since the Trafficking Protocol which have (or have not) had a noticeable impact-and lessons that donors may have learnt about what sort of spending actually prevents human trafficking;
• Motives behind anti-trafficking funding, such as, for instance, self-promotion in awareness raising campaigns, versus ‘genuine’ anti-trafficking goals;
• Tied aid, restrictions on spending, and foreign policy agendas such as democratisation behind aid;
• How spending on anti-trafficking compares to related sectors, now or historically, and whether increases in allocations to anti-trafficking can be seen to have reduced allocations to specific other sectors (and with what results).
• How funding for anti-trafficking is divided between prevention, protection and prosecution or other core anti-trafficking activities and whether this split is justified;
• How money is accounted for, and what return donors seek for their funding;
• How organisations have benefited in particular from the inflow of money for anti-trafficking initiatives, and with what wider ramifications;
• How independent funding sources are, and impacts on programming when a proportion of funds is linked to State funding mechanisms.

The Review promotes a human rights based approach to anti-trafficking, and it aims to explore the issue in its broader context including gender analyses and intersections with labour and migrant rights. The journal offers a space for dialogue for those seeking to communicate new ideas and findings. Academics, practitioners, trafficked persons and advocates are invited to submit articles. The Review presents rigorously considered, peer reviewed material in clear English. The journal is an open source, annual publication with a readership in 78 countries.

The Anti-Trafficking Review is abstracted/indexed in: CrossRef, Ulrich’s, Ebsco Host, Directory of Open Access Journals, WorldCat, eGranary, e-journals.org, and (pending) ProQuest.

Deadline for submission: 15 December 2013.

Word count: 4,000-6,000 words, including footnotes and abstract

If possible, let us know in advance (at atr@gaatw.org) what particular aspect/s of this topic you propose to write about by telling us the title and scope of your proposed article. The Review’s style guide and submission procedures are available at www.antitraffickingreview.org.

Special Issue Guest Editor: Mike Dottridge

Editor: Rebecca Napier-Moore