Title: Monitoring Human Trafficking in the U.S. and the Federal Response Steven Lize, Ph.D.
1Monitoring Human Trafficking in the U.S. and the
Federal ResponseSteven Lize, Ph.D.
- Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government
Accountability (OPPAGA) - SEA Conference, Tallahassee, FL
- February 03, 2006
2Tomas, trafficking survivor
- We realized he the coyote was negotiating
with the ranchero. I noticed he gave the coyote
like a check So I felt like they were doing
business--with us. I thought, this guy brought us
here to sell us! Because what I heard them
arguing about was a business deal like Hey Ill
let you have them for 500 each one and the
ranchero said, No, I said 350 and if you dont
want that, take them somewhere else And the
coyote said, OK He sold us like animals.
3Definition
- sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is
induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which
the person induced to perform such act has not
attained 18 years of age or - the recruitment, harbouring, transportation,
provision, or obtaining of a person for labour or
services, through the use of force, fraud, or
coercion for the purpose of subjection to
involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or
slavery (TVPA, 2000)
4Human trafficking trends in the US
- 14,500 to 50,000 men, women children
- Exists in 90 cities across U.S.
- Mostly informal sectors of economy
- 1999-2004, the media reported on 131 cases of
forced labor in the US involving 19,254 people
from a wide range of ethnic and racial groups. - Most victims immigrants, some are U.S. residents
or citizens.
5Trafficking Victims Protection Act (2000)
- criminalizes procuring and subjecting another
human being to peonage, involuntary sex
trafficking, slavery, involuntary servitude, or
forced labor - provides social services and legal benefits to
survivors of these crimes, including
authorization to remain in the country - provides funding to support protection programs
for survivors in the U.S. as well as abroad and - includes provisions to monitor and eliminate
trafficking in countries outside the U.S.
6Research objective
- 12 case studies (Washington DC, New York,
Florida, and Chicago) - 75 in-depth interviews
- To generate systematic research on the specific
questions clustered in seven areas of inquiry
7Areas of inquiry
- Victims and their experience
- Types of exploitation, industries
- Source countries of victims and perpetrators
- The role of law enforcement
- The role of the INS (now ICE)
- The role of the criminal justice system
- Collaboration with service providers, NGOs, etc.
8Research aims and goals
- Aim to locate a victim at the center of a
trafficking case and then to circle outward to
every person, agency, or institution that had
contact with that victim and a role in their
case. - Goal is to determine how to increase
prosecutions of traffickers.
9Who is trafficked?
- 1011 2341 from Mexico, Guatemala, China, India,
Latvia, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Argentina - Young and reasonably healthy
- From poor, but not necessarily the poorest,
backgrounds. - Often have a level of education that seems
incongruent with their enslavement. - Generally, migrants exploited within already
existing migration structures
10Industries where forced to work
- domestic service
- agricultural work
- prostitution
- entertainment
- factory work
- restaurant service
- street peddling
- Exploitation lasted much longer than that of
being trafficked. - None sold on to different exploiters or forced
into different types of work.
11Recruitment
- Recruitment is particularly effective when
traffickers rely on victims whom they have turned
into loyal enforcers or recruiters. Recruitment
is also effective when the potential victims
family members are involved. - One-third of our case studies involved
foreign-national victims who were recruited
within the United States.
12Operations vary in size and complexity
- single individuals or agencies providing a single
service smuggling migrants across a border in
order to sell or exploit them in the destination
country - segmented businesses involving a criminal network
and a legitimate transportation or labor
recruitment company - sophisticated and complex networks spanning both
long periods of time and large geographical
distances
13Hidden slaves
- Often have contact with local law enforcement
authorities. - Lacking sufficient training, agents failed to
notice the victims. - Discovered trafficking victims in only one of our
case studies.
14Barriers to law enforcement justice
- Tension between the needs of victims, the needs
of law enforcement, and immigration authorities
requirements to process T visa applications. - Tension from TVPA Investigators must support T
visa applications same investigators may be
later accused of using the offer of a T visa to
purchase the cooperation of the witness.
15Victim-witness cooperation
- Fear of reprisals against themselves, and against
their families in the origin countries, prevents
many trafficking victims from effectively
participating in prosecutions. - The highly variant social, cultural, and
linguistic backgrounds of victims of trafficking
are a significant challenge to both gaining their
cooperation and building successful cases.
16The wider scope of trafficking
- Department of Labor inspection powers are
valuable but under-utilized resource. - Human traffickers are engaged in a wide range of
crimes both against their victims and against the
state.
17NGO cooperation is beneficial
- Non-governmental organizations and service
providers have a role to play in mounting
successful arrests of traffickers. -
- When different official and civil society
agencies work together they are most likely to
achieve successful interventions and prosecutions
the reverse is also true.
18FULL REPORT AVAILABLE ONLINE AT
- NATIONAL CRIMINAL JUSTICE RESEARCH SERVICE
- http//www.ncjrs.gov/p/grants/
- Steven Lize, OPPAGA
- lize.steve_at_oppaga.fl.gov