Monitoring Human Trafficking in the U.S. and the Federal Response Steven Lize, Ph.D.

1
Monitoring 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

2
Tomas, 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.

3
Definition

• 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)

4
Human 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.

5
Trafficking 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.

6
Research 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

7
Areas 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.

8
Research 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.

9
Who 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

10
Industries 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.

11
Recruitment

• 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.

12
Operations 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

13
Hidden 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.

14
Barriers 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.

15
Victim-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.

16
The 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.

17
NGO 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.

18
FULL REPORT AVAILABLE ONLINE AT

• NATIONAL CRIMINAL JUSTICE RESEARCH SERVICE
• http//www.ncjrs.gov/p/grants/
• Steven Lize, OPPAGA
• lize.steve_at_oppaga.fl.gov