Southern Baptist ethics leader Richard Land is part of a diverse coalition calling on United States senators to pass improved legislation to combat human trafficking.
The bill’s adoption "will allow the United States to combat modern-day slavery with an effectiveness comparable to 19th century efforts to end the chattel enslavement of Africans," the letter to members of the Senate Foreign Relations and Judiciary committees said.
About 800,000 men, women and children are trafficked across international borders each year, according to the State Department’s Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Office. This does not include millions of victims who are trafficked within their own national borders, the office says. About 80 percent of the transnational victims are females, and as much as 50 percent are minors. The data show the majority of those trafficked across international borders are victims of sexual exploitation.
The TIP Office has estimated as many as 17,500 people are trafficked into the United States each year.
In addition to Richard Land, the ERLC’s vice president for public policy and research, Barrett Duke, signed the letter.
Other signers included Gary Bauer, president of American Values; Janice Shaw Crouse of Concerned Women for America; Gloria Steinem; Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women; Walter Fauntroy, president of the National Black Leadership Roundtable; Tony Campolo, professor emeritus at Eastern University; Jim Wallis, president of Sojourners; Ron Sider, president of Evangelicals for Social Action; Rich Cizik, vice president of governmental affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals; Sammy Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference; John Miller, former director of the TIP Office; Patrick Trueman, former chief of the Department of Justice’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section; David Gushee, ethics professor at Mercer University; and actresses Anne Archer and Alyssa Milano.
The letter acknowledges that the signers differ on many issues, but are united to end the abuses of trafficking.
The House-approved bill, which reauthorizes and amends the Trafficking Victims Protection Act passed in 2000, would make the following improvements, according to the letter:
• It would make sure the law regards proof of fraud, force, or coercion, and the use of minors by sex traffickers, as the bases not for conviction but for heightened punishment.
• It would connect domestic with international trafficking in order to combat both more actively.
• It would empower the TIP Office to influence other governments to act more aggressively against trafficking.
The House bill is wrong for many reasons. It is no wonder why anti-trafficking groups, including the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking, the Freedom Network, and the American Civil Liberties Union, oppose the bill’s provisions.
*Trafficked victims risk losing money, legal assistance, and support services.
*The bill negatively changes the definition of what constitutes human trafficking.
*It proposes changes that would overtax the U.S. Department of Justice’s crime fighting resources.
*It unconstitutionally federalizes sex crimes.
*It would impede states’ efforts to fight local sex crimes.
*It mislabels all prostitutes as sex trafficked victims.
It often has not been the case that proving that a person was trafficked was hard. So, the provisions to delete “force, fraud, and coercion” from the original definition would not help prosecute traffickers.
U.S. government officials, such as John R. Miller, former Director of the U.S. Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking In Persons, have cited studies on prostitutes that represent a mere 130 of an estimated 500,000-1 million prostitutes living in U.S.
The bill also would misappropriate funds dedicated to anti-child exploitation work in order for the DOJ to prosecute prostitution-related crimes.
And rather than helping laborer trafficking victims and children, the bill requires the DoJ to go after sex tourists and pimps.
Senator Biden and Brownback and the authors of the Senate version, S. 3061, did the right thing in excluding the controversial provisions in the House bill. And I highly encourage that our representatives in the Senate and the House to oppose the provisions of H.R. 3887 in the upcoming compromise bill.
TVPRA 2007 is unhelpful to victims.
The House bill is wrong for many reasons. It is no wonder why anti-trafficking groups, including the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking, the Freedom Network, and the American Civil Liberties Union, oppose the bill’s provisions.
*Trafficked victims risk losing money, legal assistance, and support services.
*The bill negatively changes the definition of what constitutes human trafficking.
*It proposes changes that would overtax the U.S. Department of Justice’s crime fighting resources.
*It unconstitutionally federalizes sex crimes.
*It would impede states’ efforts to fight local sex crimes.
*It mislabels all prostitutes as sex trafficked victims.
It often has not been the case that proving that a person was trafficked was hard. So,
the provisions to delete “force, fraud, and coercion” from the original definition would not help prosecute traffickers.
U.S. government officials, such as John R. Miller, former Director of the U.S. Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking In Persons, have cited studies on prostitutes that represent a mere 130 of an estimated 500,000-1 million prostitutes living in U.S.
The bill also would misappropriate funds dedicated to anti-child exploitation work in order for the DOJ to prosecute prostitution-related crimes.
And rather than helping laborer trafficking victims and children, the bill requires the DoJ to go after sex tourists and pimps.
Senator Biden and Brownback and the authors of the Senate version, S. 3061, did the right thing in excluding the controversial provisions in the House bill. And I highly encourage that our representatives in the Senate and the House to oppose the provisions of H.R. 3887 in the upcoming compromise bill.
Ngoc H. Nguyen
http://www.trafffickingwatch.org.