SARAH SEWALL ON ENDING MODERN SLAVERY

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Ending Modern Slavery: The Role of U.S. Leadership
Testimony
Sarah Sewall
Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights
U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Washington, DC
February 11, 2015

Chairman Corker,
Senator Menendez,
Members of the Committee,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, for your leadership in combating trafficking in persons. On behalf of the State Department, I look forward to working closely with you to tackle this terrible crime and human rights abuse. This issue is a policy priority for the Administration and Secretary Kerry, in particular, and I thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

What do we, in the U.S. government, mean when we talk about human trafficking? Under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (or TVPA), trafficking in persons includes forced labor, forced prostitution of adults, and the prostitution of children. The term human trafficking describes acts of recruiting, harboring, transporting, providing, or obtaining a person for compelled labor or commercial sex acts through the use of force, fraud, or coercion, although inducing minors into the commercial sex trade is considered trafficking even if no force, fraud or coercion is involved. It can include, but does not require, movement of individuals. Trafficking in persons harms people and corrodes communities. It corrupts labor markets and global supply chains that are essential to a thriving global economy. It undermines rule of law and stability. Fighting trafficking in persons is the smart thing to do, and it is the right thing to do. As President Obama has said, “Our fight against human trafficking is one of the great human rights causes of our time, and the United States will continue to lead it.” It is our responsibility as a country and as individuals to protect the universal values of liberty and freedom.

There is a lot that we as individuals can do to join this struggle against modern slavery. I recently went to SlaveryFootprint.org and took a survey to learn how my consumption habits are connected to modern-day slavery. It was a stark reminder – many of the products I use on a daily basis, the battery in my cell phone, the chocolate I eat, the cotton clothes I wear, may have been produced from the work of dozens of slaves. Slavery Footprint, a project seed-funded by the State Department, has reached millions of consumers globally and given them a voice to insist that the food we eat and the products we buy are made free of forced labor.

Let me begin by discussing what the U.S. government is doing here at home. Federal agencies have been going the extra mile, spurred by President Obama’s March 2012 direction to his Cabinet to redouble the Administration’s efforts to combat human trafficking. The President’s Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat and Trafficking in Persons, which Congress established and Secretary Kerry currently chairs, has strengthened its collaborative work, including developing and implementing the nation’s first-ever Federal Strategic Action Plan on Services for Victims of Human Trafficking in the United States. Government agencies are enabling law enforcement and service providers to deploy resources more effectively and raising public awareness both at home and abroad.

Federal agencies are also working to expand partnerships with civil society and the private sector to bring more resources to bear in fighting this injustice. The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued an advisory last September to financial institutions on recognizing “red flags” that may indicate financial activity related to human trafficking as well as the distinct crime of human smuggling. The advisory provides common terms that financial institutions may use when reporting activity related to these crimes that will assist law enforcement in better identifying possible cases of human trafficking.

As the largest single purchaser of goods and services both in the United States and around the world, the U.S. government must set the highest standards for our own business practices. With Executive Order 13627, the President committed the federal government to strengthen protections against human trafficking in federal contracting. Just over a week ago, the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council published updates to the Federal Acquisition Regulation, as required by this Executive Order and related requirements in the Ending Trafficking in Government Contracting Act (set forth in the National Defense Authorization Act for 2013), establishing a number of new and important anti-trafficking safeguards. In addition, the State Department funded Verité, an award-winning labor rights NGO, to develop a range of tools and resources for all businesses – not just federal contractors – committed to preventing trafficking. As part of this initiative, Verité just published a report entitled Strengthening Protections Against Trafficking in Persons in Federal and Corporate Supply Chains, which details the risks of human trafficking in 11 key sectors where federal procurement is significant. This type of supply chain risk analysis can help federal contractors, other businesses, and consumers identify and mitigate human trafficking.

Here in the United States, we have modern-day heroes who are changing how we do business. The members of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers have transformed Florida tomato fields from a place of wide-spread egregious exploitation into one where workers’ rights are not only respected, but prioritized. They demanded that the large restaurant and supermarket chains purchase tomatoes at a fair price. On January 29, in front of leaders from the private sector, civil society, and the Federal government assembled for a White House Forum on Combating Trafficking in Persons in Supply Chains, Secretary Kerry presented the Coalition with the 2015 Presidential Award for Extraordinary Efforts to Combat Trafficking in Persons. Among the accomplishments for which the Coalition was recognized is its Fair Foods Program, a highly successful worker-based social responsibility model that leverages the market power of major corporate buyers, coupled with strong consumer awareness, worker training, and robust enforcement mechanisms to end labor trafficking, enhance wages, and promote workplace rights.

Congress and the American people also have much to be proud of. This year marks the 15th anniversary of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, as well as the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, known as the Palermo Protocol. We have come a long way in the past 15 years: 166 states are now party to the Palermo Protocol. Human trafficking has moved from a misunderstood issue to an international priority. More than one hundred countries have passed anti-trafficking laws and many have established specialized law enforcement units, set up trafficking victim assistance mechanisms, and launched public awareness campaigns aimed at combating this worldwide crime that affects every country.

However, we have a long way to go. Although the International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates there are 21 million victims of forced labor around the world, the 2014 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report notes that fewer than 45,000 trafficking victims were identified in 2014. Convictions of traffickers remain woefully insufficient given the magnitude of the crime. This is a troubling trend we must continue working to address. Having adequate anti-trafficking laws is an important first step for any country, but these laws must be enforced, and traffickers held accountable.

Fueled by the dedication of officers in every bureau of the Department as well as at U.S. missions around the world, the TVPA-mandated TIP Report plays an important role in confronting this lucrative crime. In accordance with the Minimum Standards of the TVPA, the TIP Report assesses the adequacy of national laws in prohibiting and punishing the crime and evaluates government actions to prosecute suspects and protect victims. Countries and territories are ranked by tiers based on these standards. Tier 1 countries fully comply with the Minimum Standards. Tier 2 and Tier 2 Watch List countries do not, but are making significant efforts to do so. Tier 3 countries are not making significant efforts to fully comply with the Minimum Standards. These rankings help hold governments accountable in their efforts to fight human trafficking. They motivate governments to develop policies and structures to fight this serious crime. In fact, researchers have documented the correlation between tier ranking downgrades and states’ subsequent enactment of anti-trafficking legislation.

The TIP Report includes specific recommendations for how each country can better prevent this crime, prosecute its suspected perpetrators, and assist its victims. These recommendations are the heart of the Report. They guide U.S. diplomacy and engagement on human trafficking issues – both publicly and privately. They also serve as a roadmap to better address the problem – not for the sake of improving a tier ranking, but to make institutional changes that will put additional traffickers behind bars, help victims get assistance, and prevent exploitation of the vulnerable.

A key element to the TIP Report is identifying and documenting trends in types of exploitation, in criminal strategies, and in raising awareness and cracking down on the crime. For example, over time we have seen more governments recognize the important contributions of NGOs in this fight and improved cooperation, especially in the areas of victim identification and victim services. Many countries are beginning to grapple with the extent and challenges of detecting forced labor. While we have seen an increase in the detection of forced labor cases, there is still a large disparity in government efforts to address forced labor, which is considered to be more prevalent globally than sex trafficking. In victim identification and services, women and girls appear to comprise the vast majority of identified victims of sex trafficking and are also a substantial portion of labor trafficking victims. In addition, we have seen links in regional and trans-regional human trafficking to economic disparity and migration flows, the presence of organized crime, conflicts and political instability, official corruption and weak rule of law.

The State Department and USAID have sought to combine anti-trafficking and labor rights diplomacy with complementary programming to help countries achieve results. The State Department’s Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Office is currently overseeing 98 projects worth over $59 million in 71 countries around the world. The TIP Office’s foreign assistance targets both sex trafficking and labor trafficking through implementation of the “3P” paradigm of prevention, protection of victims, and prosecution of suspected traffickers. A fourth “P” for partnership, is also a critical element in the majority of programs. Along with funding NGOs that offer services to trafficking victims, much of our anti-trafficking assistance is designed to help partner governments build their own capacity to fight human trafficking. In the last two years, Botswana, Haiti, Maldives, Papua New Guinea, and Seychelles all passed anti-trafficking laws, and Morocco and Namibia have drafted anti-trafficking legislation. In March 2014, the Bahamas secured its first conviction for human trafficking. Maldives also saw its first trafficking conviction.

Successful programs often work in close partnership with host country governments and key stakeholders to encourage a comprehensive response to trafficking. For example, in Afghanistan, a State Department grantee partnered with the Ministry of Women’s Affairs to establish an advocacy council comprised of local non-governmental organizations and relevant government agencies to enhance protection measures for victims of human trafficking. The council and government coalition partners have adopted minimum standards of care for trafficking victims and provide training and capacity-building assistance. The TIP Office is currently funding a global project that integrates survivors of trafficking into a six-month vocational and educational program in the hotel service industry. The project provides survivors and at-risk youth with life skills and vocational training through a combination of training and practical instruction in coordination with leading hotels. This project has already demonstrated successes in Mexico and Vietnam and was recently expanded to India and Ethiopia.

Labor programming from the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) targets forced labor through strengthening the organizational and technical capacity of worker rights organizations, providing socio-economic support and alternative livelihood opportunities to exploited workers, and strengthening systems to promote identification and remediation of labor law violations in a variety of sectors at the local, regional, and international levels. DRL’s grants are designed to bolster civil society and labor’s capacity to play a role in migration policymaking. The Department makes an effort to ensure that trade and investment policies, agreements, and preference programs consistently address work conditions for both national and foreign migrant workers. In collaboration with the State Department’s Economic Bureau and the Department of Commerce, DRL partners with multinational corporations, business councils, and American Chambers of Commerce to convey expectations on labor rights both to host governments and to companies within their supply chains.

The State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration funds eight regional migration programs that build government and civil society capacity to identify and protect vulnerable migrants, including victims of human trafficking. The bureau also funds a program that facilitates the family reunification of foreign trafficking victims identified in the United States and contributes to a global fund that helps stranded trafficking victims voluntarily return home.

Corruption and an environment of impunity are significant factors contributing to the practice of human trafficking. The Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs has some of the Department’s strongest tools for strengthening rule of law and helping governments prevent and combat corruption. Its anti-corruption and law enforcement programming provides training to law enforcement officers and the judiciary on investigating human trafficking and corruption cases and address the linkages among human trafficking, corruption, and organized crime.

Interagency training at U.S. missions overseas, including Brazil, Cambodia, the Philippines, Togo, the Dominican Republic, and Hong Kong, will enable State Department, DHS, and FBI agents to pursue trafficking cases in the U.S. through international cooperation and engagement in foreign countries. These agencies have trained some 2,000 law enforcement and consular officers, as well as locally employed staff, at embassies and consulates around the world. Closer to home on our border with Mexico, the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security have collaborated with Mexican law enforcement counterparts to exchange leads and evidence, assist victims, and develop high-impact prosecutions under both U.S. and Mexican law.

USAID is one of the largest donors engaged in efforts to counter human trafficking. Since 2001, USAID has programed approximately $180 million in anti-trafficking activities in over 70 countries and regional missions. Throughout all of its work, USAID seeks to address the root causes of exploitation and vulnerability, such as gender and ethnic discrimination, lack of educational and employment opportunities, weak rule of law, and the absence of social welfare safety nets. In Jordan, USAID has integrated counter-trafficking activities into a broader human rights program combating sexual and gender based violence, early marriage, and child labor among Syrian refugees and host communities affected by the Syrian crisis. With State Department funding, the International Centre for Migration Policy Development is assessing the impact of the Syrian war on trafficking in persons in Syria and the surrounding region (Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey).

In Bangladesh, along with providing training and technical assistance to a range of government officials, USAID has worked to improve community awareness of the risks of human trafficking throughout the country. Local government officials, teachers, parents, students, and community leaders have learned how to prevent human trafficking and support the needs of survivors. USAID also has helped prospective migrant workers protect themselves from deception and abuse through awareness campaigns and trainings on the overseas recruitment process, worker registration, and other risks they may face. USAID continues to train media professionals, NGOs and independent journalists on investigative reporting, story development, and human rights with a focus on migrant worker rights. Complementary TIP Office programming has supported the development and distribution of an anti-trafficking law enforcement training toolkit and hands-on training for 45 Bangladeshi law enforcement officials on the toolkit’s practical application. In Dhaka, Bogra, and Jessore, 258 trafficking survivors so far have received State Department supported shelter, rehabilitation, and reintegration services.

In 2013, Congress gave the State Department a new innovative tool to combat trafficking of children, the Child Protection Compacts (CPC). The compacts can help build sustainable and effective systems of justice, prevention, and protection. I am pleased to tell you that the TIP Office is moving forward to propose the first Child Protection Compact Partnership – to be developed and implemented jointly with the Government of Ghana. This Compact Partnership will include developing a collaborative plan to implement new and more effective policies and programs to reduce child trafficking and improve child protection in Ghana. Several strong civil society organizations are currently working to address child sex trafficking and forced labor in Ghana and, in addition to the Ghanaian government, the TIP Office expects to engage multiple partners to fulfill the promise of this first Partnership.

Our international partners – including civil society, other governments, and international organizations – play an essential role in making each step forward possible. In the Asia-Pacific region, Australia has taken on a leadership role with its Australia-Asia Program to Combat Trafficking in Persons, a five-year AUD50 million program to support the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and seven Southeast Asian countries in developing and implementing criminal justice responses to trafficking in persons. In addition, Australian police regularly conduct trainings to combat child sex tourism and other forms of human trafficking across the Asia-Pacific region. ASEAN under the Government of Burma’s chairmanship chose to highlight anti-trafficking priorities in 2014.

The European Union is strengthening anti-trafficking efforts across its member states through the issuance and enforcement of its 2011 anti-trafficking directive, as well as the 2012 directive establishing minimum standards of support to victims of crime. Sweden has allocated millions of dollars in anti-trafficking funds in recent years, including in grants to international organizations such as UNICEF and the International Organization for Migration. The Government of the United Kingdom has committed to increase anti-trafficking engagement in select countries around the world and will build on current anti-trafficking programming including “Work in Freedom” – a five-year, approximately $15 million initiative implemented by the ILO to prevent trafficking for labor exploitation of 100,000 women and girls in South Asia by targeting known routes used for the trafficking of migrant workers from South Asia to the Gulf States.

In December, with U.S. support, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) launched its Handbook on Preventing Domestic Servitude in Diplomatic Households, which is relevant for all international organizations and reaches beyond the OSCE region. Also in December of last year, member states of the Organization of American States revised the organization’s Work Plan to Combat Trafficking in Persons in the Western Hemisphere for the 2015-2018 timeframe. The revised, robust plan includes awareness training for diplomatic personnel, protections against trafficking in government procurement of goods and services, greater oversight of recruitment and placement agencies, and inclusion of trafficking survivors’ input in the development of victim assistance policies and programs.

Civilian security and human rights are closely interwoven, and promoting security is often a key means of supporting human rights. Crises increase vulnerabilities to trafficking, as people are displaced, lose income sources and community support systems, and seek physical and economic security for themselves and their families. The breakdown of social and government structures leaves populations defenseless as protections are reduced and options for recourse disappear. In the fight against human trafficking, the State Department looks at the challenge from a holistic foreign policy perspective. We are increasingly mainstreaming anti-trafficking elements into other foreign assistance programs. Our anti-trafficking programs rely on broader U.S. supported reforms in rule of law, community security, and conflict prevention.

The reality is that conflicts and ineffective states give rise to trafficking and allow it to persist. We must address these underlying causes to win this fight. This is a critical component of the State Department and USAID’s work. The U.S. government works diligently to prevent and stabilize conflicts, and, where it cannot, to help refugees and the internally displaced. These activities complement our strategic efforts in fighting human trafficking. Where the United States, foreign partners, and civil society can help address state weakness, we provide a more stable and effective platform for protecting citizens. Poor enforcement of labor laws, discrimination, corruption, and restrictions on freedom of association and on other human and labor rights leave people at risk of exploitation, including trafficking. The struggle against modern slavery is one of interconnected threats and opportunities. I am proud of the leading role the United States has played, with strong leadership from Congress, in elevating the global profile of this issue, helping free individuals from modern slavery, and galvanizing the work of others to join in to this critical effort. The road is long in our battle against human trafficking, but working with our global partners, the United States will not relent in our multipronged approach to combat this scourge. We welcome Congress’s interest and partnership in overcoming this global challenge.

Thank you and I look forward to your questions.

SECRETARY OF STATE KERRY'S OP-ED ON THE VATICAN AND HUMAN SLAVERY

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT 

Working With the Vatican Against Modern Slavery

Op-Ed

John Kerry

Secretary of State

The Boston Globe

April 20, 2014

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Last month, I traveled to Rome with President Obama, where I was honored to meet His Holiness Pope Francis. As an altar boy six decades ago, I never imagined that I would find myself crossing the threshold of the Vatican to see the Bishop of Rome.

My wife, Teresa, and I took our own pilgrimage three years ago at Easter to Assisi, and traveled to Porziuncala to see the chapel which St. Francis restored out of the rubble, one of his own special ways of acting upon the prophecy visited upon him to “repair my house.” Two years later, Teresa and I sat in Mass at Georgetown as our priest shared the moving story of the moment Pope Francis decided to take Francis for his name as the Holy Father – after the Cardinal from Brazil shared his caution not to “forget the poor.”

Today, all the world knows that this was more than a symbolic statement by Pope Francis, but rather the start of a mission that is now an example to the world.

Today, as the first Catholic Secretary of State in 33 years, I find special joy and pride in the way that the United States can partner with the Holy See to help meet some of our greatest global challenges.

Among those challenges, we find perhaps no greater threat to human dignity, no greater assault on basic freedom, than the evil of human trafficking — what we call modern-day slavery and what Pope Francis himself denounced as “a crime against humanity.”
Whether it comes in the form of a young girl trapped in a brothel, a woman enslaved as a domestic worker, a boy forced to sell himself on the street, or a man abused on a fishing boat, the victims of this crime have been robbed of the right to lead the lives they choose for themselves.

For years, it has been apparent that this crime affects every country in the world. As many as 27 million people are victims, and the United States is the first to acknowledge that no government anywhere is doing enough.

But as we dive deeper, we begin to see that modern slavery, like so many other 21st century challenges, doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s interconnected with so many of our other foreign-policy concerns, from environmental sustainability to advancing the lives of women and girls to combating transnational organized crime. Wherever we find poverty and lack of opportunity — wherever the rule of law is weak, where corruption is most ingrained, and where populations can’t count on the protection of government and law enforcement — we find not just vulnerability to trafficking, but zones of impunity where traffickers can more easily prey on their victims.
A major zone of impunity is beyond the border and jurisdiction of any single country. Research shows us that people laboring on the high seas are subject to brutal abuse and enslavement. This fact cannot be separated from our other concerns about the ocean: if we want to secure safe and free trade routes, bolster global food security, or curb environmental degradation, we ignore the oceans at our peril.

Trafficking sits at the intersection of all these issues.

Do we think that a ship’s captain who beats and murders his crew will respect his fishing quota? Do we believe he’ll respect laws against smuggling drugs, weapons, and people? Do we think he’s helping conserve the environment for future generations? The answers are self-evident, and so is the need to address this problem head-on.

We are starting to make progress. I’ve instructed the Trafficking in Persons Office at the State Department to zero in on the way modern slavery entangles with economic and environmental concerns. This is one powerful example of how we are engaging with faith communities to solve a range of global issues of mutual concern, in partnership with the new Office of Faith-Based Community Initiatives at the State Department, led by Dr. Shaun Casey, whom I recruited from Wesley Seminary.

A key partner in these efforts will be the Apostolate of the Sea, a Catholic organization with a world-wide network of clergy and lay religious serving workers in the fishing fleet and their families. Working together, we feel confident we can improve the way we uncover modern slavery, identify its victims, get them out of harm’s way, and bring their abusers to justice.
As Christians the world over celebrate Easter, this is a fitting place to fix our gaze. Christ found his earliest followers off the shore of the Sea of Galilee. He brought them off their fishing boats to become his apostles, to spread his message of love and compassion. Particularly at Easter, this is a message that can guide people of all faiths. When we embrace our common humanity and stand up for the dignity of all people, we realize the vision of a world that is more caring and more just — a world free from slavery.

DHS, WESTERN UNION ANNOUNCE ANTI-HUMAN TRAFFICKING ALLIANCE

FROM:  U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

DHS AND WESTERN UNION ANNOUNCE NEW ALLIANCE TO COMBAT HUMAN TRAFFICKING

Announcement Marks Latest Expansion of the Blue Campaign Awareness Efforts
WASHINGTON— The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) today announced a new alliance between the DHS Blue Campaign— the unified voice for DHS’ efforts to combat human trafficking— and Western Union.

Through this alliance, Western Union will provide the Blue Campaign’s multilingual training and awareness materials to select agent locations across the country. Participating agents will also receive additional training from Western Union on how to identify and recognize indicators of human trafficking, as well as how to report suspected cases of human trafficking.

“Today, we are pledging to do more to combat human trafficking by broadening our network of partners which will enable us to better identify and rescue victims of this inexcusable crime, and bring the perpetrators to justice,” said Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Rand Beers. “We’re grateful to have the participation of Western Union in this important effort, which will help save lives, protect innocent victims, and prevent this form of modern day slavery.”

The Blue Campaign works in collaboration with law enforcement, government, non-governmental and private organizations, to protect the basic right of freedom and to bring those who exploit human lives to justice.

Working with DHS, Western Union will use training and awareness materials developed by the DHS Blue Campaign to educate its agents who regularly interact with the public on potential indicators of human trafficking and how to identify potential victims.

In June 2013, the DHS Blue Campaign unveiled new public awareness materials including a Public Service Announcement, posters and handouts to educate on victim identification and crime reporting, the case investigation process, and available resources for victim support. Western Union will display these multilingual materials at Western Union Agent locations throughout the country.
“Ending human trafficking is possible only if everyone steps in and plays a role,” said Barry Koch, chief compliance officer for Western Union. “We are committed to using the trust, reach and power of our brand along with our Agent network to engage the public and arm them with awareness and the resources to spot the signs and report suspect activity.”

In Oct. 2012, DHS announced a partnership with the Department of Transportation and Amtrak to train over 8,000 Amtrak frontline employees and Amtrak police officers to identify and recognize indicators of human trafficking, as well as how to report suspected cases of human trafficking.

SEC. OF LABOR ON INTERNATIONAL FORCED LABOR

FROM:  U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
Statement by Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis on statistics updated by International Labor Organization regarding forced labor
WASHINGTON — Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis today issued the following statement on data regarding forced labor that have been issued by the International Labor Organization:

"When Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation nearly 150 years ago, he underscored the commitment of the United States to the enduring cause of freedom. President Obama has called upon everyone to 'educate themselves about all forms of modern slavery and the signs and consequences of human trafficking,' pledging to combat this crime within our borders and join 'with our partners around the world... to end this injustice.' One such important partner is the International Labor Organization, which today released a new global estimate on forced labor that indicates approximately 21 million individuals, including 15 million adults and 6 million children around the world, continue to be, in the words of the report, 'trapped in jobs... which they cannot leave.' These numbers provide more precise estimates and focus our attention on the magnitude of this global crime and on the plight of those who continue to be coerced or deceived into forced labor or sexual exploitation, and are a welcome addition to the research in this important area.

"The Department of Labor commends the ILO for the transparency of its research process and for its commitment to improving survey methodologies to estimate hidden and vulnerable populations. The department funded the ILO's efforts to develop survey guidelines to estimate forced labor of adults and children, and worked with four governments to conduct national forced labor surveys. When the tools of research are used to inform policies and programs, the effectiveness of our efforts to eradicate modern slavery will be long-lasting. The department commends those governments that contributed to the global estimate by opening their doors to data collection in order to better understand the complexities regarding modern slavery, and we encourage other governments to do so as well.

"The United States will continue to bring resources to bear on the scourge of modern slavery through the President's Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, in partnership with civil society and the private sector. Today we reaffirm our commitment to eradicating this affront to human dignity and justice."

MODERN HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Press Statement Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State New Haven, Connecticut
April 13, 2012
Later this year, we will mark the 150th anniversary of the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, and as we remember the sad history of slavery in the United States and honor those who fought to end it, we must also recommit ourselves to delivering on the promise of freedom. Because around the world today, 27 million people are living in modern slavery, or what we call trafficking in persons.

That’s why this Administration has made the effort to combat modern slavery a top priority. Here at home, agencies across government are working together to prosecute traffickers, and to bring needed assistance to survivors. Around the world, we are working with governments to improve their response to this crime, and we are supporting anti-trafficking programs in 37 countries with foreign assistance. Our annualTrafficking in Persons Report is the most comprehensive assessment of what governments are doing to stop this crime, and I’m glad you’ve had the chance to hear from Lou de Baca about everything the State Department is doing to move this struggle forward.

Now, when I was a law student in these same classrooms and hallways, I had the opportunity to learn from brilliant scholars and legal minds, and to study cutting-edge ideas about civil rights and children’s issues. So it doesn’t surprise me that that Yale Law School is again leading the way as we develop new innovations and practices to help us fight this horrible crime.

I hope this conference has been an opportunity for all of you to share ideas and build partnerships that will strengthen our efforts to combat modern slavery. Thank you all for your tireless work to stop this crime.

STATE DEPARTMENT REMARKS ON HUMAN TRAFFICKING AT LINCOLN'S COTTAGE

The following excerpt is from the U.S. State Department website:

Remarks at President Lincoln's Cottage
RemarksLuis CdeBaca
Ambassador-at-Large, Office To Monitor and Combat Trafficking in PersonsWashington, DC
February 23, 2012
As prepared for delivery
“Thank you all very much. And thank you, Brad Myles. The Polaris Project is on the front lines of the fight against modern slavery. A few years ago, a hotline was set up to report suspected cases of trafficking in persons. It’s a phone number that teachers and neighbors and concerned individuals can call when something looks suspicious. It’s a phone number the U.S. Government gives out to immigrants entering the country along with information about their rights and the potential warning signs of trafficking in persons. It has resulted in the investigation and prosecution of traffickers.
When those phones ring, they ring in the National Human Trafficking Resource Center, which the Polaris Project operates. And thanks to Brad’s intrepid leadership, the Resource Center is growing busier all the time.
And I’d like to thank Erin Carlson Mast and all the staff here at President Lincoln’s Cottage, both for working to make this new exhibit a reality and for all they do in their work for the National Trust. The National Trust for Historic Preservation does more than just maintain important sites across our country–they preserve our history and our heritage.
They preserve for posterity parts of our history such as this house, where Lincoln put pen to paper and took the first steps toward a policy of Emancipation. The Trust also preserves sites such as the Belle Grove Plantation, about 80 miles west of here, where for more than a century, hundreds of slaves labored on thousands of acres. Where in 1864 blood was spilled and lives lost as General Philip Sheridan rallied his men against a surprise attack, putting an end to the Confederate invasion of the North.
These are the places where our country was made, where our history—good and bad—was written. Places that allow us to hear, if we only listen, the voices reminding us who we are, and what we must become.
And sometimes the men and women who work at the Trust have brought voices that we don’t always recognize. Not just Lincoln or Sheridan or Douglass, but like the people whose voices are heard once again because of the Trust’s Vice President for Historic Sites, my friend and classmate Estevan Rael-Gálvez. Because of Estevan, we know about Rosario Romero, a Navajo woman who lived in New Mexico in the latter half of the 19th Century. Her given name, Ated-bah-Hozhoni, meant “Happy Girl” in Navajo, but she was taken from the wreckage of her family after a raid. She was sold to a man named Martínez for 150 pesos and given the name Rosario.
She lived 70 more years. During most of that time, slavery had already been outlawed, but for three generations the census places her in the service of that same family, listed in the census records from the time as a “servant,” and a “day laborer,” and a “wool weaver.”
The reality, of course, is that she had been a slave. A tragedy in the unknown history of Indian Slavery in our country. Not just forgotten, but in a society that tried to make sure everyone forgot, that the crime went unnamed, unremarked. And it would have, but for Estevan.
The Trust is working to make sure these stories are told. And they need to be told. They need to be seared into our collective memories, because the dark chapters in our history as well as our triumphs need to guide us as we chart the course toward our country’s future.
Of course, there is no greater blemish on our nation’s history—no darker chapter in the story of America—than that of chattel slavery. And there is no greater inspiration—no greater example of American values and the American spirit—than men and women who dedicated themselves to seeing that institution eliminated.
Whether they themselves escaped the bonds of slavery and then made it their work to help others do the same, or led soldiers into battle, or sat in a room and wrote the ideas of the Abolitionist Movement into our law, the fruits of their labors illuminate our history. Their example stands today as a challenge to fight this evil, no matter where or when it may occur.
And President Obama, Secretary Clinton, and the other members of the Cabinet are heeding that call, fighting what the President calls “the intolerable yoke of modern slavery.”
On the first of this month, we marked National Freedom Day, commemorating the date that President Lincoln signed the 13th Amendment and sent it to the states for ratification. Freedom Day. It started under President Truman; it grew into Black History month. In fact, the Freedom Day movement was founded by Major Richard Wright, born into slavery but by the end of his life a successful businessman. A survivor, whose voice could not be stilled.
And later this year, we will reach the 150th anniversary of the date on which President Lincoln issued the Executive Order beginning the process of freedom – the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. The Proclamation that let millions of voices lift and sing.
But as we sit here, perhaps in the very room where those words were first written, there are estimated to be 27 million men, women and children around the world living in slavery today. Twenty-seven million. More than at any time in history.
Just as in New Mexico in the late 1800s, people want to turn away, to act as though it is not happening. Frederick Douglass once ridiculed the euphemisms that polite antebellum society used to avoid actually saying the word “slavery” outright. He might be surprised by the lack of progress we’ve made in that regard.
The polite term we now use to shield ourselves is “trafficking in persons.” “Trafficking” evokes movement, but at its core this is a crime of exploitation. The U.S. government broadly considers trafficking in persons to be all of the conduct involved in reducing a person to or maintaining a person in a state of compelled service for labor or commercial sexual exploitation. In a nutshell, slavery.
It takes many forms. It occurs in every country. And although the policy attention to “trafficking in persons” as a concept is relatively new, at the end of the day this phenomenon is nothing more than the newest manifestation of an ancient crime. As Secretary Clinton says, “Let’s just call it what it is – it’s modern slavery.”
A little more than ten years ago, led by then-First Lady Hillary Clinton, the international community came together to address this problem, and here at home we updated our own laws. Nearly 150 countries today are parties to the Palermo Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, which established what we call the 3P Paradigm—prevention, protection, and prosecution—as a guideline for fighting human trafficking.
In the United States, President Clinton issued what I think was the first Executive Order on this issue since President Lincoln, and signed into law the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which focused our anti-slavery laws on these new types of exploitation and established my office, the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, within the State Department to spearhead our efforts to combat trafficking abroad.
And now, under now-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, my office is responsible for diplomacy and foreign assistance to root out modern slavery around the globe. We produce the annual Trafficking in Persons Report to assess nearly every government, including our own, on their efforts to stop trafficking.
In fulfilling these responsibilities, my staff and I spend a lot of time engaging with others who are part of the fight against modern slavery—whether our foreign government counterparts, or leaders in the NGO community, or academics, or business leaders. One of the things we try to make clear is the reason why the United States government considers this effort a priority.
These conversations are often geared toward those concerned with laws or development issues or a gamut of other policy concerns, and our rationale for fighting this crime often fits with those concerns. Trafficking in persons undermines the rule of law. It threatens our security. It devastates communities and hurts families. These are all very good and sound reasons for pressing full steam ahead in our battle against trafficking in persons; it is “fitting and proper that we should do this.”
But the way I usually end those conversations is to say that—as important as all of these policy reasons for fighting slavery might be, fighting slavery is also simply part of who we are as a nation. It’s part of delivering on the promise of freedom. It’s part of building on the legacy sprung from this very house, 150 years ago.
Why is this not simply a policy priority, but something more ingrained in the stuff of our country?
It’s because those two documents I mentioned earlier—the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment—reflected the ultimate goal of the Abolitionist Movement, but they aren’t merely words in our law and history books. And they don’t mark moments in America’s history when slavery all of a sudden ceased to exist.
They’re promises. A promise that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist. A promise written in the blood of all who lived and died in slavery. In the blood of all who answered the Battle Hymn’s challenge to, if necessary, “die to make men free.”
Abraham Lincoln said famously “if slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong.” And he bound us with a sacred promise: neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever again exist.
Not then. Not now. Not ever.
But maybe that doesn’t have to be my closing point anymore. Maybe people are starting to make that connection themselves. Just think: here I am, an American official who fights against slavery every day, standing in a room where Abraham Lincoln thought about – perhaps even actually put pen to paper to write – the Emancipation Proclamation. And what’s on display here 150 years later? An exhibit about modern slavery. About delivering on the promise of freedom.
It’s not just here. Last week, I spoke at an event commemorating the birthday of Frederick Douglass. Tomorrow, members of my staff will visit the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati to explore ways to amplify that remarkable exhibit which focuses on the continuum between chattel slavery 150 years ago and what we call “trafficking in persons” today.
You see, whether here, in the Park Service, or in the civil rights museums, it seems that the people who are entrusted with preserving and interpreting the legacy of our country’s original sin are already reaching the conclusion that I have tried unartfully to make in my speeches and my diplomatic interventions:
Slavery, and our promise to end it, are not just part of the past. Emancipation was a promise for all time. Those of us who care about civil rights bear a responsibility to continue the fight.
So now that we’ve drawn that line, from past to present, how does the slavery of 150 years ago inform our struggle today?
First of all, when the 13th Amendment became the law of the land, this became the government’s fight, because slavery was from that moment forward illegal. Today, slavery is a crime, and we have an obligation to respond to it accordingly. And while the values that underlay the abolition of slavery and the promise of freedom haven’t changed, slavery itself has, and so has the way we’ve responded to it.
Over the last 150 years, enforcing the 13th Amendment has required laws that adapted to the way slavery had evolved. In the first half of the 20th Century, involuntary servitude and slavery continued across the American South as what we called peonage. It was debt bondage. Sharecropping.
A few administrations, under Presidents Grant, both Roosevelts, and Carter, made some progress curbing this crime, but those efforts always dropped off when power changed hands.
The longest sustained effort we’ve seen has taken place in the last 15 years. It has spanned three administrations and both major parties. When President Obama declared last month Slavery and Trafficking Awareness month, he continued and intensified the commitment shown by former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
Another thing that’s changed is America’s role in the world. As the United States has become a global leader and worked to advance our interests abroad, we count among those interests the eradication of slavery.
Part of our foreign policy agenda reflects the belief that trafficking in persons should be eradicated wherever it occurs, and thanks in part to our leadership, much of the international community has partnered in this struggle. Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights track almost verbatim our Constitution’s 13th Amendment; the United Nations’ “Palermo” Trafficking Protocol closely mirrors our own anti-trafficking law of the year 2000.
These are the structures that in the last 15 (and indeed the last 150) years have been built around the promise of ending slavery. But laws and policies and college courses and the annual Trafficking in Persons Report—while all these things help us understand the changing nature of slavery and allow us to counter it—those things themselves aren’t slavery.
Slavery today is what slavery has always been about. Slavery is about people. People trapped under the power and cruelty not just of a system or a culture, but under actual cruel masters.
Slavery is about a woman leaving her home and her family because she’s been promised an opportunity for a good job, only to find herself locked in a basement as a domestic worker, or made to work in a field without pay or a way to leave. Slavery is about a man on a fishing boat, forced to work 18 hours a day for months on end, and beaten when he fails to catch enough fish in a day or asks for just a little chicken in his rice.
It’s about children who should be learning to read and write, but are instead forced into the worst kind of exploitation imaginable. Like Frederick Douglass as a small boy experienced when he was sent to be a “house servant” in Baltimore, it is the escalating violence of the curse… then the hand… then the belt.
That is why we continue this struggle.
And as much as our laws and policies are rooted in the past, so is the constant reminder that this crime is about people. It’s because we know about the life of Frederick Douglass that we’re so sure that the experience then can help us tackle this challenge today. It’s because we know that survivors like Harriet Tubman and Richard Wright endured and accomplished that we can truly see the line from the plantations of the antebellum South to the sweatshops and brothels where exploitation occurs today.
Frederick Douglass, of course, shed his bonds to become one of the great orators and statesmen in history. He travelled the country railing against the evil he had endured and escaped. He pushed President Lincoln to action. His activism expanded beyond the issue of slavery. His words and ideas about suffrage and immigration and civic responsibility still illuminate our nation’s great debates. He was one of the first to insist that Emancipation must apply to Hispanics and Asians, and to warn that slavery would not truly be snuffed out if we turned our backs.
I mentioned Richard Wright earlier. After Emancipation, young Richard Wright and his mother settled in Cuthbert, Georgia. He graduated valedictorian of Atlanta University. He eventually was appointed by President McKinley to be Paymaster of the volunteers of the U.S. Army, and was the highest ranking African American in the US military.
For 30 years, he was President of the Georgia State Industrial College for Colored Youth, now Savannah State University. At the age of 67, he enrolled in Wharton Business School and opened the first bank in the North owned by an African American. It was thanks to his leadership, his determination to commemorate the day Lincoln signed the 13thAmendment, that we now celebrate National Freedom Day on February 1st. It’s why February is now Black History Month.
These are the stories we all know, and we should. Harriet Tubman and others’ flight into the darkness – their journey on the Underground Railroad guided by Polaris the North Star – is as intrinsic to the fabric of America as are Lincoln’s words at Gettysburg.
One story I didn’t know until recently is about a man named Jourdon Anderson. Some of you may have seen this floating around the Internet in the last week or so. Jourdon Anderson was born into slavery in Big Spring, Tennessee, and after Emancipation moved his wife and children north to Dayton, Ohio.
According to some of the documents that emerged, in the summer of 1865, the man who had enslaved him, also named Anderson, wrote to Jourdan and actually asked that he come back to Tennessee and work on that farm where he had been held for 32 years.
Jourdon Anderson replied with the help of someone who could write, and apparently made his letter available to the press. It was published contemporaneously in the Cincinnati Commercial and the New York Tribune.
“I want to know particularly,” he wrote, “what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy,—the folks call her Mrs. Anderson,—and the children—Milly, Jane, and Grundy—go to school and are learning well.”
He went on, addressing the particular points of his former abuser’s offer, and I’m going to read a good portion of this because it’s truly remarkable. I apologize for such a long quote, but his voice, lost for so long, deserves to be lifted and to ring:
“As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor's visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to…. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense…. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.”
He ends his letter by saying this: “The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.”
Whether we’re talking about the famous or the should-be-famous, Frederick Douglass or Harriet Tubman or Richard Wright or Jourdan Anderson, when we look at what each of them accomplished, the way they lived their lives, what we don’t see are helpless people plucked out of enslavement by some righteous rescuer. We see survivors.
We don’t see men and women who needed someone else to confer agency upon them before they moved onto their lives as advocates and teachers and businessmen and mothers and fathers. They weren’t waiting around for someone to free them so that they could become all of these things. Those who secured their freedom on the Underground Railroad didn’t steal away in the middle of the night because somebody told them it was OK.
Did they have help along the way? Of course. Did Emancipation clear a roadblock? Absolutely. But I would wager that whether or not the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville had given Jourdan Anderson his free papers, in Jourdon Anderson’s mind, his freedom would still have been a fact.
The men and women who lived in chattel slavery didn’t fall victim to a cruel and exploitative institution because they were incapable or pitiful. And once free neither were they incapable or pitiful. We know this because once empowered it was through their own will and determination that they lived out their lives the way they wanted. Orators and advocates. Educators and businesspeople. Important to the entire world, or only to their family and friends – it was their choice. Mothers and fathers whose desire was to give their children an education. To get the education they themselves had been denied.
Census records show that Jourdon Anderson lived in the same house in Dayton, Ohio for many years, and after he died, his children and grandchildren were there for many more years. Those census records from 40, 50, 60 years later are the epilogue to that letter. The records tell the result of his journey to freedom. That his children and grandchildren got the education that he wanted so much for them.
These individual accounts of people like Jourdon Anderson or Rosario Romero show us that history isn’t a monolith. It’s a fabric woven of countless threads, each thread as unique as the experience it represents. And so today, when we consider the victims of modern slavery, we must first consider that modern slavery isn’t just happening in theory, or to some statistics. It’s happening to individuals with families and talents and hopes and lives as unique as those whose legacies we honor today.
Now, some have suggested that those of us who work to combat trafficking in persons envision ourselves as heroes swooping in to save the day, helping those who can’t help themselves. But if there’s a lesson to be learned from the lives of those who survived and moved on with their lives, if there’s one thing we should remember today as we think of all those who still endure exploitation, it’s that our goal should be to provide survivors the opportunities to lead the lives they choose.
Because they typically still want the lives the traffickers denied them. Many of them got enslaved because they were trying for a better life for their families. Because they were willing to chance it to get an education for their little sister, medical care for their grandmother, a roof for their parents’ hut.
Survivors may need protection from pimps or bosses. That doesn’t mean throwing them in a shelter and forcing them to stay there. If they’re immigrants, they may want to return home, or they may want to stay here and start a new life. That means providing them legal recourse. They may want to face their accuser in court; they may want to just walk away and leave their past behind. That means giving them the choice. It means letting their choices – and their voices – mean something.
Like Shamiya Hall. For years, the America she knew was the garage in California where she was kept by the family that enslaved her. They went to jail; she’s going to college and wants to be a federal agent, so that she can free those still in bondage. A few weeks ago, she became an American citizen. She had the opportunity. She is living a life she sought for herself. Like Douglass and others, she is a survivor whose voice cannot be stilled.
So when we talk about those laws and structures that surround modern slavery, we have to ask how the necessary government action—indeed, the primary responsibility for fighting this crime around the world rests with governments—how does that responsibility balance with the aim of empowering survivors?
The answer to that question depends on how far a government has come in addressing human trafficking. As I often say, no government is perfect at fighting modern slavery; no government is doing enough. But some are doing more, a lot more, than others. The governments doing the most have adopted the modern 3P Paradigm I was discussing before—prevention, protection, and prosecution.
It’s what we call a victim-centered approach. Whether in law enforcement or prosecution or survivor care, we focus on those who have been exploited because, again, at the end of the day this crime is about people. It isn’t a crusade to rescue those who can’t help themselves. At its best, effective government action is prosecuting and punishing the traffickers—something only governments can do—and providing survivors the assistance they need.
That’s the help we can give along the way, like so many did on the Underground Railroad. Treatment and counseling. Job training and education. We can level the playing field. We can put opportunity more within reach. But the reality is that many of the men and women who are freed from modern slavery are freed because they had within them the courage to walk away. To go to the police. To tell someone. Their courage gets them 90 per cent of the way there. Our role must be to get them across the finish line.
But not every government is there yet. Some have adopted modern anti-trafficking laws, but fail to use them; they’ve built the machine, but they’ve never switched it on. Some governments are resistant to call modern slavery what it is, and instead treat the exploitation as an immigration issue or a labor violation or some lesser crime. Some governments deny altogether that modern slavery occurs within their borders.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that slavery isn’t taking place. It doesn’t mean that there isn’t a robust NGO presence on the ground, or that there aren’t activists and leaders pushing for the sort of changes needed to effectively combat this crime. It doesn’t mean that people aren’t toiling unseen and unheard. It means that they simply have no way to let their voices be heard.
Often the difference between the governments that use their laws and the governments that don’t; between the governments that have enacted modern anti-trafficking statutes and those where such provisions languish in legislatures; between acknowledging the problem of modern slavery and sweeping it under the rug — the difference is political will.
In too many places, that political will does not exist.
This room, these walls, this house, constitute a symbol of that political will. It didn’t all happen here. Political will existed and grew in different corners of our country for many years prior to Emancipation, and continued to evolve for many years after. It pushed Lincoln as much as he pushed it. And he tried to calibrate what was right and what was possible.
Because when the war came, Lincoln had face the consequences Thomas Jefferson had predicted when he said of slavery in 1820, “We have the wolf by the ears and we can neither hold him nor safely
let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other."
But the moment when the activism and the arguments and the opportunity and the bloodshed reached a tipping point come together in the very human and very daily life of President Lincoln. The ideas, and words, and decisions that Lincoln struggled with in this house.
This house will stand for a very, very long time as a monument to that moment. But if there’s one lesson to learn from that history—if there’s a bit of wisdom to glean from this place—it’s that as long as slavery endures, we need to keep building Lincoln’s Cottage.
We need to build it over and over again in halls of government around the world. We need to build it in our statehouses and our town halls. We need to build it in our board rooms and in the church basements where community groups lay out their agendas.
Just as Americans 150 years ago pushed and fought and died in pursuit of the promise that went forth from these walls, so too can we all contribute to making that moment happen again, and again, and again.
You don’t need to work in the anti-trafficking movement to be a modern-day abolitionist. We can all help to solve this problem. We can do it by learning the way our lives touch modern slavery—the way the goods we consume may be touched by forced labor—the way we are too accepting of a culture that permits exploitation in prostitution. We can do it by making sure people understand this lingering challenge, in our congregations, and our schools, and our community clubs.
Let’s write that final chapter. The promise made here demands that we continue to act. That we continue to be a voice for those who cannot lift their own. That we walk with them on that road to freedom and to recovery.
Lincoln foresaw the gravity of what he undertook here, and he understood what it took to write those words. The phrase on the wall behind me: “If my name ever goes into history, it will be for this act, and my whole soul is in it.” This is our history. And it’s the promise we work to fulfill today. Because we all deserve to live in Abraham Lincoln’s world – a world free from slavery.
Thank you.”