Session Date: August 18, 2005
Annual Meeting Session Summary: The Price of People: Combating Human and Sex Trafficking
By Amy Blondin
Communications Specialist, Washington Senate Democratic Caucus
This summary is provided for information purposes only. NCSL does not endorse any views it contains.
DENVER- Calling it a modern-day form of slavery, human rights advocates urged state legislators at the National Conference of State Legislatures' 2005 Annual Meeting to enact laws to help curb human and sex trafficking.
"This is a major criminal enterprise," said Dr. Leslie Wolfe, president of the Center for Women Policy Studies. "It provides huge profits for traffickers and enormous oppression for their victims. If in your state you have an airport or a highway, you are a border state for human trafficking."
This growing underground industry is estimated to generate $9 billion each year and experts say it’s fueled largely by the extreme economic hardship that families face in many parts of the world. Eighty percent of the victims are female, and half of all trafficking victims are children under the age of 18, according to the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Justice Programs.
Victims are sometimes smuggled across international borders using false employment contracts or visas, but often are brought into the United States legally then forced to work the sex trade, manual labor or sweatshops. Traffickers use threats of violence against victims and their families, and victims often are unaware of resources in their community to help them escape.
Washington was the first state to pass comprehensive human trafficking legislation. Lawmakers there approved a bill in 2003 that established first and second degree sex trafficking and labor trafficking as a class A felony and allows victims of trafficking to sue for damages.
That same year, the Washington State Task Force Against the Trafficking of Persons was established to determine the scope of the problem in Washington and to coordinate agency responses. Other states soon followed with bills criminalizing human trafficking and establishing task forces.
Eleven states have passed criminalization statutes, and four states have created task forces or committees to study the issue.
Arizona State Sen. Marilyn Jarrett said the problem has reached crisis proportions in her state, which she said serves as a funnel for traffickers, who then move their victims to other states to work. Jarrett said the issue has resulted in increased violence among traffickers. There have even been instances of shootouts between traffickers on freeways, she said.
Trafficking "takes an incredible toll on our society," said Jarrett. "Victims need to know there's refuge."
The Arizona Legislature passed a bill this year that establishes human trafficking as a felony. It also provides restitution to victims of sex trafficking and people who were trafficked for the purposes of forced labor.
Wolfe encouraged all legislatures to set up task forces, and pointed to Connecticut’s as a model. That state established an interagency task force in 2004 that examines the nature of trafficking in the state, identifies resources for victims, evaluates ways to increase public awareness of trafficking and makes recommendations to the legislature about how the state’s criminal statutes could be improved to address trafficking.
“You can turn your outrage and horror and shock into actions nobody else can take,” Wolfe told legislators.
NCSL is a bipartisan organization that serves the legislators and staffs of the states, commonwealths and territories. It provides research, technical assistance and opportunities for policymakers to exchange ideas on the most pressing state issues and is an effective and respected advocate for the interests of the states in the American federal system.
### |
