John Whitehead's Commentary
Sexual Slavery Is Getting the Attention It Deserves
According to a recent report from the U.S. State Department, at least 700,000 people are sold into a world of slavery every year. Most of them are women and children, and many of them end up in a life of sexual bondage--forced to perform sexual favors and unable to escape. Yet despite the widespread, devastating effects of human trafficking, advocacy groups in the United States have not made it a priority.
It isn't as if trafficking only affects other countries. Just this month, a Los Angeles man was convicted of illegally smuggling three women into the United States for prostitution and was sentenced to five years in prison. In fact, Congress has determined that approximately 50,000 women and children are trafficked in this country each year.
Fortunately, however, this epidemic that ruins the lives of so many women and children is beginning to receive the attention it deserves.
Several days ago, the State Department released a comprehensive report on the trafficking of persons, which was the first consolidated effort of the U.S. government to address the problem. The report provides a comprehensive look at the problem of human trafficking, both worldwide and here at home. Hopefully, it will inaugurate a concentrated effort by all U.S. agencies to focus their resources on ending this horrific problem.
It was just last fall that President Clinton signed into law the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act. The law authorizes a wide range of programs to combat trafficking and establishes a special office in the State Department to target and coordinate government efforts.
To date, however, the office has not yet been established, although officials have located workspace and purchased equipment for it. But that doesn't mean the department hasn't already been taking steps behind the scenes to combat human trafficking.
In the past few years, State Department officials have taken the lead in United Nations negotiations to establish a global protocol against trafficking, drafted model anti-trafficking legislation for other countries to adopt and educated other countries on the issue. The new office, however, will allow them to better coordinate with other government agencies and bring a new focus to American efforts to combat trafficking.
But the real story in all of this is why it has taken so long for everyone outside the halls of the trafficking section of the State Department to pay attention to such a vital issue. Human bondage has been around almost as long as humans have. And as everyone knows, it was legal in this country until less than 150 years ago. There are those alive today whose grandfathers owned slaves--or whose grandparents were slaves.
But the sad truth is that there has been very little focus on human trafficking and its devastating effects on women and children. Even as hugely popular television series such as The Sopranos depict the human side of organized crime, there is no accompanying focus on the victims of such crime--like the thousands of women who are brought into the United States each year and forced to spend their lives as sex slaves. Amazingly, one major women's group doesn't even list the sexual trafficking of women as an issue on its flagship website. And sadly, the media has virtually ignored the problem, focusing instead on the continuing sex scandals in our nation's capital.
Hopefully, this will all change with the State Department's new report. The hard numbers and imprimatur of government authority should cause even the most apathetic observers to sit up and take notice.
Secretary of State Colin Powell, in announcing the new report, noted that it is primarily women and children who are sold into slavery. "Deprived of the most fundamental human rights," Powell said, "subjected to threats and violence, victims of trafficking are made to toil under horrific conditions in sweatshops and on construction sites, in fields and in brothels. Women and children, some as young as seven years old, are forced to labor in sex industries where they suffer physical and mental abuse and are exposed to disease, including infection by the HIV virus."
A case in point is Nadya, a student from Ukraine. When an acquaintance offered to find her a good job in Germany, she eagerly accepted. But when she arrived, there was no job. She was beaten, and her captors threatened to hurt her family members if she tried to escape.
Trapped, Nadya was forced to work as a prostitute and common laborer. She finally escaped when German police, called to break up a fight at her brothel, arrested her for lacking identification. Upon arrest she contacted the Ukrainian embassy, which helped her return home.
There are thousands of untold stories like Nadya's, both here in America and abroad. And it's about time we began a serious effort to protect the women and children like her who have to endure the nightmare of human trafficking.
It isn't as if trafficking only affects other countries. Just this month, a Los Angeles man was convicted of illegally smuggling three women into the United States for prostitution and was sentenced to five years in prison. In fact, Congress has determined that approximately 50,000 women and children are trafficked in this country each year.
Fortunately, however, this epidemic that ruins the lives of so many women and children is beginning to receive the attention it deserves.
Several days ago, the State Department released a comprehensive report on the trafficking of persons, which was the first consolidated effort of the U.S. government to address the problem. The report provides a comprehensive look at the problem of human trafficking, both worldwide and here at home. Hopefully, it will inaugurate a concentrated effort by all U.S. agencies to focus their resources on ending this horrific problem.
It was just last fall that President Clinton signed into law the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act. The law authorizes a wide range of programs to combat trafficking and establishes a special office in the State Department to target and coordinate government efforts.
To date, however, the office has not yet been established, although officials have located workspace and purchased equipment for it. But that doesn't mean the department hasn't already been taking steps behind the scenes to combat human trafficking.
In the past few years, State Department officials have taken the lead in United Nations negotiations to establish a global protocol against trafficking, drafted model anti-trafficking legislation for other countries to adopt and educated other countries on the issue. The new office, however, will allow them to better coordinate with other government agencies and bring a new focus to American efforts to combat trafficking.
But the real story in all of this is why it has taken so long for everyone outside the halls of the trafficking section of the State Department to pay attention to such a vital issue. Human bondage has been around almost as long as humans have. And as everyone knows, it was legal in this country until less than 150 years ago. There are those alive today whose grandfathers owned slaves--or whose grandparents were slaves.
But the sad truth is that there has been very little focus on human trafficking and its devastating effects on women and children. Even as hugely popular television series such as The Sopranos depict the human side of organized crime, there is no accompanying focus on the victims of such crime--like the thousands of women who are brought into the United States each year and forced to spend their lives as sex slaves. Amazingly, one major women's group doesn't even list the sexual trafficking of women as an issue on its flagship website. And sadly, the media has virtually ignored the problem, focusing instead on the continuing sex scandals in our nation's capital.
Hopefully, this will all change with the State Department's new report. The hard numbers and imprimatur of government authority should cause even the most apathetic observers to sit up and take notice.
Secretary of State Colin Powell, in announcing the new report, noted that it is primarily women and children who are sold into slavery. "Deprived of the most fundamental human rights," Powell said, "subjected to threats and violence, victims of trafficking are made to toil under horrific conditions in sweatshops and on construction sites, in fields and in brothels. Women and children, some as young as seven years old, are forced to labor in sex industries where they suffer physical and mental abuse and are exposed to disease, including infection by the HIV virus."
A case in point is Nadya, a student from Ukraine. When an acquaintance offered to find her a good job in Germany, she eagerly accepted. But when she arrived, there was no job. She was beaten, and her captors threatened to hurt her family members if she tried to escape.
Trapped, Nadya was forced to work as a prostitute and common laborer. She finally escaped when German police, called to break up a fight at her brothel, arrested her for lacking identification. Upon arrest she contacted the Ukrainian embassy, which helped her return home.
There are thousands of untold stories like Nadya's, both here in America and abroad. And it's about time we began a serious effort to protect the women and children like her who have to endure the nightmare of human trafficking.
ABOUT JOHN W. WHITEHEAD
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His most recent books are the best-selling Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the award-winning A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, and a debut dystopian fiction novel, The Erik Blair Diaries. Whitehead can be contacted at staff@rutherford.org. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.
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