Sex Slavery in the United States and its Law to Stop it Here and Abroad

Abstract

Sex trafficking is a contemporary form of slavery that violates women's fundamental human rights. Every year one to four million persons, predominantly women and girls but also men and boys, are trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation. The traffic of women is the third most profitable crime next to the traffic of weapons and drugs. However, since women can be reused and resold more easily than needles, the traffic in women is expected to rise to the level of the second most lucrative international crime.

For many years, the United States has recognized the insufficiency of its criminal and immigration laws to protect victims of sex trafficking, to prevent trafficking, and to prosecute traffickers effectively. President William Clinton signed the Trafficking Victims Protect Act (TVPA) on October 28, 2000, in order to provide an international solution to an international problem. The TVPA establishes a coordinated, transnational effort to protect trafficked persons, to criminalize the conduct of traffickers and to penalize sex trafficking as if it were a crime as serious as rape, punishable with a sentence of twenty years to life imprisonment. The TVPA provides financial assistance, protection, benefits, services and education to victims both here and abroad as well as the right to their permanent residency in the United States and a work permit, if the victim of severe forms of trafficking cooperates with the prosecution of her traffickers. This study will examine the extent to which the TVPA has had either domestic or international impact on the crime of sex trafficking, whether the law has been strictly enforced both here and abroad, and whether the law has made any progress since October 2000 to deter this international crime. This study will attempt to measure the level of international cooperation leading to the identification and capture of the leaders of interlocking rings of businessmen, modern organized crime syndicates, and corrupt government officials who support the lucrative crime of sex slavery.

The slow but steady domestic and international impact of the TVPA on sex trafficking activities could be interpreted to mean that a US law and its multilateral efforts have influenced other nations by legislative example. Despite criticism of the slowness of the Bush Administration to implement the TVPA and the shortcomings of the United States Department of State annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Reports, the Department of Justice has made significant efforts at prosecution, outreach, coordination among agencies, protection and assistance to victims of trafficking. The TVPA in general and the Department of State TIP Reports in particular have had a positive effect on many foreign governments by providing them with financial support and advice to meet the minimum standards set forth in the TVPA. Thus, there has been a slow, small but positive impact of the TVPA both domestically and in foreign countries to reduce trafficking and to deter the crime of sex slavery, and the United States is playing an important role to eradicate slavery through legislative example, interagency cooperation, and multilateral efforts.

Keywords: sex trafficking, slavery, human rights, international crime, smuggling, immigration, rape, Trafficking Victims Protection Act