NCJ Number
206001
Date Published
June 2004
Length
274 pages
Annotation
This June 2004 report by the U.S. State Department to the U.S. Congress is the fourth annual mandated report on foreign governments' efforts to eliminate severe forms of trafficking in persons.
Abstract
In assessing foreign governments' efforts in this area, the report focuses both on the "three P's" -- prosecution, protection, and prevention -- and the "three R's" -- rescue, removal, and reintegration for victims. In 2000, the U.S. Congress enacted the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), which was recently amended by the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2003 (TVPRA). The TVPA addresses "severe forms of trafficking," which is defined as sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained 18 years old; and also the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery. These definitions do not require that a trafficking victim be physically transported from one location to another, since it can involve the recruitment, harboring, provision, or obtaining of a person for the enumerated purposes. The TVPRA strengthens the tools of U.S. law enforcement authorities in prosecuting traffickers and enhances assistance to victims of trafficking. It also requires the Department of State to examine more closely the efforts of foreign governments to prosecute traffickers, as well as assess whether international partners have achieved appreciable progress over the past year in eliminating trafficking in persons. This report profiles the collective work of U.S. embassies and foreign governments as well as nongovernmental organizations throughout the world involved in eradicating trafficking in persons as a form of slavery. This year's report focuses on sex tourism and the demand it creates for children exploited by traffickers for commercial sex. The United States identifies and prosecutes its own nationals who travel abroad to engage in commercial sex with children. Through the PROTECT Act of 2003, American pedophiles who prey on foreign children around the world for commercial sex come under the jurisdiction of U.S. authorities. This report describes international "best practices" in countering human trafficking and reports on the work being done by countries in Africa, East Asia and the Pacific region, Europe and Eurasia, the Near East, South Asia, and the Western hemisphere. A section focuses on international conventions that have targeted trafficking in persons.