Lawyers Manual - Unified Court System

380 Dorchen A. Leidholdt
Notes
1. The Protocol to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons,
especially women and children, supplementing the United Nations
Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime, also known as the
Palermo Protocol, signed by the United States in December 2003, defines
trafficking in persons as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer,
harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or
other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of
power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of
payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over
another person for the purpose of exploitation,” and specifies that
“[e]xploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the
prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or
services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of
organs.” The definition also specifies that “[t]he consent of a victim of
trafficking in persons to the intended exploitation set forth [above] shall be
irrelevant where any of the means set forth [above] have been used.”
2. Office of the Press Secretary, President Announces Initiatives to Combat
Human Trafficking, “Worldwide, at least 600,000 to 800,000 human beings
are trafficked across international borders each year. Of those, it is believed
that more than 80% are women and girls and that 70% of them were forced
into sexual servitude,” Tampa, Florida, July 16, 2004.
3. J. Raymond, J. D’Cunha, S.R. Dzuhayatin, H.P. Hynes, Z.R. Rodriguez, &
A. Santos, eds (2002) A Comparative Study of Women Trafficked in the
Migration Process: Patterns, Profiles and Health Consequences of Sexual
Exploitation in Five Countries (Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand,
Venezuela and the United States), Coalition Against Trafficking in Women
(CATW), http://www.catwinternational.org.
4. Sanctuary for Families, 67 Wall Street, Suite 2211, New York, NY 10005-
7198, http://www.sanctuaryforfamilies.org.
5. Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, PO Box 9338, North Amherst,
MA 01059, http://www.catwinternational.org.
6. United Nations Press Release, Secretary-General Calls Human Trafficking
One of the Greatest Human Rights Violations of Today, International
Summit on Human Trafficking, Child Abuse, Labour and Slavery, Abuja,
Nigeria, August 2-4, 2002.