2007 Trafficking in Persons Report - Center for Women Policy Studies

I N T R O D U C T I O N
Police parade 100 prostituted women in the streets of Beijing, further re-victimizing exploited women.
manner, with preparations made in advance
for the victim’s safe return and reintegration.
However, a victim should be offered legal
alternatives if going home would entail hardship
or retribution.
The Victim-Centered Approach
Two main objectives govern the approach the
international community takes toward trafficking
in persons: the need for the state to punish this
serious crime and the need for society to care for
the victims of a serious human rights abuse that
strikes at their most basic freedoms. The UN TIP
Protocol, which supplements the UN Convention
Against Transnational Organized Crime, clearly
supports both.
At the core of the U.S. Government’s anti-trafficking
efforts is the human rights principle that
victims of trafficking and slave-like practices must
be protected from further trauma. A government
should provide efficient access to justice for these
victims, if they so chose, and access to shelter,
medical care, legal aid, psycho-social counseling,
and assistance in integrating back into their
original community or into a new community so
that they can rebuild their lives. Such an approach
strikes a careful balance between the security
needs of the state and society’s need for the
restoration of human rights to the victim.
By placing the needs of victims front and
center, victims of this heinous crime are assured
of the protection they so desperately need.
Once given those assurances, many victims step
forward voluntarily and without pressure to
become powerful and confident witnesses, telling
their stories in court and achieving justice not
only for the state that wants to eradicate these
slave-like practices, but on a personal level as
well. Cooperation of victims cannot be bought
or forced, but through the consistent provision
of assistance that is not tied to performance in
court, victims assured of their rights regain the
confidence to speak out for themselves. When this
balance is struck effectively, everyone wins—the
state, the victim, and society—as a victim finds his
or her voice and an exploiter is rendered speechless
as justice is handed down.
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