Working for Women Worldwide - Embassy of the United States

urgent need for the United Nations to help governments
and NGOs end the tragedy of child sex tourism.
The United States also has signed the Protocol to
Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons,
Especially Women and Children, part of the U.N.
Convention on Transnational Organized Crime. The
next step is for the U.S. Senate to approve it.
Progress in ending trafficking in persons for sex
purposes requires addressing both supply and demand.
The U.S. government is dealing with “the demand
side of the equation”—as Ambassador Miller puts
it—going after the people who exploit women and
children for prostitution because prostitution provides
a strong profit motive for traffickers and a huge
demand for victims.
U.S. Domestic
Efforts Multiply
As the United States
fights the trade in human
beings abroad, it also
has launched an unprecedented
effort to deal with
it at home. Last August,
for example, a Federal
District Court sentenced
two women to prison for
the maximum time allowable—more
than 17 years
—for bringing four Mexican girls into the United
States and forcing them into prostitution.
Rising levels of U.S. assistance to victims of trafficking
clearly demonstrate the importance that the
U.S. government places on protecting vulnerable
women and children. Victims can receive, for example,
cash, medical care, legal aid, and the opportunity to
apply for permanent residence in the United States.
Dozens of NGOs throughout the United States have
received more than $35 million to aid these victims. In
2003, the TVPA was amended to include a provision
that allows victims to sue their traffickers in federal
district court.
The United States has seen quick results at home
after passage of TVPA in 2000. Within the first two
years, federal prosecutors initiated prosecutions
against 79 traffickers—three times as many as in the
two previous years. Nearly 400 victims in the United
States received assistance through the Departments of
Health and Human Services (HHS), Justice, State,
and Labor, among others. Such focused efforts are
increasing.
In Fiscal Year 2003, HHS issued nearly $3.5 million
to 15 organizations to meet the needs of victims of
trafficking, including temporary housing, training in
independent living skills, cultural orientation, and
transportation needs, as well as access to appropriate
educational programs and legal assistance and referrals.
HHS may also provide victims with intensive
case-management programs to help them obtain housing,
find employment, receive mental health counseling,
and obtain specialized foster care programs for
their children.
The U.S. Department
of Defense has
issued a zero-tolerance
policy for any service
member found participating
in human trafficking,
and it has instituted a universal
mandatory training
program about sex slavery.
Legislation is currently
under review by the U.S.
Congress to make brothel
patronage a crime under
the Uniform Code of Military
Justice. The United
States also is working with
the United Nations to ensure that its peacekeepers
do not visit brothels and thereby attract or subsidize
human trafficking for sexual purposes.
The U.S. government has made it clear that it
will not tolerate Americans participating in child sex
tourism. In 2003, President Bush signed the U.S.
Protect Act, which imposes very strict penalties,
including up to 30 years in prison, on Americans who
travel to foreign countries to have sex with minors. The
U.S. government collaborates with other countries in,
for example, Southeast Asia, to crack down on any
U.S. citizen who participates in this heinous activity.
Female Genital Cutting
Like trafficking in persons, female genital cutting
(FGC), also known as female genital mutilation or
female circumcision, has only recently gained attention
as a practice that harms victims, with serious and
potentially grave health consequences.
53