Slave Next Door (47 page)

“We’ve been accused of killing programs.”46

Wagner takes a much harder line: “NGOs who voice that opinion

[that NGOs are not equipped to go out and find victims] should talk to

the NGOs who are in the business of
finding
victims. The issue is, what

is the NGO’s mission? I don’t accept the argument that NGOs have a

different role. I see them as the most effective detectors of victims,

because they’re in the community.” He does agree with Garza, however,

that the effort should be a joint one, uniting NGOs with local law

enforcement.47

Looked at objectively, investigating trafficking situations can be dan-

gerous. This is fieldwork, and hazardous fieldwork at that. Should a

service provider—a counselor, say, or a psychologist, or even a college-

level volunteer—be required to take such risks in order to qualify to

receive government funding? Further, asks Ann Jordan of Global Rights,

“Why is HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement funding investigations in

the first place? Aren’t investigations the job of law enforcement, and not

of unaccountable, untrained members of the public? I thought HHS’s

mandate was to provide support for services to victims. It seems that

someone at HHS has a clear misunderstanding here of the different and

distinct functions of NGOs, law enforcement, and the Department of

Health and Human Services.”48 An HHS representative responded that

the NGOs aren’t actually
required
to find victims; they just won’t receive

funding without them.

At one point, HHS took the unconventional step of hiring Ketchum

Public Relations, a worldwide PR firm better known for clients such as

Kleenex, to implement its Rescue and Restore campaign, with its “Look

Bales_Ch09 2/23/09 11:03 AM Page 223

T H E F E D S / 2 2 3

beneath the Surface” slogan. “We gave them a goal—who they should

contact and partner with: faith-based and community, law enforcement

and legal, social services, ethnic organizations,” says Vanessa Garza.49

In 2005, the PR campaign was given the Silver Anvil award by the Public

Relations Society of America. The success of the agency’s efforts, how-

ever, has been called into question by various NGOs and officials at

other government agencies, and it has been suggested that their contract

was renewed only so that they could correct mistakes made in the first

go-round. According to one anonymous Washington area victim service

provider, “We’re giving money to Ketchum so they can train people who

can train people who can train people to serve victims. Trafficking vic-

tims are hidden. They’re not really going to be affected by a big, splashy

PR campaign. They’re not watching Lifetime television.”50 A high-ranking

government official spoke more succinctly of Ketchum on condition of

anonymity: “They should be gone.”

Steve Wagner, however, who was in some measure responsible for

bringing Ketchum aboard, has nothing but praise for the agency.

“They’re fantastic,” he states. “I have the highest regard for Ketchum.

They did a fantastic job, which was recognized by a Silver Anvil award,

their
[Look beneath the Surface]
video won awards. They’re great. And

no,” he adds, in response to a persistent rumor that followed him out of

office, “I didn’t go to work for Ketchum after I left government.”51

HHS is responsible for “certifying” foreign-born victims of traffick-

ing. “Certification” means that the government recognizes a person as

a human trafficking victim under the criteria set out in the TVPA. It is

no secret that finding such victims has been difficult and that the results

have been disappointing. Meanwhile, a shift in focus has occurred,

toward U.S. citizen victims. Some victim advocates and service providers

who have been working with foreign-born victims maintain that it is a

policy shift brought about by an administration desperately seeking

trafficking victims and finding that trafficked American children are

easier to find than foreign victims. One Washington NGO member takes

a harsh view: “Because of the government’s failure to ID victims, they’re

dumping tons of money into IDing U.S. children and reconceptualizing

it as trafficking. U.S. ‘victims’ are much easier to identify.” HHS insists

that this is not the case. “I don’t see that at all,” responds Vanessa

Garza. “I’ve heard U.S. victims are the ‘low-hanging fruit,’ but I don’t see

it that way. Even though we might find tens or hundreds of thousands

of U.S. child prostitutes, that doesn’t mean we should stop funding

for foreign-born victims. It’s not a case of either/or. We’re trying to get

Bales_Ch09 2/23/09 11:03 AM Page 224

2 2 4 / T H E F I N A L E M A N C I PAT I O N

back to the middle.”52 Steve Wagner believes that there are ten times

more U.S. than foreign-born victims; he places their number between

two hundred thousand and four hundred thousand a year, “exclusively

juvenile victims of sex trafficking,” and adds, “A report will be coming

out shortly to support those numbers.” As to the plight of U.S. victims,

Wagner states, “The TVPA is a fantastic piece of legislation; most of its

faults are in the implementation. The TVPA [which was written to apply

exclusively to foreign-born trafficking victims] says that U.S. victims

already
have
access to systems. But the most important service we could

give them is to establish a relationship between victim and service

provider. U.S. victims don’t get this service.”53 Garza agrees. “U.S. citi-

zens, by virtue of their birth, are entitled to services already—but a

good case manager can help walk them through it.” But, she adds,

“there are disconnects. We
do
fund case management for foreign vic-

tims; we don’t do that for domestic victims. HHS has asked Congress

for five million dollars for the past two years for this, and we haven’t

gotten it. Meanwhile, we’re doing the best we can to see that our pro-

grams are responsive to the field.”54

HHS, through ORR, also created a number of “grassroots coali-

tions,” twenty-one of them, since 2005. Their purpose, according to the

HHS Web site, is to “enlist local community organizations in the task of

abolishing trafficking within the community,” in order to “disseminate

information on the phenomenon of trafficking, to train organizations of

intermediaries, and to otherwise galvanize the community to identify

and rescue victims.” As distinct from the forty-two Department of

Justice (DOJ) task forces that, according to Steve Wagner, focus totally

on law enforcement, the HHS coalitions ostensibly seek to connect with

“local coalition members and available resources for victims.”55

“Coalitions,” he states, “were implemented to get the movement out of

Washington and into the community. We were after a community

response.”56 The degree to which they are succeeding varies, depending

on whose opinion is heard. Some, including a former DOJ official, claim

that there is considerable redundancy in having both the coalitions and

the task forces. One HHS official, speaking on condition of anonymity,

acknowledges, “Both [coalitions and task forces] provide services;

there’s replication across the board, and now the Department of Labor

is coming in to do some of the work. There is some confusion.” Steve

Wagner disputes this, and Vanessa Garza—who inherited this program

as well—states, “We put a lot of money into building them, but they

have been self-sustaining ever since. Whereas DOJ can’t control who

Bales_Ch09 2/23/09 11:03 AM Page 225

T H E F E D S / 2 2 5

applies to their task forces, the HHS coalitions pick their member organ-

izations.” It is, she says, a “network of care.” Membership is voluntary,

there is no compensation, and some of the coalitions, Garza points out,

have actually morphed into subcommittees of the federal task forces.57

Some members of the DOJ, who asked to remain anonymous, expressed

the view that the HHS coalitions were unnecessary, redundant, and

politically motivated.

One sticking point at HHS is the frequent delays in the treatment of

child trafficking victims. The child is sent to ORR. Once here, he or she

often floats in limbo, as the case is shuttled from ORR to the DOJ, along

with the FBI and ICE. Meanwhile, months can pass before resident

status is awarded, during which time the child is held in detention or

simply cut loose to run away. The 2007 reauthorization bill proposes

that ORR be allowed to issue temporary custody of the child to the

Unaccompanied Refugee Minor Program, to provide services and hous-

ing
before
certification and the award of a visa. This could do a great

deal to shrink the size of the hole in the system through which many

child victims fall.

U S C C B : T H E C AT H O L I C C H U R C H A N D T H E S E R V I N G

O F V I C T I M S

In 2006, HHS decided to contract with an outside organization to dis-

tribute funds according to the newly formed per capita system. After

soliciting proposals, they selected the U.S. Conference of Catholic

Bishops (USCCB) and awarded them a multi-million-dollar contract,

totaling one-third of HHS’s annual trafficking budget, to oversee and

provide funding to subcontractors. According to Vanessa Garza, HHS

meets weekly with representatives of USCCB, which is using federal

funds to support a list of organizations. When asked about the appro-

priateness of having one particular religious denomination wield so

much financial control over a national campaign, she replied, “Faith-

based organizations do great work on the ground. USCCB is the most

effective contractor I’ve ever worked with. They know their stuff, they’re

very victim centered, and they have strong relationships with their part-

ners. They solely advocate for the rights of the victim.”58

Indeed, USCCB has been involved in the antitrafficking campaign

since actively advocating for the passage of the TVPA in 2000. They

immediately began to build coalitions, one of which—the Catholic

Organization Against Trafficking—still functions and is doing very well,

according to Sister Mary Ellen Dougherty, coordinator of education and

Bales_Ch09 2/23/09 11:03 AM Page 226

2 2 6 / T H E F I N A L E M A N C I PAT I O N

outreach for USCCB’s Anti–Human Trafficking Program. In 2002, they

received a three-year grant from HHS to provide educational and tech-

nical assistance to migrant farmworkers, urban groups, local law

enforcement, medical centers, and the general and religious popula-

tions. In one of the earlier trafficking cases—the Kil Soo Lee case on

American Samoa—they served several victims through Catholic

Charities.59 That same year, they focused on trafficked children, advis-

ing agencies on how to recognize the victims and place them in the

Unaccompanied Refugee Minor Program. They created a service-to-

adults program in 2003, entitled “Anytime, Anywhere,” through

another three-year HHS grant. In 2004, they were awarded grants from

the DOJ to develop an antitrafficking response in two areas—the Mid-

Atlantic states and Oregon. This entailed establishing task forces and

providing communication, training, and community outreach. The fol-

lowing year, they oversaw an HHS outreach grant, managed by Catholic

Charities in Camden, New Jersey, and funded to identify victims of both

sexual exploitation and agricultural servitude in the southern part of

the state. Prior to the award of the 2006 per capita contract, they had

received an HHS grant to provide services to victims anywhere in the

country where they were found and identified. When the Request for

Proposals for the per capita contract was announced, says Sister Mary

Ellen, “we felt experienced, and we applied.”60

Says Anastasia Brown, director of Refugee Programs for USCCB,

“We’ll work with anyone who subscribes to the regulations of the con-

tract,” adding that this presupposes an organization of sufficient expe-

rience, size, and commitment to warrant funding. “We don’t really deny

funding to an agency if capacity and the financial viability to front the

services are issues; we just say, ‘Not now,’ and suggest they affiliate with

a larger, more experienced local agency that’s already a provider—a

shelter, for example—in order to receive funding.” Unless an NGO can

demonstrate the immediate need to serve victims, there is no funding.

As Brown states, “Not all our subcontractors have seen a victim, but

they are all ready to receive victims. There is a preexisting contract

mechanism pending finding victims. This allows for accountability.”61

As to the actual role of the NGO in finding victims themselves, Nyssa

Mestes, USCCB assistant director for trafficking, believes that there are

“many types of agencies qualified as NGOs. Some are better suited to

find and identify victims than others.” Mestes doesn’t place the respon-

sibility solely with the NGOs: “Victims don’t come into the [NGO]