Slave Next Door (50 page)

gram against human trafficking, and more than other agencies has been

issuing Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act (CAFRA) notices to property

owners whose properties have been identified as being used to facilitate

smuggling or harboring aliens. This is an important tool because many

employers and landlords turn a blind eye to the facilitation of criminal

activity on their properties, though U.S. law clearly allows the confisca-

tion of property used in slavery or trafficking.

Depar tment of State

The State Department explains its role in the fight against human traf-

ficking and slavery in this way:

DOS chairs the information-sharing, interagency working group and

Cabinet-level task force responsible for coordinating anti-trafficking

policies and programs. The Bureau of Population, Refugees, and

Migration (PRM) and the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in

Persons (G/TIP) fund international anti-trafficking programs. G/TIP also

produces the Annual Trafficking in Persons Report which spotlights

modern-day slavery around the world, encourages the work of the civil

sector, and is the U.S. government’s principal diplomatic tool used to

engage foreign governments. PRM also funds the Return, Reintegration,

and Family Reunification Program for Victims of Trafficking. The

Human Trafficking and Smuggling Center (HTSC) is an interagency

fusion center and clearinghouse that disseminates information and pre-

pares strategic assessments. It brings together law enforcement, intelli-

gence, and diplomatic communities to work together to take action

against criminals moving people around the world for profit, exploita-

tion, or in support of terrorism.91

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T H E T I P O F F I C E

The State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in

Persons (usually called the TIP Office) was established by the TVPA. Its

duties are to support the Interagency Task Force on Trafficking and to

prepare an annual report on all countries, evaluating how well they’re

doing in fighting human trafficking. Soon after it was established, the

TIP Office also became a conduit for the funding of antitrafficking and

antislavery projects overseas. The annual Trafficking in Persons Report,

using data gathered by embassies, consulates, and other sources, includ-

ing NGOs, assesses 170 countries on their efforts to fight human traf-

ficking and slavery. It is the most comprehensive global measure of

trafficking and slavery and is used by the U.S. government to guide its

diplomatic efforts to encourage and support antislavery work. The

researchers who compile the report in the TIP Office face enormous

challenges in collecting reliable information but have developed systems

of careful validation, making this a report that is relied on around the

world. Sadly, the report regularly faces two criticisms that have nothing

to do with the professional researchers who bring it together; both crit-

icisms concern requirements set by Congress in the TVPA law.

The first criticism concerns the provision that all countries be ranked

into one of three categories, or “tiers.” According to the law, countries

that languish in the lowest category and show no sign of improvement

over time can be sanctioned. Many people feel that for the United States

to set up a scoring system, which only they control, to rank all other

countries is not a helpful way to move forward. Several governments

have reacted strongly to what they felt were unfair rankings. Moreover,

an examination of those placed in the lowest tier and slapped with sanc-

tions since 2001 shows political concerns creeping into the process.

Cuba, North Korea, Sudan, and Burma are regularly sanctioned;

“friendly” countries with significant amounts of slavery and trafficking

(India, Pakistan, or Nigeria, for example) are not sanctioned. The

second criticism hits closer to home: America has set itself up as judge

over all other countries but has made no provision to have its own work

assessed. The United States is not included in the report, and no effort

has been made to commission an independent evaluation. It would

make the excellent work of the annual TIP Report much more palatable

to the rest of the world—and much more viable—if the United States

were evaluated by the same standards as everyone else.

In many ways the most important work of the TIP Office is the least

known: the funding of antitrafficking and antislavery projects in other

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countries. Some of these projects are designed to educate potential vic-

tims so that they are never tricked and trafficked. Others train the police

and border patrols to better identify and prosecute traffickers. Still other

projects support the rehabilitation and reintegration of victims of traf-

ficking. In 2007, the TIP Office awarded $16.5 million for sixty-three

projects in forty-six countries, making it one of the largest funders of

antislavery work in the world. These funds are carefully monitored and

tend to be effectively used. In northern India, for example, funds sup-

port the rescue and rehabilitation of enslaved children kidnapped and

trafficked from their home villages into the “carpet belt” of Uttar

Pradesh. Locked into small dark rooms, the children work long days,

weaving carpets for export. They suffer beatings, malnutrition, sexual

abuse, and lung disease from the dust and fibers. TIP Office funds sup-

port workers who find and liberate the children, as well as a residential

center where they get the medical, psychological, and educational help

they need to rejoin their families. Ginny Bauman, who manages this

project for the NGO Free the Slaves, explains, “This is a large-scale

problem of internal trafficking, but with solid support the children

return and help organize and ‘slave-proof’ their villages, and that means

no more children can be enslaved.”92

President Bush appointed Mark Lagon to be ambassador at large

and director of the TIP Office in 2007. Much of Lagon’s attention is

focused on the international scene, and he spends a lot of his time trav-

eling abroad. In addition to his office evaluating the performance of the

world’s nations with regard to human trafficking, Lagon’s responsibili-

ties include monitoring trafficking within the United States. As chair of

the Senior Policy Operating Group on Human Trafficking—a role he

describes as “more cat-herder than director of the different agencies”—

he meets with representatives of nine major government agencies,

including the Departments of Labor, State, Justice, Homeland Security,

Education, Defense, and Health and Human Services. According to the

State Department, “This interagency working group coordinates the

implementation of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act and addresses

emerging interagency policy, grants, and planning issues.”93

Lagon’s predecessor was former congressman John Miller. During the

course of his tenure, Miller engendered controversy among the members

of the various human rights organizations. He was under extraordinary

pressure from those responsible for his appointment, both in Congress

and in the conservative and controlling Bush White House, to represent

the position that all prostitution is slavery and that all human trafficking

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equates with prostitution. In the words of author Anthony DeStefano, he

“used his job as a pulpit for abolitionism.” But another writer on the

subject, E. Benjamin Skinner, paints a more nuanced view. He notes that

Miller’s “staff, who parsed the issue very closely, understood that

American law, and human morality, dictated that no one form of slavery

was any more tolerable than any other. Miller, for his part, tried to strike

a balance by speaking out against prostitution, but also by pressuring

countries like India and Saudi Arabia to combat debt bondage and

domestic slavery. Overall, he broadened the scope of American concern

for the enslaved.”94 He also was among the first to make Americans

aware of the link between human trafficking and slavery.

There have been other concerns about the TIP Office, and one is a lack

of strategy and coordination. In 2006 the Government Accountability

Office (GAO) reported that the “U.S. government has not developed a

coordinated strategy to combat trafficking in persons abroad, as called

for in a presidential directive, or evaluated its programs to determine

whether projects are achieving the desired outcomes. . . . The lack of a

coordinated strategy and evaluation plan prevents the U.S. government

from determining the effectiveness of its efforts to combat human traf-

ficking abroad or to adjust its assistance to better meet needs.”95 One

victim advocate states that under Miller “there was no accountability,

transparency, assessments, or evaluations of what was happening in the

field, and no reorganization or restructuring of programs. In order to

have a positive impact—and do no harm—it’s necessary to have all your

programs founded on objective, evidence-based analysis. This was not

happening.”96 It is difficult to hang all the blame for this on Miller.

Ugly battles between career staffers and political appointees wracked

the TIP Office before he arrived and in the early part of his tenure,

derailing attempts to build a coherent and rational strategy. The GAO

investigation itself was sparked by concerns over political and ideolog-

ical influence in the award of grants. Under his directorship, by the

time Miller had left office the battles had ended and heads had rolled,

but the government’s lead international agency was behind where it

might have been.97

Some hoped that when Miller left office his replacement would

assume a more balanced approach to trafficking into labor versus pros-

titution. Ambassador Lagon certainly had the diplomatic experience

needed to broker such a compromise. For over a decade, he climbed

from one position of governmental responsibility to another, including

deputy staff director of the House Republican Policy Committee, senior

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staff member of the Republican staff at the Senate Foreign Relations

Committee, and deputy assistant secretary of state for international

affairs. As director of the TIP Office, he also serves as senior advisor to

the secretary of state.

Arranging an interview with the ambassador initially proved to be

difficult. A request came for a list of questions to be submitted for

approval. This is not unusual; with the various government and NGO

representatives interviewed thus far, the process has been a formality.

However, our proposed questions for Dr. Lagon, on issues such as the

federal balance between sex and labor trafficking and the nature of

funding to NGOs, were found unacceptable and were rejected.

Following the submission of a revised list of questions, the interview

was confirmed.

As it turned out, this screening process wasn’t necessary; Dr. Lagon

addressed all our questions (including those that had been rejected) fully

and without hesitation. Intelligent and well spoken, he gave clear and

concise answers. The subject of federal prioritizing of sex trafficking over

other forms of slavery was one to which he’d clearly given thought, as he

had the question of foreign-born versus U.S. citizen victims.

Acknowledging that there had been an imbalance, he responded, “Sex

trafficking is in some ways the most stark and salacious story that ani-

mates the movement. But we’re trying—from [the NGO] Free the Slaves,

to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, to my office—to make sure that

people understand that forced labor—indeed, what I would call slave

labor—is a very important part of this as well. I’m concerned with making

it a matter of policy that the TVPA was meant to cover all victims of traf-

ficking equally—those victims of sex trafficking and slave labor, those vic-

tims—men and women—who are both foreign and nationals and U.S.

citizens. There may be more of one than another in any of these pairings,

but it’s important that we not forsake any of them. In particular, I hope to

work with my colleagues to more vigorously get access to the benefits and

protections for victims that they already have rights to.”98

Lagon defines himself as victim centered; in fact, he credits the TVPA

for his involvement in the antitrafficking campaign. “The bill had one

thing that captured it for me: it opened my eyes to what the victim-cen-

tered approach should be, and that was the idea of having a visa for

people we found as victims, even if technically speaking they were ille-

gal aliens. If they’re so grossly exploited and controlled, that trumps all

other issues.” Lagon expressed concern for the welfare of the victim,