12:30 P.M. EST
Real Audio of Briefing
MR. DENIG: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Washington Foreign Press Center. Today we're having another in a series of occasional briefings on a very important topic: Trafficking in Persons.
We're very pleased today to welcome to our podium John Miller, the Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State on Trafficking in Persons. Yesterday, as I think you know, the Secretary, Mr. Powell, chaired a meeting of the Interagency Task Force on Trafficking in Persons that also included Attorney General Ashcroft and Secretary of Health and Human Services Thompson.
And Mr. Miller, today, will be able to report to us on that meeting and the latest efforts of the Administration to combat this truly global problem of trafficking in persons. Mr. Miller will have an opening statement to make and after that, will be glad to take your questions.
John.
MR. MILLER: I think this is the second time I've appeared at this podium. The last time was after our June report and I want to start off with the same comment I made then, although it's a completely different subject here today, and that is that I appreciate all of you coming because to the extent that anybody in the news media, whether the United States or abroad, helps to shine a spotlight on this issue -- to that extent, you are helping, even in the small degree, to save the lives of thousands of men, women and children -- particularly women and children.
This issue is the emerging human rights issue of the 21st century. And this is why our President, in his speech to the UN General Assembly, devoted over 20 percent of his remarks to slavery. The headlines, understandably, after that speech were on Iraq and Afghanistan. But the President spent almost as much time on this issue in that speech as he did in those. Why?
Our own figures show that today 8 - 900,000 men, women and children are trafficked across international borders every year. That's trafficked across international borders. That doesn't count internal slavery. If one counts that, the number gets higher and there are certainly nongovernmental organization estimates much higher than our 8-900,000 figure that I've given you. But clearly the challenge is huge.
Our own estimates are that 18 - 20,000 men, women and children are trafficked across the United States' borders as slaves or into slavery. I mention that because this problem, this challenge, afflicts almost every nation in the world. Maybe there are some island paradises that I am not aware of that do not have a slavery issue to contend with, but from what I have seen and read, no country, including our own, in exempt.
That is why the President devoted 20 percent of his remarks at the UN General Assembly to this issue, and called for international cooperation in fighting trafficking, and particularly fighting the sex-trafficking that affects so many women and children, and even more particularly addressing the sex tourism phenomena -- the sex tourism which is a major driving force behind child prostitution in the world. And towards that end, the President, along with appealing for international cooperation, pledged an additional $50 million to help in the struggle.
Yesterday, a cabinet-level task force convened with the major agencies represented. As Paul mentioned, among those present: Secretary of State Powell, Secretary Thompson of Health and Human Services, Attorney General Ashcroft and others. And at that meeting, the cabinet heads reaffirmed their commitment to follow up on the President's stirring words at the United Nations: to step up our efforts at home and abroad to fight the scourge of slavery.
“At home” is not my department, but at home we have agencies like the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services working on everything from prosecutions to services for victims.
Abroad, we are engaged with foreign governments. Our diplomats are engaged in trying to enhance, persuade, and cajole more efforts in this area. Towards that end we have programs, modestly funded, around the world, in prevention, prosecution, and protection. Towards that end we put out the annual State Department report that evaluates countries around the world, just as our Justice Department recently evaluated the United States in a report.
One of the priorities for this coming year in my office, in following up on the President's remarks, and in following up on the task force meeting yesterday, is in the area of sex tourism.
I just completed a trip around the world. I visited six or seven countries in Europe and Asia. One of the countries I visited is Thailand, and I think I can mention this because, as you will see from my remarks, I am not going to single out Thailand. I visited Chiang Mai where there has been a fair amount of sex tourism involving children. I visited a center that's trying to work with youngsters -- 11, 12, 14 -- to keep them out of this sordid business. The reason I mention it is because -- and this is why this is not just the responsibility of Thailand -- I asked the people at this center, "Where do the sex tourists come from?” Because they do not primarily come from Thailand. Among the countries mentioned to me were the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Japan and the United States of America.
Sex tourism and the child prostitution that follows from this take place, in large part, because of the demand. And so towards that end we will be making this a priority. We are, in the coming months, going to be developing a mutli-pronged approach to combating sex tourism. It will mean working not only with other countries, it will mean working extensively in this country.
I think you're going to see the Department of Justice stepping up its prosecutions of sex tourists. I think you're going to see many agencies: Homeland Security, Health and Human Services attempting to address how we educate the people that constitute this demand. And you are certainly going to see my office do everything we can to try to eradicate one of the most pernicious forms of trafficking and slavery in the world.
I think with that, let me stop and yield for a few questions or comments, all of which I probably won't be able to answer, but I have some people to help.
MR. DENIG: The gentleman in the green sweater. Please use the microphone, identify yourself and your news organization, but please sit down so the camera is not blocked. Thanks.
QUESTION: I'm Alan Mlatisŭma from Voice of America from the Serbian Service and I have one question, which is basically three questions. Today, British daily newspaper Independent published report from Kosovo saying that the journalists quoting, some say, the children officials there, notified 130 brothels. And in the report it said that Kosovo itself is center for trafficking children and women from, mainly from Moldova, Ukraine and Albania.
We know that there is a big international presence in Kosovo in foreign troops. We have KFOR troops. There are NATO troops there, and the international police. Do you have any knowledge of what international police is doing there because in some of the reports published today and recently, they were, as well, mentioned as customers in those brothels?
My second question is regarding Montenegro where is ongoing debate still regarding the case of the Moldovan citizen involved in human trafficking, and the case involves higher in government officials. OSCE and Council of Europe were also involved in the case.
And third question considers Bosnia, which was ranked lower even than Serbia and Montenegro in the last State Department's report. Thank you.
MR. MILLER: Okay, I'll try to answer that question. First of all, I have not read the story that you're referring to, so I can't comment on the specific case that you mentioned. We're very interested in a report like that because obviously, our office will try to collect information on that and we will try to have some follow-up, and it is the sort of information that we use in our report.
At the end of this month we send out a cable to all our embassies and we send out letters to NGOs across the world, and we try to get the word to other governments, as well, to get any information on trafficking. However, while I may not know the exact details of the case, you referred to troops allegedly participating in trafficking.
I think it is a fair statement that around the world, military troops, peacekeepers, aid workers, and contracting personnel associated with these endeavors have, on numerous occasions, been involved in activities that further trafficking. I don't think there's any question about it. And so it behooves all governments that have personnel in this kind of situation to make clear to their personnel there is a zero tolerance policy.
The U.S. Defense Department is in the process of doing just that: Making clear to all U.S. military personnel that there is a zero tolerance policy on such activities, and my office has actually, in the last several months, participated in training courses for contracting personnel associated with peacekeeping missions -- pointing out the dangers of trafficking, the horrors of trafficking, in warning them not to participate.
The second part of your question mentioned Montenegro, and again, I don't know the specific details, but you referred to involvement of government officials. We, of course, when we go back from this briefing we'll be getting on the Internet and we'll be trying to find out all the details, but again, a comment on this involvement, the potential involvement of government officials: It is a sad commentary that if you look at trafficking around the world -- I'm not talking about Montenegro, specifically, this is sort of like I talk about sex tourism, in general. Thailand was there, but I wasn't talking about Thailand, specifically. I'm talking about the problem here.
If you look around the world, complicity of government officials is a major problem. Trafficking goes on often because it is tolerated. In the case of forced labor trafficking, you may have police or government officials or labor inspectors looking the other way. In the case of sex slavery, which is so wrapped up with prostitution, that you often find in countries where the officials are either tolerating it or they're on the take. And sometimes they're tolerating it because the laws say to tolerate it, and sometimes they're sort of going around their own laws. This is why in our report we're supposed to particularly focus on looking at how governments are doing, to look at the areas of government complicity.
But the last part of your question related to Bosnia, which you said was rated lower than Serbia and Montenegro. Well, not anymore. I think you're referring to the fact that Bosnia, in June, was on tier 3, which it was, for a variety of reasons relating to prevention, prosecution and protection. But our law provides that in the three months after the report, an opportunity for us to work with countries that are on tier 3 before the President makes a decision on reducing aid in September. And I'm very pleased that Bosnia was among those countries that took very significant steps to improve its situation. There was a step up in prosecutions. There was greater cooperation with NGOs. There was further work on education. And I could get you, if you want, all the details, specific steps that Bosnia took, that I can't recite all from memory. But they did some -- again, I don't mean there is no problem in Bosnia. But the test for getting up was whether they were undertaking significant efforts, and they did.
MR. DENIG: Let's take Sudan, over here, please.
QUESTION: Thank you. El-Bashir from Sudan. I missed the first part of your remarks, so I'm sorry if I'm going to ask a question that -- how about definitions, a definition of slave, and the kind of slavery we're talking about that's accepted by most countries and religions?
MR. MILLER: Yeah.
QUESTION: And finally, if you would say something about the situation in Sudan.
MR. MILLER: Sure.
QUESTION: Thanks.
MR. MILLER: Well, in plain English, there are a lot of legal definitions. I'll tell you that the definition that we have in our law is very similar to the UN protocol definition. I don't think there's a big argument on definitions here. But in layman's English, if somebody, against their will, is forced to do something, and they cannot escape, this amounts to slavery. And often we find this involves transporting people. It doesn't necessarily have to transport people, but often if you look at slavery, those that are slaves don't -- weren't born in the locale where they're slaves. They're migrants from other countries or they're from distant provinces.
But that's basically the definition. And the Sudan, as you know, asking the question, the Sudan has wrestled with this issue for many years. You're in the midst of peace accord negotiations in the Sudan. And certainly our message is that the United States devoutly wants peace in the Sudan, but we want peace with justice. And justice means freeing those that are slaves, accounting for those that have been abducted, making sure that governments and/or rebel militias do not take children and soldiers from villages and use them in labor or rape them.
I'm hopeful that in the Sudan, as the peace accord negotiations move ahead, there will be mechanisms set up that will not only convince the international community that Sudan is taking steps to abolish and eradicate all traces of slavery, but to do it for the sake of human beings, the souls and bodies affected.
QUESTION: Lisa Thomas of Kyodo News. Can you comment on the situation in North Korea and whether this is being raised in six-party consultations?
MR. MILLER: You're talking about the nuclear-related negotiations?
QUESTION: Are you talking with the --
MR. MILLER: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. I can't tell you whether in a specific negotiation or discussion that was on the front page today -- I believe it was in Japan and South Korea and the United States -- I can't tell you whether this specific issue was discussed, but I do know that Department has tried to make clear, through whatever channels where available, our concern for the human rights of the people in North Korea.
And specifically, on the subject here today, people that are either held in conditions of slavery, forced labor in North Korea, or exported across the border -- whether it be to China or Russia -- and find themselves in such conditions. This is elemental. I mean, regardless of negotiations on nuclear disarmament and everything else, the United States must stand for, has to stand for trying to combat slavery. I say that not because we're on some pedestal. I say that because this country struggled with the slavery issue. I mean we struggled probably as much as almost any other nation. We fought a huge civil war over this issue. We have the stain of slavery in our history, and I hope that that makes us sensitive and aware of what happens when people are in slavery, whether it would be here or any other country in the world.
MR. DENIG: Let me just interject a question that we got from Brian Yang at Nippon TV who is unable to be here today, related to the question on North Korea. And that is: What do you think about the issue of North Korea's kidnapping of Japanese citizens, and does the Administration have any plan to help resolve this issue?
MR. MILLER: Well, we are opposed to these abductions. We support Japan's efforts to free their citizens, but beyond that, I can't go. I think our effort is to support Japan. Japan is taking the lead on that issue and should take the lead, and we want to be as supportive as we can.
QUESTION: Yes, Riccardi from Italian News Wire ANSA. Could you say a few words about the situation in Italy? And how do you think you can solve the Cuba problem because many of the U.S. citizens are going to Cuba for sexual tourism?
MR. MILLER: Sure. Let me take those in order. Italy has many good programs addressing the issues of prevention, education, protection of victims, prosecution, and, in fact, Italy received a tier 1 rating in our report. Nonetheless, as you well know, coming from Italy, this does not mean that the problem does not exist in Italy. And we do get reports.
We are getting an influx of reports, but we are not able to get to verify, that there is a massive problem, particularly, in the sex slavery area. Women coming up from Africa, from Nigeria are transported to Italy. And one of the challenges for, not just Italy, but I think other western European countries, all developed countries, is why does the problem continue to exist in large numbers? If it's increasing, why does it increase? You know, what is going wrong? Have we not had vigorous enough enforcement? Are we not working well enough with the source countries to try to stem the flow? These are questions that I hope Italy is pondering, and we should ponder, and a lot of other nations should ponder, not just Italy.
You mentioned Cuba, the situation in Cuba. Yes, Americans go to Cuba. And interestingly enough, if you look at the situation in Cuba, Cuba received a poor rating in the report, and this gets back to two subjects that we've addressed: One, sex tourism; and the other, government complicity. Cuba, I assume, for reasons of attracting [hard] currency, has an extensive sex tourism industry. Anybody that doubts it can get on the Web. And this sex tourism industry, we believe, involves minors. And this sex tourism industry, given the nature of the Cuban Government, involves government complicity, because the tourism industry is controlled by or affiliated with the government. So that is my office's concern about Cuba. I'm not going into all the other issues that affect American - Cuban relations, but that is a concern for our office. And, of course, as I mentioned before, certainly, we should be looking at where the tourists -- the sex tourists -- come from and why. And we're going to be doing more of that in the future.
QUESTION: Ardita Dunellari with Voice of America, Albanian Service. Albania's performance has been considered very poor, but lately Albania moved from tier 3 to tier -- to the second tier. And there has been some improvement, and whether or not it's from public awareness of the problem or government efforts, it still remains a big issue because there isn't a lot of effort on the part of the government, and in the whole region. The problem is cross-borders and those institutionalized cross-border effort. There isn't a lot of effort being done for rehabilitation of victims or law enforcement training to deal with these victims.
Is your office paying any particular attention or any progress being seen -- any projects with Albania? Thank you.
MR. MILLER: Yes, it's a very good question. I guess to sum up, to make the answer very succinct, Albania did get into tier 2 by the skin of its teeth, and we're going to be paying particular attention to Albania in the coming months.
QUESTION: Alexandre Sirois, La Presse from Montreal. Canadian authorities were concerned and quite puzzled to learn that, in June, that Canada was among 74 countries that did not meet the minimum standards for eliminating the trafficking. Six months later, did anything has changed about that situation?
MR. MILLER: Well, I can't give you an exact answer to that question, because we haven't even started our evaluation this year, but I do understand that Canada has taken some steps to increase the number of prosecutions, has taken some steps in the direction of victim services. But as I said, we have not gotten into that yet. And I'm aware of the sensitivity of Canada.
Many nations are in tier 2: Canada, Japan and many others. And tier 2 means you're making significant efforts. But it means that you don't comply with the list of minimum standards. The list of minimum standards is a pretty extensive one, and it calls for not only laws that are very thorough and contain punishments commensurate with those for other crimes, it calls for vigorous prosecution and investigation, and it calls for victims services and it calls for education campaigns and it calls for many other things.
We've had some discussions with Canada this past year on cross-border cooperation. And the interesting thing is that I appeared on some Canadian talk radio programs after after this came out, and the interviewers always tried to hype up a possible Canadian-U.S. split or difference. But the interesting thing about the interview was before we could get two minutes into the interview, people started calling in and saying, "Yes, do you know this is a problem in Canada? Do you know what's going on?" And these were mostly people from charitable groups, and, "Do you know how much more there is for us to do?”
So it was actually very enlightening to the talk interview hosts, who thought that the discussions were going to be on how Canada and the U.S. differed, and it really got into discussions about how we all -- Canada, the U.S., other countries -- can do more in this area.
MR. DENIG: Let's go to Finland in the back, please.
MR. MILLER: Maybe that can wrap it up.
MR. DENIG: Okay.
QUESTION: I'm Jyri Raivio, newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, Finland. I have an almost identical question to the Canadian one. Of course, Finland was in tier 2, which caused enormous concern and almost uproar in Finland last summer. Has anything happened on that front? And other small thing is, is the President decided in September against some measures against countries in tier 3, which kind of measures were those and where did the, did the U.S.A. itself land in these categories?
MR. MILLER: You've got a lot of questions in there, and they're good questions. Let me start with the last one because I remember it best. Where did the U.S. land? The State Department is precluded by law from rating the United States, so that is why we have the Department of Justice evaluate the United States. And that report is available on the Web. And I would say, in looking at the United States, that there are some things we do very well and some things we have a long ways to go on.
I could give you some examples. I mean, I think we have a very good law in terms of providing victims’ assistance, in terms of providing residence to victims while they cooperate in prosecutions. We're probably the only country in the world that holds out the possibility of even a permanent citizenship to a trafficking victim in the United States who will help on a prosecution. So we have a very good law.
However, if you ask, "Where can we do better," this has been discussed at the highest levels of the government; there's 18 - 20,000 victims, I mentioned, coming across the border. We have had a tripling of prosecutions in recent years, but there is still a tremendous gap between the number of victims and the victims affected by prosecutions. There is still a tremendous gap between the T-visas, as we call them, T-visas that are given to victims to help them stay in the United States, when we find they're in slave-like conditions, and that 18-20,000. And so this is something that has been discussed, is constantly under discussion. How can we do better in this area? In this coming year, I think you're going to see some efforts at improvement. Up to now, I don't think we've maybe done as much as we could in the education area, in terms of education of potential victims. Just as Justice Department is picking up the number of prosecutions, the Department of Health and Human Services for the coming year has a massive education campaign planned. That will be helpful.
So, okay. For the United States. Then you mentioned Finland. I won't go into the details. I can give you the report. We have the report here, what we said about Finland. I know Finland is reexamining their laws. I know Finland is looking at the Swedish model, for example. Maybe they're looking at the Netherlands too.
It's interesting what's happening in Europe. You have two contrasting approaches. You have the Netherlands, which has a tremendous sex industry and, by its own admission, has a significant number of victims trafficked into that industry. They have tolerated the situation, the prostitution. They have sanctioned, basically, the sex industry, tolerated it informally [initially], now it's formally tolerated.
Sweden has decided on a different approach. Sweden has decided to decriminalize the conduct of the -- we're talking here about the sex slavery -- decriminalize the conduct of the victim or the prostitute, and prosecute, criminalize the conduct of the trafficker, the pimp and the customer. This approach has only been in effect eight or nine months, but the preliminary indications are that the number of victims being trafficked into Sweden is going down. We have tremendous sympathy with the Swedish approach because we believe in humane treatment for the victims, and getting tough with those who are exploiting the victims.
MR. DENIG: Time for one more?
MR. MILLER: One more.
MR. DENIG: Okay. Let's go to Turkey because we haven't had Turkey.
MR. MILLER: And then, I'm sorry, I'm going to have to go.
QUESTION: Reha Atasagan with Turkish Public Television. You said there is no problem on the definition, right, people being forced against their will. What about, you know, a terrorist organization also doing the same thing, you know, due to poverty, and their educated youngster are being, you know, forced to being, you know, trafficked to other countries, educated and trained. Do you see any connection? I mean, does this involve?
And secondly, on Turkey, what is the situation?
MR. MILLER: Well, I'll start with the second question. Turkey took tremendous steps. Turkey was one of the countries that had a poor rating, and over the summer took tremendous steps in the area of education, in the area of screening procedures. Turkey set up and implemented screening procedures so that law enforcement could refer victims, instead of just deporting them immediately, and Turkey stepped up its prosecutions and did a lot of other things. I believe there were law enforcement training courses and other things. I could get you a long list of the things that Turkey did, which they are really to be commended for.
Your question about the link to terrorism: While people may suspect the link between terrorism and trafficking, I have not received firsthand evidence of this. I don't say it doesn't exist, but I don't have any evidence yet that it does. We do know that trafficking is linked to organized crime.
Our own estimates are that after the drug trade and the arms trade, trafficking in human beings has become the third largest source of revenue for organized crime. So it is in the interest of all our countries, and not only for the sake of the human beings involved, to increase stability and avoid the inroads of organized crime, as well as to protect public health and a lot of other reasons to fight this scourge.
And I'm going to close on the same note I started with.
QUESTION: El-Bashir from Sudan. How about the question of gender, little boys, and race, certain races being targeted?
MR. MILLER: Yeah. Yeah. Well, when I gave that 8-900,000 estimate, that estimate is not broken down by gender and race. We are trying, we have hoped that by next month, January or February, we're going to have some breakdowns by gender, by race, by age, by other categories. I mean, we know, for example, that sex slavery affects primarily women and children. I don't think there is any doubt there. And as far as I know, it affects all races. We know when we're talking about forced labor slavery on factories and farms that it affects all races and sexes, but there is a particular problem with the exploitation of children. These we know just from observation, but we have not broken it down statistically, and we want to do so.
What was your other part of your --
QUESTION: On race, yeah.
MR. MILLER: Oh, yeah, yeah. Since we're talking about race, 200 years ago, slavery was based on color primarily. There may be vestiges of that still in the world -- color, cast, whatever. Today, however, I don't think that is a leading source of slavery, from what I can see. I think there may be slavery based on color. There may be slavery based on religion. You get into this in some countries in Africa and elsewhere, but I think far more prevalent worldwide is slavery based on forced labor or sexual exploitation.
And I just want to close by thanking you again because, to the extent that you write about this -- regardless of what I say -- that you cover the issue in your own country, in any manifestation, I think you help to draw attention to this issue, and you help the governments and the countries of the world because they are helping themselves when they move towards abolishing slavery.
So thank you very much for coming.
MR. DENIG: Thank you, John. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
