10 Improvements to The New Trafficking Victims Protection Act

So Dr. Janet Shaw Crouse of Concerned Women of America (who, quite frankly, spends most of her time being a  willfully ignorant homophobic bigot) took a break from her full gay-bashing schedule to write a handy little memo laying out in plain language some of the changes of the 2007 Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (which was passed at the end of 2008).  This just goes to show that human traffifcking is a true bipartisan issue, if Dr. Jan and I agree on it.

Here is her memo, which I've provided below.  It's really a useful guide, just try not to think too hard about where it comes from.

"1. Because of this bill, it will be much harder for clever pimps to be set free because of a minor technicality. Prosecutors don't have to PROVE that a trafficker knew that a victim was a minor. All the prosecution has to prove is that the trafficker had a "reasonable opportunity to observe" a victim who is a minor. Also, those people who help the traffickers can be accessories to the crime if they showed "reckless disregard" for a victim's circumstances -- including whether they were illegal aliens -- when they came into contact with the victim who was forced into commercial sex acts.

2. Now those countries that heretofore have safely remained categorized on the "Tier 2 Watch List" can only remain there 2 years before falling into Tier 3 -- the worst countries in terms of protecting citizens from traffickers. The President can make exceptions, of course, but nations will no longer be able to slide by doing a minimum to protect the vulnerable. And, all countries will be evaluated, not just those that had 100 or more documented victims in the past. All countries will be evaluated on their "serious and sustained" efforts, too, -- not on their last minute showy public relations events that sometimes previously saved them just in the nick of time.

3. The State Department's Trafficking in Persons Office will be responsible for coordinating and unifying all anti-trafficking efforts. TIP will have complete responsibility for policy, funding and programming decisions related to its grantees. Further, the TIP office must be consulted regarding all anti-trafficking efforts and all anti-trafficking programs in the State Department and USAID must also coordinate with the TIP office. Finally, the Senior Policy Operating Group (called SPOG and chaired by the TIP Office Director) must review all trafficking grants.

4. Several language changes now make it easier to prosecute trafficking criminals. Instead of a trafficker "knowing" a victim's circumstances -- including drug addiction, the trafficker can be held accountable for "reckless disregard" of those factors. Also, the act expands coverage to include those who help the traffickers as well as those who financially benefit from the trafficker's activities -- whether federal slavery, forced labor or sex trafficking.

5. It is far easier now for the victim to receive restitution through the trafficker's forfeited assets or the civil damages that are awarded.

6. The Department of Justice must create a new "model law" that incorporates the new provisions and includes reference to the D.C. Criminal Code section that all acts of pimping and pandering are per se crimes - regardless of proof of force, fraud or coercion, or knowledge of the victim's minor age.

7. The Department of Justice must report to Congress within 90 days specifying the date when they will complete a study of the illegal commercial sex industry. It will also have to report on its enforcement of Mann Act crimes from 2001-2009 and report on what we call, "look back crimes" - those criminals who are arrested for crimes against victims who are now over 18 years of age, but were minors when the criminal started exploiting them in commercial sex acts.

8. The Health and Human Services Department and the Department of Justice must submit a report to Congress on the extent of any "service gap" between domestic and foreign national survivors of trafficking. And, the Act authorizes funding for a new program to provide services to U.S. citizen survivors of human trafficking.

9. The Act requires the Department of Labor to provide a list of goods it has reason to believe have been made with forced labor or child labor.

10. I am particularly pleased to report on the last provision that I will mention. This provision came from Concerned Women for America and is the brain child of Brenda Zurita, the research fellow of The Beverly LaHaye Institute. Our coalition refers to it as the Zurita Amendment. Arrests will no longer be lumped together; they must be broken down to show how many prostitutes, johns, and pimps/traffickers were arrested. This mean that the arrests will be categorized in the Uniform Crime Reports and a new term "Human Trafficking" will appear in the serious crimes category. This new provision will give us hard data about the extent of the domestic human trafficking problem."